297 million Chinese read web novels in 2015 (think Wattpad but much bigger)

[Xianxia]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/online-f...rce-1469035251

excerpt:

Some 43% of China’s online population, or 297 million people, read novels online in 2015, according to a government report. The best-known authors have millions of followers. Their works are made into films, TV series, animations and games.

In March 2015, game and social-media company Tencent Holdings formed the biggest online literature company in the country, China Reading, after combining its own literature division with Shanda Cloudary, which it had reportedly acquired for five billion yuan ($747 million). China Reading has eight websites, with categories including fantasy, romance, kung fu and business. It has altogether four million writers and 10 million book titles.

Like fiction offered on Wattpad, Chinese online novels are serialized. Authors usually post two chapters a day, or over 3,000 Chinese characters that take less than 10 minutes to read, and end with a cliffhanger.

Unlike Wattpad, which is free for its users to upload and read, the Chinese online fiction site Qidian, now part of China Reading, decided in 2003 that it would charge readers so it could pay authors.

Income for some authors has skyrocketed as a result of the increased interest in online fiction. Zhang Wei, pen-named Tang Jia San Shao, was the top-earning author in China from 2008 to 2012, during which time his royalty income rose to 110 million yuan from 26.5 million. It would have put him behind romance novelist Nora Roberts as No. 10 on Forbes’s 2015 list of highest-earning authors in the world.

The online lit business faces big challenges, chiefly copyright piracy and censorship. Pirated versions of novels such as “Fifty Shades of Grey” (in translation) are easily accessible. Only a fraction of the 297 million readers pay to read. China Reading says that in the first half of 2016 the company sent about 110,000 complaints to websites that violated its copyrights and filed hundreds of civil lawsuits against websites that infringed its rights.

It's too bad that piracy is HUGE in China. Otherwise, earnings from web novels would be a lot bigger.

Qidian is charging about $0.01 - $0.02 per chapter (about 2000 words).

That doesn't seem a lot in term of royalties but it add up really quick when you have tens of millions of readers. The top earning web author is making 110 million yuan a year (about $16.7 million USD in royalties).

[Cinisajoy]

Why is this sounding familiar? Never mind. I was thinking of a different thread that was similar.

[murg]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Why is this sounding familiar? Never mind. I was thinking of a different thread that was similar.

Are you sure it wasn't a similar thread that was different?

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by Xianxia

It's too bad that piracy is HUGE in China. Otherwise, earnings from web novels would be a lot bigger.

No. If they didn't read it without paying, they wouldn't read it all. So the earnings would still be ZERO. You'd just have even more wannabe writers that no one had ever heard of.

[Xianxia]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

No. If they didn't read it without paying, they wouldn't read it all. So the earnings would still be ZERO. You'd just have even more wannabe writers that no one had ever heard of.

If China government crack down on piracy websites, some readers will stop reading because they don't want to pay. But some readers will now pay $0.01-$0.02 per chapter because they will still want to read online novels. And it is very cheap. About 1/10 of the price of a book in the USA.

Cracking down on websites is a Chinese government specialty. If they want to that is.

The top web author in China making $16.7 million a year in royalties means that there are a lot of readers who are willing to pay.

Though the paying readers are just a small fraction of that 297 millions.

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by Xianxia

Though the paying readers are just a small fraction of that 297 millions.

And you just made my point for me...

[Xianxia]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

And you just made my point for me...

No you didn't.

Let's say 90% of the 257 million readers read online novel on a pirate novel website. Only 10% or 25.7 million actually pay to read.

Now, all the pirate novels websites are gone. Shut down by the Chinese government.

Some of that 90% will now pay to read because they have no other choice unless they stop reading altogether.

$0.01 - $0.02 per 2000 words chapter is about $0.30 - $0.60 per 60,000 English words novel.

Very cheap in comparison to $9.99 per 60,000 words English novels that people in the West pay.

If the Chinese government is willing to shut down pirate novel websites, then Qidian and other novel websites will gain a lot of paying readers.

Tencent paying $700 million USD to buy Qidian would look like a bargain.

But I don't think the Chinese government is going to shut down pirate novel websites anytime soon.

[Doonge]

Originally Posted by Xianxia

No you didn't.

Let's say 90% of the 257 million readers read online novel on a pirate novel website. Only 10% or 25.7 million actually pay to read.

Now, all the pirate novels websites are gone. Shut down by the Chinese government.

Some of that 90% will now pay to read because they have no other choice unless they stop reading altogether.

And some of that 10% will dwindle because they originally discovered author/books through pirating and became paying fans later on, or because their pirate friends recommended them those books and constituted a huge social signal boost which will itself dwindle.

I have no definitive answer as to whether it's a financial plus to get rid of pirating (in any case, the moral argument remain) or not, so you may actually be right, but your explanation is a bit too simplistic for me.