From "going global" to "cultivating the global market", Chinese online literature is accelerating its march into the international market — global co

　   From September 1 to 4, the 39th Moscow International Book Fair was held in Russia, with China serving as the Guest of Honor for this edition. China Literature, as the representative of Chinese online literature enterprises, participated in the exhibition, and showcased the latest achievements of Chinese online literature "going global" through a series of activities including special forums, copyright promotion sessions, and writer sharing events.

　　This participation is a microcosm of Chinese online literature accelerating its expansion into the international market. At the node where the industry is moving from "going out" to "going in", the judgments of leading platforms are of vane significance. Hou Xiaonan, CEO and President of China Literature, said in a recent interview with *China Press and Publication Radio and Television Journal* that as one of the "three new cultural exports", Chinese online literature has formed a three-pronged global layout covering work export, industrial chain export, and model export.

　　Laying a Solid Foundation with Platforms, Nurturing Content via Overseas Co-creation

　　According to Hou Xiaonan, the overseas expansion of Chinese online literature has long gone beyond the early "text export" stage that relied solely on manual translation and one-way output of local works. Instead, it now leverages platform mechanisms to build a self-sustaining local creation ecosystem overseas.

　　As the core hub for Chinese online literature going global, WebNovel under China Literature has evolved from a single "translation and export window" since its launch in 2017 into a global content ecosystem platform that integrates the export of Chinese online literature and overseas original creation. By the end of June 2026, WebNovel has accumulated more than 30,000 AI-translated works, covering more than 10 languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Russian and Indonesian, reaching over 200 countries and regions with nearly 400 million cumulative visiting users.

　　What has truly reshaped the growth curve is the changing role of AI translation. It is no longer an auxiliary tool, but the core engine driving platform growth. In the first half of 2026, AI-translated content contributed 40% of WebNovel's novel revenue, driving a 160% year-on-year surge in revenue from works in small languages, enabling Chinese online literature to achieve large-scale overseas expansion that is no longer dominated by the English-speaking world but features parallel development across multiple languages.

　　More profound than the expansion of translation volume is that WebNovel has exported the "creation mechanism" of Chinese online literature itself. By the end of 2025, the platform has incubated about 530,000 overseas writers in total, producing 830,000 overseas original works, with annual comment and interaction volume exceeding 14 million. The annual essay contest launched by the platform attracted writers from over 100 countries to participate in 2025, with the number of submissions rising 58% year on year.

　　"What we bring overseas is not only works, but also creation models, platform capabilities and industrial ecosystems, so that young people from different cultures can tell their own stories well with the Chinese model. A truly global market is taking shape," said Hou Xiaonan.

　　Led by IP, Expanding Boundaries through Full Industrial Chain Export

　　If platforms and co-creation are the soil for online literature going global, the full-link development of IP is the key to enabling Chinese stories to take root, sprout and bear fruit in the global market. In Hou Xiaonan's view, the overseas expansion of online literature has actually gone through three stages: the 1.0 "content translation export" stage where Chinese online literature is translated into foreign languages; the 2.0 "model export" stage where overseas platforms are built to attract local creators and form an original ecosystem; and the 3.0 "global co-creation" stage where in-depth integration into the global film, television, animation, cultural tourism and other industrial chains is realized to achieve cross-cultural and cross-scenario value co-creation.

　　"Taking China Literature as an example, the current industrial overseas expansion has entered the deepening period of 'global co-creation'," Hou Xiaonan said. In addition to promoting the export of online literature and cultivating overseas authors, China Literature is advancing the export and co-creation of the IP industrial chain, launching IP comics, animations and film and television works overseas, while promoting IP to deeply enter the international mainstream cultural and entertainment scenarios, which is the core transformation of Chinese IP from "going out" to "going in".

　　This transformation is first reflected in the comprehensive expansion of content forms. At present, China Literature has launched more than 1,300 published works, over 2,100 comics, more than 80 animations and over 100 film and television works overseas in total. The animation series of *Battle Through the Heavens* has reached 1.18 billion views on YouTube, with a total viewing duration of 159 million hours; the first season of the animation *Lord of the Mysteries* was broadcast in more than 190 countries and regions in 7 languages. Chinese online literature is no longer just web novels, but Chinese animations, dramas and visual narratives that overseas audiences can perceive.

　　What is more noteworthy is that online literature IP is accelerating its expansion from digital content to physical scenarios. In 2025, China Literature made two major moves, bringing online literature IP to overseas cultural tourism landmarks for the first time: Ye Xiu, the protagonist of *The King's Avatar*, became the "pathfinder" of the Swiss National Tourism Board, driving more than 10,000 tourists to visit the Zurich route in Switzerland; *Mystical Journey of the Taoist* became the first Chinese online literature IP to land at Universal Studios Singapore, with its themed adventure house having hundreds of meters of queues on its opening day, sharing visitor flow with Universal's top self-owned IPs.

　　"The internationalization of online literature is a vivid practice from 'appreciating the respective beauty of each culture' to 'achieving shared beauty for all'," Hou Xiaonan said. As Chinese stories enter the daily life of global users in increasingly diverse forms, the next step of online literature going global is not only to be "read", but also to be "experienced, co-created and loved".

Source: *China Press and Publication Radio and Television Journal*