Has China found the future of publishing? ⇢

infoneer-pulse:

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.”

» via The Guardian

Considering the global impact of any innovation anywhere on the planet it is important to keep track of these kind of seemingly odd phenomena. Who knows where this idea will spread tomorrow…

5 November 140 infoneer-pulse

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1. zboremanlow reblogged this from infoneer-pulse
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8. rawheistnyc reblogged this from emergentfutures and added:

   Awesome

9. prodigalme123 likes this
10. joyvox reblogged this from emergentfutures and added:

    This takes the idea of blogging and takes it to a whole new level…

11. afrospraykueikuei likes this
12. cfeush reblogged this from emergentfutures and added:

    we’re unable to control it by citizens.

13. cortibah likes this
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15. dbloom reblogged this from emergentfutures and added:

    This Guardian piece below outlines what seems like a completely reasonable and sustainable extension of lesser trends...

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25. nnebeluk reblogged this from infoneer-pulse and added:

    So, as always, the pulp novel lives on.

26. catstorms-word reblogged this from infoneer-pulse
27. ajroach42 reblogged this from infoneer-pulse and added:

    It’s a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

28. This was featured in #Tech
29. This was featured in #Lit
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