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● From the "1.0 era" of the output of physical copyrights to the "2.0 era" of IP diversification, and then to the "3.0 era" of the layout of overseas industrial formats, the overseas dissemination of online literature has initially achieved a "triple jump", achieving an overall Progressive development with clearer communication paths
● Combining artificial translation with artificial intelligence translation, complementary advantages, or may provide an overall solution for the large-scale overseas travel of Chinese online literary works
● The popular nature of Chinese Internet literature, and the advanced nature of Internet literature transmission in the Internet era, enable Internet literature to carry the Chinese spirit, Chinese value, and Chinese power. It has restructured social life with great imagination and created the ultimate human dream. Reality and artistic imagination merge Eastern and Western literary treasures
In recent years, Chinese online literature has carried cross-cultural dissemination genes. With the advantage of the Internet, it has drawn more attention from readers around the world from domestic to foreign. The spread of Chinese online literature overseas is not only literature, but not just literature. Network literature spreads Chinese culture with unique Chinese expression and Chinese style, conveys Chinese voice, and nurtures the common pursuit of value, realizing the beautiful wish of "Let the world have China, let China have the world".
From accident to necessity
Internet literature overseas "triple jump"
The "1.0 Era" of Entity Copyright Output
In 1991, Huang Yi's Biography of the Great Tang Shuanglong was published in Taiwan, followed by hand-printing in early Internet BBS. In 1994, when the Internet was connected to the mainland, these early published serial novels had a huge impact on mainland network novel creation. Until 1998, sister-in-law Tsai published an online novel "The First Close Contact" on BBS, Taiwan's Cheng Kung University, which quickly swept the mainland and became "the first most influential online novel." Since then, online novels have been published and disseminated with the help of the Internet, which has quickly become popular. Folk nature is surrounded by huge imagination and creativity, which has spawned a large number of authors and works.
Just three years later, in 2001, a group of young authors of the predecessor of the Chinese website "Chinese Fantasy Literature Association" began to expand online novels from Hong Kong and Taiwan physical publications to publishing institutions in Southeast Asia. Road to the overseas dissemination of online novels. Chinese Internet novels in various versions and languages have been collected by many overseas libraries. At the Birmingham Library, Europe's largest public library, an international student who focused on online literature read Bao Jianfeng's Legend of the Magic Knight Hero, published in 2003.
In 2010, the overseas dissemination of Chinese online literature opened a new starting point for "cultural counterattack" and entered a new stage of historical development.
The "2.0 Era" of IP Diversification
More and more creators and readers in China have gathered, and their works have been published overseas and won the first income, so that the forerunners of online literature saw the prospect and hope. In 2003, the starting point of the Chinese website "VIP" charging system was established, marking the establishment of a business model for online literature and the rapid development of Chinese online literature. Since 2010, the export of physical copyrights still leads the way to the sea in this period. In 2011, Jinjiang Literature City signed the first Vietnamese copyright contract, and romance online novels began to go abroad. Hundreds of thousands of online novels such as "Flowering Bone Phenomenon" and "Scared Hearts", "Homeland", "Broken Sky" and "Dolo Continent" were successfully output. 2015 became the first year of Internet literature IP. Beginning this year, the overseas dissemination of online literature has transformed into a variety of literary forms. Many ultra-popular online novels based on animation, film and television, and other literary and artistic forms have gone abroad. For example, the anime "In the past there was a spirit sword mountain", "full-time master" and the Internet TV series "Lang Ye Bang" have landed in Japan and South Korea and other Asian countries.
In 2017, Webnovel was officially launched, opening the strategic layout of “going overseas” for enterprises, industries and industries, marking the overseas spread of online literature into the industrial format output stage. Online literature with online novels as the main body, a model of "purchasing copyrights on websites, updating them on the Internet after translation, and paying readers to read online", as well as "partial authorization of overseas translation websites, massive piracy, online translation, and postponed recovery ", To formally enter the mechanism of" domestic domination, simultaneous updating, multiple layout, and comprehensive coverage. " Under the layout of industrialized output, the spread of multiple literary and artistic forms has increased its implementation and influence. For example, the online novel adaptation "Fuyao" has successfully landed on mainstream video sites in Europe and the United States, as well as in South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, and other TV stations in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The online novel adaptation of the TV series "Martial Universe" was broadcast simultaneously worldwide.
"3.0 Era" in the layout of overseas industry formats
"Starting Point International" is the first literary platform for domestic Internet companies Reading Group to launch paid reading business overseas. Since its launch in 2017, it has accumulated more than 50 million visits; users cover more than 200 countries worldwide, of which more than 50% of users in Southeast Asia, India, and Africa, involving 7 languages; more than 20 partners, promoting overseas industry ecology Construction; nearly 700 works authorized overseas, more than 60,000 comments on the online fan community day. "Starting Point International" pioneered the simultaneous release of Chinese and English bilingual versions of online literary works at home and abroad, reducing the "reading time difference" between Chinese and foreign readers.
In 2017, Chinese Online launched Chapters, a "visual novel platform" in the United States. At present, the number of users exceeds 15 million, with an annual growth rate of 20%, and 5 million monthly active users, becoming the world's top two and China's largest visual novel platform. This platform, with its excellent adaptation and product operation capabilities, has become a successful pioneering venture of Chinese online literature companies in overseas formats. Among them, "Wandering Earth" and "Village Teacher" are widely welcomed.
Vertical and Horizontal Literature established a subsidiary in the United States in 2018, Tapread, and established long-term cooperative relationships with some overseas websites to actively explore the electronic reading markets in North America and Southeast Asia. The works are mainly exported to the United States, India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brazil, Canada, Singapore, South Korea, Romania Waiting for 180 countries and regions.
In 2015, on the basis of 7 years of deep cultivation of the Chinese digital reading market, PalmReader initiated and released an international version called "iReader", which officially started the internationalization journey and became the first domestic reading brand to enter overseas, covering more than 150 globally. Countries and regions. At present, there are more than 20 million overseas users, who can read 300,000 volumes of Chinese content, 50,000 volumes of English content, and tens of thousands of volumes in Korean and Russian.
As of 2019, Jinjiang Literature City has exported more than 3,000 copyrights, expanding cooperation channels in Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Myanmar, Russia, the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries and regions, overseas book publishing, and information networks. The three forms of communication and foreign language audio output were promoted separately, with more than 5,000 adapted works, including more than 500 adapted works in the form of film, television, games, animation, radio dramas, audiobooks and other forms.
Migu Digital Media actively explores effective overseas routes and promotes the innovative project "New Silk Road Book House-Digital Library for Primary and Secondary Schools Overseas" to meet the reading needs of Chinese books in primary and secondary schools in countries and regions along the "Belt and Road" such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. .
In addition, a number of online literature, comics, and audio platforms have diversified and multi-channeled cooperation to accelerate overseas communication. In recent years, online novels and comics have developed rapidly and become popular products at home and abroad. Comics on the Internet literature website are going strong. MangaToon is currently the largest domestic comics overseas platform, with more than 30 million users, and more than 1,000 works in five languages, which ranks among the top in the dozens of countries in the cartoon classification app list.
With the beginning of effective content construction, the commercialization of online literature overseas communication has gradually begun, mainly based on the first successful paid reading system in China that is still playing a core role, and the development of a reading mode suitable for the locality. In addition to promoting the already mature chapter-by-chapter payment model in China, it also adopts the mode of unlocking paid reading chapters by watching advertisements, which matches the different market characteristics of different overseas countries, and has been supported by more and more overseas readers.
Establishing an overseas chain for online literature
From the "1.0 era" of the output of physical copyrights to the "2.0 era" of IP diversification, and then to the "3.0 era" of the overseas industry format, the overseas dissemination of online literature has achieved a "triple-jump" and achieved overall transfer. Progressive development, the transmission path is becoming clearer.
In the "3.0 era" of the online dissemination of online literature, overseas industry formats are mainly divided into three ways: expanding overseas channel copyright cooperation, that is, outputting translated content; creating overseas reading platforms to promote original content at home and abroad; and cooperating with the countries where they are located to strengthen overseas integration IP authorization, combined with a variety of product forms such as film, television, animation, and sound, amplifies the core content of online literature.
The three industrial formats are oriented towards the same goal: to build a complete online literature industry chain overseas to further enhance the international influence of Chinese online literature. Practitioners in the online literature industry are generally optimistic about the prospects for overseas communication. It is the so-called "no competition, only blank space".
From subjective to objective
Internet literature overseas dissemination achieves both internal and external driving
"Foreign Forces": the phenomenon of overseas originality
The overseas industry layout of online literature has brought about a completely new phenomenon, the "original phenomenon" of overseas communication.
The layout of China's online literature overseas communication industry has just begun, and it has been rapidly updated and iterated from a reading portal to a creative platform. In April 2018, Starting Point International tried to open the creative function to overseas users, which meant that the first year of overseas online literature originality was officially opened, and immediately a "foreign force" appeared on China's overseas platforms.
As of now, the starting point for international authors from all over the world constitutes a phenomenal creation phenomenon. These works are diverse in subject matter and content. Most of the worldview structures are deeply influenced by Chinese online literature, and they contain elements of traditional Chinese culture such as blood, struggle, respect for teachers, respect for brothers and brothers, and Chinese online literature. For example, Canadian writer Alya Cross's "Genius, Wife is a Superstar" won the best overseas original recommendation in the 2019 Fengyun List.
Good content value makes online literature works spread abroad. The development and prosperity of online literature, as a unique cultural phenomenon in China, has been sought after by more and more overseas readers, and even inspired overseas creators to devote themselves to the creation of online literature with great enthusiasm. Some overseas readers have developed a strong creative desire after reading Chinese online novels. They write original online novels in local languages on Chinese overseas platforms. This is a new phenomenon both for the overseas dissemination of Chinese online literature and for the creation of local online literature. There are currently overseas authors writing full-time, and the income of these authors can support their choices. The number of overseas online literature creators continues to grow.
In the category of online novel creation, there is a large category called "followers", that is, based on the original story background, content, plot, characters and other elements as the basis, using rewriting, copying, and rewriting to create "derivations". Second creation. For example, the classics of the traditional literature "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", tens of thousands of "followers" works; network literature masterpiece "The Boys Here" and "Gokun Biography", this is the case. In Europe and the United States, such creations are known vividly as "fan fiction." If we take this as an example to observe the intertextuality of online literature creation at home and abroad, it can be said that Chinese online literature has spawned the "follower" phenomenon of the development of overseas online literature.
"Chinese and Overseas Chinese": the leading force in overseas communication
In the early 1990s, a group of overseas students created the earliest "Internet literature works". On April 5, 1991, North American students founded the first Chinese electronic weekly "Chinese Digest", and Shao Jun's "Struggle and Equality" became the earliest online first novels, and they made a significant contribution to Chinese online literature during the hairpin period.
Over the following 20 years, online literature developed rapidly, and a large number of overseas literary translation websites have been spawned. These platforms have played an important role in promoting the spread of online literature translation content. In 2014, the North American online literary translation website "Martial Arts World" was established. The readers' geographical distribution was the largest in North America, accounting for 24%. The Philippines and Indonesia accounted for 8% and 6%, respectively. Readers from more than 100 countries and regions around the world came here to find The online novels they like have a total readership of about 30 million, an average monthly pageview of about 100 million, and daily active users of about 300,000. The Chinese online work "Xiu Luo Wu Shen" has the largest total traffic on the platform. Lai Jingping, the founder of "Martial Arts World" (a pseudonym), is a Chinese literary youth who loves Chinese martial arts novels and today's online fantasy works. He resigned from public office to focus on the operation of "Martial Arts World".
Kong Xuesong, a Chinese American born in the United States, has translated many famous online novels such as "Breaking the Sky" and "Ask Feijian". He founded Gravity Tales, an online literature translation platform. Like Xue Ren, Kong Xuesong loves Chinese culture, martial arts novels, and fantasy webpages. He is also familiar with the expression of English and the tastes of western readers. His unique subjective wishes and objective conditions allow them to lead the trend. With the advantages of the Internet and the public, The trend of cultural globalization has formed a leading force for the overseas dissemination of Chinese online literature.
In addition, many online literature translation platforms and channels in Southeast Asia and European and American countries have played an important role in promoting the spread of Chinese online literature. In the development process, this type of website usually operates by means of advertising, rewards, and crowdfunding. With the further development of overseas dissemination of online literature, especially with the export of industrial formats, domestic self-built platforms for domestic online literature companies have obvious advantages in commercialization with content copyright and operating models, forming a diversified and large-scale development trend and becoming a powerful New power.
"Two translations": a bridge for overseas communication
Internet literature can spread overseas, and foreign languages are an essential medium. How to break the cultural differences between the East and the West and accurately transmit Chinese online literature and traditional Chinese culture is crucial to the spread and influence of online novels overseas.
At present, Chinese online literature is spreading more and more widely overseas. Many works are becoming more and more popular with readers. Translation has played a role of bridge and bond. Overseas local translation teams have become the backbone. The "Annual Promotion of Online Literature Overseas Communication" released at the "Canadian Forum for Internet Cultural Cross-cultural Communication" in 2019, as the world's first overseas commendation of online literature communication, is divided into "Works", "Projects" and "Characters" In the large category, translation is included for the first time in “Outstanding People in Overseas Communication”, and it is placed on the same important position as “work” and “project (type of business)”. For example, the "Endless Fantasy Translations" translation group, when it was founded in 2016, Gamer was the only translator. He translated the internet novel "My Father-in-law is Lu Bu" out of personal interest. The expansion began in 2017. There are now more than 200 translation teams, and there are more than 100 works being translated, covering romance, urban, history, martial arts, and other types. Wonderland has translated the online novel "Xu You Wan Zhang Xing Liang". Since the launch of Start Point International, the total number of clicks has exceeded 300 million, and more than 800 million reader reviews have been received.
Most overseas translation groups are spontaneously set up, from fans to translators and then to team partners. Just like Gemmer, as a fan of "My father-in-law is Lu Bu", before the founding of the starting point International, he translated this work spontaneously. At that time, in the overseas online literature market, stable updates did not form an industry norm. The most popular works were kept up to one chapter a day, and most works were often broken or abandoned. With the opening of the "3.0 era" of the overseas spread of Chinese online literature, the industrial model has been exported overseas. Due to the support of industrial formats, the translation team has grown.
With the continuous emergence of overseas "exploding models" of online novels, excellent translators have also "surfaced." For example, Singaporean Wen Hongwen (CKtalon), as a research engineer who graduated from the American University of Physics, has been translating Chinese online novels in his spare time since 2015. Million words. His translation style is simple and easy to understand, and readers can easily understand the stories of the Eastern World. It is widely sought after by overseas readers and has a large number of loyal fans.
Although online literary works have been translated from the original fans to form a professional translation team in the process of overseas dissemination, there are still huge gaps that cannot meet the needs of large-scale overseas dissemination. The bottleneck of artificial translation is difficult to break through, and artificial intelligence translation is inevitable.
Major domestic Internet platforms have paid attention to and invested in the research and development of artificial intelligence translation. For example, Tweet Technology, as the world's first artificial intelligence translation platform for online literature, has the largest daily content in English novels, focusing on translation production, channel distribution, and content monetization. Currently, more than 2,000 works have been updated simultaneously, covering more than 40 overseas channels. , More than 180 countries and regions. The combination of artificial translation and artificial intelligence translation has complementary advantages, or it can provide an overall solution for the large-scale overseas travel of Chinese online literary works.
From internal cause to external cause
Core force of overseas communication of online literature
"Trinity": Forming a domestic and overseas linkage effect
In 2009, the Office of the Joint Meeting of National Network Literature Key Garden Work was formally established. The office is located in the Chinese Writers Association, which is the first official industry organization in the history of online literature. With this as a sign, online literature with a folk label has attracted the attention of governments at all levels and has been brought into the mainstream cultural perspective. Today, after 10 years of development, online literature organizations led by governments and associations have blossomed. The interaction of government and social forces has played an important role in promoting the production and dissemination of online literature content, the construction of related cultural industries, and the overseas dissemination of online literature.
The popular nature of Chinese Internet literature, and the advanced nature of Internet literature transmission in the Internet era, make Internet literature carry the Chinese spirit, Chinese value, and Chinese power. It has restructured social life with great imagination, created human ultimate dreams, and used reality. Experience and artistic imagination are a fusion of Eastern and Western literary treasures. Behind more than 20 million online literary works are the perseverance of millions of online authors. In front of the super-large works, hundreds of millions of fan readers continue to follow up. Network literature not only highlights cultural and sociological values, but also expresses Chinese experience in world literature coordinates. Internet literature makes the world no longer far away, and the starry sky is still bright. The "Trinity" of authors, works, and readers has converged into the core force of overseas communication.
The network characteristics of online literature production and dissemination make the author and the reader have instant interactivity due to the work. Along with the production and dissemination of online literature content, fan culture has grown. Currently, there are dozens of works with more than one million followers, and the number one in "Shengxu" has exceeded 10 million. The interaction between the author and the reader has entered a new stage of development. The reader group is more iterative, and the "Internet Generation" has become the main body of reading and consumption. They care about society and transcend themselves. They are positively chasing stars, feeling the beauty of the second dimension, giving rewards, voting, and writing reviews, which have become standard for fan readers. The online literature content ecosystem has gradually formed, complementing the IP fan culture ecology of "social reading, community building, and fan co-creation", and it is more and more suitable for the "secondary" communication channel of online literature that crosses the "three-dimensional" national boundary.
The dual interaction between the government and social forces, authors and readers, has effectively promoted the improvement of the quality of online literature content, accelerated the process of refined and classic online literature, and further promoted the overseas dissemination of online literature. After investigation, overseas readers of Chinese online literature have increased by about 30% each year. 40% of readers have been pursuing articles for more than 3 years, and half of the readers have been born after 1995. They are deeply influenced by fan culture. From the perspective of dissemination content, the subjects most popular by overseas readers are "science fiction, romance, and comedy". What is interesting is that overseas readers account for nearly half of their bachelor degree or above. From the perspective of reading acceptance, to a certain extent, there is a trend of popularization and elite integration of the dissemination of overseas excellent online literature content.
The core drive of the production of online literature content on related cultural industries makes the social impact of the online literature industry far greater than the economic benefits. This has intensified the competitive situation of the Internet literature IP market and the cultural industry, and has also strengthened the quality and vitality of the production of online literature content. Throughout the overseas dissemination of Chinese literature and art, the more we recognize good works, the greater the influence abroad and the higher the acceptance. Liu Cixin's science fiction "Three Body" is widely recognized overseas as a typical example. The online literature carrying cross-cultural communication genes, from accidental to inevitable, from subjective to objective, has not only become a contemporary cultural feast for Chinese readers, but also attracted widespread attention from readers around the world, generating strong emotional resonance. In the process of overseas communication, the international influence of online literature has increased significantly. Through the linkage effect of authors, works and readers, online literature has gradually realized the development from literary events to cultural effects and from industrial economy to cultural ecology.
The future is on its way: Chinese stories and world trends
With its leading industry advantages, online literature has become an important business card for Chinese culture to go global. The overseas strategic layout of online literature is taking shape. In the development of overseas communications in the past two decades, several major issues have emerged: translation, piracy, and cultural differences.
Overseas piracy usually includes the translation of a large number of overseas online literature translation websites without the original copyright owner's authorization, and the translation of overseas literature platforms and channels of online literature companies. Translation problems are mainly manifested in the difficulty of meeting the complex multilingual language needs and the precise requirements of content. The problem of cultural differences is reflected in the wider the overseas users, the more prominent the cultural differences.
The above three questions are all generated around the core of the content. From another perspective, it shows that overseas readers and practitioners attach great importance to the content of online literature. From accident to necessity, from internal cause to external cause, the new creative ecology is closely related to the industrial ecology at home and abroad, which determines that the overseas dissemination of Chinese online literature is the only way for development.
The overseas dissemination of online literature is achieving diversified and large-scale overall growth from content to model, from region to global, and from output to linkage.
With the further development of overseas dissemination of Chinese online literature, from the perspective of industrial formats, China ’s online literature overseas platforms and channels have become larger and larger, and a large-scale industrial ecology has initially formed. From the perspective of the format, the diversified, Multi-modal communication has become mainstream; from the perspective of content development, the core value and creative characteristics of online literature are brought to the world with a creative model that is constantly updated and interacts with readers, helping more people who love writing to realize their dreams; from the perspective of development trends More readers around the world are not only attracted by the "literature created in China" of online literature, but also can read the "literature created" by local culture with local cultural characteristics and meanings.
The above shows that overseas communication strategies for Chinese online literature that are adapting to the times, the world, and cultural trends are emerging. Chinese online literature, which reflects strong cultural self-confidence, has inherited the excellent traditional culture and pedigree of China, absorbed the essence of western fantasy literature, brought Chinese spirit, Chinese values, and Chinese power to the world, and has expressed deep concern about the "community of human destiny". Literary imagination and hope are given to the common future of mankind.
This is an unprecedented Chinese story. This is a huge Chinese story. This story spans thousands of years and crosses five lakes and four seas, from ancient myths to the other side of the ocean. The vision of ideal life and the beauty of homeland brought by the creation of online literature have nurtured the pursuit of value shared by the world. All this points to a clear future: the overseas dissemination of Chinese online literature will play an increasingly important role in promoting the exchange and mutual learning of world civilizations.
(Author: Xiao fleeting, the Department of Chinese Literature Writers Association Network Center researcher, China Writers Association, vice president of network research literature)