E-books gaining steam in China

Not to be outdone in the digital craze, China's four biggest online e-commerce sites all got into the e-book business last year, catering to the increasing demand of the country's e-readers. Our reporter Song Yaotian takes a look at how the growing popularity of e-books is changing the way Chinese people read.

Dangdang, Zhuoyue, Jingdong and Suning, these are the four most popular Chinese e-commerce sites.

And they're looking to cash in on the growing e-book craze.

Han Yingya, a graduate student from China Foreign Affairs University is an avid e-book reader.

Her Kindle has more than 100 e-books, which include academic material, novels and anything else that has gone digital.

Student Han Yingya said, "I began reading e-books during my undergraduate years. I think firstly, e-books can save me money, because e-books are cheaper and sometimes free. Secondly, it's convenient, it's impossible for you to carry a lot of books on a train or when you're on the move.

Han says at least half of her schoolmates are also avid e-readers. At the end of 2010, Amazon, the biggest online book retailer, announced that for the first time, e-book revenues surpassed those of paperbacks.

"Chinese-all" is a major digital publisher in China. Established in 2000, it's been the country's trailblazer in the field of e-publishing. The company has cooperated with over 400 publishing houses and 2000 established writers to digitize their works. Now they publish 100,000 e-books every year.

They have also released web novels on their websites. Some of their most popular e-novels are now in the process of being adapted into films or TV series.

With about 60 million users, their content is available on a host of smartphones, tablets and PCs.

Tong Zhilei, CEO of E-publisher "Chinese-all", said, "At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009, experts predicted that e-books sales will overtake paperbacks globally by 2018. Next year, the US's Weekly World News will end their print publication, to focus online content. That's the sign of the times."

Tong says the price for e-books can be as low as 2 yuan. And users can spend 30 yuan to freely browse all the website's content.

But industry insiders say piracy is the main obstacle standing in the way of the development of e-books. It's a fight that "Chinese all" is engaged in.

Tong said, "After 12 years, we've been stepping up our fight with piracy. We are cooperating with hundreds of publishers and writers to fight piracy. We use a combination of technology and legal means."

Nearly all major publishing houses in China have dabbed into e-publishing. The Publishing House of Traditional Chinese medicine is one of them. Their first project is to digitize 200 of their books.

Wang Guochen, director of Publishing Housing of TCM, said, "It's a blow to traditional publishing. Technology is changing people's reading habits. In our circumstance, our books on popular science have seen the effects. But we're still not sure what impact it will have in later years.

But it seems some publishers are taking a wait and see approach before expanding their e-book businesses, until technology and laws can better protect the infant industry.

Reporter: "China has a burgeoning e-book market. Young people are the early adopters. And publishers are branching into this field. It's still too early to predict whether e-books will overtake, or even eventually replace paperbooks someday. There's one thing for sure, the e-book market can only be mature if the digital copyright can be adequately protected."