Economic Observer reporter Ren Xiaoning
On December 5, the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association (hereinafter referred to as the Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association) released data showing that in 2022, the overseas income of online literature will be 406.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3987%。
This is the data obtained by the Music and Digital Association after calculating the income of more than 40 leading online literature enterprises. A person in charge of the Association said that online literature is China's original Internet content service, and it is the fourth largest cultural phenomenon in the world after Hollywood movies, Japanese anime, and Korean TV dramas.
The main platform for online literature to go overseas is Starting Point International. As of October 2023, there are about 2200 million people, covering more than 200 countries and regions around the world. Among them, the United States has the largest number of readers, and France has the fastest growth in readers.
Among the overseas online literature readers, young people are the main force, and the number of Generation Z readers (post-95 and post-00 users) accounts for nearly 8 percent. The maximum monthly consumption amount of a single user is $7,230, and the average daily reading time of a user is 90 minutes.
Online literature writer Gongzi Yan (pen name) has a ** that is popular overseas, ranking third in the international sales list of the starting point. She revealed to the Economic Observer reporter that at present, overseas income accounts for nearly half of her income. Overseas income mainly comes from readers' tracking and rewarding, and this income is very stable, and now every two or three months, there will be an overseas settlement.
Gongziyan has a number of ** translated into foreign languages for overseas markets. She mentioned that the popular overseas hit ** has a strong sense of the times, and the love story is well written, and the children in the text are cute, which is what readers all over the world will like to read.
After the increase in overseas income, Gongziyan also made some writing direction adjustments. In the past, most of the scenes in her ** took place in China, but now she will let the protagonist go abroad to make overseas readers more immersed.
Another online literary writer swept Tianya (pen name) The work "Tiandao Library" has been read in overseas markets 1800 million people. Sweeping Tianya also mentioned that his overseas income has been equal to his domestic income, and he believes that overseas income will be higher than domestic income in the future, "The exchange rate difference is obvious, the same book, the same charging model, overseas readers pay US dollars, domestic readers pay RMB, the difference between the two is nearly 7 times." ”
Xiong Xiaoyi, commercial director of Mintegral China, a marketing platform that goes overseas, told reporters that the main forms of monetization of online literature going overseas are internal purchase channels such as membership recharge, article reward, subscription and paid reading. At present, markets such as Europe, the United States, and Southeast Asia are the main monetization positions for online literature.
In terms of customer acquisition, Mobvista Data Research Center found that in terms of the amount of advertising materials in October this year, compared with short dramas and long dramas, the overseas advertising scale of reading applications, including online literature, is larger, and the customer acquisition offensive is also more rapid.
There are more than 3,600 Chinese online literary works released to the global market on the starting point international platform, and the highest one has more than 4 hits500 million times. These online literary works have been translated not only into English, but also into Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German, French, and many other languages.
The total number of online literary works in China exceeds 34.58 million, and there are still very few translated works that go overseas. Hou Xiaonan, CEO and president of China Literature, said that they are improving efficiency and productivity through AI (artificial intelligence) translation. In the past, translation mainly relied on manual work, and only a few chapters could be translated a day, but with AI, thousands of chapters can be translated a day, and the translation cost has dropped by 9%.
Charn, co-founder of Ookbee, a Thai digital content platform, shared that there are currently three popular Chinese online literature categories in Thailand, including martial arts, romance and fantasy. Thailand also has cases of online literature adapted into film and television works, and the more popular ones are revenge and romance IPs.
At present, a number of original online literature writers have been born overseas. According to the data of the Music and Digital Association, there will be 400,000 international overseas online literary writers at the starting point in 2023, of which post-00 writers account for 423%, has grown into a creative backbone. Overseas writers are mainly located in the United States, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and other countries, and there are about 610,000 original works overseas.
Jks Manga, an online literature writer from the UK, mentioned that in overseas markets, online literature is a new way of writing, and writers can no longer sell their works in bookstores through agents, and online literature allows writers to have more ways to make money.