http://sh.. cn/n2/2016/0803/c134768-28775670.html

People's Daily Online, Shanghai, August 3 -- Recently, the Chinese Writers Association announced the list of new members in 2016, and Lin Tingfeng (pen name: Bao Jianfeng) and Hou Qingchen (pen name: Yizhi) are among them. These two are known as the "sword intent twin heroes" in the online literature industry, and this move of the Writers' Association shows that online literature is increasingly favored by mainstream institutions, and online writers not only have a large number of fans on the Internet, but also have been recognized by professionals.

The founder of "fantasy literature".

In 2001, "fantasy literature" only came to the fore on the Internet, and at that time, major literary websites debated the future of "fantasy literature". Traditionalists believe that "fantasy literature" is just a flash in the pan, and that the popularity of the Internet is only an accidental phenomenon caused by readers' pursuit of novelty, which will quickly subside. However, Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen firmly adhered to another opinion, and Lin Tingfeng, as a fantasy author, insisted that "fantasy literature" has great innovative value and 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 publishing in Taiwan, China, and found Hou Qingchen, who he had never met, and others to create the website of the "China Fantasy Literature Association" to correct the name of "Fantasy Literature".

This website is the predecessor of the later online literature giant.

It has proved that with the distribution power of the Internet, the newly born genre of "fantasy literature" has attracted more than 100 million readers, including a large number of non-Chinese readers. Works such as "Douluo Continent" and "Breaking the Sky" are popular to this day.

Let writers say goodbye to poverty

Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen insist that part-time writers will eventually succumb to life, and that as creative interest fades, their work will be largely interrupted. This means that readers will run out of books at any time and end up in a vicious circle.

Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen have always opposed the practice of using physical publishing to find a way for online literature, insisting that the Internet is the first distribution channel in the future, so online literature must create an online business model.

For this reason, Lin Tingfeng almost became a lone soldier at the Guangzhou industry conference that year. 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 point of view, the considerations of the peers made sense – users at the time had little copyright awareness and few payment habits.

However, Lin Tingfeng and others believe that the value of online literature can completely 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 initially developed a strategy that all the proceeds would be given to the writers and the website would not be 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. But now it seems that Lin Tingfeng made the right choice.

Writer Welfare has 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 someone who has just been acquired, this decision takes 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.

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 support. 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. Many online writers have said that money is secondary, and writers' 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, the site launched the Platinum Writers system. Nowadays, among the platinum writers, the writers who are widely known to readers include Tang Jiasanshao, Tian Silkworm Potato, Mao Greasy, Chen Dong, Feng Ling Tianxia, etc.

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.

Editors are no longer just reviewers

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.

Start a second business and successfully win back your old club

For people other than industry professionals, Lin Tingfeng and Hou Qingchen's professional experiences are as wonderful as their novels. They used to be an archivist of a vehicle management office and a sales manager, and in the midst of impossibility, they became representatives of the local model of Chinese online literature, an industry with huge 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. 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 the ones they founded.

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, in the era of cultural and creative integration, they can pay more for online literature.