The Third Shanghai International Online Literature Week opened on December 16th. Writers, translators, scholars, and representatives from 16 countries gathered in Shanghai to participate in this international event of online literature.
During the event, the 2024 WebNovel Spirity Awards (WSA), organized by WebNovel (the international platform of Yuewen), announced its winners. WebNovel, one of the world’s largest online literature platforms, has supported over 449,000 global authors and published more than 650,000 original web novels. It has also attracted nearly 300 million users from around the world.
The 2024 WSA competition has attracted 14,000 global writers. Through intense competition, 15 writers won the WSA awards with<Two Times Rejected Luna, he Desire of All Alphas>, <Mr. President: You Are The Daddy of My Triplets>, <Obtaining 10x rewards! Reincarnated into a novel as a side-character!>and <The First Legendary Beast Master> taking home Gold Awards. These works were made respectively by Ghanaian writer Glorious_Eagle, Pakistani writer JessicaKaye911, Canadian writer Aoki_Aku and Indian writer WinterDragon_1 .Apart from the bonuses, they also receive the opportunity for priority IP development.
This year’s WSA marks the first time that winners come from all five continents. WSA has become a major event in the global web novel community, and the award-winning works show strong potential for intellectual property (IP) development. Data reveals that nearly 70% of past WSA winners have been adapted into various media formats, including audiobooks, comics, and films & TV dramas. For example,<My Vampire System>has garnered over 243 million audiobook plays, while works like<Hero of Darkness>, <The Author’s POV>, <The Duke’s Masked Wife>, and <The Martial Unity> have been turned into comics. In addition, series such as <The Billionaire’s Genius Wife> and <The CEO’s Babymomma>have been adapted into short dramas, and the Thai web novel<No beans and love me more>(<กนี้ไม่มีถั่วฝักยาว>)has been turned into TV series.
Beyond cultivating global original web novel IPs, Yuewen has also provided international readers with a wide range of classic Chinese web novels, such as < Battle Through the Heavens>, < Soul Land><Lord of Mysteries>< The King’s Avatar >. One of the company’s flagship works, <Lord of Mysteries>(《诡秘之主》) by Cuttlefish That Loves Diving (爱潜水的乌贼), boasts a 4.8-star rating (out of 5) on WebNovel and has more than 15 million global fans. Active fan communities have formed around the series on social media platforms such as Facebook and Reddit.
In 2024, Yuewen’s web novel adaptations also gained significant international attention.<Joy of Life Season 2 >(《庆余年第二季》) became the most-watched Chinese mainland drama on Disney+.<The Legend of Shenli> (《与凤行》) was broadcast in 180 countries and regions and translated into more than 16 languages.<The Double> (《墨雨云间》) topped the charts on both Thailand’s TrueID platform and South Korea’s MOA platform. On MOA, three of the top five shows were web novel adaptations of <The Double>, <Joy of Life Season 2>, and <The Legend of Shenli>.
Hou Xiaonan, Yuewen’s CEO and President, announced that in 2024, the number of global original web novel IPs developed by WebNovel has already doubled. Looking ahead, Yuewen plans to ramp up international collaborations and further drive the development and localization of its IPs Globally. The company has built a global ecosystem that spans the entire IP value chain and will partner with 75 international publishers, as well as major players in film, animation, and audio, including Netflix, Disney, Naver, Kakao, and Pocket FM, to expand the global reach and operation of its IPs.
About Yuewen
As a subsidiary of Tencent, Yuewen (HKEX: 0772) is a culture and entertainment group focused on developing intellectual property (IP) derived from online literature. Yuewen has a diverse portfolio of well-known brands, such as WebNovel, QQ Reading, Qidian, New Classics Media, and Tencent Animation & Comics. It serves as a platform for tens of millions of creators with a rich reserve of literary works, audiobooks, animation, comics, films, drama series, games, and merchandise.
