(Ecns.cn)--The 2011 "China's Richest Writers" list was made public Monday by West China City Daily. Guo Jingming, a post-80s writer of adolescent literature, reclaimed the crown with 24.5 million yuan in copyright royalties.
Also similar to last year, the annual list revealed a sharp reduction in the commercial performance of "serious" writers and a corresponding increase in sales of works for teenagers.
A pop idol voice for the new generation
Young, rich and flamboyant, Guo portrays himself as the voice of a new generation.
"Before me, Chinese authors were pretty old. Today's young people don't understand life depicted by older authors. They like my work because it's by a writer of their own age and about stuff very close to their lives," Guo told Louisa Lim, a reporter with National Public Radio (NPR)，during an interview in 2009.
For all of their over-the-top melodrama and brand name dropping, the contemporary urban settings depicted in his novels are far closer to the reality of his readers' lives than the harsh countryside of China's modern classics, Guo said to The New York Times in a telephone interview.
Guo, 28, was born in Zigong, Sichuan Province, to an engineer father and a bank clerk mother, and is now more of a pop idol than a writer. As Lim described in her report, "Guo poses for pinups, drives a Cadillac and sometimes takes bodyguards to book signings to protect him from the devotion of his young female fans."
Yet Guo's "cross-dressing, image-obsessed" persona is by no means universally loved. In 2008, he was voted China's most hated male celebrity for the third year in a row on Tianya, one of the country's biggest online forums.
His works have also been attacked for commercialism and narcissism, the very criticism often directed at China's generation of only-children under the one-child policy, pointed out Lim.
However, it was that style of writing that helped him win recognition from the talent scouts in the first place. The editor of Guo's first novel "City of Fantasy" published it exactly because it would appeal to the lonely children of the country's one-child generation, according to a story in The New York Times.
Booming young market
Guo is followed on the list by authors Nan Pai San Shu (the penname of Xu Lei, worth 15.8 million yuan) and Zheng Yuanjie (worth 12 million yuan). All three share one thing in common: they are idolized by China's young generation.
Most of Zheng's readers are about 10 years old, according to a survey published in the West China City Daily. Kids around 15 are Guo's biggest fans, while the 20-somethings follow Xu's work.
"Currently, readers in China are mainly composed of young people from 8 to 18 years old, who want to gain new knowledge, get to know society and widen their experience through reading," concluded Li Bo, a famous publisher. "Seven of the top 10 writers on this year's list made their fortunes from juvenile readers, which set a record for this kind."
The millionaire authors owe thanks in part to rapidly-developing e-commerce websites that have boosted book sales with various marketing strategies, pointed out the West China City Daily.
With incentives such as discounts and rebates, Wang Xi, vice president of Dangdang.com, one of China's leading e-commerce websites, revealed that his company holds up to 30 percent of the market share in top-selling books.
TV serials spun off from novels have also promoted book sales. Guo Jingming has signed a contract with EE-Media, a subsidiary established by Hunan Satellite Television specifically to distribute records and music productions, to filmize his popular novel "Tiny Times," which describes the lives and loves of four female university students.
J. K. Rolin has set a good example for this. With the Harry Potter films, the fantasy book series occupied the top three spots on numerous bestseller lists for an extended period.
