Tencent’s China Literature wants to woo 100,000 American and Canadian writers
- China Literature, the country’s biggest web novel publisher, plans to boost its North American business with English works
- Online fiction has proven to be a profitable business in China
China Literature, a subsidiary of tech giant Tencent Holdings, has been churning out profits from one of Chinese netizens’ favourite pastimes: reading serialised novels. Now it is trying to export that proven business model to the rest of the world, with plans to double the number of its North American writers in 2021, the company’s head of international business Sandra Chen told the South China Morning Post.
“We aim to grow the number of North American writers to 100,000 this year,” said Chen, who leads Webnovel, the overseas business unit of China Literature and the name of its English-language website.
Webnovel’s renewed push comes as the number of overseas readers of Chinese web fiction is forecast to grow from 32 million in 2019 to 49 million this year, according to business consultancy iResearch.
While China Literature and IReader Technology – the country’s second largest e-publisher backed by search engine giant Baidu and TikTok owner ByteDance – are both active in translating Chinese web novels into foreign languages, Webnovel is now betting on English works written by native authors to reach more international readers.
Launched in 2017, Webnovel currently has around 100,000 writers – a tiny fraction of the 9 million registered on China Literature’s bevy of platforms. Fewer than half of Webnovel’s authors come from North America, Chen said.
Last year, the platform hosted 200,000 novels, according to financial results posted by the Hong Kong-listed China Literature last week. In comparison, China Literature had 13.9 million literary works across all its platforms.
By boosting the number of North American authors, Webnovel hopes to crack a key market that has shown a strong demand for literature and a willingness to pay for content, Chen said. The priority is to develop a “big enough pool of good content”.
“We hope to attract not only amateur writers, but also traditional writers, including screenwriters, to join [Webnovel],” she said.