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Recently, the Chinese Writers Association announced the list of new members in 2016 on its official website, China Writers Network, and Lin Tingfeng (pen name: Bao Jianfeng), senior vice president and editor-in-chief of China Literature, and Hou Qingchen (pen name: Yizhi), vice president and deputy editor-in-chief of China Literature, became the latest online literature representatives to join the China Writers Association.

As the first generation of representative writers of online literature, the works of Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen were very popular in the early days of online literature, and became the first batch of representatives of mainland online literature to be published in Taiwan and best-sellers, and some of their creative elements are popular today.

But compared with their works, what the two are more familiar with is their long-term influence in online literature as content experts and their legendary experience-

They are the founders of "fantasy".

In 2001, there was a lot of quarrel on the literary websites of the time over the "fantasy" that had just appeared. Eventually, the traditional faction prevailed, believing that ill-defined fantasy achievements were limited, and that the popularity of the Internet was merely an accidental phenomenon caused by the novelty of readers, which would soon fade.

But there is a group of people who don't think so, including Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen.

As a fantasy author, Lin Tingfeng insists that originality, especially the innovation value of fantasy, is huge, and it will definitely become a new mainstream of reading after martial arts.

Therefore, he took out the salary he had saved and the first remuneration for publication in Taiwan, and found Hou Qingchen and others, whom he had never met, to create the website of the "China Fantasy Literature Association" to justify the name of fantasy.

This website is the predecessor of the 12th year of dominating the industry.

With the Internet's distribution capabilities, the newly born genre has proven to attract more than 100 million users, including a large number of non-Chinese readers. Works such as "Douluo Continent" and "Breaking the Sky" are popular to this day.

The business model they created allowed writers to say goodbye to poverty

In May 2002, the Fantasy Literature Association revamped, which is different from other websites, because of the insistence of Lin Tingfeng, Hou Qingchen and others, they only do online originality - there is no traffic weapon OCR, and there is no electronic version of the book.

With the addition of Wu Wenhui, Shang Xuesong and others, it quickly became a top-notch website in the industry, but Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen were deeply worried that people who wrote part-time would eventually have to succumb to life, and as their creative interest faded, their works were largely interrupted. This means that readers will run out of books at any time and are in danger of falling into a vicious cycle.

Different from the mainstream view, Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen have always opposed the practice of using physical publishing as a way out for online literature, insisting that the Internet is the first distribution channel in the future, and online literature must create an online business model.

For this reason, Lin Tingfeng almost became a lone soldier at the industry conference in Guangzhou. Even writers are against it, fearing that paying for it will lead to the loss of users, which in turn will make the work lose attention.

From a general business point of view, peer considerations are justified, and at this point there is no viability of commercialization in sight – users have little copyright awareness and few payment habits.

However, Lin Tingfeng and others believe that the value of online literature is unprecedented, and it is completely possible to pry open up the paid market, and writers can bid farewell to poverty through the Internet. In order to give writers peace of mind, we developed a strategy in the early stage of commercialization in which all the proceeds were given to the writers and the website was not shared.

The website was not divided, which meant that all the operating costs needed to be self-funded, which meant great pressure for the founders, who were just ordinary employees at the time, and had almost zero access to financing.

For this reason, Lin Tingfeng mortgaged his own property.

Facts have proved that Lin Tingfeng and others have made the right choice.

Because of the success of the starting point business model, it solves the basic problem of the survival mode of online literature, directly determines the prosperity of the entire online literature industry, and a basic ecology is born.

This also made the websites that originally lacked confidence in the online commercialization of online literature follow suit, but because of the gap in concept, execution or strategy, the leading edge of the starting point has been continuously expanded.

In the second year after commercialization, the first million-dollar writer of online literature was born, and it became possible for writers to bid farewell to poverty. According to the annual report of online literature, in 2015 alone, there were more than 100 new writers with a salary of more than 500,000 yuan, and the rich list of online writers has entered the era of tens of millions of dollars.

The writer welfare they created created countless "great gods"

In the early days of commercialization, although the number of users is growing rapidly, it is still difficult to achieve the generally high returns of writers. There are still many authors who give up writing because of the meagre profits. Faced with a situation, Lin Tingfeng proposed a writer's benefit, which is directly subsidized by the website for low-income writers. For the starting point, which has just been acquired, this decision requires a lot of courage. Because at that time, the Internet would not have been as tolerant of subsidies as it is now. Lin Tingfeng blushed with people more than once, and after blushing, he explained while developing first.

Later, in an interview, Lin Tingfeng said that the development was very fast at that time, and if it weren't for the author's background, he might not have thought much about supporting things. It now seems that always understanding the creator is a core of the success of Lin and his team. On the other hand, it is also the reason for the failure of some online literature or many UGC content platforms.

After the writer benefit was launched, it was widely acclaimed, and in a short period of time, almost half of the writers on external websites came to the starting point.

According to the writer's saying, money is secondary, and the writer's welfare reflects an attitude and determination.

Later, in response to the different needs of the online writer group, in addition to subsidies, Lin Tingfeng added a series of measures such as incentives, guarantees, and rewards, and finally formed the current industry standard for writers' welfare.

The introduction of this system has laid a solid foundation for the establishment of a writer's ecology. A large number of writers who are currently popular on the Internet are the beneficiaries of this system.

After the writer group was stabilized, Lin Tingfeng began to pay attention to the higher-level operational needs of writers. In 2006, they launched the Platinum Writers System.

Up to now, platinum writers have become the symbol of the top "gods" of online literature, and the familiar readers are all platinum writers.

At the peak, the top 50 works on the Internet were all from the starting team. At present, most of the most well-known writers on the Internet are from the excavation and training of Lin Tingfeng's team.

According to the online author, "becoming a god" can only be achieved on the website operated by Lin Tingfeng's team.

They make editors more than just reviewers

Traditionally, literary editors are often picky drafters, and the main content of their work is to accept submissions, review manuscripts, use manuscripts, reject manuscripts, and revise manuscripts.

But for online literature, it is clear that a different kind of editing is needed.

While Lin Tingfeng was concerned about ecology and institutions, Hou Qingchen began to establish an editorial system. From discovery, cultivation to promotion, a mechanism for the production and operation of online literature has been gradually realized, and the role of editors has also been repositioned.

In this system, editors are more than just reviewers. Instead, he became a writer supporter who was an editor, broker, product manager, and account manager.

The editor is responsible for the core work of the writer's work, such as discovery, guidance, positioning, promotion, etc., from the plot content to the marketing activities, which are all the editors' concerns, and even includes alleviating the writer's life troubles.

It's a combination of relationships that has never been seen before.

This is also what Hou Qingchen, who has been squatting on the side of the road with the author for more than ten years, lending money to the author, and attending the writer's wedding and funeral, emphasized.

Their attempts ahead of the curve always indicate the direction of the market

2015 is known as the "first year of IP", but what many people don't know is that Lin Tingfeng, Hou Qingchen and others began to try IP operation ten years ago - but it was not so lofty at that time.

In 2005, the game "Legend of Little Soldiers" developed by the starting point was launched, and although the game was extremely rough, the love of countless book fans caught everyone off guard, causing the game to be paralyzed.

The idea was verified, and Lin Tingfeng, Hou Qingchen and others began the journey of copyright operation of online literature, and many records of adapted works in the industry now come from them.

There are many other similar situations, such as the starting point WAP station in 2008, the fan system in 2009, the star writer operation in 2014, and so on.

Almost all of these systems, models, and even functions have become the standard or standard configuration of the online literature industry.

They are bullish and almost represent market approval

Until now, Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen still maintain the habit of reading books for nearly 10 hours a day. It's a love that comes from the heart, and it's this love that has made them the industry's recognized chief content expert.

When every value theme appears, Lin Tingfeng, Hou Qingchen and others can grasp it as soon as possible. For example, the new science fiction represented by mechas, the exploration represented by "Ghost Blowing the Lantern", as well as other worlds, secular history, and so on. These books, which were originally considered unpopular and not even the editors were sure, could give the resource input of popular works, and even give the price to the top writers at the time for newcomers.

This requires professionalism and, above all, self-confidence.

According to Bao Jianfeng, in the past decade, he has managed the largest reserve of works and writers in China, and if he does not maintain professionalism and self-confidence, he may miss a large number of geniuses and classics - "equivalent to a crime".

"We can't afford not to miss a genius, but we do have a way not to waste the talent of most people, and that's to be in awe of creativity and keep learning. Hou Qingchen, who is in charge of editing, also mentioned his original intention at a meeting.

The second time they started a business, they successfully won back their old club

For people other than industry professionals, Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen's professional experiences are as wonderful as their novels.

An archivist of a vehicle management office and a sales manager, in a voice of impossibility, have become a representative of China's local model and an industry with great prospects.

What's even more legendary is that they broke the law that the second entrepreneurship of the Internet is mostly unsuccessful.

In 2013, because of the disagreement of the original concept, Wu Wenhui, Lin Tingfeng, Hou Qingchen and other co-founders of the starting point left en masse, and it once became the news reported by the financial media. Everyone is curious about their comeback.

After a year of silence, Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen became the content helmsmen of the new company, Tencent Literature.

It only took one year for Tencent Literature's core data such as sales and subscriptions to set a new industry record, and compared with the old club that was stagnant, the gap was only accumulated.

More importantly, they once again took the pulse of the industry's upgrading, Tencent Literature took the lead in transforming and industrialization, and the operation of online literature suddenly had a completely different way. A group of young gods and even newcomers quickly became famous, and created a completely different height than before.

In 2015, Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen returned to their own hands.

The background of this return is that Tencent Literature merged with Shanda Literature.

This kind of experience has hardly happened in China's Internet industry.

In the newly formed China Literature Group, they continue to be in charge of the largest content reserve and writer group of online literature – bigger than ever before, and they are beginning to challenge a bigger future.

Perhaps, joining the Chinese Writers Association is also a beginning.

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