Where Creators Make $1M a Year and Sell Shows to Netflix & Tubi
Webtoon's David J. Lee and David Madden explain its IP business captivating Gen Z (and Margot Robbie). Plus: VidCon news and a spotlight on Nurse John
I write about the business of creators. Recently I reported on a food blogger mistaken for an OnlyFans model by AI and what then unraveled; revealed how MrBeast and top creators are coming for TV’s ad dollars; and interviewed Jake and Logan Paul’s EP Andrew Fried on Max’s Paul American. Email me tips and ideas at natalie@theankler.com
I’m just back from Las Vegas, where I was part of the Ankler Media team’s Business of Entertainment programming at NAB Show and also spoke on a panel at NAB Creator Lab about the state of the creator economy. (The show just closed this morning with our mega-hit session with WWE president Nick Khan and chief content officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque on the main stage). Today, you’ll hear about one of my NAB conversations, with two executives from the company behind digital comics platform Webtoon, below. This sleeping giant has sold several shows to Netflix, as well as a massive hit to Tubi. But first, a quick round-up of some exclusive news, including a look forward to another big industry event.
Creators IRL
VidCon, the annual convention for creators, executives and fans, is returning to Anaheim this summer (June 19-21) and I’ve got your first look at the initial lineup of speakers. Among the bold names are creators Dhar Mann, Cassey Ho, Grace Wells, Sidney Raskind, Adam Aleksic and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives stars Mayci Neeley and Layla Taylor.
Other speakers this year — with more names to be announced — include Bluesky COO Rose Wang, Slow Ventures partner Megan Lightcap, Smosh CEO Alessandra Catanese, Mythical Entertainment president Brian Flanagan, Dhar Mann Studios CEO Sean Atkins, Beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk, Acquisition.com managing partners Alex and Leila Hormozi, journalist Taylor Lorenz and eMarketer principal analyst Jasmine Enberg (who spoke alongside me at that Creator Lab discussion in Vegas).
This is the first VidCon since Paramount Global sold the 14-year-old event to Informa last year. And while it has some competition this summer — its dates partially overlap with Cannes Lions — the two confabs are now under the same corporate umbrella, so I imagine that scheduling snafu will get sorted out in future years. More VidCon speakers will be announced in the lead up to the event.
Managers on the Move
Meanwhile, in digital rep news: Select Management Group — which reps creators including Chris Olsen, Evan Gutowski and Taylor Frankie Paul — has promoted Lauren Fisher to director of strategic partnerships, where she’ll work with brands like Disney, Netflix and Uber to identify and secure pacts for the firm’s client roster. Select has also hired Emily Rifanburg, an alum of Strand Entertainment and ICM Partners, as a talent manager, and promoted two of its team members, Payton Booker and Natasha Trepel, to the talent manager role in addition to upping Katie Josiah and Madison Dailey to talent coordinators.
Webtoon: A New IP Gold Mine
Would you believe me if I told you there’s a platform many of you have barely heard of where the top creators can make as much as $1 million a year? Here’s the catch: These creators don’t post live action videos the way top YouTubers, TikTokers and Instagrammers do. They’re creating web comics.
Webtoon Entertainment has been operating a platform for creators to self-publish their own digital storyboards since 2004. Today, Webtoon is a home for more than 345,000 webcomic creators who’ve published more than 450,000 stories. The company has a global user base — including web novel platform Wattpad — of 163 million.
Webtoon got its start in South Korea, where over half the population of the country visits the platform each month. It’s also popular in Japan, where it has more than 22 million monthly users. Americans have been slower to embrace webcomics, but that’s starting to change. At the end of 2023, Los Angeles-headquartered Webtoon had around 20 million monthly users in the U.S., 75 percent of whom were Gen Z. (It hasn’t updated the U.S. stats since 2023 but today it has nearly 117 million users outside of Korea and Japan.) “The thing we need here is time,” Webtoon COO and CFO David J. Lee told me on stage during our Monday NAB panel, “Hollywood’s IP Gold Mine: Comics, Fandoms and Creators Building New Worlds.”
That and, perhaps, a little Hollywood magic. Lately, Webtoon has been investing in adapting its stories for film and TV — in a way where its creator partners participate in the successes — with the help of longtime entertainment executive and producer David Madden, who joined the company’s studio division in 2022.
My conversation with the two Davids from Webtoon was filled with interesting insights that can apply in both the creator industry and legacy entertainment. Read on to learn:
How Wattpad connects with Gen Z
The monetization model Webtoon uses with creators to foster their stories and audiences
Which Netflix series and movies are adapted from Webtoons
How a hit Tubi movie with Webtoon came into creation
How Webtoon creators can make seven figures on the site
How the company uses data to drive storytelling and identify hot adaptations
PLUS: My first Creator Spotlight on TikToker Nurse John, whose tour is selling out theaters around the world.