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Section 4. Regional economy
Yutong Han, The Bullis School City Bethesda, United States E-mail: yutong_han@bullis.org
FAN ECONOMY OF ONLINE NOVELS
Abstract. This paper examines the increasing TV and movie productions that are based on online-novels. Producers choose specific novels to turn into productions because the book fans would be watching them. This audience base of book fans bring fame to the productions and provide higher chances of successful TV series or movie being watched. This paper investigates explicitly in how novels are selected through data collection of various aspects of different works. The results of the research show that the theme, topic, setting, author, and popularity of the novel influence the producers' choices.
Keywords: Fan economy, Online novels.
Online-novels have become increasingly popu- years novels that have interstellar settings have gained lar in recent decades. People have easy access to the Internet through all kinds of electronic devices, and readings are no longer limited to printed books. In China, with online-novels gaining fame, many of them are made into a television series or movies. Many readers even bring the novels publicities and attract companies to make them into TV productions. From a producer's perspective, creating these novels into films ensure high ratings because of the book fans who would be watching them. The success of early productions has now brought more companies into the market, and a fan-based economy of putting online-novels on the screen proliferates. The field of online-novel based media production is relatively new. Ultimately, with more works turning into screen adaptations, these productions occupy increasing space in people's lives.
Researchers have studied these productions, and they proposed various reasons why online-novels are made into productions. The most popular and widely accepted reason is that these novels can ensure profits because of their fame. Researchers discovered that productions could be divided into two categories: historical and modern. However, recent theories suggest that new categories may be added because in recent
increasing fame and many have signed contracts for production. Problems with these productions are also analyzed - the most significant is that the levels of production are not equal. Every time a piece of work signs a contract for production, fans are worried that the production will ruin their favorite novel. Experts hypothesized that in the future these TV series and movies based on online-novels will continuously be made, but there is no clue how much better these productions can get. By collecting data about the various productions, the dominant theme and the influence of settings and topics of the novels on their popularities have been discovered.
Research shows that the dominant theme of online-novel productions is love. Love stories are the mainstream of the industry, and most productions involve romantic elements. Romance has always attracted people from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to today's Titanic. Of the collected data, 68.9% of the productions mainly describes love stories. These novels may be set in all kinds of different settings from a traditional high school to a fictional world, but all the stories describe how a male and a female fall in love with each other and become a loving couple after various challenges.
FAN ECONOMY OF ONLINE NOVELS
The settings and topics of the novel also influence a production. Most of the works are either set in modern times or the past. Modern stories occupy 42.2% of the stories in the collected data. Ancient settings hold 55.6% of all productions. While modern settings are usually in the real world, the ancient ones are not wholly historical. Many of the stories are set in a fictional world where the setting simulates ancient China but does not fit into real history. These fictional settings are common because readers would not criticize the historical accuracy of the stories, and the characters' appearances look beautiful in the TV series.
Novels with settings in a fictional setting like an interstellar world or full of magical elements are less commonly made into productions. The reason may be that producing such settings are costly and harder than shooting a story in the ordinary world. The government restrictions on what is showed on the television also limited the works that can be put on screen. For example, the restriction on no teenage dating in any television series stopped the production of any online novels that narrates high school romance.
The author of the novel also plays a role in its popularity and chance to be made into production. When one of an author's work is made into a successful TV series or movie, it is very likely that the author's other works would also be produced. The reason being that the producers want to ensure the production brings profit and having a successful preceding work supplies them with a degree of assurance. In other words, producing another work of the same author is safer than making a brand-new work
into production. Plus, the fans of the previous production would support another production of the corresponding author because they already know about the author's style and the quality of the works.
The online novels that have the potential of being made into productions are the top, classic novels on the leaderboard of famous novel websites, the new works that are currently popular, and other works of authors who already have novels produced. These types of novels have a stable fan group, so the producers feel safe to employ the fan economy and profit from the productions. The classic, out-standing novels already have a group of readers rewarding the author with money for the works. The currently popular works own the enthusiasm of readers because they are new and fresh, and these works can attract new readers who have not yet read the new novels and increase the size of the fans. The other works of an author who has a successful example of production would guarantee fans will watch the new production as stated in the previous paragraph.
The producers utilize the fan economy and profits from turning online novels into TV series or movies. The most popular theme of the story is romance. Ancient and modern settings dominate the market, and there are very few productions with an entirely fictional setting. Governmental limitations of topics shown on the screen keep some novels away from being produced. An author's works will likely be put on screen if his or her other works have already been
successfully produced. Producers pick novels that
have popular topics and a certain number of fans to ensure the success of the TV series or the movies.
