DIGITAL books are changing traditional publishing models everywhere. In America and Britain, the rise of electronic books is the cause. China's revolution is different.
“I can't identify any popular literary trend that didn't originate online,” says Jo Lusby of Penguin China. Although e-readers are still scarce, the internet has greatly affected reading habits. Chinese people increasingly read books on phones, tablets and laptops. People under 30, who are most likely to own such devices, are the most avid readers, says Eric Abrahamsen, a Beijing-based publishing consultant.
The result has been an outpouring of mass-market fiction, written (and read) on websites, not in print. Five years ago internet publishers were typically informal, back-room outfits, but Shanda, an online gaming company, seized the commercial opportunity and now owns most of the literary sites. It sells subscriptions by the chapter or book, by the week or month. Online novels start at around five yuan ($0.80) compared with 30 yuan for an average printed volume.
Some of the newly popular online genres, such as romance, exist everywhere. Others could be termed fiction with Chinese characteristics: grave-robbing stories, for example; official corruption fables involving scheming cadres; and time-travel books where 2,000-year-old warriors pop into a contemporary Beijing disco.
Some of this online material makes it into book form. Print sales, dominated by the country's 580 state-owned publishing houses, are now worth 44 billion yuan ($7 billion). But growth has slowed from 10% a year in 2007 to around 5%, according to Yang Wei of OpenBook, a market-research firm. Like many online start-ups, Shanda is not yet making money out of web books, although revenues are growing.
The internet has also changed the way that books are promoted. China has relatively few bookshops so cultural networking sites such as Douban.com have proved good at targeting new readers. Few writers make much money, online or in print. The handful of stylish novelists who do have become celebrities. Guo Jingming, a 28-year-old with six novels in 2011's top 20 list, manages a group of young writers whose magazine Top Novel sells 400,000 copies a month. Han Han, a 29-year-old novelist turned racing-car driver, has a popular blog. Mr Han rose to fame cleverly tweaking the authorities without running foul of the censors. Today's edgy writers, such as Murong Xuecun, can steer around the censors with their online writing, then make necessary cuts in their print editions. Most authors give the censors no trouble. They know where the line is drawn.
The proliferation of television channels has created a new stable of authors, and books by television hosts populate bestseller lists. Many are self-help titles. Bai Yansong, a state television presenter, shot up the charts with “Are You Happy?”; and the popularity of “Why is our Life so Hard?”, a book by a talk-show host, Lang Xianping, says much about people's concerns that they are not better off, despite a booming economy.
Some foreign titles win commercial success. Stieg Larsson's “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” trilogy has sold more than 100,000 copies in Chinese. Yet publishing is a local affair, and even translated titles may be trumped by more popular Chinese imitations. Dan Brown's “The Da Vinci Code”, for example, has been outstripped locally by his Chinese counterpart, He Ma, whose ten-part “Tibet Code” unearths ancient Tibetan Buddhist secrets.
電子書的興起正不斷改變著傳統紙質出版的商業模式，世界各地莫不如是。在美國和英國，電子書（如kindle）的崛起是主要原因。而在中國，這場出版業的革命似乎有著截然不同的發展路徑。
“在我看來，幾乎所有流行於市面的文學讀物都脫胎于網路原創作品。”企鵝出版社中國分公司的Lo Lusby這樣表示。儘管線上讀者群還是小眾，但網路顯然已經影響到了中國人的閱讀習慣。手機、平板電腦和筆記型電腦逐漸成為中國人閱讀的載體。Eric Abrahamsen是一位長期在北京工作的出版業顧問，他表示，在中國，上述電子設備的擁有者多為30歲以下的年輕人，他們對書籍的渴望也最為迫切。
但是，紙質出版業並沒有從這些熱切的讀者身上獲益太多，相反，暢銷小說的創作和閱讀，往往集中在網路上。5年前，網路出版商還處在遊擊狀態，默默無聞。但是，在最初雜亂無章的網路文學市場中，遊戲產業出身的盛大公司捕捉到了商機。現在，盛大公司憑藉擁有最多原創文學網站，已經在業內首屈一指。盛大的經營模式是，允許讀者訂閱全書或其中部分章節，或按月、按星期收費。閱讀一本網路小說大概在24元（0.8美元）左右，而購買實體書則平均要花費180塊錢。浪漫故事為主題的網路小說時下最為普遍。其他搶手的作品多為中國特色的小說，比方說《盜墓筆記》、描繪勾心鬥角、爾虞我詐的官場、職場小說，以及穿越文學——簡單點說，故事情節類似於2000年前的戰士來到現代北京跳迪斯可。
在眾多網路原創文學作品當中，也有一部分最終變成了紙質圖書得以出版。目前，580家國有出版企業瓜分了價值44億人民幣（7億美元）的市場份額。儘管如此，根據調查公司OpenBook的楊偉（音）介紹，圖書出版業的年增長率已經從2007年的10%降低到5%左右。眼下，在網路圖書領域，像盛大這樣的行業大佬也還沒有從網路文學出版當中獲得多少收益，儘管這部分利潤一直在上升，由此其他新興網路文學公司的境況也就可見一斑。
網路也改變了圖書的促銷方式。中國的書店數量相對較少，因此，類似針對特定讀者群的書籍行銷就落在了豆瓣這樣的文化傳播網站肩上。與此同時，無論是線上上還是線下，能夠掙錢的作家都寥寥無幾。通過寫作成為名人的更是屈指可數。郭敬明是其中的佼佼者，年僅28歲的他，就有6部作品高居2011年圖書銷售排行榜前20。同時，他彙集了一批中國青年作家，創辦了雜誌《最小說》，每月可以創造40萬分的銷量。29歲的小說作家韓寒現在是一名職業車手，他的博客在中國非常有影響力。韓寒先生針砭時弊但又避免和審查者直接衝突，這讓他的成名之路有驚無險。而如今中國國內比較激進的作家，比如說慕容雪村，在網路上發佈的作品一般可以繞過出版審查，但往往要通過必要的刪減才能正式出版。而其他大多數作家都選擇儘量不給審查方添麻煩，他們清楚哪些底線是不可觸碰的。
電視頻道的多元化也創造了一批大受歡迎的作者，知名主持人的作品成了暢銷書榜上的常客。這些作品大多擁有一個十分勵志的書名。白岩松，作為中國國家電視臺的主持人，同時也是暢銷書《幸福了嗎？》的作者。另外一本暢銷書《我們的生活為什麼這麼難》的作者是脫口秀主持人郎咸平，他在書中提到了許多叢生於中國經濟蓬勃發展背景下的民生問題。
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