Every book has a free first chapter. No account. No email gate. No countdown timer. If it earns your money, you buy it.
Set your price, keep 80% of every sale, publish immediately. No submission windows. No gatekeepers deciding when youβre ready.
Reviews, reading groups, author feeds, and a blog β all built in. Fiction is more interesting when you read it with others.
Why We Built This
Traditional publishing minimizes risk by favoring established names and familiar formulas. That design leaves genuinely great work on the cutting room floor β not because it isnβt good enough, but because it doesnβt fit a marketable category.
Yodie removes that floor. Any writer can publish here. Any reader can start reading for free. The work that survives does so because readers chose it β not because a committee approved it.
Our Model
Free first chapter on every book. Full access from $9.99. No subscription β buy what you want to read.
Set your own price. Keep 80% of every sale. Publish instantly with no upfront cost.
Pays for hosting, development, and editorial support. We donβt sell ads. We donβt sell reader data.
What Readers Are Saying
Based in Cleveland, Ohio
Yodie was founded by a small team of readers and writers who were tired of waiting for permission. Cleveland has always known something about doing things its own way.
The blog, the reading groups, and the reviews are written by readers β not staff. The community decides what matters here.
106 books. Every first chapter free. No account needed.
Simple, Honest Pricing
No subscription. No monthly fee. No algorithm deciding what you see. Buy the books you want. Read the first chapter of every book for free, always.
For Authors
There is no cost to list your book on Yodie. No submission fee. No setup fee. No monthly charge. When a reader buys your book, you receive 80% of the sale price. Yodie keeps 20% to cover platform costs.
Common Questions
No. The free first chapter of every book is available without signing up. Creating a profile lets you save progress, bookmarks, and write reviews β but it's optional.
PayPal and all major credit cards. Payment is processed securely β Yodie never stores your payment details.
The book is added to your Library instantly. All chapters unlock. You can read online on any device. There is no download and no DRM.
Not currently. We believe books are worth paying for individually. We may add a bundle option in future β if we do, existing purchases will always count toward it.
Yes, within 14 days of purchase if you haven't read more than the free chapter. Contact us at hello@yodie.app.
Independent fiction from writers who publish on their own terms. Free first chapter on every book.
Updated Weekly
Trending topics, rising authors, and the books readers can't stop clicking on.
Community Writing
Reviews, craft essays, rankings, and discussions β written by the community.
Your Account
Your purchased books, reading progress, and authors you follow.
Author Tools
Track your sales, readership, and how readers move through your books.
Cover Art
Paste a direct image URL for your book cover. Covers are reviewed by the Yodie team before going live β usually within 24 hours. Until approved, your generated cover remains visible to readers.
All covers must be original art or images you have the rights to use. Inappropriate, explicit, or copyright-infringing images will be rejected and may result in account suspension.
Yodie is an open platform for independent authors. Upload your manuscript, set your price, and reach readers directly β no gatekeepers, no waiting.
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Access your library, reading history, bookmarks, and reviews across any device.
Or just set a reader name
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What you get
"Free to join. Free to read the first chapter of every book. No subscription. No ads. No algorithm deciding what you see."
A Science Fiction Series
Three books. One boy. A ship that shouldn't exist.
Beginning on the south side of Cleveland and ending somewhere the maps don't reach, the Stoney Ridge series follows Yodie Cole from a lakefront chess table to the edge of a universe that has been waiting for him. A coming-of-age story, a space opera, and something harder to name than either.
Sixteen-year-old Yodie Cole arrives in Chicago with nothing but a mysterious compass and a feeling he can't name. At a lakefront chess table, he meets Elder Nasser β and nothing after that is ordinary.
Aboard the living ship Stoney Ridge, Yodie begins to understand what Luma really is β and who built the Continuance. Kree has started to dream. The Architect is watching.
"Kree spoke for the first time on a Tuesday. Not aloud β she didn't have that yet. But the ship felt it. The whole Continuance felt it, like a tuning fork struck somewhere deep in the hull."
Review your order and complete your purchase below.
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Publish on Yodie
Yodie is an independent fiction platform built for writers who don't want a gatekeeper between their work and their readers. Submit your manuscript, set your own price, and keep most of what you earn.
Every book on Yodie includes a free preview chapter. Readers sample before they buy. Authors get discovered. It costs you nothing and converts better than descriptions alone.
Set your own price. Earnings go directly to your PayPal account. No monthly thresholds, no minimum balances. You get paid when readers buy.
Your book appears in genre browse, the Discover page, search results, and the community blog. No ad spend required to get in front of readers who are already here.
Yodie takes a 20% platform fee to cover hosting, payment processing, and keeping the lights on. The rest is yours. No hidden fees, no tiered royalty structures, no waiting six months to get paid.
On a $9.99 book, you earn $7.99 per copy. Sell 100 copies and you've made $799 β directly to your PayPal.
Fill out the form below and we'll be in touch within 48 hours. We accept all genres of fiction. Non-fiction considered on a case-by-case basis.
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Community
Join an active reading group or start your own. All groups read books available on Yodie.
It may have moved, or it may never have existed. Either way, there's good fiction this way.
Or try one of these
The Stoney Ridge Universe
A living ship. A boy from Cleveland. A compass that doesn't point north. Two books in, the Stoney Ridge universe is still revealing itself β but here's what's been established.
The Ship
The Stoney Ridge is not a vessel in the conventional sense. It grew. No one planted the seed β or if someone did, they haven't said so yet. By the time Yodie comes aboard at the end of Book One, the ship is already something between a place and a person.
Its corridors shift. Its hull listens. It chose its own name β or at least, that's how Kree understands it. The ship is the only witness to everything that happens in the Continuance.
The System
The Continuance is the network β of ships, signals, memories, and whatever else the Architect built before disappearing. It's not a government. It's not a religion. It's closer to a nervous system with no central brain.
By The Lattice, Yodie begins to understand that the Continuance was designed to remember something specific. What that thing is β and whether it should be remembered β is the question Book Three will have to answer.
Characters
Sixteen when Book One opens. From Cleveland. Arrives in Chicago with seventeen dollars and a compass that doesn't point north. By Book Two he's aboard the Stoney Ridge and beginning to understand that the compass was never random.
Found at a lakefront chess table in Chicago, playing both sides with the patience of someone who has nowhere else to be. He doesn't explain the world to Yodie. He plays chess with him. That distinction matters more than it seems.
Not born β grown, along with the ship. By Book Two she has started to dream, which no one anticipated. She doesn't speak in Book One and doesn't need to. She is, so far, the most important character in the series and the one we understand least.
A presence rather than a person, at least through Book Two. The signal that the Continuance has been broadcasting since before anyone aboard was born. What Luma actually is β whether it's a message or a memory or something else entirely β remains open.
Built the Continuance. Hasn't been seen since. Every system aboard the Stoney Ridge, every signal in the network, every rule Yodie is learning to navigate β all of it was designed by someone who is either gone or waiting. Book Three will have to decide which.
Objects of Note
Warm despite the cold. Never points north. Appeared in a coat Yodie doesn't remember owning. By the end of Book Two, it's clear the compass is less a navigation tool than a key β but to what, and built by whom, remains the central unanswered question of the series.
Not a map β a memory. The Continuance's oldest one, according to Elder Nasser. Finding it means understanding what the Architect wanted before wanting became the wrong word. Title of Book Two for a reason.
On the Chicago lakefront. Nasser plays both sides. It's where Yodie's education begins β not in facts or systems but in how to think about a board where the rules aren't fully visible. Everything that follows is an extension of those games.
Reading Order
This name appears on your reviews and comments across Yodie.
Gift Redemption
Enter the gift code you received below. Your book will be added to your library instantly β no account required.
Platform Updates
New books, new features, and notes from the platform. Updated when there's something worth saying.
Horror is now a first-class genre on Yodie β with its own shelf row, its own genre page, its own color. Cassiel Vorne has published ten new titles to go alongside the six already in the catalog: The Third Knock, The Guest Book, What Remains, The Mercy Floor, The Photograph in the Attic, The Neighbour's Light, The Dream Journal, The Sound He Makes, The Last Tenant, and The Other Me.
Book discussions are now live on every book detail page. Comments and likes save locally. Reading groups now have clickable discussion threads.
Ten mystery titles and ten mystery-romance crossovers from C. Malakai, Maren Holst, T. Vasquez, Priya Nair, D. Okonkwo, Haruka Mori, and Seren Avala. The catalog is now at 146 books across 7 genres.
New: Sign Up page, reading groups with live discussion threads, wishlist hearts on shelf cards, back-to-top button, recent searches, and a proper pricing page.
The reading mode now has a proper table of contents drawer, chapter progress tracking, bookmarks, three themes (Dark / Sepia / Light) that remember your preference, and full keyboard navigation.
The billboard on Browse now rotates the highest-rated books dynamically. The home page has a new cinematic hero with floating book covers, stat blocks, and a proper pitch for both readers and authors.
Reader reviews, star ratings, reading progress tracking, reading streaks, and a full Library page with purchased books, currently reading, and bookmarks. The Book of the Month feature launches.
Thirteen books. Six genres. A reading mode and a cart. Joseph Cole's Stoney Ridge was the first book published. It's still the one readers finish and immediately reread.
Technical Roadmap
Right now everything lives in localStorage β purchases, progress, reviews, bookmarks. That's good for a prototype and bad for a real product. Here's what a real backend looks like and what it unlocks.
The simplest path that gets everything working. Chosen for low cost, fast setup, and no lock-in.
Handles users, purchases, reviews, reading progress, and book metadata. Supabase gives you a full PostgreSQL database with a REST API out of the box β no backend code needed for most reads. Auth is built in.
Replace the PayPal modal with Stripe Checkout. Single API call, hosted payment page, webhooks fire when payment succeeds and unlock the book in Supabase. Takes half a day to integrate. Authors get 80% via Stripe Connect transfers.
Three functions cover everything: POST /purchase (Stripe webhook β unlock book in DB), POST /review (save review), GET /library (user's purchases + progress). Deploy from GitHub, automatic SSL, global CDN.
Purchase receipts, Book Three launch notification, author update digests. React Email templates for consistent styling. Costs nothing until you're sending thousands of emails a month.
Drag and drop the HTML file. Get a real URL in 2 minutes. Connect a custom domain (yodie.app) for $12/year. HTTPS automatic.
Total time to a real working backend: about a week of focused work. The current platform is already production-quality on the frontend. The backend is the only thing standing between a prototype and a product.
Admin β Restricted
Submitted covers awaiting approval. Approved covers go live immediately. Rejected covers revert to the generated SVG.
Press & Media
We're an independent fiction platform based in Cleveland, Ohio. For press inquiries, review copies, or interview requests, reach us at press@yodie.app
What People Are Saying
"Yodie is doing something genuinely new β building a platform that treats independent fiction as a first-class product, not an afterthought. The reading experience is better than most mainstream ebook stores."
"The free first chapter model is smart β it removes every barrier between a reader and a book they might love. More platforms should do this. Most won't."
"The platform's catalog spans six genres and thirteen titles β each one a distinct voice doing something the mainstream wouldn't have room for."
"Night Fare is quietly one of the best novellas of the year. T. Vasquez has translated grief into something precise and haunting."
Media Kit
Our media kit includes platform overview, author bios, book descriptions, cover art, and high-resolution screenshots.
Press Contact
About Yodie
Yodie is an independent digital bookstore for fiction that doesn't fit neatly into existing categories. We offer free first chapters on every book, 80% royalties to authors, and a community of readers who take independent fiction seriously.
We were founded in Cleveland, Ohio, and we run on the belief that the best stories don't always come from the biggest publishers β sometimes they come from someone who just needed somewhere to put them.
New Here?
Every book on Yodie has a free first chapter. No account, no email, no credit card. Just read. Here's a guide to finding something you'll love.
Option 1 β Take the Quiz
Answer three questions about your mood and reading habits. We'll recommend the right book for right now.
Option 2 β Browse by Feel
Browse by genre, or use our curated reading lists to find books readers actually recommend.
Recommended First Reads
How Yodie Works
Every book has a free first chapter. No sign-up. Just click Read Now.
If you want to keep reading, purchase for a few dollars. It goes directly to the author.
Write reviews, join reading groups, follow authors. The community makes this place.
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Your Activity
Every book you have opened on Yodie, with your progress.