Self-publishing: it's exploding in popularity, we all know that, with self-published authors selling millions via Amazon's Kindle, pushing traditionally published authors out of the top spots on new ebook charts, etc etc. But did you know that self-publishing websites are attracting more than 40% of all China's internet users every month? I didn't, and I am reeling, a little, from the statistic.
These aren't Authonomy-esque, publish-and-be-encouraged-by-fellow-writers sorts of sites, though, or even collections of self-published novels. The websites host what is being dubbed "freemium" publishing. Publishing Perspectives has more details: a growing number of self-publishing websites host thousands of free-to-read web serials – anything from historical epics to sci-fi – posted by their authors. As a serial gathers critical mass, the author is invited to become a "VIP", and readers have to pay for the new instalments – only a few yuan, but these micropayments from readers can number in the millions: China Daily reports that one author, the 26-year-old Huang Wei, makes more than more than Y1m a year (£100,000).
"It's pure entertainment, written, downloaded, read and deleted all at top speed," says Beijing-based literary translator and publishing consultant Eric Abrahamsen, who also writes for the Chinese publishing industry newsletter Paper Republic. "Basically all of this writing is genre fiction. It is produced by young writers and aimed at young readers."
And now freemium publishing is coming to America. Publishing Perspectives reports that Shanda Literature, the most popular of the Chinese online publishers of reader-generated stories, is plotting expansion in the US.
Can it really work in the west? We've nothing on an even remotely similar scale here in the UK: there's Unbound, the platform that allows writers to pitch books directly to readers who pledge monetary support if interested, and which launches its first book, Terry Jones's Evil Machines, today – but it is on a much, much smaller scale. There's Authonomy, but that's really a way of showcasing author talent (and potentially attracting the notice of a publisher) rather than making money from readers.
Abrahamsen isn't sure. "Chinese readers are unusually willing to read on mobile devices and other screens, and so the model works," he says. "For this model to work in the west, western readers would have to own devices that they'd be willing to read large quantities of text on. So far, cellphones and computer screens have not fit the bill. The proliferation of more comfortable readers might change that."
He also believes we would need "a much wider base of writers, not just readers", because "the key to the Shanda model is that thousands of writers are producing material at high speed, for low prices," he says. "I'd say the potential for the Chinese model to work abroad is there, but there would have to be further developments, both in the penetration of e-reader technology, and also in large numbers of writers happy to write for micropayments."
I have to say I'm intrigued. Once you're hooked on a story, the micro-payments mean it'd be easy enough to justify paying out for more … but it would all depend, of course, on the quality. Will the best writers of their generation really be hanging out on a serial fiction website? What do you think – would you pay for your fiction in instalments?
