CREATe Working Paper 2019/02

Shen, X; Williams, R; Zheng, S; Li, Y; Liu, Y; Gerst, M

Abstract

Online literature is very popular in China today. There, online literature can roughly be divided into two parts. First, there is the literature written by ordinary writers and posted directly on the Internet. Second, there are digitalized versions of existing literature, which are digitalized from traditionally published and printed books. Many books are made into PDF versions or other kinds of digital versions for mobile phones, Kindles, and other reading devices. Many people want to read digitalized copies of printed books simply because the storage devices are much smaller than paper books, and are much easier to be taken everywhere, or because they are more eco-friendly.

In this report, we will mainly discuss the first kind of literature, and call it “internet literature”. Internet literature works are published and printed as paper books after they become very popular, but in this report, we categorize all the works that are firstly re- leased on the Internet as “internet literature”.

Download: Online Literature in China