Honing the art of adaptation

Latest statistics released by the China Writers Association in May show that readers of online literature reached 378 million by the end of last year, among which 344 million, or 91 percent, enjoy reading novels on their smartphones.

Additionally, nearly 2,000 movies, 1,232 TV dramas and 712 animated series built their stories from works of literature last year, according to the association.

"Online literature has developed over the last 20 years, but 2015 marked a turning point," says Dong, who alongside another two writers, Lu Xiaoning and Yuan Rui, all signed with Alibaba Literature to license their work for release on its platform on June 17.

Lu, better known by his pen name Cangtian Baihe (a white crane in high sky), specializes in fantasy novels, and Yuan, whose pseudonym is Jingye Jisi (pondering in a tranquil night), has seen his police-themed novels accumulate more than one billion online clicks.

Boosted by the unprecedented growth of the Chinese movie and television industries, a number of cash-rich investors raced to purchase quality stories suitable for screen adaptation in 2015. "The income I earned in 2015 surpassed all my earnings over the past decade," says Dong, who began to write online novels in 2003.

The soldier-turned-writer is working on adapting three of his novels into scripts, which are due to begin filming in March next year. He says more and more of his fellow online writers have started producing screenplays in accordance with Alibaba's expansion in the field.