The online article market pursued by capital: half of the writers are sought after by part-time overseas readers.

online articles on fantasy, fairy knight-errant, history, romance and other topics are also being sought after by more and more overseas readers.

when he met Mr. Liu, he was reading the Shengxu by Chen Dong, a well-known online writer, on his mobile phone. "two chapters are updated every day, about 8000 words. Every day I take the time to catch up." Mr. Liu said.

as of June this year, the number of domestic Internet users like Mr. Liu reached 353 million, an increase of 19.36 million over the end of last year, accounting for 46.9 percent of Internet users. Online articles on fantasy, fairy knight-errant, history, romance and other topics are also being sought after by more and more overseas readers. However, behind the capital chase, it is still difficult for most writers to survive on their writing income, and only 28.5% of them are satisfied with their income.

strong > the craze of IP / strong >

strong >-- China Literature Group's listing is sought after / strong >

"when I started reading online articles in high school, when I had a mobile phone that could surf the Internet, the first work I saw was" Pan long "when I ate tomatoes. Mr. Liu said. The "I eat tomatoes" mentioned by Mr. Liu is a platinum writer.

in fact, most people are familiar with the starting point Chinese website, Chuangshi Chinese website, tea flavor, and so on, are all brands under China Literature Group.

on October 26th, China Literature Group, formed by the integration of Tencent Literature and original Shanda Literature, went to Hong Kong for a share offering, which was sought after by investors and was 625.95 times oversubscribed. On its first day of trading on November 8, the intraday price was as high as HK $110, up 100% from the HK $55 priced by IPO, and was known as the "first share of the Internet article" in the industry.

according to China Literature Group's IPO prospectus, the average number of monthly active users reached 191.8 million in the first half of 2017, including 179.3 million mobile phone users and 12.5 million computer users. At present, there are a total of 6.4 million writers, including such as Tang Jia San Shao, Chendong, trickery and so on.

behind the birth of a large number of online writers, the commercial realization potential of online articles has been increasing in recent years, and the adaptation of online works has been extended to films, TV dramas, online dramas, online games, animation and other industries. China Literature Group has exported film and television adaptations such as Nirvana in Fire, Tomb robbing Notes, Ghost blowing Lamps, and Chronicles of Heaven.

strong >-- BAT actively arranges to seize the market / strong >

China Literature Group's prospectus shows that China's online article market has a compound annual growth rate of 44.9% from 2013 to 2016. In 2016, the size of China's online article market was 4.6 billion yuan, accounting for 11.4% of the total size of China's literature market, and is expected to increase to 22.7% by 2020.

in the face of this fast-growing market, major Internet companies began to lay out actively several years ago, eager to take a place in it.

Baidu Literature, which was founded in November 2014, mainly produces vertical and horizontal Chinese websites, 91 Panda Reading, Baidu Book City and so on. Ali established Ali Literature after the advent of China Literature Group in 2015 to lay out the online article market with mobile reading as a breakthrough.

at present, the top five online writing companies in China are China Literature Group, Palm Science and Technology, Ali Literature, Chinese online and Baidu Literature, owned by Tencent. In 2016, China Literature Group's online reading income accounted for 43.2% of the entire market, while palm reading technology accounted for 14.9%.

Tencent's successful layout of the online article market is inseparable from an important figure-Wu Wenhui, who is called by the media as the "father of online articles". As one of the founders of the starting point Chinese website, Wu Wenhui pioneered the VIP charging system and the writer-sharing model, which laid the foundation for the business model of online articles. After joining Shanda literature, the starting point Chinese network has entered an era of rapid development. Later, Wu Wenhui left Shanda and joined Tencent. On January 26, 2015, Tencent Literature and Shanda Literature merged into "China Literature Group", integrating the two companies' starting point Chinese website, Chuangshi Chinese website, QQ Book, Xiaoxiang Academy, tea flavor, Chinese language world, and so on.

strong > troubles of industry growth / strong >

strong >-- single profit model? / strong >

Internet writing companies, which have attracted much attention, have also been questioned, such as the source of income is too single.

most of China Literature Group's income comes from online reading. As of the first half of 2017, its online reading revenue accounted for 84.9% of the total revenue. The same is true of technology. In 2016, 94.06% of the main business composition was digital reading.

Ji Yunfei, PhD in the Chinese Department of Peking University and editor-in-chief of the online Literature Forum of Peking University, does not agree with this doubt. He told Chinanews.com, "the source of income is single, on the contrary, it is stable income." This is great, and it is still growing at the moment. "

"Internet literature companies do online articles, and their income does not come from reading. Where does it come from?" This is a serious job. " Ji Yunfei said.

strong >-- the quality of online articles is uneven? / strong >

the quality of online works is also a controversial point. Such a huge and tempting market, so that countless online writers scramble to enter, a large number of online works appear. But how many are really good?

the reporter searched Taobao and found that a large number of stores provide online article ghosting services with a wide range of topics, including romance, fantasy, travel, martial arts, and so on; in addition, there is also a kind of software called "artifact of online article writing." it contains popular online article outlines, writing associators, writing materials, and so on. This may be how readers complain about the same text.

Mr. Liu, who has read online articles for many years, said bluntly that he did not feel that the quality of online works was getting better and better. some authors wrote more and more water in order to gather together the number of words, and some works could not be filled behind the holes dug in front, resulting in a "bad end."

Ms. Wang, who paid 100 yuan to chase online articles on a certain platform, also said that the two online articles she bought gave up before she finished reading them, because "it is too long, the protagonists and heroines have gone through all kinds of tribulations together, and the ending is not the end." the plot is becoming more and more corny. "

strong >-- is the adaptation of IP difficult to meet readers' expectations? / strong >

although the IP adaptation is popular, not all the adapted works can get a good reputation. For example, Nirvana in Fire is undoubtedly a successful model, but its Douban score is only 4.2, with a lot of criticism, and some people say bluntly that "I hope my favorite online article will not be remade, otherwise it will be destroyed."

Ji Yunfei believes that in terms of IP's adaptation of film and television works, the ability of the film and television production company itself is insufficient. At present, the whole market is in the stage of wanting to make quick money.

strong > Writer's income / strong >

strong >-- the top author has more royalties than the top two or three combined / strong >

how much can a great online writer earn? Tang Jia San Shao, the starting point Chinese net contract writer, a "great god" among many online writers. Tang Jiasan topped the list of online writers for five years in a row, with royalties of 122 million yuan in 2016, more than the royalties of Bombyx mori potatoes and tomatoes combined, which ranked second and third, according to the list of writers. Tang Jia San Shao also set the Guinness World record for 86 consecutive months.

the exemplary power of high-income online writers has given rise to the idea of writing online articles. On Zhihu, there are a large number of questions such as "how college students make money by writing online articles", "can they drop out of school and write online articles" and "how to write online articles".

on November 22nd, China Literature Group joined hands with Shanghai University to establish the first master's degree program in creative writing in Chinese online literature, in order to promote the personnel training and industrial development of online literature.

strong >-- half of the authors of nearly 30% satisfactory income are part-time / strong >

Fang Hao, post-1995, author of the physical book "things are like a knife, I'll learn it." Once he was also an Internet writer at the bottom, and he worked as a gunman, taking a thousand words and ten yuan of work, barely enough to eat.

"when I began to write online articles in the first semester of my freshman year, I always fantasized about my sudden popularity." Fang Hao said, "but I didn't even get a contract on the website. later, I changed the novel and rewrote it, and finally got the contract. I wrote 5,000 or 6,000 words a day, and the full attendance award was 500 or 600 yuan a month. After writing this book, I thought that if I opened a second book, it would be a little more popular, but there was still no sign of it. I didn't even sign a contract. "

finally, Fang Hao gave up writing online articles. "online articles have their own standards," he said. "you have to put down your aesthetic standards to meet the standards of online articles."

among the more than 1000 online writers surveyed by iResearch, only 28.5% are satisfied with their income, while the rest are average, not very satisfied and very dissatisfied. More than half of the online writers are part-time. The main reason is that "writing income cannot be used as a major source of income."

strong > unexpected readers / strong >

strong >-- more and more foreigners "fall in love" with Chinese online articles / strong >

in the eyes of some writers, Chinese online articles attract more and more foreign readers as their new target. According to media reports, Wuxiaworld (martial arts world), a website that mainly translates Chinese online novels, currently ranks 932th on Alexa, mainly from the United States, the Philippines, Indonesia, Canada and Germany. Nearly 30 percent of the visitors come from the United States, with an average of 200000 visitors a day.

the background of Wuxiaworld website is a big dragon, which has the style of fairy and martial arts. At present, there are English versions of "Pan long", "I want to seal the sky", "stars change" and other online works on the website. In the comments below Panlong, foreign netizens made no secret of their love for the work, such as "this is my favorite novel!" "Thank you, translator. It's worth seeing!" "read it again, thank you!" There are many such comments.

the research of iResearch Consulting shows that the overseas market of Chinese online articles has a lot of room to tap, and the number of users will continue to grow. Fantasy, fairy knight-errant, history, romance and other topics are loved and pursued by many overseas readers. And male readers account for 90%, and the tendency to be younger is obvious. Most of the overseas readers come from Europe and the United States, with an increase of nearly 15% every year.

Ji Yunfei believes that the going out of online literature has brought great possibility to the future development of Chinese online literature, and building a world-class IP is not empty talk.

iResearch predicts that more types of Chinese novels will be exported overseas, go to the world, become more authentic and mature, and expand derivatives around IP in the future, which will create a broader space for overseas development for Chinese online articles.

Edit: mary