Over 300 million daily page views, at least 34 million words updated everyday, and nearly 100 million yuan annual revenue–this group of figures from "the starting point of Chinese Website" belonging to Shengda Literatures are surprising.
On the day of its establishment last year, Shengda had taken the leading position in the industry. According to its chief executive officer Hou Xiaoqiang, Shengda Literature Site has occupied more than an 80% share of the original literature market.
Click rate surpassed "Xiao Shenyang"
Since the drama show "not lack of money" was broadcast on CCTV's Spring Festival Evening Show, the leading actor "Xiao Shenyang" became famous overnight and turned into the most popular keyword on search engines. On February 11, a keyword "dragon" occupied the top spot on Baidu Chinese search engine list, overshadowing "Xiao Shenyang".
"Dragon" was not strange to people who are fascinated by Internet literature. It was a novel published on Shengda Literature, telling a story of a young man who owned a "dragon ring". It was known as a "Chinese version of 'The Lord of the Rings'" by its fans. At present, the click rate for this novel is nearly 70 million, ranking first in the overall collection list.
3 Comments per second; this is another figure created by "the starting point of Chinese Website". Interactive platforms such as online communities, clubs as well as "Fans groups" have been making Shengda Literature very popular.
TV dramas edited from online novels were also very popular. Before the showing of "My colonel and my corps", Shengda had already got the exclusive Internet distribution rights to the original work. The showing of "My colonel and my corps" stimulated audiences' interest to read the original work. Finally, "My colonel and my corps" gained more than 30 million views and a huge number of comments online.
A wide range of planed activities excited readers intermittently. Following the "tour exhibition of 30 chairmen of the Provincial Writers Association" and "the first global Chinese-language original literature Exhibition", Shengda introduced a family history writing system, providing a platform to write personal history with technical support. People could not only edit their family trees via the Internet, but were also able to write stories for family members and invite family members to write.
The inspirational business model
How could China's original Internet literature website boom up in the Literature business operation conducted by Shengda after 10 years exploration?
Different from the traditional literature websites which put their emphasis on establishing a platform for publishing, Shengda emphasized on building a reading and communication platform. Novels types published on the Shengda website included martial arts, fantasy, and romance and so on, attracting a stable group of reader's everyday. More than 2 million subscribers paying for the service, over 8 million visitors everyday, these figures were 4 times more than Sina Reading Channel. Meanwhile, two branches under Shengda Literature, the male reader oriented website —— "starting point" and female oriented website —— "Jinjiang original" formed a complementary structure, being able to meet the different tastes of audiences.
More importantly, Shengda's business operation model —— paying for writers' works and charging readers solved the livelihood problem which had originally troubled a number of websites. This attempt finally became an industry standard.
You can read for free the first 150,000 to 250,000 words of a novel published on Shengda Literature, the rest of the novel will charge you 3 cents per thousand words. It was this 3-cent-per-thousand-word cumulative, helping to produce 10 writers every year with annual income over one million yuan, 100 writers with annual income over 100,000 yuan and 1,000 writers with annual income over 10 thousands yuan.
"Nuggets dream" attracted an increasing number of Internet writers to join in. Shengda would sign contracts with some excellent writers, which covered all copyrights including publication and adaptation. For some other writers, Shengda only managed their Internet Copyright. At present, Shengda has nearly 4,000 full-contract writers and the total number of writers is about 190,000.
"At present, the pay-to-read mode is accounting for 60% to 70% of the total revenue, and the remaining revenue comes from advertising and copyright. The entire business model may be adjusted in the future." Hou, Xiaoqiang said.
Building the "Online Disney"
In January this year, the "starting point of the Chinese website" announced to sell the game adaptation rights for "Stars Change" for 1 million yuan. Prior to this, the "Ghost Lamp" introduced by "the starting point of the Chinese website" gained great achievements in the field of publication, video and game adaptation. In August 2007, the "starting point of the Chinese website" sold the film adaptation rights of "Ghost Lamp" to Huayin Film Company for 1 million yuan; in September 2008, the online game "Ghost Lamp" developed by Shengda was put into operation. Characters, plot and the environment in the game were all from the novel. So far, the total income of the "Ghost Lamp" copyright has already exceeded 10 million yuan.
"Shengda Literature is not currently positioning itself as a purely literary website." The future plan of Shengda is to dabble in the areas of publication, video games and related products through copyright management and operations, and also in hope that it can foster China's first batch of mobile phone novelists by 3G operation. In addition, we will expand our business overseas. Currently, 30% users of "starting point of the Chinese website" are from overseas. In a certain sense, writers working for "the starting point of Chinese website" are writing in a worldwide language, namely the imagination. Hundreds of thousands of writers are building a kingdom of imagination. Hou, Xiaoqiang is designing a blueprint of an "Online Disney" for Shengda Literature, aiming for the establishing an entertainment kingdom of media, movies and music.
It is understood that Shengda Literature currently has copyright of over 21 billion words of original literature, and has signed contracts with thousands of China's most famous writers. In March this year, Shengda Literature announced that it would spend 10 million yuan to purchase copyrights of outstanding literature works and invest 80 million yuan to build a three-dimensional marketing platform to promote copyright related derivative products.
"We will create a copyright production and trade base on the Internet and mobile phone. Shengda Literature will focus on copyright operations, which include accessing copyright, operating copyright and continuing to promote innovation of its business model and the formation of a user scale as well as further exploiting the functions of the platform." Hou, Xiaoqiang said.
By People's Daily Online
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