User Guide — Kissa

Kissa (किस्सा) is a home for stories in two forms: audio films, where a narrated voice track plays over a timed slideshow of still images, and written stories you can read for free in the Reading Room. This guide walks through everything you can do on Kissa, first as a listener and then as a creator, including how new stories are reviewed before they go live for everyone.

Kissa works in any modern browser and in the Kissa Android app. Where the two behave differently, this guide says so.

Getting started

Create your account

Open Kissa and choose Sign up.
Enter your name, email address and a password, or choose Continue with Google instead, on the web or in the Android app. If you already have a Kissa account with the same Gmail address, Google sign-in opens that same account.
After your first sign-up you will see a short welcome screen. You can start listening straight away or tap Become a creator if you want to publish your own stories. You can skip it and come back to either later.

Kissa is for people aged 18 and over.

Verify your email

Your Profile shows a banner if your email address is not yet verified. Tap Resend verification email and open the link in the message. Verification may be required before you can use creator tools.

Forgot your password

On the sign-in screen choose Forgot password, enter your email and follow the link we send you. The link works once and expires after one hour.

Signing out

Open Profile and choose Sign out. Signing out on one device does not sign you out anywhere else.

Finding stories

Home shows featured stories, genre categories, and rails of recent and trending stories.
Browse lists every published Series and every Standalone episode. Filter by genre and change the sort order to narrow things down.
Genres and categories. Kissa has nine genres: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Drama, Fantasy, Comedy and Romance. Tap any genre chip to see everything in it.
Trending shows what people are listening to right now.
Collections are shelves of stories picked by the Kissa team.
Creators lists every storyteller on Kissa. Open a creator to see their bio, their series and episodes, and to follow them.
Search finds series, episodes and creators as you type.

Listening

The player

Tap any episode to start it. Images change in time with the narration, exactly as the creator placed them. You can:

play, pause and drag the progress bar to jump anywhere;
change the playback speed;
skip to the next or previous episode in a series;
like, bookmark, download, share or add the episode to a playlist;
report the episode if something is wrong with it.

While you browse, a small mini-player stays at the bottom of the screen so the story keeps playing. In the Android app, playback continues with the screen off and can be controlled from the lock screen and notification shade.

Picking up where you left off

Kissa remembers how far you got. If you have listened to more than 30 seconds of an episode, it offers to resume from that point the next time you open it.

Ambience

Open the ambience control in the player to layer rain, wind, forest or thunder sounds underneath a story. Each sound has its own volume, plus a master level for all of them.

Audio quality and playback settings

In Settings (on the web) or Profile (in the app) you can choose your audio quality, turn autoplay on or off, reduce motion, and choose which alerts you receive.

Your library

Bookmarks save a series or an episode to come back to later.
Likes show creators what you enjoyed and help others find it.
Playlists are your own running orders of episodes. Create one, add episodes from the player, reorder them, and play the whole list through.
Following. Follow a creator to get a notification whenever they publish, and to see their newest episodes in your Following feed.
History lists what you have listened to, with how far you got. An episode appears here after you have listened for at least 30 seconds.
Notifications tell you about new episodes from creators you follow, new followers, replies to your support tickets, and updates about your own stories.

Downloads for offline listening

Tap Download on an episode to keep a copy for listening without a connection. You need to be signed in to download.

In the Android app downloads are saved on your phone and play with no connection at all. Find them under Library, Downloads.
On the web downloads are saved inside the browser you used, on that device only. They are removed if you clear your browser's site data, and some browsers remove stored data on their own when the device runs short of space.

Removing a download frees the space and does not affect your likes, bookmarks or history.

The Reading Room

The Reading Room is a free library of short written fiction. Open Read from the menu, or visit the Reading Room from the Kissa home page. You do not need an account to read.

Browse stories by genre, or filter them by language: English, हिंदी or Hinglish.
Some stories have an audio version; look for the link to listen to it on Kissa.

The Reading Room is currently available on the web.

Becoming a creator

Anyone with a Kissa account can become a creator. There is no waiting list.

Open Studio or choose Become a creator from your profile.
Tell us what you want to create. Write at least 50 characters about the stories you plan to tell, pick the genres you will work in, and optionally add a link to your portfolio.
Submit. Your account becomes a creator account immediately and you land in the Creator Handbook, a short guide to how publishing works.

If you are asked to verify your email before submitting, do that first from your Profile.

Publishing your stories

Series or standalone

Every audio story on Kissa is an episode. An episode can stand on its own or belong to a series.

A standalone episode is a single, self-contained story. You choose its genre.
A series is a show made of episodes, optionally grouped into seasons. You choose the genre once for the whole series, and every episode inherits it. A series' genre is locked once it is published.

There is no wrong first choice. You can move an episode between standalone, a series and a season later, and its plays, likes and downloads come with it.

What you need

Audio: MP3 or WAV, up to 200 MB.
Images: JPEG, PNG or WebP, up to 50 MB each. The first image always appears at the very start of the audio. Each following image appears at the time you set, in order.
Cover image for a series: JPEG, PNG or WebP, up to 10 MB.

Publishing a standalone episode

In Studio, open Episodes and choose New episode.
Add the title, description, genre, cover image and audio.
Choose Save as draft to keep it private, or Publish to submit it.

Publishing a series

In Studio, open Series and choose New series. Add a title, description, genre and cover image.
Optionally add a season to group a long run of episodes.
Upload episodes. For each one: choose the audio, add your images and set when each image appears, then add the title and description. Episode numbers set the play order.
Publish the episodes you want people to hear.
Publish the series. A series can only be published once it has a cover image and at least one published episode.

A draft is only ever visible to you. Publishing is what sends a story out, and for new creators it first goes through review.

Review and going live

To keep Kissa safe for everyone, the first stories from every new creator are reviewed by the Kissa team before anyone else can see them.

How review works

You publish. If you are a new creator, your episode or series is marked In review in your Studio. It is hidden from everyone else: it does not appear in Browse, Search, Home or any feed, and even a direct link to it will not open for other people. You can still open and play it yourself.
We review it. A member of the Kissa team listens to and looks at the story and checks it against the Community Guidelines.
It is approved, and goes live. The story becomes public for everyone. You get a notification saying it is live, and your followers are notified about the new episode at that moment, not before.
Or it needs changes. If the story does not meet the guidelines, you get a notification that it needs changes, including the reviewer's note explaining why. It stays hidden and is marked Rejected in your Studio.

A series and its episodes are reviewed separately. A series only shows content to listeners once its episodes have been approved too, so publish and get your episodes approved first.

Fixing a story that needs changes

Read the reviewer's note in the notification or on the story in your Studio.
Edit the story: change the title, description, genre or images as needed. Audio cannot be replaced, so if the audio itself was the problem, create a new episode with the corrected audio.
Switch the story back to Draft, then Publish it again. That sends it back into the review queue.

If you think the decision was a mistake, open a support ticket from Help, Support and explain why. A person will read and answer it.

Becoming a trusted creator

Once two of your episodes have been approved and are live, your account is promoted to trusted. From then on, everything you publish goes live immediately, with no review wait. Trusted creators must still follow the Community Guidelines, and published stories can still be taken down if they break them.

Story status at a glance

Draft: private to you. Not reviewed.
In review: published by you, waiting for the Kissa team. Hidden from everyone else.
Live: approved and public for everyone.
Rejected: needs changes. Hidden from everyone else. Edit it and publish again.
Taken down: a live story removed by the Kissa team for breaking the guidelines. You are notified with the reason. Fix it and publish again to send it back to review.

Managing your stories

Editing. You can change an episode's title, description and genre, its cover, and its full set of images and their timings at any time. Text changes to a live story appear straight away. While you are a new creator, replacing the images or cover of a live story sends it back to review, and it is hidden until it is approved again. Trusted creators' changes appear straight away.
Unpublishing. Switch a live story back to Draft to hide it. It keeps its plays and likes. Publishing it again later does not send it back to review if it was already approved.
Moving episodes. Move an episode between standalone, a series and a season without losing its plays, likes or downloads.
Seasons. Add, rename or delete seasons from the series editor.
Analytics. Studio, Analytics shows your views, qualified listens and likes over time, per series and per episode. A listen counts as qualified once someone has listened for at least 30 seconds.

Safety, reporting and appeals

Reporting a story or creator. Use the flag or Report button on any episode, series or creator profile. Choose a reason (spam or misleading, abusive or hateful, sexual or explicit, violence or harm, copyright violation, or something else) and add any details. Every report is read by the Kissa team.
What happens next. Content that breaks the Community Guidelines can be taken down, and creators who repeatedly or seriously break them can have their account suspended. Removals always come with a reason.
Suspended accounts cannot sign in. If you believe a suspension is a mistake, email the Kissa team or our Grievance Officer using the contact details on the Grievance page.
Copyright. If someone has published your work without permission, report it with the copyright reason, or follow the steps on the Copyright page.

Help and your account

Help and FAQ answers the most common questions.
Support tickets. Open Help, Support to send us a question, feedback or an appeal. Replies appear in the same thread and you get a notification when we answer.
Feedback. We read every piece of feedback. Send it any time from Help.
Deleting your account. See the Account Deletion page for how to ask us to delete your account and your data, what is removed, and what we are required to keep.
Policies. Our Terms, Privacy Policy, Community Guidelines and every other policy are listed in the Legal Centre.