Recently, the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the "2023 China Online Literature Development Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which analyzes China's online literature industry from the aspects of value positioning, content themes, creative ecology, IP industry and "going overseas". Develop new trends.
The "Report" pointed out that in 2023, the scale of China's online literature "overseas" market will exceed 4 billion yuan, with approximately 620,000 overseas original works and approximately 230 million overseas visiting users.
The “national trend” is gaining momentum
In 2023, the team of Chinese online literature authors will continue to expand, the influence of readers will continue to increase, and the scale of the industry will reach a new level.
The "Report" shows that by the end of 2023, the number of online literature authors in China has reached 24.05 million, the number of online literature works has reached 36.2 million, and the number of online literature users has reached 537 million, a year-on-year increase of 9%.
According to the 52nd "Statistical Report on China's Internet Development Status", the number of Chinese Internet users is 1.079 billion, and nearly half of China's Internet users are online literature users.
Behind the data is a closer connection between online literature authors and readers.
In recent years, as the "national trend" culture has become popular among young people, online literature authors have followed this trend and focused on intangible cultural heritage, folklore, historical stories, etc., and continue to promote the integration of traditional culture into diverse themes.
"The Table of the Tang Dynasty" focuses on traditional cuisine; "Dongting Tea Master" relies on tea culture to tell the story of modern entrepreneurship; "I Didn't Want to Become an Immortal" is interspersed with storytelling, wood carving, iron flower craftsmanship and other intangible cultural heritage elements.
In 2023, the first "Reading and Seeing Intangible Cultural Heritage" essay contest hosted by Prince Kung's Mansion Museum and China Literature Group received a total of 60,000 works on intangible cultural heritage, involving 127 intangible cultural heritage projects such as Peking Opera, wood carving, papermaking techniques, and lion dance. .
The "Report" pointed out that "national trend" writing has become the trend of online literature creation in 2023.
Reviewing the online literature creation over the past year, another highlight is that realistic themes have reached new heights.
"Blueprint for a Great Power" describes the technological innovation of underwater robots; "Iron Bones" tells the story of China's railway reform and development with the construction of Ningxi High-speed Railway as the background.
The 7th Realistic Theme Internet Literature Essay Contest, supported by the Shanghai Municipal Press and Publication Bureau and hosted by China Literature Group, received 38,092 works, a year-on-year increase of 26%. "Reality+" themes have entered the creative vision of more and more Internet literature authors.
"In the past year, many writers with successful experience in writing 'genres' have begun to incorporate a large number of realistic elements into their new works, which has implications for the integration of online literature and real-life themes." said Li Wei, a professor at the School of Literature at Nanjing Normal University, " Some works integrate crop planting technology, and some integrate fencing, shooting, swimming and other sports elements, making the plot design of the work more touching and the characters more resonant with young readers."
Speed up IP conversion
In 2023, Tang Jia San Shao's "Douluo Dalu" content category development will usher in fruitful results: animation playback volume exceeded 50 billion times, offline real-life theme space landed in Chengdu, Sichuan, linkage with the 2023 China Tennis Open for cultural and sports crossover, IP derivative products Won 3 global awards.
The success of "Douluo Dalu" is the epitome of the continuous acceleration of the IP transformation of online literature.
Data cited in the "Report" show that as of the end of 2023, the scale of the online literature IP market has jumped significantly to 260.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly 10 billion yuan.
At the same time, IP adaptations of online literature have also seen important changes: on the one hand, traditional literary adaptations and original dramas have become popular; on the other hand, micro-short dramas have become a new trend, and the serialization trend of game and animation adaptations has also increased significantly.
"Horse" opened high and warmed up, and "Flowers" ended successfully. 2023 is a year of recovery and overall improvement for the film and television industry.
The high-quality development of the film and television industry and cost reduction and efficiency increase have effectively driven IP film and television adaptations this year.
Among the TOP20 list of Yunhe Data's "2023 Hot New Drama Series All Effectively Played Screen Domination List", more than half are adapted from online literature.
Among the top five in Guduo's "Average Popularity List of Dramas Broadcast in 2023", "Sauvignon Blanc (Season 1)", "Lotus Tower" and "Long Moon Ember" adapted from online literature occupy three places.
It is worth mentioning that animation has become a mature track for the adaptation of online literary IP.
57% of the animation works broadcast by Tencent Video are adapted from online literature IP; among the 39 works announced by iQiyi, 22 are adapted from online literature IP; in the list of the 2023-2024 National Creation Animation Conference at Station B, online literature IP works account for 43%.
In recent years, micro-short dramas have developed rapidly.
The "2023-2024 China Micro-Short Drama Market Research Report" released by iiMedia Consulting shows that the scale of China's online micro-short drama market is 37.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 267.65%.
Online literature provides important adaptation resources for micro-short dramas.
Among the 13 works in the top ten (including ties) of new short plays at the box office in the "2023 Annual Short Drama Report" released by Yunhe Data and other institutions, 10 works were adapted from online literature.
"Feng Yue Chang" adapted from online literature was simultaneously broadcast on Sohu Video and Mango TV, becoming the first micro-short drama to be broadcast on stars.
In the future, AI technology will bring huge changes to the development of online literature IP.
Yang Chen, vice president and editor-in-chief of China Literature Group, said that the functional reach of AI will bring added value that cannot be underestimated in online literature creation.
The maturity of the "AI+IP" series of technologies will greatly release IP development capacity and promote the upgrading of the online literature ecology.
Translate "Go overseas with one click"
"The Library of Tiandao", which is popular among Internet writers, has been translated into English, French, Spanish and other languages, and has been read overseas more than 180 million times; the audio radio drama adapted from Zijin Chen's "Bad Boy" has been published in Swahili The mobile client "Spark" and "International Online" Swahili website have over a million views; on the Russian translation website Rulate (collective translation system) with the highest participation among Russian readers, "Shura Martial God", "Full-time Mage", etc. The works have been viewed more than 20 million times...Globalization is gradually deepening, becoming a highlight of the development of China's online literature in 2023.
Internet articles, games, and film and television have become the troika of “cultural exports”.
Axler, a Dutch young man born in 1985, is an overseas online writer and one of the earliest authors of Qidian International.
His mecha novel "God of Machinery" has been written on this website for 6 years and is still being updated.
"What makes me happiest is reading the sincere messages from fans. They have spent thousands of hours reading my works and are willing to accompany me in writing, which is very encouraging to me." He said that he also reads Chinese online novels, "They gave me a better understanding of Chinese society and Chinese people." There are many overseas online writers like Axler.
As of the end of 2023, Qidian International alone has trained approximately 410,000 overseas online writers from more than 100 countries and regions around the world.
In the process of online literature "going overseas", the influence of derivative products such as film and television, animation, radio dramas, micro-short plays, etc. has become increasingly prominent.
The second season of the film and television drama "Celebrating More Than Years" became the first domestic drama on the Internet to have over 10 million reservations, and the exclusive overseas distribution rights have been pre-purchased by Disney; the film and television drama "Tian Geng Ji" topped iQiyi Thailand and Japan; read Wen's first IP-adapted game product independently published overseas, "Fights Breaking the Sky: Raging Clouds", was launched in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
With the continuous deepening of the application of new technologies, "one-click global translation" and "global update tracking" have become new trends in translation "global translation".
With the help of AI, online literature translation is breaking through the limitations of production capacity and cost.
On the one hand, the translation efficiency has been greatly improved, from the average daily translation of more than ten chapters to the average daily translation of thousands of chapters, and the efficiency has increased nearly a hundred times; on the other hand, through the establishment of a dedicated thesaurus for human-machine cooperation, the average translation cost has dropped by more than nine become.
In terms of content quality, AI translation works also perform well, with many works becoming Qidian’s international best-sellers.
Tong Ye, CEO of Tweet Technology, believes that in the future, through human-machine collaboration to optimize translation quality, Chinese online literature will go overseas more smoothly.
Zhang Pengyu (Source: People’s Daily Overseas Edition)