On 23 April 2022, the 27th World Book Day arrived as scheduled. Here, you may wish to go back to 1995...
On 15 November of that year, UNESCO officially designated 23 April as World Book and Copyright Day. Its purpose is to "promote more people to read and write, hoping that all people can respect and thank the literary, cultural, scientific and ideological masters who have made great contributions to human civilization and protect intellectual property rights." ”
It was also in that year that internet cafes appeared Chinese mainland. The first online Chinese poetry journal "Olive Tree" was founded by Shi Yang and Lu Ming and others in March of that year; at the end of the year, several female authors who published works on the Chinese Poetry Network founded the first online women's literature journal "Tricks"...
The history of human reading may be equivalent or equivalent to the history of human civilization. But perhaps it is not a coincidence that when reading needs to be marked with a fixed day in the world, almost the same as digital reading appears in the reading world Chinese, and the starting gun of history is heard together - today, 500 million Chinese people have joined the ranks of digital reading and become the backbone of reading for all.
Recently, Reading Group, together with the National Library, Shanghai Library, people's literature publishing house, people's post and telecommunications publishing house, Peking University Press, China Youth Publishing House and other hundreds of publishing units to promote reading for the whole people. From April 22 to May 21, the Reading Group's Starting Point Reading APP opened the "Reading Month for All", limiting more than 200 paid good books for the first time, covering more than 20 major categories such as literature, novels, biographies, and economics. It is also reported that as a partner of the 2022 National Library 4.23 National Reading Promotion Activity, reading group will also provide some good books of the Wenjin Award for free for a limited time. During the "National Reading Month", the starting point is also about to usher in its own 20th anniversary and brand upgrade, the starting point will be "good books" as the core of the brand, through subscriptions, reviews, admission, IP film and television, but also hope to continue to incubate and promote excellent online literature and literary works, become a "good book on the cloud library".
"The core of reading, or the foundation of the text, is the production of digital content and digital reading, and we are tied to reading every day. Taking this opportunity to share and communicate with everyone is a rare opportunity. "On April 21, in the living room of Beijing, Cheng Wu, CEO of Yuwen Group, made such an opening statement." This year's government work report also proposes to 'enrich the spiritual and cultural life of the people and thoroughly promote reading by the whole people.' We checked, this is the ninth time since 2014, 'reading for all' has been written into the government work report. ”
Cheng Wu at the 2021 Reading Annual Press Conference.
Build a library "on the cloud."
After 70, graduated from the Department of Physics of Tsinghua University, Cheng Wu's other identity in the university era was the business leader of the drama team of the Tsinghua University Art Troupe. "Teacher Liang Xiaosheng's 'In the World', more than a million words, I read it through paper books." He also recalled with great interest, "Before every exam in college, all the people in our dormitories got together to read 'Jingu' (Jin Yong Gulong). But today's young people and children, they have become accustomed to reading through various Internet media and electronic products, through mobile phones, iPads, computers. ”
Poster of "The World of Man"
He joined Tencent in 2009, initiated the "pan-entertainment strategy" with IP as the core in the industry in 2011, and promoted the establishment of Tencent Literature in 2013. Cheng Wu remembers that when Tencent Literature formed a master advisory group, it invited four traditional writers, Mo Yan, Su Tong, Ah Lai and Liu Zhenyun, "What touched me was that they were highly optimistic about digital creation, digital publishing and digital reading." They believe that whether it is a brush, a pen, a ballpoint pen, a pencil, or the Internet, they are different tools and communication mediums for creation. They believe that the Internet will definitely improve the efficiency of creation, improve the efficiency of communication, and then improve the efficiency of communication. ”
"Traditional publishing, book club meetings are very difficult to organize. But on the Internet, everyone comes to the reading banner, whether it is the starting point reading APP or QQ reading, everyone can read and communicate at any time. Many online literary writers say that in the process of creation, he will incorporate readers' feedback and suggestions into his creation. For readers, plots, characters, stories, they can comment at any time, at any time to participate. When digital reading has more than 500 million users and is the backbone of reading for all, the change in the form of interaction is a very important component. Cheng Wu said.
Borges once said, "If there is a paradise in this world, it must be like a library." One of the things that Yuwen has done in the past 20 years is, in a sense, to build an online library, or a library on the cloud. "There are a huge number of books under the umbrella of Reading, not only the online literary works of the past 20 years, but also a large number of published books." Cheng Wu shared that on the reading platform, the most popular traditional published book in 2021 may not be thought of by many people, which is the Analects.
In 2021, the number of readers of the Analects reached 30 million, and more than 80% of the readers were under the age of 30. "Contemporary young people have a strong interest in traditional Chinese culture, but how to present it in a more convenient way and in a more vivid form is crucial. In the comment area of our Analects, there are people who answer questions, there are people who learn new things from the past, and wisdom and young people who are thousands of years ago collide with each other, and I think this is a particularly good new form. In fact, not only "Analects", "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Journey to the West", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and other four famous works in 2021 are the top 20 "favorite published books" of readers, starting point reading and QQ reading APP users. Similarly, modern and contemporary literature, including the works of writers such as Lu Xun, Lao She, Yu Hua and Chen Zhongzhong, is read by nearly a million times a year. "Da Liu's work 'Three-Body Problem' has reached 1.6 million user collections on the single platform of qq, a subsidiary of the Reading Group."
"These fully illustrate that as long as it is a good book, no matter which historical period the work is, it can release its charm on the current digital reading platform." In fact, in order to promote reading for the whole people in depth and in the long run, in addition to providing readers with more classic and good books that have passed through the ages, culture must be inherited, it is necessary to live endlessly, and it is also necessary to have excellent new works to write the current people's thoughts and feelings into works. For us, continuously supporting and helping current writers, using the model of online literature to continuously create and incubate good books, and meet the spiritual and cultural needs of the masses, which is closely related to the mission and vision of Reading, but also the starting point of Reading Chinese Network is the 20th anniversary of its establishment, and the direction of continuous efforts. Cheng Wu said.
How to build a steady stream of good books
In Cheng Wu's view, the core of testing a good story is whether readers can resonate and empathize. "User emotional verification is the foundation of a good book. In 2021 alone, our starting point reading APP has a number of "double million" books with more than one million subscriptions and more than one million reviews, such as "Naming the Night", "Starting from the Red Moon", and "Stargate". We think these head works are very typical representatives, condensing the reader's emotions and testing the market. ”
"We also have hundreds of online works in the National Library of Tibet, including "Qing Yu Nian" and "Langya List" rooted in traditional culture, realist works focusing on China's industrial development, "Big Country Heavy Industry" and "Material Empire", "Great Doctor Lingran" and "Chaoyang Police" that depict the professional life of ordinary people. There is also good news, soon after, these good books born on our platform, in addition to our National Library of China, will be collected by more libraries with world influence. ”
Poster of "Celebrating the Rest of the Year"
"Big Country Heavy Industry"
To Cheng Wu's delight, more and more young writers are creating good books. According to statistics, among the new writers who read articles in 2021, more than 80% of the writers after 95. Mei Shiniang, a two-time Winner of the Galaxy Award, and Mei Shiniang, a writer who won the Grand Prize of the Realist Theme Online Literature Competition, are all excellent post-95 writers. In 2021, 60% of the new readers of the starting point reading APP will also be post-95. "Young writers and readers represent digital reading, digital creation, and creative vitality like starting point reading, so we believe that the diversified themes, imagination and innovation ability of good books are also evolving with the addition of more and more young authors and readers."
"When we have a good book, the text has unlimited imagination, but the text is not intuitive enough, we hope to be able to link the entire industry through the ability to read the whole industry chain, to achieve IP full link development, so that the good story is endless." Cheng Wu took the novel "The World of Man" as an example, "Teacher Liang's book was officially published at the end of 2017, and the team recommended it to me at the beginning of 2018, saying that they hoped to develop it. In 2018, we got the official authorization of Mr. Liang and his publishing agency - the film and television adaptation rights for 8 years. After four years of development, Tencent Pictures initiated and co-produced the main controller, Yuwen and Xinli Media, and officially launched the new year drama "The World" on CCTV on the 28th of last year, setting a new high in the ratings of CCTV's golden file in the past eight years, and also ranking first in the various lists of the whole network. ”
Such an epic poem spanning the lives of the Chinese people spanning 50 years, the protagonist of the novel, Zhou Zhigang, was born in 1920, Zhou Bingyi and Zhou Bingkun were after 40 and 50, and Zhou Nan and Feng Yue were after 70 and 80. "They let the post-50s, post-60s, post-70s, post-80s audience empathize and move, what was not expected was that the drama "In the World" also circled a large number of fans after 90, 95 and even 00. I don't know if you have seen the bullet screen, the plot has come to nearly thirty years, many bullet screens are saying, 'This is the year I was born', 'I will be born in another five years' and so on. Good stories and good emotions are common to all human beings. After the TV series was broadcast, many viewers chased back teacher Liang's book from the TV series, and the novel "The World of Man" landed on the major best-seller lists. ”
Another example is the more familiar "Celebrating the Rest of the Year". In 2007, "Qing Yu Nian" began to be serialized, which was the top five in the history collection list at that time, and gathered a community of more than 3 million readers in the starting point reading APP. "This work is also a work that we built over a four-year period and aired at the end of 2019. The popularity of film and television dramas has promoted this novel that has been completed at the starting point for more than 10 years, returning to the first place in the best-seller list of the starting point reading APP, and also helping the book usher in many physical publications. ”
Protect the creative ecology and promote the sustainable development of reading for all
"For online literature and literature, we believe that creators are the source of reading for all. On the one hand, in the past, we have continued to build a writer's ecology and activate the writer's creative power. On the other hand, we also actively protect intellectual property rights, safeguard the productivity of writers, and consolidate the sustainable foundation of reading for all. "Cheng Wu said that in the two years since he took over the reading of literature, after more than a year of writer ecological construction, reading has formed a healthy, young and sustainable writer ecology." As I just said, 80% of the new writers who read last year were post-95s, and the number of mid-waist writers increased by more than 30%. A healthy creative ecology must have a steady stream of fresh blood. ”
As we all know, in terms of copyright protection, since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the state has always attached great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights. "Under the guidance of policies and authorities, we have always made copyright protection a priority for the Group. In recent years, we have knocked out the pirate website Pen Fun Court, which is not a website, but a synonym for a series of pirate websites. We cooperated with national law enforcement and knocked out more than 60 such websites. Through our complaints, tens of millions of infringing links were removed, and we also cooperated with the competent authorities to smash thousands of pirated apps and file rights protection lawsuits for more than 1,000 works. ”
At the same time as the achievements, Cheng Wu also admitted that he is in the position of front-line work, and the piracy control of online literature still faces many challenges. "Especially with the development of the piracy industry chain and new technologies, the low cost of breaking the law and the high cost of rights protection are the core difficulties of online literature and infringement. Many authors also feedback with us, you find it, to sue, the protection cycle is very long. In 2021, in the monitoring of reading articles, we only sampled 10 key books, and found a total of more than 200,000 pirate sites, with 1.6 million infringing links. ”
"As an enterprise, what we are most distressed about is to see many excellent writers, especially many writers who write realistic themes and writers who write relatively niche and innovative themes, and these backbones have greatly affected their income and creative mentality because of the infringement of piracy." In the incomplete statistical survey of the article, the number of writers affected by piracy in 2021 will reach 60,000, and there are probably nearly 10,000 works that cannot be continuously changed because of piracy. "This year, we ourselves have officially elevated copyright protection to a strategic height that is vital to the company." We ourselves will invest 10 times our manpower and resources to explore the ecological co-governance of copyright protection. ”
Technology breakthrough and national co-governance is the way cheng Wu gave a solution in this regard, "Under the upgrading of artificial intelligence, encrypted watermark and other technologies, we hope to open up the resources of the whole company, establish an intelligent anti-piracy middle platform, and comprehensively strengthen the attack and defense system." In addition, at the request of writers, we have also joined forces with the industry to gather a wide range of readers and authors to build the 'Sunshine Reading - National Anti-Piracy Alliance' to promote the public collection and handling of infringement clues." We are confident that under the ecological co-governance of government leadership, participation of the whole people and technological empowerment, as long as we attach great importance to it and work together, the phenomenon of piracy in the field of digital publishing and digital reading will certainly be well curbed, and the innovation and vitality of China's cultural industry can also go to the next height. ”
From the sea of works to the sea of IP ecology, "conveying Chinese understanding of goodness and beauty"
From good books to good stories, from words to IP, the two help each other and live endlessly. The IP ecological chain enriches the form of reading with multiple carriers such as audio, animation, comics, film and television. At the sharing meeting, the surging news reporter asked, when domestic hit dramas such as "Son-in-law", "The World of People", and "Flowing Golden Years" compete directly with excellent works from other countries on overseas platforms, what may be our advantages and disadvantages?
Poster of "Son-in-law"
In this regard, Cheng Wu replied that China's good stories are becoming more global good stories, from reading by the whole people to reading globally. "Over the past few years, we have been promoting the overseas version of The Beginnings Reading overseas, called Webnovel. We already have 2100 good Chinese online literature works, which have been translated and read all over the world. ”
In his view, online literature is China's leading model, "In addition to works going to sea, we have created an 'ecological going to sea' model, so that these overseas readers with creative intentions can be transformed into writers and create overseas original online works." Starting Point International has attracted and cultivated more than 200,000 overseas creators, more than 370,000 overseas original works have been launched, and we also have editors who communicate directly with overseas creators overseas. In 2021, we did the Webnovel Spirity Awards, the annual global prize-winning essay campaign, which garnered nearly 80,000 works from around the world, with 68% of the works coming from new writers. ”
"In addition, Yuwen is also actively exploring 'IP ecology going to sea'. For example, the film and television dramas based on the IP adaptation of online text, "Qing Yu Nian" and "Son-in-law", and works adapted from Yi Shu's original works such as "Flowing Golden Years" have also gone overseas through reading articles. The most important thing about Chinese stories going global is the story and the work itself, bringing Chinese's understanding of life, perception of life, and feelings for life, and the characteristics of Chinese and the understanding of Chinese to the world. Cheng Wu said.
Undoubtedly, to build a community with a shared future for mankind, in addition to material connection, more importantly, emotional communication. For each other's traditional culture, values and feelings, the best way to have a deeper understanding is through the joint efforts of high-quality literary works and film and television works. "The young people of the moment see Captain America, they see Marvel, they see Disney's family fun, that's how Americans understand life. We Chinese our understanding of life, the traditional culture of Chinese, our wisdom, and the way we treat life, like Fan Xian's court poetry, Fan Xian's recognition of Ye Qingmei's spiritual pursuit, like the five streets named in the light character film this time in "The World of Man" - Ren Yi Li Zhi Xin, like Zhou Zhigang, Zhou Bingyi, Zhou Rong, Zheng Juan, Zhou Bingkun, Chinese the inner nature of not avoiding difficulties and being kind to people, these are the Chinese characteristics displayed in our literary and artistic works. The core is the essence of Chinese culture, full of Chinese understanding of goodness and beauty. Cheng Wu concluded, "We can be pleased to see that these contents have received very positive feedback overseas." That's where our strengths lie. ”