Samuel Cole has launched tale.fyi, a platform designed to be a dedicated home for fiction on the web. Cole, who has long felt the internet is primarily built around non-fiction, aims to celebrate great fiction by offering a seamless reading and listening experience from a single link.

The platform initially features a library of public domain fiction, sourced from efforts like Project Gutenberg and Libri Vox. Users can track their progress, switch between reading and listening to books, and share notes. Cole sees this as crucial for empathy and understanding, stating, "Fiction is how we get into each other's heads and empathize with how others live, think, and feel."

Beyond public domain works, tale.fyi also provides tools for users to add their own stories. Cole emphasizes user ownership of created content and their audience. He offers a proof-of-concept with links like tale.fyi/a-christmas-carol and tale.fyi/dracula, built with simplicity as a priority. The service is free, with progress saved locally and optionally synced via sign-in.