Industry insiders and fans discuss China’s web novel craze, its origins, and the impact of AI
Web novels are booming in China right now. According to research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one in three people regularly read them, and 24 million people have published online literary works since 2023. This has created a prosperous online literature market worth 40 billion yuan (5 billion US dollars).
Some 30 years after China officially connected to the internet, it’s not just e-commerce and social media that have taken off—it also birthed a vast online literary world independent from the traditional publishing industry for people of all ages, educational backgrounds, and walks of life. Some of the biggest movie and TV hits in the past decade were adaptions of web novels, fueling new IPs.
In this podcast episode, host Aladin Farré talks to three industry insiders and observers about the evolution of the industry, the intense experience of writing and publishing amid furious competition online, as well as the future of the industry, especially with the recent rise of generative AI.
Aladin Farré is the founder and host of Middle Earth Podcast and a contributing writer at The World of Chinese.
Liu Jue is the co-managing editor of The World of Chinese Magazine. She has a Master of Arts in Communication from Middle Tennessee State University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Minzu University. She has been working for TWOC since 2012. She is interested in covering history, traditional culture, and Chinese language.
