Writers chase their authorial dreams online(2)

Mainstream literature, represented by serious writing, is still reaching readers through traditional publishers.

"Economically, printed books account for 99 percent of the consumption of serious literature, especially in Chinese. So, for serious literature, there must be a traditional publishing house and a traditional writer and even if the author decides to publish online, it must be based on traditional publications," said Chen Yikan, an editor at the Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

For both readers and writers, this is the best time, but also the worst. Indeed, professional online literary websites can provide a "nobody" with the space to share the fruits of their imagination and even make a good living from it. However, the low quality threshold of the online literature world leads to a mixed bag of authors, many of whose works are home to bad taste, arid language and illogical plots.

"Online literature is like an extension of the blogs that were extremely popular years ago. Anyone who wants to share their ideas can write their own novel," said Tan Hao, who is also working on a number of online projects.

Many of Yang Hao's acquaintances are online writers. "I know an elderly lady who spent most of her life in the army. She's telling the story of her life online. That's the best thing about the Internet. It's open to everyone," he said.

The possibility of a rapid rise to fame and fortune that online writing promises is attracting more hopefuls to the game. In 2012, the highest-earning online writer was 32-year-old Zhang Wei, whose nom de plume is Tangjiasanshao, which means The Third Son of the Tang Family. He began his writing career in 2004 and has since written 13 novels of about 30 million characters in total (in China, books are measured by the number of characters, not pages). From 2007 to 2012, his total income was 33 million yuan, he said.

Mo Yan, born in 1955, published his first book in 1981. Media reports suggest that he earned 21.5 million yuan in 2012, making him the second-highest-paid Chinese writer last year. However, while in Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize, Mo refuted the reports and said, "On hearing the news, I went to the bank to check my account, I wondered disappointedly where all the money had gone".

There are more than 100 registered online original literature platforms in China, and Cloudary, one of the country's largest professional online literary platforms, is home to more than 1.6 million writers, according to Securities Daily.

"It's hard to estimate exactly how many online writers there are in China because there are so many large and small online channels. With such a large number, it's inevitable that outstanding writers are rare and the average quality is low," said Tan.