The New Wave in Storytelling: User-Enhanced Web Novel Platforms in China
Master Project at Columbia Journalism School
Pulitzer Hall, 2950 Broadway New York, NY 10027
This story was advised by Professor Emily Bell, Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, and Professor Patty Lowy at Columbia Journalism School
http://cuj13.tysonevans.com/students/pucong/final%20project/New%20Waive%20in%20Storytelling/
“A game, until the last moment, should not be given up,” blogged Zhong Wang, a professional chess player who participated in numerous championships from the age of 15. He blogged on NetEast Blog that he benefited from this experience. “Every game provides a learning opportunity, even if you lose. You should always prepare to comeback.”
Instead of continuing his career in chess, Wang came back to his followers as a web novelist under the pen name Meng Ru Shen Ji (Shenji). In 2012, Shenji became one of the most successful of a new type of ‘contract web novelists’ who write stories a paying facbase, ranked number six onthe 2012 Annual Chinese Richest Web Writers List. He earned in excess of 10 million Yuan (US$ 1.612 million) in royalties in 2012.
Picture: The 2012 Annual Chinese Richest Web Writers List published by Hua Xi News and editor Huaiyao Wu
A number of Shenji’s earliest web novels, such as Buddha, This Is the Road (Fo Dao), have been promoted onAmazon.uk and published for the Asian market overseas. His most recent workKing of Wisdom (Sheng Wang) has generated more than 44.9 million page views for a web novel start up company.
Picture: The story King of Wisdom (Sheng Wang) on the website.
Long-form narrative stories in China have shifted from paper to digital in a way that is different from the shift in the United States. As web authors have become millionaires, newborn tech companies in China have started to promote serially published stories on digital storytelling platforms.
Groups of young fiction writers and college graduates, whose average age is 28, are working in the office of one of the leading startup web novel firms in Beijing. The web start-up is happy to grant access to its offices and data, on the grounds that it remains anonymous, as the business is highly commercially sensitive.
Two experienced web editors, who understand the tastes of web audiences, lead an editorial team with about twenty-three fiction writers. Managing web novels and engaging with audiences are only two of their responsibilities. This team of fiction writers also works on finding and convincing popular independent web novelists as well as writers at other online publishing firms to sign on with them and to become contract writers. The millionaire writer Shenji is one of their successful contract web novelists.
Born in 1984, Shenji has worked in this new web novel industry for more than seven years. This pen name, Meng Ru Shen Ji, is actually the title of the earliest chess tactics book in the Ming dynasty.
In Shenji’s world, writing is similar to playing chess. An unproductive moment in writing is like a move in chess, which leaves you vulnerable. “To write a web novel, readers are your rivals on a chessboard,” blogged Shenji. “The novel will be rich and meaningful if both sides do not quit playing.” Shenji is still “playing,” still serializing his web novel King of Wisdom, which generated over 300,000 page views per day before July 2012.
Sheji did not respond my messages and comment on the declining in page views after July, 2012. According to the human resources director of the web novel company who declined to provide her name, it was difficult to communicate with Shenji in person, even for employees of the company.
However, Shenji engages with his audience on various social networks, such asWeibo andSina Blog. As usual, Shenji sent out a Weibo feed to announce the completion of Chapter 27 of King of Wisdom on Feb 20, 2013 before his followers had woken up.
“It was Feb 20, 2006 when I first started King of Wisdom,” tweeted Shenji. “I have been updating this novel for seven years.” Shenji is proud about his work. He is ambitious and trusts himself in developing new plots.
Shenji benefited from Classical Chinese legendary novels, such as Journey to the West, The Investiture of the Gods and The Sorcerers' Revolt. Modern legendary novels, particularly Chronicles of the Mountain Shu Swordsmen (Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan), a martial arts novel in the period of the Republic of China, inspired Shenji to address the complexity of human emotions in his own story.
“Shenji understands readers. He has the ability to anticipate their needs and wants,” blogged Zhifeng Wen, a follower of Shenji. “His novels allow readers to witness the complexity of the world with good and evil.”
“I have been very grateful to have a group of followers supporting me through all the ups and downs,” blogged Shenji. “They gave me motivation and confidence. Because of them, I am not alone.”
Shenji is representative of web novelists who take initiative to build contemporary plots using historical characters and traditional values. Working with the editorial team since 2010, he has published six web novels.
Another representative millionaire novelist of the start-up company is Hui Wang, who writes under the pen name Innocence (Wuzui), ranked number fifteen on the 2012 Annual Chinese Richest Web Writers List. He can expect in excess of 4 million Yuan (US$ 0.645 million) in royalties in 2012.
“This web writer list is fairly accurate,” said Wuzui. “I am familiar with at least 10 writers on the list. It is a result of an investigation by people in the business.” According to Wuzui, although the list does not include women writers.
Wuzui’s novel are built around martial arts and chivalry. Martial art masters, in Wuzui’s world, are bound by a code of chivalry that requires them to fight for justice with their sword and gifts.
Wuzui started to read novels written by Jin Yong, one of the well-known modern Chinese-language martial arts and chivalric novelist, in fifth grade. He was inspired by figures in Jin Yong’s novels.
After graduating from the Applied Physics and Thermal Engineering Department of Central South University, Wuzui worked in a thermal power plant and designed power generation boilers for eight years. “Work experiences for a writer, in fact, is a good thing,” said Wuzui. “Writers who have life experiences can create plots with more insights.”
In 2004, Wuzui started to create web novels. As a part time web writer, Wuzui went to his office every day around six thirty in the morning. “Working and writing don’t conflict with each other.” Wuzui updated his web novels after work. He said that he could not go to bed until midnight. “Such a life style, working in the morning and writing at night, lasted three to four years,” said Wuzui. “I was young and motivated at that time.”
“Writing novels is time consuming. I did not have time to read, travel, and find resources when working in the power plant.” Wuzui became a full time web novel writer in 2009. He believed that the web novel industry, at that time, had started to develop a sustainable and healthier business model that allowed web writers to have fixed incomes. “When I resigned from the thermal power plant, I had been promoted to be the deputy director of a branch,” said Wuzui. “I am a realistic person. I do not take risks in my life.”
“People should make career choices or adjustments before having a certain amount of material accumulation,” said Wuzui. “Before I became a full time web writer, I made about 300,000 Yuan (US$ 48,387) in annual income from both web novels and the thermal power plant.” As a boiler deputy engineer and operator, he made about 80,000 to 100,000 Yuan. It was a decent amount of money in the city of Wuxi at that time.
“When I made my career transition, my family was behind me,” said Wuzui. “My wife is a full-time housewife who takes good care of my life. Because of them, I have more time to write novels on the web.” As a full time web novelist, Wuzui wakes up around eight or nine o’clock in the morning and works on personal business. He works in the afternoon after lunch until eleven o'clock at night on his writing.
Working with the editorial team since 2010, Wuzui has published three web novels and generated about 117 million page views for the startup company.
Pictures: Stories published on the site by Wuzui
His ongoing serially published web novel Immortal and the Devil (Xian Mo Bian) generated more than 100,000 page views per day before October 2012.
The human resource director and the editorial team in the startup company are proud to have Wuzui as a contracted writer. They introduced Wuzui as Da Shen, the master of web novels.
This editorial team is only a small portion of the startup firm. On the other side of the office, groups of young college graduates led by two experienced computer science graduates, one from Tsinghua University, and the other from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, sit close to each other implementing and testing new web tools.
A room with rows and rows of machines is about 10 feet away from their desks. The two project managers frequently ask about the server operations and testing results. Two young employees regularly walk into and out of the room with their laptops and notebooks. Through the glass doors in the back of the room, people can see numerous red and green lights shining inside the room.
This group of young scientists behind the Web operation create thousands of lines of code everyday. If you spend time with them, you will understand why women in computer science are encouraged in college. There is only one female developer on the team. Most female employees of the firm are on the editorial team, working at the other side of the office.
These groups of young employees come from different provinces and regions of China. The time I visited the office was near the Chinese Lunar New Year. Although people in the office had started to prepare for their trips back to their hometowns, they never lost focus on their new emerging storytelling empire.
“The Chinese web novel industry is a bit like the Japanese anime and manga industry,” said Xiaosu Su, Vice Chief Editor at one of the newborn digital storytelling firms. “This industry still needs time to mature.”
Su witnessed the development of this new industry. He spent lot of time building and managing web forums for active writers before web sharing became popular.
Su started his career in web novel publishing after graduating from Minzu University of China (Central University for Nationalities) in 1999. He was on the management team of the first Chinese literature-sharing platform Qidian. According to Su, a team of college students with interests in fiction writing led the first web novel startup.
This startup was a small platform without profitable business models. The only thing that kept this group of students in the startup with only 40,000 Yuan (US$ 6,459) in funding was their interest in storytelling.
Although the group suffered difficulties, they intended to spend their lives growing and maintaining the platform. That was until the site started to generate a consistent amount of page views, when the group of students agreed to sell the platform to an interested company.
AfterShanda Interactive Entertainment (NASDAQ:SNDA) e-book platform subsidiary Shanda Cloudary acquired it in 2004, Qidian became the first digital publishing platform in China. After he left Qidian in 2006, Su led a number of web novel startups in Shanghai and worked in the 17K Novel Network and ChineseAll.com, a leading digital publishing platform developed by Tsinghua University, for three years. He was one of the most experienced editors in the web novel publishing industry.
“Although there are barriers in this industry, our progress has been very fast this decade,” said Su. “The environment for the industry has become much better now.” One reason for Su’s positive attitude about the industry is that he believes that web literature, particularly web novels, delivers richer emotional content compared to the anime and manga industry.
Although the web novel has become one of the most profitable digital products on the Web, it might be difficult to build new publishing startups. Su said that web novel startups are having a much harder time breaking in since existing platforms have developed profitable business models with a large number of users. “Spending only a few million Yuan to build a web novel startup is just a drop in the bucket nowadays,” said Su.
Web novel publishing platforms in China carry user-enhanced novels that allow audiences to read with pleasure on various platforms. “Mobile users who are not at work need entertainment,” said Su. “Web novels enable fluent reading and provide readers with such pleasures.”
Picture: Mobile version web novel platforms.
Audience members might initially follow one or more stories using their mobile devices. Many such users become dedicated followers on the platform, frequently recommending plots or even producing new chapters for stories. The two millionaire web novelists Shenji and Wuzui used to be such readers.
Before Shenji started to write his first and the most influential novel Buddha, This Is the Road, he was a dedicated reader on the web for years. Shenji engaged with web literature and wrote comments to web authors, until readers started to question the value of his comments. This is when Shenji decided to prove himself by writing his own novel.
“Everything I wrote was for entertainment,” blogged Shenji. “My works are meaningful as long as they make my followers not feel lonely when they are alone.”
“Everyday I write a little,” further explained Shenji. “Writing is not simple fun in my heart. It is a type of responsibility to my readers. This responsibility sometime makes me feel heavy.”
Wuzui became a dedicated reader on the web in his sophomore year in college. “I headed into web novels in 1998,” said Wuzui. His first web novel, Death and the Immortal (Wu Shen Bu Mie), was about martial arts and chivalry. Although he stopped updating the novel at the end, Wuzui gained experience and became familiar with audiences on the web.
The speed of the web novel growth in China has been beyond people’s expectations. An increasing number of new authors publish their first stories on the platform. “Web novel publishing is limitless,” said Su. “It is hard to believe that one of the founders of Qidian was the director of the Guangdong Yangjiang Vehicle Administration.” People from any field can become web novelists if they have an interest in storytelling.
Dedicated authors on such platforms produce content targeted at particular audiences and generate profits that surprise traditional authors and publishers. User-enhanced web novels have become widespread digital products in Asian society.
Su and his colleagues believe that the United States doesn’t have such web products yet. Although serially published user-enhanced web novels have succeed in the Chinese digital publishing market, it is hard to convince traditional publishers and researchers that similar web products can be successful in the United States.
The Challenge for Traditional Publishers
Although in the past print circulations and advertising accounted for publishers’ profits, these traditional publishing business models have been challenged by distribution of digital copies.
According to BookStats, an annual report produced by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group, the U.S. market for books dropped from $27.9 billion to $27.2 billion from 2010 to 2011, a decline of 2.5%. Total revenue of the print book industry remained flat, going from $13.9 billion to $14 billion from 2010 to 2011. The traditional publishing business model in the United States is losing its profitability.
Digital books more than doubled in net sales, generating $2.1 billion, according to the BookStats annual report. This rise in digital sales offset the decline in print sales. Traditional publishers in the United States have started to put the emphasis on digital publishing, while digital self-publishing is becoming a new trend. It is difficult to predict whether these publishers will be able to find a new sustainable business model.
In contrast with the traditional publishing industry in the United States, the traditional publishing industry in China is still growing. According to the China Statistical Data Collection of Press and Publication, the total number of published titles in Mainland China increased from 328,387 to 369,523 from 2010 to 2011. The General Administration of Press and Publication of the Peoples' Republic of China compiles this statistic every year.
Picture: The site of The General Administration of Press and Publication of the Peoples' Republic of China.
Despite the growing number in print products, revenue of traditional publishers in China decreased from 8.0168 billion Yuan (US$ 1.2725 billion) to 7.83728 billion Yuan (US$ 1.244 billion) from 2010 to 2011. As a result, a number of traditional publishers have left the market. The statistics shows that the number of publishers in China declined from 8,484 to 8,309 from 2010 to 2011.
Traditional publishers in China have not shifted to digital publishing. According to the statistics in 2012, the revenue from digital products accounted for less than 0.1% of the revenue from all publishing products.
The development of digital publishing in China is slower than in the United States. In 2011, revenues of digital publishing were 137.79 billion Yuan (US$ 22.24 billion). Although this was a 31% increase compared to the revenues in 2010, revenue from digital publishing was only 9.5% of the revenue for the entire publishing industry. Chinese digital publishing industry, particularly web novel publishing industry, is in its early stage of development.
Property Rights Protections and Regulations of Web Novels
“There aren't very good laws and regulations in place to govern digital publishing [in China],” commented Eric Abrahamsen, founder of Paper Republic. Working as a translator and editor in China, Abrahamsen has developed insights into the digital publishing industry and web novel industry. “‘The self-publishing trend that’s taking off in the US, for instance, isn’t really happening here.”
“Ideally, readers should pay to subscribe to paid content or VIP content on the web, but, in China, piracy sites offer free VIP content,” said Su. “Paid stories with large followers usually spread on piracy sites. The major web publishing sites suffered difficulties in 2009 and 2010.” The digital publishing industry has hit a wall. One of the major reasons for this is that web users, ignoring intellectual property laws, access stories on pirate sites.
The term “shanzhai,” which refers to Chinese imitation and pirated brands and goods, has been applied to the Chinese web novel industry to label novels on pirate sites or content copied from other works. The startup web novel company published an announcement in 2009 accusing Qidian of publishing a “shanzhai” web novel, Luo Fu. The millionaire web novelist Wuzui later filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Shanghai Xuan Ting Entertainment Information Technology Co. Ltd (Shanghai Xuan Ting), the Internet Operation Provider of Qidian under Shanda Interactive Entertainment (NASDAQ:SNDA) e-book platform subsidiary Shanda Cloudary (Shanghai Xuan Ting)..
According to the Civil Mediation Agreement from Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court, Shanghai Xuan Ting agreed to stop promoting the story on Jan 21, 2011. Shanghai Xuan Ting paid 10,000 Yuan (US$ 1,612) to Wuzui as compensatory recovery.
The lawsuit against Qidian was a representative case in web novel property right protection. “Web content property right protection in China is starting from scratch,” said Wuzui. “Writers belong to the most vulnerable groups, those who lack solutions to fight piracy.”
“Web content property right protection must rely on the nation,” said Wuzui. “If the state does not have clear and strict regulations, as well as a tracing system, authors essentially can do nothing about piracy.”
The Vice Chairman of the Chinese Writers Association, Zhang Kangkang, submitted a proposal to the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 2010 and suggested establishing a complete, clear and strict standard for investigating network infringement. Zhang also proposed reducing the cost of suing for network infringement.
In fact, user-enhanced web novels in China are the outcome of weak regulations in digital publishing and property right protection. Such digital products are distributed on the Internet with and without the ISBN. “There’s a real stigma still attached to writing for [Chinese web novel sites],” commented Abrahamsen. Digital publishing is still in its infancy; it is something that both readers and writers don't have a very clear concept of.
New start-up firms have been competing for well-known novelists on the web. The millionaire web novelist Shenji was a contract writer for Qidian before joining a new startup web novel publishing firm in 2010, where he continued updating the story Immortal (Yong Sheng) that he had begun at Qidian.
Qidian filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Shenji accusing him of contract infringement. Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court made the final judgment in 2012.
According to the press release of the court, Shanghai Xuan Ting owned the serialized web novel Immortal. Shenji paid 0.6 million Yuan (US$96,000) to the company as compensatory recovery.
The final chapter of the serialized web novel Immortal has been published on June 30, 2012. This web novel still remained on the site of the new startup firm. According to Jing Wang, the director of Public Relations of Shanda Cloudary, Shenji has signed a confirmation after the final judgment and accepted that the serialized web novel Immortal belongs to Qidian.
The editorial team of the new start-up firm made the right choice in 2010 to convince Shenji to sign on with them as a contract writer. Working with the editorial team, Shenji generated 313.228 million page views for the firm by updating one free novel, Immortal, and one paid novel, King of Wisdom. Shenji became a millionaire novelist in about two years.
The competition for well-known novelists among these web novel start-ups has never stopped. On March 5, 2013, rumors about a manager and a group of writers leaving Qidian spread on the Chinese Weibo. The director of Public Relations of Shanda Cloudary, Jing Wang, commented that this rumor was incorrect. “Since it is a rumor, it will not hurt our stock price on NASDAQ,” said Wang.
However, Wuzui said that it has been confirmed that managers and editors of Qidian will leave the company. He explained that Qidian monopolizes the web novel industry without a clear strategy to promote each story. “Web novels purchased by Qidian have more promotional opportunities compared with web novels purchased by others on its platform,” said Wuzui. “Instead of building a copyright trading platform, Qidian built a platform, which restricts the movement of authors and works.”
The human resource director of one web novel company, who declined to provide her name, also confirmed that the rumor is true. Her company suffered similar problems. According to her, influential web novel companies, such as Tencent Web Novel, a subsidiary of Tencent Inc., have the ability to give better offers and convince popular web novelists to sign on with them.
Two days after my investigation, Xiaoqiang Hou, the CEO of Qidian, published a letter to all employees and confirmed that some employees have resigned from Qidian. “The board has approved their resignments,” said Hou. This message quickly spreaded on social networks.
Profitability of User-enhanced Web Novels
The web novel industry has become an unchartered territory within the Chinese publishing industry. These web products have generated a large number of page views and great profits.
These fledgling web novel platforms have found a place in the Asian media market to serially publish bricks-and-mortar content to the Internet. These companies have identified a mechanism where traditional publishing companies cannot comfortably compete in Asia.
Most of these web novel publishing platforms bring in virtual currency. Users on such platforms might be awarded virtual currency once they engage in a story by suggesting a plot or submitting a descriptive comment. Some publishing platforms collaborate with other companies and charity organizations to come up with special opportunities for web users to win virtual currency by accomplishing some task, such as donating money to the children’s charity fund, participating survey or experiencing new released webpage games.
Web novels give users options to subscribe using such virtual currency. Since there is a limit for total awarded virtual currency, dedicated users who follow certain stories and are no longer willing to wait for free virtual currency usually choose to purchase virtual currency through online transactions.
Authors who receive virtual currency can exchange this for actual money. One Chinese Yuan (US$ 0.1612) on his web novel publishing platform is equal to hundred units of virtual currency. Such virtual currency treats user-enhanced content as digital goods and motivates audience members to engage with stories.
It is difficult for journalists to get access to the server data of these Asian web novel publishing companies. These publishing platforms do not want their competitors to know about their businesses. Some of these web novel platforms are even owned by publicly traded companies. As a result, these companies are carefully managing information disclosed to their shareholders.
In order to have access to the server data and protect my sources, I agreed to anonymously publish my research results.The following interactive graph includes selected paid web novels wrote by millionaire web authors.
Although page views go up quickly in the first few months, paid web novels do not generate a large amount of virtual currency. Audiences usually spend their virtual currency on exclusive content of popular stories. Most user-enhanced narrative novels are free on such platforms. Only newly published chapters of those novels with a large number of followers, require subscriptions. This visualization shows that the virtual currency subscription business model is lagging on pricing web novels.
In order to offset the impact of pirate sites, these web novel platforms shift to the ‘Customer Fishing’ business model, similar to ‘bait and switch,’ or ‘freemium’ model, offering users free content and charging them later. Most existing user-enhanced narrative stories are free on this platform. Only newly published content of those novels with a large number of followers, require subscriptions.
However, this is not the only business model for such platforms. According to one of the chief managers of a web novel platform, who declined to provide his name, authors can place a donation label on ongoing stories and pitched stories. Active followers can donate money to support these writers using online payment services. “It is amazing that some audiences actually pay the authors they love to continue their stories,” said the manager.
With more users and loyal members, the platforms can bring in advertising. This combination of business models allows web novel publishing platforms to generate profit from various sources.
According to Su, the revenue of Qidian in 2011 was about 1.8 billion Yuan (US$ 0.2903 billion). This number increased to 2.5 billion Yuan (US$ 0.4032 billion) in 2012. In recent years, some famous Chinese web writers have made over 1 million Yuan (US$ 161,200) in a month.
Every word produced by a famous web writer is worth in the range of one Yuan (US$ 0.1612) to two Yuan (US$ 0.3333). The productivity of web writers is ten times that of traditional writers. The web novel market has attracted the attention of both traditional writers and the official government.
The Chinese Writers Association has been hosting the web literatures discussion panel since 2011. As we can see from the website of China Writers Association, the most recent web literatures discussion panel was hosted on 28 June, 2012.
Picture: The web literatures discussion panel on the website of China Writers Association
“There are 13 web novel publishing companies currently on the discussion panel,” said Su. “The purpose of this panel is to build a bridge between traditional writers and web authors.” The startup web novel company that I interviewed was invited to the 2012 discussion panel.
Changing of Storytelling and Authorship
In producing long-form narrative journalism and novels, authors are no longer the only ones contributing to stories. The new storytelling process requires the participation of both authors and audiences.
On the Chinese web novel publishing platforms, authors can receive feedback and comments on serially published content. Such responses allow authors to learn the tastes of targeted audiences and their social groups before writing new chapters. Learning these targeted values from comments and feedback, authors can better collaborate with audiences and promote their future series. One problem of this framework is that comments on such platforms are not serious suggestions or discussions about the story.
Most comments are emotional but not meaningful. “Some comments might be generated by the author so as to boost the story to the front of the ranking list,” said Bangzhong Chen, manager of one of the web novel publishing companies.
This keyword cluster shows that Chinese web novel publishing platforms may have trouble collecting valuable comments. Only top ranked novels, such as King of Wisdom and Immortal and the Devil (Xian Mo Bian), updated by the millionaire writers Shenji and Wuzui, have some meaningful comments and discussions.
Most readers wrote only a few words in comments. Some users even posted their advertisements to comments. Some Internet companies in China, such as ChinaRen.com owned by Sohu.com Inc., chose to hire people for validating comments and removing unrelated advertisements. It became difficult for authors to get meaningful feedbacks from comments. Storytelling collaboration between authors and audiences on web novel publishing platforms might just be an ultimate goal.
User Behaviors and New Way of Storytelling
“The productivity of web novelists is beyond your expectation,” said Su. “Most web novels are daily updated.”
The millionaire writer Shenji has continued daily updating his new story King of Wisdom for months. As one of the major novels for the new start-up firm, Shenji planed to prove himself in his new story. “I have been updating this novel for 27 days without a break,” said Shenji. “I want to offer my followers rich plots after the Chinese Lunar New Years.”
A few years ago, web novelists did not update their stories so frequently. Authors might update their stories one or two times per month. Readers were satisfied by the updating frequency at that time. Nowadays, readers become upset if authors do not update their stories more frequently. On average, authors can produce 5,000 to 15,000 words per day.
The number of page views is closely related to the productivity of authors represented as the number of updated words. As long as authors continually generate new content, the novel can continually generate large numbers of clicks. However, that is not always true for popular web novelists.
Most popular novelists, such as Shenjia and Wuzui, were experienced up and down in publishing web novels.
After publishing his second web novel, Master of Gangster (Liu Mang Gao Shou), Wuzui became a popular web writer with millions of followers. He met his Waterloo when publishing his third novel. “The number of page views and followers decreased at that time,” said Wuzui. “To fish my readers, I increased the frequency of updating my story.”
“From that experience, I learned to write what fit the tastes of my audiences,” said Wuzui. “In simple words, it is a process of catering to my audiences on the web. Somebody might blame me for commercializing literature, but I believe that it is a time to be creative.” Commercialized serially published web novels are suitable for the Chinese literature market. “It is hard for readers to get bored on this new mobile platform.”
One of the advantages of web novels is that their content is serially published to audiences. Instead of finding traditional publishers and waiting for the book to come out, such digital platforms allow authors to immediately promote their work to targeted audience groups.
Although some stories generate thousands of page views per day, they usually do not have large numbers of followers. The number of subscriptions is far below the number of page views.
“Web novels usually do not have deep meanings or profound significance to the society,” said Su. “They are less likely to have serious content since web novels belong to the entertainment market.”
Such stories might not make significant impacts to the society, but they offered readers a place to experience and to imagine.
Web novels in China are similar to ones in a popular magazine from the 80s, called The People’s Stories. The magazine collected stories from ordinary people across various parts of China. Most Chinese people in the 80s and 90s read this magazine on a regular basis. “Web novels offer a glossary of such content,” said Su. “But, they contain less meaningful life stories.”
Most keywords of the selected stories are from computer games, shows, dramas and traditional fiction novels. “Content of most stories is unconstrained woolgathering,” said Su. “Some writers are inspired by the anime and manga from other countries.”
A typical web novel plot is a user traveling in a computer game or traveling into the past with special abilities. “Any plot that you can imagine can be found from these platforms,” said Su. “The rest of storytelling is basically a combination of these plots.”
Wuzui said that web novels have started to be translated into anime and manga. “Lacking good stories, the market of anime and manga in Hong Kong has started to decline,” said Wuzui. This is a good opportunity for web novels to develop a new business model. Stories on the web fit into this market. “Some popular web novels have started to price their plots in the anime and manga industry,” said Wuzui
Su is positive about the future of web novels, though he explained that this market needs time to mature. Japanese anime and manga influenced the past generation. Once this generation became the mainstream of the society, Japanese anime and manga became more acceptable worldwide. “When this generation, who read web novels using their mobile devices, become the mainstream of the society, web novels will become more acceptable and develop a healthier business model,” said Su. He is hoping that his platform can go public in the future.
Multimedia Data Visualizations:
Visualization: Number of pageviews and number of words daily changes.
Note: Data mined and analyzed using the Python Jieba Library and the Python Gensim Library. Visualization developed using the Data-Driven Documents (D3) Library inspired by the Line Graph with Dual-scaled Axes.
Visualization: Number of page views and revenues (virtual currency) daily changes.
Note: Data mined and analyzed using the Python Jieba Library and the Python Gensim Library. Visualization developed using the Data-Driven Documents (D3) Library inspired by the Line Graph with Dual-scaled Axes.
Visualization: Number of page views and number of subscriptions daily changes.
Note: Data mined and analyzed using the Python Jieba Library and the Python Gensim Library. Visualization developed using the Data-Driven Documents (D3) Library inspired by the Line Graph with Dual-scaled Axes.
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