What’s happening in our landscape this week:

Howdy Storytellers 🤠,

Two months ago, something unusual caught my eye.

I was casually scrolling through the App Store. Not researching. Not deep in strategy mode, just poking around, when I noticed something that completely broke my brain.

The #2 ranked entertainment app in the United States wasn’t Netflix.

It wasn’t YouTube.

It wasn’t TikTok or Hulu or Disney+.

It was an app called DramaBox.

And it wasn’t just ahead by a little.

It was dominating.

Quietly. Invisibly. Almost no one in the indie storytelling world seemed to be talking about it. It isn’t a platform that individual creators can upload to (still isn’t). It makes sense that writers would focus their time and energy on places where they can make money right now.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Because DramaBox represents a paradigm shift in how stories are consumed and more importantly, it opens a door that has, until now, been closed to almost every independent writer in the world.

Today, I want to show you what that door looks like.

And how you can walk right through it.

DramaBox is a short-form vertical movie app that’s taken Asia by storm and is now exploding in the U.S.

It doesn’t rely on long episodes or prestige production value.

It doesn’t follow the traditional release model of 30 minute episodes released weekly.

It doesn’t even let outside creators upload their content (they produce all of the content in-house with actors and full sets that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Here’s what it does:

The business model is wild.

Even wilder? It’s working.

These apps are projected to generate over $1 billion in annual revenue in the U.S. alone, and in China, where they originated, they’re already making more money than the major streaming platforms.

Let’s pause there.

Let that actually land.

We are living in a world where people are watching micro-episodes of fictional stories on their phones, and paying for them, at a scale that rivals Netflix.

If that doesn’t scream “pay attention,” I don’t know what does.

So what kinds of stories are thriving in this new format?

Here’s the fascinating part: if you’ve ever browsed the Kindle Store, particularly in romance or serial fiction apps like Wattpad or Royal Road, you’ve already seen the blueprint.

DramaBox and similar platforms are essentially video versions of Wattpad, Radish, or Kindle Unlimited hits. They take emotionally resonant, high-drama stories with proven tropes and turn them into mobile-native viewing experiences.

The formula is:

These aren’t Oscar contenders. They’re dopamine hits in story form.

And there’s a massive audience for them. DramaBox has a majority women audience as far as I can tell, but the demographics seem to range from college students all the way up to folks in their 60s and 70s. 

The audience is cross-generational and in the tens of millions of people (maybe even 100+ million in the U.S. alone).

Until now… that audience was locked away for studios that could afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars per 90 minute season of content. 

Now, you can produce these for a fraction of the cost. And with the power of Creatorwood, you can charge per-episode and sell your films directly to viewers.

Before I show you how, we have a more fundamental question to answer…

Let’s clarify the terminology before we dive into the opportunity:

A vertical movie (or vertical show) is a serialized story told through short, vertically formatted videos designed specifically for smartphones. Think of it like if TikTok and Netflix had a lovechild — episodes run 1 to 3 minutes, and the viewing experience is designed to be fast, emotional, and mobile-first.

If you’ve seen Reels, TikToks, or YouTube Shorts, you already intuitively understand the format.

Now imagine instead of someone doing a dance or sharing a hot take… it’s your story.

Your characters.

Your world.

That’s the opportunity.

Let me be blunt:

You no longer need a Hollywood studio to turn your book into a show.

And you certainly don’t need a six-figure production budget, a full film crew, or years of red tape.

With tools like Creatorwood (we are launching the platform into beta soon… we’re so excited!), you can now:

What does it cost to test a pilot? Just $100–$200.

Testing a pilot means creating the first 1–3 episodes of your show to see if it connects with real viewers. You measure that by tracking completion rates and seeing how many people you can attract to watch through paid ads or organic content on social media.

Inside the Creatorwood book, we break down the full Viewers First model—our blueprint for launching and scaling your films from day one. You can read it for free here.

And here’s the best part: your pilot doesn’t just sit in a folder.

You can upload it to Creatorwood, distribute it to a growing audience, track every second of engagement, and even turn the footage into ad creative to fuel your growth.

You’re not just a writer anymore.

You’re a showrunner.

A studio.

An empire-builder.

Now I know what you might be thinking:

“How do I know if my story will succeed as a vertical movie?”

Great question.

Here’s how you answer it:

The sweet spot?

Stories that perform well in written form but haven’t yet been turned into video—often because they’d be too expensive or complex for traditional studios to produce. Think epic sci-fi and fantasy worlds with massive VFX needs, or main characters who are animals, cyborgs, or otherwise difficult to animate affordably in Hollywood.

These are your blue ocean opportunities.

You can either:

Your goal isn’t to build an empire overnight — it’s to launch a pilot and see how viewers respond.

With Creatorwood, you’ll be able to:

If people are clicking, watching, following, and paying?

You’ve got a hit.

If not, you can tweak and relaunch without losing months or thousands of dollars.

Hollywood has to spend millions to produce a pilot.

You can do it for less than it costs to spend one night in a Holiday Inn.

Hollywood has layers of approvals, stakeholders, and delays.

You have a laptop, an idea, and a week.

And the best part? No one is doing this yet.

There are almost zero indie creators tapping into the vertical movie space — not because they don’t want to, but because until now, the tools didn’t exist.

With recent advances in AI, now they do.

And the studios? They don’t have what you have:

That’s your edge.

If you’re curious about which tropes are winning right now, check out this week’s podcast episode with Jennifer Hilt. We break down the psychology of storytelling hooks, the art of writing addictive narratives, and how these apply directly to short-form serialized content.

Also, we wrote a book. It’s called Creatorwood, and it outlines the entire system: from storytelling to video production with AI to monetization. I wrote the business half. Nick wrote the AI filmmaking half. You can grab it for free here.

And if you’re ready to go all in?

This August, we’re launching the first cohort of the Six-Figure Film Accelerator. It’s a crash course in:

If you’ve ever wanted to create something that lives beyond the page, now’s the time.

[→ Get early access here.]

It’s easy to feel like storytelling has already peaked.

That the Kindle Gold Rush is over. That indie authors missed their big moment.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

We’re not at the end of storytelling innovation. We’re at the very beginning of something entirely new.

A century ago, Walt Disney built an empire from a mouse. Now, you can build an empire from a computer mouse.

This century? There will be new kings and queens of storytelling.

And they won’t come from studios.

They’ll come from us.

From writers like you — who choose to create, adapt, and build boldly.

This isn’t about making TikToks.

It’s about building the next Pixar, the next Netflix, the next Marvel from your bedroom, with tools that cost less than dinner for two.

So ask yourself:

Will you watch this revolution from the sidelines?

Or will you help lead it?

The future of storytelling is vertical, mobile, interactive, and powered by creators who know how to move fast and think deeply.

It’s powered by you.

Your story deserves to be seen.

Let’s make it happen.

Storytellers Rule the World,

Michael Evans

Let’s be honest. Politics suck.

America bombed Iran? That’s some dark stuff. However, if this same news was delivered to us by the top babies in the US Cabinet’s Crib? Slightly more digestible.

Diaper Diplomacy’s YouTube channel description says it best: “This channel strips politics down to its most honest form: babies throwing tantrums, using their own ridiculous words—served up in pacifiers, pull-ups, and full-blown meltdowns for all to see.”

Must see toddler vids:

Jealous of how cute these politicians look as modern babies? Don’t worry, they’ve got you covered. This same creator also offers the chance to turn yourself into a baby.

👶 🚼 👼

🎆 For all our patriotic American readers — we hope you generate some epic AI firework videos this holiday weekend 🎇

Thanks for reading!!!

See ya next week — Michael