In China, internet propels novel popularity
When most people think of China, they might think of a large communist country that will soon host the Olympic Games. Or they might think of a country that is a growing trade partner with the United States – especially in light of all the recalls of defective products that have been making headlines lately.
One thing people probably don’t think of about China is literature. But thanks in large part to the internet, reading and writing novels has become the chosen hobby of millions of Chinese youth. In fact, according to a recent article published on Wired, the internet is boosting print sales of novels and even the word "novel" is the number one search term on the Chinese search engine Baidu.
"Novel," the top search term on China’s biggest search engine, Baidu, yields thousands of Chinese literature websites. More than 100,000 amateurs shirk mundane duties to publish their tales of fantasy and love in installments on these platforms. A handful of anonymous web authors have seen their pageviews soar into the upper seven digits. When that happens, print publishers come knocking.
Numerous websites have popped up all over China, letting just about anyone publish their novel online for anyone to read. Most websites only charge readers to read the most popular of these novels. However, in an interesting twist on the typical "royalty-based" publishing model, big-name authors are not paid based on the number of copies sold, rather, they
are paid based on the length of their work. In other words, the longer their
novel, the more they get paid.
In the print world, book length is limited by the cost of paper, printing and distribution. On the internet, where production costs are close to zero, length equals profit. VIP readers pay a couple of cents for every thousand characters (a print novel generally has 250,000 characters). Contracted authors are paid seven to 12 dollars per thousand characters, depending on their clout. Zhang Muye gets 12 dollars per thousand.
Of course, there are problems with paying authors by the length. The most obvious being that quality is sacrificed for quantity. Anyone can write novel-length works, or even longer, but will the writing be any good? Will the story be compelling enough so readers continue to the very end? I imagine, however, that once a writer starts getting paid for their work, they have already proven themselves as being able to write lengthy novels that are also good reads. But the risk of someone filling a novel with fluff to pump up their paycheck still exists.
What I find the most interesting, however, is the relationship between digital works and printed works. As the article points out, print and digital novels seem to complement each other in China, rather than fight one another – like MP3s are pushing CDs out of existence. It seems that internet, print and other entertainment media are coming together to create new "entertainment empires" that propel novels into the mainstream:
And it’s not just print. Companies from almost every entertainment field, including films and video games, are joining forces, heralding the next generation of Chinese entertainment empires. The creative content of one internet novel can be sold to various national entertainment companies up to five times. A film version of Ghost Blows Out the Light is in pre-production and many popular internet novels have spawned TV series and online games.
The health of novel publishing in China isn’t all good news, however. Like any growing and emerging market, there are problems associated with growing pains. And China is no different. One of the biggest problems that has risen from the popularity of digital novels is something that should make all of you cringe: plagiarism.
In a virtual world where a company’s profit rests on easily reproducible text, the scramble for control over creative content is fierce. Copy protection is almost irrelevant: No matter what technology protects an online novel, pirates looking to siphon traffic to their own site will simply type the content into another document and upload it.
The other issue that angered many readers, was the practice of publishing a novel online, but then one was forced to buy the print version to read the ending. This practice is falling out of favor as many authors are well-off enough financially that they can simply refuse the print-only endings.
Problems aside, it appears that Chinese writers and readers alike are eager to embrace new technology to grow an entire literary industry from the ground up. Maybe the US can follow their lead and shrug off the shackles that hold many writers firmly in place by the large, traditional publishing corporations that are not only "gatekeepers" to a majority of the publishing opportunities, but also follows an old and outdated business model that struggles to make a profit.
One thing that has really interested me for a few years now is new publishing business models that place the writer and publisher on more equal footing (I’m not talking about self-publishing where the author pays to have his/her work publish – although it is leveling the playing field). Since the internet is as popular as ever, it only seems natural that it plays an important role in developing these new models.
I read an article from one of my favorite literary magazines that talks about a poetry publishing "collective" that is based on giving away free books of poetry. But I’ll write more about that in a later post.
Meanwhile, this concludes my very unintentional the "state-of-literature-around-the-world" series of posts.
Check out the original Wired article here:
The Chinese novel finds new life online
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Read More: Publishing News, Reading, Writing
