Want good books? Reward the writers, says head of China’s biggest online publisher

Forty per cent of mainlanders didn’t read a single book, in any format, last year, according to the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication. That compares unfavourably with the United States, where 16 per cent of people did not read a book in 2014, according to data from Statista.

But Wu Wenhui. the chief executive of China Reading, the country’s largest online publishing and e-book company, is optimistic about the sector’s prospects. even though its growth has been slow compared to other cultural sectors such as movies, computer games and video streaming platforms.

Wu, 39 and dubbed the godfather of China’s online literature by some Chinese media, talked to Jane Cai about the sector’s dynamics and challenges and his hopes for the future.

How did you become the helmsman of China’s leading online publishing platform?

I majored in computer science in Peking University in the late ’90s, which made me among the first generation in China to embrace the internet. Reading had been a habit since I was a little boy, and the internet made content more accessible.

At that time, e-reading was free of charge and there were few online writers. Many authors wrote for Taiwanese publishers, where kung fu novels had a good market. After physical books were published, the stories were pasted in chat rooms on mainland websites and shared by online readers. Later, more readers came to imitate the lighthearted and intriguing narratives and publish what they wrote in chat rooms. When I graduated from the university in 2000, China’s first online reading platforms were emerging and I decided to set up an e-literature site, Qidian.com, with several friends in 2002.