38.93 billion! This is the money Chinese spent on web articles last year.
Not long ago, the "2022 Research Report on the Development of Chinese Online Literature" released by the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences made an inventory of the current online literary market: the cumulative number of online writers exceeded 22.78 million, and the post-95s and post-00s have served as the main writers; The number of users reached 492 million, almost every three Chinese there was one web literary user, and the number of overseas access users of online literature exceeded 900 million.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that web writing is a big secret business. Who is paying for web articles? How does the web novel platform work? What is the real treatment of writers?
On May 27, the 2023 China International Internet Literature Week opened in Hangzhou, and web writers and online writers once again entered the public eye, and Chao News reporters chatted with a number of industry insiders in an attempt to unveil the mystery of "web literature".
A monthly income of 50,000 is the top of the industry
Most writers have less than $2,000
Post-00 web writers earn 100,000 a month? On social platforms, you can effortlessly search for the salary of many web writers, it seems very common for the monthly income to exceed 10,000, and there are many people with a monthly income of 100,000, is it really so good to earn writing online articles?
In 2017, when she earned 30,000 yuan a month from writing, Ye Xinger quit her training job. Before that, she went through a three-year transition period.
"It is not easy for this industry to make money, especially in recent years, it has suffered from the cold winter of online literature, the impact of short videos, and the involution of writers is also very serious. It is said on the Internet that someone earns 50,000 a month, if it is true, it is considered a super god. Ye Jinglinger told Chao News reporter, "As far as I know, 98% of the authors in this industry have a monthly income of less than 2,000 yuan, which is a very deformed pyramid." ”
Photo courtesy of interviewee
In the sweet potato network under Palm Reading Technology, Ye Ellinger can be regarded as a head writer. In addition, she is also a resident writer of China Internet Writers Village, and a member of Zhejiang Provincial Writers Association and Zhejiang Provincial Internet Writers Association.
"For writers at our level, it's no problem to work a little hard to get over 10,000 monthly manuscripts, but it's not easy to have 100,000 manuscript fees every month." Ye Jinglinger told reporters that the income is mainly manuscript fees, channel fees and IP copyrights, "As long as it is a good work, it will always make money, of course, a good platform and promotion are also very important." ”
In the online literature rivers and lakes, the older platforms include Qianqi, Jinjiang, etc., the rise of emerging web literary platforms, the emergence of reading platforms such as Migu, Seven Cats, Tomato, Palm Reading, Feilu, and 17K; There are also active layouts on platforms such as Zhihu and Lofter, which mainly focus on the short and medium-story online novel track, and Zhihu has even opened up independent reading apps for novels on its platform.
There are many platforms, and the competition for signed authors is also very fierce.
Newcomer author Santu has studied the advantages and disadvantages of various platforms, and he said that the old Jinjiang literature is a "female frequency text" ceiling, with a large flow of readers, but it has formed a circle and is not friendly enough for newcomers; The starting point Chinese network is mostly fantasy and fairy positions, and there are mostly "male frequency texts", and it is relatively difficult to sign a contract; Seven cats Chinese network focuses on romance, immortal cultivation, and crossing directions, tomato novels and Migu are a hundred flowers, all kinds of literary styles, the signing difficulty of these three platforms is low, you can sign a contract with 20,000 words + outline, the manuscript fee is transparent and fast, and it is quite popular with newcomers.
In the end, Santu chose to be stationed in Migu, he said, "On the one hand, Migu's awards are too many to count, such as full attendance awards, recommendation awards, tips, etc., and each part of the income will be displayed in the form of 'salary slips', which is very clear and transparent." ”
According to his understanding, on Migu, the proportion of authors with more than 10,000 manuscripts can reach 60%, which is the height he can work hard to reach. On the other hand, Migu pays more attention to the cultivation and improvement of authors, which is also a place for Santu, "Some platforms are pure fighting big data. And there will be income distributed throughout the network, and my books can not only get manuscript fees on this site, but also get a share of external channels. ”
Paid and free models co-prosper
The end of the industry is filmization
This is a time when everyone can create. 22.78 million authors, some became famous overnight, some worked silently, and some left sadly.
After the fire of this year's "Three-Body Problem" film and television drama, Xiao Cui, a Hangzhou office worker who was obsessed with science fiction, was determined to write a novel related to aliens, but when he was about to write 100,000 words, he suddenly gave up.
Xiao Cui told Chao News reporter: "I created a tomato novel under today's headlines, the platform set the rules, mastered the entrance of traffic, wrote to 20,000 words to sign, to 80,000 words will give you recommendation, exposure, but only a small range, within seven days to write 100,000 words, only to start the whole network recommendation." ”
This is equivalent to 80,000 words ago, Xiao Cui was almost "fighting alone".
"No matter how well you write in front, there is no traffic, there is no money." Xiao Cui said that traditional novels may be written or serialized first, while the model of online literature is different, according to the quality to give you traffic, and then through the work to attract other traffic, "Now many online novels are free, its main income is advertising." ”
In addition to free novels, online literature also has a paid model. The "2022 China Online Literature Development Research Report" pointed out that in 2022, the paid and free models of online literature will show a situation of common prosperity.
"You have to spend money to buy books, and I think it's normal to pay for online literature." Long Yu has been a reader of online literature for more than ten years, spending hundreds of yuan on the platform every month.
Ye Jinglinger told reporters: "My readers are mainly post-80s and post-90s, and they will also choose to pay. I also met bank executives at the event before, and I was pleasantly surprised, with readers following more support and writing more motivated. ”
In addition to the manuscript fee, Ye Elfinger pays more attention to copyright fees and IP film and television. At present, her "Street Dance Boy" derivative IP has been developed by Zhejiang Street Dance Alliance.
"A well-written novel can have hundreds of thousands of dollars in income, and subsequent copyright fees will continue to be divided, which is a thin and long-term process. The money-making model of large-scale novels has not been advocated by the industry, and it has focused on boutique creation in recent years. Ye Elf'er said.
A still from "Knife in the Snow"
The above report also shows that among the top 10 popular dramas on mainstream video platforms such as Tencent Video, Youku, and iQiyi in 2022, paid web text adaptation of film and television dramas accounts for nearly 50% of the total, which has become an important source of film and television adaptation.
"Most of the online articles are paid, and there is the sale of copyright." Xiao Xu, who is engaged in the film and television industry in Beijing, told reporters, "Well-known big authors in the industry, novels will be bought when they are still in the synopsis stage, and their bargaining power is relatively high." For example, in 2018, Jinjiang signed the author Mo Xiang Tongwei's novel "Heavenly Official Blessing" sold for a sky-high price of 40 million, but few people can now offer such a high price. ”
The 2017 online writer list once showed that the copyright fee of Tang Jiasanshao, who ranked first, was as high as 130 million yuan for just one "Douluo Continent".
The performance of listed companies on the web declined
Embrace AIGC to break the game
The tens of billions of online literature market, through film and television operations, has reached a scale of hundreds of billions.
According to statistics from third-party organization Analysys, in 2022, the overall scale of China's online literary IP full-copyright operation market, including publishing, games, film and television, animation, music, etc., will exceed 252 billion yuan, and it is expected that this scale will exceed 300 billion yuan by 2025, with an annual growth expected to exceed 10 billion yuan.
In the capital market, web literature and its upstream and downstream industry chains, including comprehensive suppliers such as Literature Group, Chinese Online, Palmyue Technology, Tencent Holdings, content publishers such as Pingzhi Information, Rongxin Culture, Reader Culture, and Guomai Culture, as well as IP derivatives such as Huanrui Century, Guangguang Media, and Simei Media.
From the perspective of the regional distribution of listed companies in the web novel industry, Beijing has the largest number of listed enterprises, and there are many advantageous enterprises such as Palmyue Technology and Chinese Online; Zhejiang, Guangdong and Shanghai are the next three places, Zhejiang has high-quality content platform enterprises such as Guomai Culture and Pingzhi Information, Guangdong relies on the advantages of Tencent Holdings, the parent company of WeChat Reading, and Shanghai Literature Group's Starting Point Chinese has a large number of high-quality online novel resources.
Source: China Literature Group's official website
Chinese Online, Palmyue Technology and Literature Group are the three traditional listed companies of online literature, listed in January 2015, September 2017 and November 2017 respectively, of which China Literature Group is a Hong Kong stock.
Chao News reporters inquired about the "2022 China Online Literature Development Research Report Draft" and found that in 2022, the scale of the domestic online literature market increased by 8.80% year-on-year.
However, affected by the free novel APP, the competition in the online novel industry has become increasingly fierce, and the performance of the three traditional online novel listed companies has declined to varying degrees.
In 2022, the Group's total revenue was RMB7.63 billion, down 12.03% year-on-year. Non-IFRS-based net profit attributable to owners was RMB1.35 billion, up 9.6% year-on-year, a slower growth rate than in 2021. Among them, the online business revenue of China Literature Group was 4.364 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 17.79%.
In 2022, the revenue of Palmyue Technology will be 2.582 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.71%, and the net profit attributable to the parent will be 57.5772 million yuan, down 61.77%.
Chinese online performance declined the most. In 2022, Chinese Online achieved revenue of 1.180 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.78%; net profit -359 million yuan, down 347.92% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was -362 million yuan, down 466.44% from the same period last year.
It can be found that the life of traditional web novel companies is more difficult, especially under the impact of the current AIGC (generative artificial intelligence).
It is worth noting that since the beginning of this year, the stock prices of Chinese Online, Palyue Technology, Literature Group, Reader Culture, Guomai Culture, and Pingzhi Information have all risen sharply, and Chinese Online has even hit a five-year high. Most of these companies have caught the concept of AIGC (Generative Artificial Intelligence).
Web literary companies and AIGC love and kill each other, accept and use for themselves. As stated at this year's performance briefing, the company will fully embrace the wave of AIGC and accelerate the optimization of AI large models in the vertical field of digital reading.
(Source: Chao News)