globe.
Gravity Tales, for example, is the second largest translation web-
site after Wuxiaworld, with a team of over 50 translators. Currently,
apart from 21 Chinese web novels in translation, Gravity Tales also
has an original story category, where seven original novels by six writ-
ers including Tina Lynge Hansen are serialised, such as A Dragon’s
Curiosity, Aethernea, How to Avoid On a Daily Basis, Blue Phoenix and
Overthrowing Fate.
“Each of these seven works more or less has traces of Chinese web
novels. Some are heavily influenced by Chinese novels in plot design,
and some directly set the story’s background in China,” Goodguyper-
son, the founder of Gravity Tales, told China Arts News.Marching Abroad
Chinese web novels are becoming a huge force in shaping the land-
scape of China’s popular culture.
According to a 2015 survey by the Digital Publishing Bureau of the
State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television
(SAPPRFT), the number of web novel readers in China has reached
over 300 million. By the end of 2015, the Top 30 web novel sites had
around 8.48 million registered writers in total, 1.5 million of whom
are contracted. The Yuewen Group, the biggest web novel platform in
China that owns eight websites, has 4 million registered writers and
10 million fiction works.
“Due to China’s unique publishing history, the Chinese web novel
industry has swallowed the largest piece of the commercial cake –
genre fiction – which was supposed to be set on the plates of the
printing press,” an assistant lecturer at Peking University’s Chinese
Department, Shao Yanjun, said in her speech at the second Chinese
Webnovel Forum in September 2016.
Shao indicated that, in the era of print publishing, in contrast with
the fully-fledged commercial publishing industry in Western coun-
tries, China has failed to develop a healthy production system for
commercial fiction. It is the Internet that has given Chinese genre fic-
tion an outlet to grow and prosper. After a dozen years of wild growth,
Chinese web novels have become a unique cultural phenomenon that
cannot be found in any other country.
Now, Chinese online fiction has been seen by Chinese media and
industry players as the major driving force to march into the Western
cultural market.
“For the Chinese web novel industry, the English market is incred-
ibly huge. It can be said that it is a window of opportunity worth
billions of dollars,” Wu Wenhui, the CEO of the Yuewen Group, said
in an interview with China Arts News.
As Wu explained, the main mode of cooperation between the
Yuewen Group and the overseas market is through the sale of digital
and publishing copyright. Since 2004, Chinese web novel sites underYuewen have authorised the translation and publishing of about 200
novels in 20 countries, particularly in Thailand.
Wu points out that in the future, the Yuewen Group will learn from
the successful “Marvel Model.” “Besides the copyright sales, we will
explore more and more original brands of web novels, adapt them
into TV dramas, games and animations and promote them abroad,
making China a new engine of cultural exports,” Wu said.
From the perspective of Lai Jingping, China becoming a global cul-
tural superpower like the US and Japan is “an extremely long mara-
thon that might at least take 15 or 20 years to realise.”
“China still has millions of miles to go to catch up with Japan in
terms of its cultural impact on the Western world. Chinese pop cul-
ture exports to the West are just at the beginning phase like Japan in
the 1980s. Japan has spent twenty years planting its pop culture in the
West. China needs to have the same patience,” Lai told ChinaReport.
Web novels and related adaptations have dominated China’s do-
mestic cultural market. Lai stressed that a significant reason behind
this huge success is that Chinese web novels do not have competi-
tors domestically. Nevertheless, if Chinese web novels march towards
the Western mainstream market, they will come up against extremely
powerful rivals and very picky consumers.
“Western readers have over 200 years of genre fiction reading his-
tory. They have great writers and works. Since they have too many
alternatives, they are much pickier than Chinese readers,” Lai said.
As he went on to explain to ChinaReport, length and poor quality
of many webnovels are two biggest problems that turn Western read-
ers away.
Compared with Western genre fiction, Chinese web novels are
vast. Since the income of Chinese web novels heavily depends on
readers’ subscriptions and donations, the more an author writes, the
more money they may get. This means Chinese web novels are usu-
ally incredibly long, many with hundreds of chapters and millions of
words, sometimes tens of millions of words. “It is tolerable to read one
updated chapter or two every day. But once the novel is printed, it’s
hard to predict whether Western readers are willing to buy such giant
volumes,” Lai said.
Moreover, Chinese web novel authors are more concerned about
length and the rate at which they release new chapters, meaning qual-
ity is usually sacrificed. Many novels are poorly written, loosely struc-
tured and filled with repetitive tropes.
Lai argued that it is vital for Chinese web novelists to improve the
quality of their works so as to better face the severely competitive glob-
al market. “Currently, our readers are still tolerant about some draw-
backs of Chinese web novels because these works are free of charge
and still new to them. But when the craze fades, how can Chinese
writers maintain these readers who grew up with the books of J. R. R.
Tolkien and George R. R. Martin?” Lai asked.Photo by cfp