In 2011, a number of popular movies and TV dramas, such as Love Is Not Blind and You Are the Apple of My Eye, were adapted from online novels, and this year we are going to see more Web fiction being brought to life in movies and TV dramas. This has brought a lot of profit to online novelists, but the money they get from these film and TV drama adaptations is only a small part of their incomes. Many popular writers earn an annual income of one million yuan ($158,900) from these online novel websites.
Web fiction offers budding authors the chance to get exposure without jumping through a lot of hoops, and in recent years more and more people, no matter what their professions are, have joined the army of Web fiction writers.
According to a report from Bandao News, based in Qingdao, Shandong Province, the number of writers registered with the three largest domestic fiction websites, qidian.com, hongxiu.com and rongshuxia.com, has reached nearly two million, with qidian.com alone having almost a million writers.
Lin Tingfeng, vice-general manager of qidian.com, said the site's writers span all ages, but the majority are between 25 and 40 years old. "At the moment, part-time writers are still the majority, but as Web fiction is becoming more popular and incomes are rising, more and more writers are becoming full-time," Lin said.
Not a poor man's occupation
Although some Web fiction works do not enjoy regulated copyright protection, online writers can still get a big chunk of the revenue brought in by readers, who pay to view content. Qidian.com currently has dozens of writers with an annual income of a million yuan, one of whom is 32-year-old Cao Yi.
Cao said among the writers he knows from Shandong Province alone, about 10 have an annual income of one million yuan and the most well known, science-fiction writer Kulou Jingling, has moved to Shanghai and purchased a villa and a sports car.
At 22, fantasy writer Tiancan Tudou is another success story. He started to write four years ago and, after meeting success, dropped out of school to become a professional online novelist.
Prolific writers welcome
Thirty-year-old Web fiction writer Yang Hao comes from Qingdao, Shandong Province. He started out in the financial business sector and started to write online in 2008, when the worldwide economic crisis left him with little work. In order to kill time, he started publishing a serial online, and only three days later, he signed with qidian.com, and now he makes several hundred thousand yuan a year from his writing career.
"Writers can either sell the rights to the website, or share the profits over a long period," Yang said, adding that many popular writers choose the latter, as VIP readers pay one cent for every 500 words, and writers can get 70 percent of that income.
Getting paid by the word has caused many authors to produce novels with more than a million words, but Yang said that "most well-known writers still care more about the quality of their work. Otherwise, they lose readers."
Aside from word count, making frequent updates is another way to attract readers and keep a stable income.
"Most of my works are on history, so I am not able to write very quickly," Yang said. "About 2,000 words per hour is my fastest speed, and that's about 20,000 to 30,000 words per week, which is rather low compared with others."
Cao, who covers a wider range of topics, is more prolific, adding about 8,000 words every day.
But Cao said he is not the fastest writer among online novelists. A friend of his whose nom de plume is Tangjia Sanshao can write 8,000 words per hour.
Extra help for green authors
Cao, who comes from Zibo in Shandong Province and goes under the net name Gaolou Dasha, started to write novels early in 2005. "At first, I didn't get very many clicks: less than a million for my first book," said Cao. "But the website has a 'basic cost-of-living allowance' system to encourage green writers, and as long as your work is admitted into the paid reading system and is at least 100,000 words, you get an income of 800 yuan."
Cao said he could pursue his writing career more seriously because of the 2,400 yuan stipend he got from his three novels.
A year later, in September 2006, Cao's monthly income from the site had reached over 10,000 yuan. He quit his job as a circuit board designer and became a full-time online novelist.
Qidian.com is not the only website that provides basic payments for its writers, and stipends are even higher today than they were when Cao started out. Cao believes that this system has given many budding writers a helping hand when they needed it.
Although Web novels and their screen adaptations are enjoying a heyday at the moment, with many writers becoming famous overnight with one novel, the number of millionaires in this field is still low. With so many people jumping on the bandwagon of Web fiction, the majority are plugging away in virtual anonymity.
Even those who are currently well-known writers are vulnerable to being forgotten in the wake of a rising star, or even a downturn in interest in online novels. But for most of these Web writers, the benefits are worth the risk.
"I have a higher income, free time, and I do not need to fawn on my boss. I am definitely happier with my current job," Cao said.