We were lucky to catch up with Emma Tonner recently and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

At CandyJar, we’ve systematized the process of creating entertainment blockbusters — in a way that completely upends the traditional studio model.

We start with Inkitt, where thousands of writers share original stories. We don’t rely on executives or editors to guess what might be a hit — we let the data speak. Our algorithm surfaces the stories readers can’t put down. If a book takes off on Inkitt, we test it further on Galatea, our hit-generating reading app, where we refine the story and see if it can reach an even larger audience — and whether readers will pay to binge it.

If it works there, we adapt it into a vertical romance series on CandyJar, our streaming app. And because we already have a built-in fanbase and proof that the story resonates, we can move faster than a traditional studio — taking a hit from idea to book to screen in just a few months.

Take ‘Keily’, one of our top-performing series. It was written by Manjari, an undiscovered author who started out as a reader on Galatea during COVID lockdowns in 2020. A few years later, she decided to try writing and uploaded Keily to Inkitt in 2023. Our data flagged it immediately, and it quickly took off on Galatea. Within months, we fast-tracked it into a vertical series, and it started blowing up as a book and a show at the same time – something incredibly rare.

We then adapted it into our first-ever feature-length film, ‘Keily: Homecoming Dweeb’, and hosted a Hollywood red carpet premiere on June 5, 2025, with over 300 influencers and media in attendance. No agents. No endless greenlight meetings. Just story → data → production → fandom.

Why does this approach matter? Because it puts audience love at the center and removes the guesswork. It’s faster, smarter, and way more fun.

We’re not just creating content – we’re building a blockbuster machine.

Emma, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi, I’m Emma Tonner – I’m the Chief Innovation Officer at Inkitt and one of the co-creators behind CandyJar, our new streaming platform for vertical romance series.

I never set out to work in entertainment, but I’ve always loved storytelling and consumer psychology – the way people obsess over certain narratives, binge them, and share them with friends. So when I joined Inkitt, a company using data to uncover the next generation of authors, I knew I’d found my thing.

At Inkitt, we’ve built a full creative pipeline to turn breakout stories into full-scale entertainment —-starting with our writing platform (Inkitt), moving to our immersive reading app (Galatea), and finally adapting the biggest hits into addictive short-form video on CandyJar. Every step of that process is powered by audience obsession.

Most studios guess what audiences want. We use data to know.

Our specialty is fast-paced romance series for women – and our audience loves them. Think billionaire love interests, enemies-to-lovers, secret babies, mafia bosses, homecoming queens with secrets — the good stuff.

Since its debut last year, CandyJar has skyrocketed to 3 million minutes watched per day. With 98% of users identifying as women, it’s clear the content resonates, so much so that the average viewer spends 40 minutes a day watching.

I’m most proud of building a system that brings undiscovered talent to the forefront and creates space for stories that are often overlooked by traditional publishers and studios. Our audience is 98% women, and we treat them like the main character – because they are.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn the idea that you always need a plan. For most of my life, I thought success came from mapping everything out in advance. But the biggest growth happened when I started saying yes to things, even if I didn’t know where they would lead.

I learned is that momentum often matters more than direction at first. You say yes, you try, you learn, and then all of a sudden, you’re in a place that feels right, even if you never saw it coming.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Books recs:

For Building Products – Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
For Managing People – Radical Candor
For Life – The Compound Effect

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/watchcandyjar/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1414689575918508
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmatonner/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@watchcandyjar