Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 5.
Do hipsters in Williamsburg read books? Angsty millennial site Thought Catalog is going to find out, with a new line of staff-written e-books.
The first four original e-books written by Thought Catalog staff and contributors include “Cover Story” by Liz Colville, “Going Down South” by Dan Hoffman, “Take Out Your Earrings Before You Fight” by Chelsea Fagan and How To Be A 20-Something,” a collection of some of the most popular articles published on Thought Catalog, edited by Stephanie Georgopulos and Brandon Scott Gorrell. The publisher is selling them for between $2.99 and $4.99 each at thoughtcatalog.com/ebooks, and they will be available for download on iPad, Kindle and Nook by the end of of the week.
The new publishing venture has been in the works since April. According to Thought Catalog’s founder and publisher Chris Lavergne, the publication received many emails from readers asking for books, and it then decided that it wanted to experiment with more long-form writing.
“We don’t really know where it will lead; we just think it will be an interesting venture for us from both a literary and business standpoint,” explained Lavergne.
While the first four books are by staff and regular contributing writers, anyone will be able to submit manuscripts of at least 5,000 words at thoughtcatalog.com/ebooks.
Other publishers like Politico and Newsweek publish e-books. It will be interesting to see if a niche publisher like Thought Catalog will be able to use e-books as a viable alternative stream of revenue. The investment is quite a bit lower than doing a run of physical books. After all, Thought Catalog isn’t trying to publish the next 900-plus-page Murakami novel.
“Thought Catalog digital books are a different take on the form — quick hits, subway reads, short story collections,” said Thought Catalog’s head of development Alex Magnin. “It’s content made for the digital reader.”
Ad position: web_incontent_pos1
More in Media
Digiday+ Research Subscription Index 2025: Subscription strategies from Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others
Digiday’s third annual Subscription Index examines and measures publishers’ subscription strategies to identify common approaches and key tactics among Bloomberg, The New York Times, Vox and others.
From lawsuits to lobbying: How publishers are fighting AI
We may be closing out 2025, but publishers aren’t retreating from the battle of AI search — some are escalating it, and they expect the fight to stretch deep into 2026.
Media Briefing: Publishers turn to vertical video to compete with creators and grow ad revenue in 2026
Publishers add vertical video feeds to their sites to boost engagement, attract video ad spend and compete with news creators.
Ad position: web_bfu