AI Consumes Web Novel Traffic, and Grassroots Authors Are Being "Silently Purged" | Deep Dive Lite
Author | Ranger
Editor | Qiao Qian
Resistance against AI among writers is happening frequently.
The latest incident occurred in early September. Across the ocean, well - known American authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Robertson represented hundreds of authors in filing a class - action lawsuit against tech giant Apple, accusing it of using pirated books without authorization to train the AI model OpenELM.
Just three months ago, over a thousand authors signed an open letter, demanding that publishers promise never to publish books created by machines. Among the protesting authors are Lauren Groff, the author of Secrets of a Small - Town Girl, and Lev Grossman, the author of the The Magicians trilogy.
Writers refuse to let machines replace humans as the subjects of emotional and cognitive expression, and defend the dignity of the humanities through such actions. The harsh truth behind this resistance is that content created by AI can already be placed on the same shelves as the works of best - selling authors.
The same crisis is also playing out in the domestic online literature industry.
“I was born with a high - pitched, affected voice. It's so annoying.” This is the beginning of a short story posted on Zhihu by Xiaoshen.
More than half a year later, Xiaoshen found that this opening line was everywhere on Fanqie Fiction, along with various AI - adapted versions. The character settings and overall plot were largely similar to Xiaoshen's design, but there were more redundant details, with a strong AI flavor.
Xiaoshen chose to report them one by one. The infringing works were removed from the platform, but she still couldn't get her income back.
Her experience is not an isolated case. Since last year, AI - generated content has been springing up like mushrooms on Fanqie Fiction, a leading domestic online literature platform.
The landmark moment was in March last year. According to statistics from the third - party data platform Online Literature Big Data, on March 1, 2024, there were 5,606 newly launched books on Fanqie Fiction, compared with 400 in the same period in 2023, a year - on - year increase of 13 times. This is not an achievement that can be realized by human efforts. Since this year, the situation has eased somewhat, but the problem remains. In mid - September, there were still nearly 2,000 newly launched books on Fanqie Fiction on average every day.
The influx of a large amount of AI - generated content has impacted the algorithm that ByteDance is proud of. The traffic support provided by Fanqie Fiction to new authors during their debut has been disrupted by AI - generated content, and novice authors who have not yet successfully made money in this land rich in traffic have been driven out.
The platform has taken action many times to drive away the poor - quality AI - generated content. However, if they are not careful, the data will rebound, and there are often “collateral damages”. Facing the sudden and sharp decline in traffic, new authors on the platform have to find other ways out.
The story of AI snatching jobs has already happened in the online literature industry
One day in June 2024, Cangshu suddenly found that “there was no traffic at all” for his works on Fanqie Fiction. The number of bookmarks and the growth of subscriptions, the two most important data, almost stopped changing.
This was a situation that Cangshu had never imagined. Before that, he had been writing online literature on Qidian for more than five years. Since graduation, he had never taken a regular job, but he could earn an average of 5,000 yuan per month, which was higher than the average level of online literature authors. In order to earn more money, he chose to move to Fanqie Fiction, which has large traffic, fast - money - making opportunities, and a lower signing threshold.
This turmoil can be traced back to the AI - assisted writing function that Fanqie Fiction started testing internally in February last year. It enables ordinary authors to produce more than 20,000 words of content per day, and professional studios can even achieve industrial - scale production of hundreds of works per month. The change was rapid and obvious. In just over a month, on March 1 of the same year, the number of newly launched books on Fanqie Fiction increased by 13 times year - on - year.
A large number of AI - written online novels flooded into the platform, dividing up the limited traffic that the platform provided to new authors. The day when new authors could make a breakthrough seemed far away.
At that time, Cangshu had already written more than 100,000 words on Fanqie Fiction. At an average daily writing speed of 3,000 words, he had been writing for more than 30 days, but his income was almost zero. He had no choice but to quit.
4.17 million words and 150,000 yuan are the achievements that Xiaozhang, also an online literature author, has accumulated on Fanqie Fiction. After AI - generated content swept across the platform, she sighed, “I've only been writing for a year and a half, and it feels like the online literature industry is coming to an end.”
Unless it is a big IP or a highly popular online novel, the popularity of an online novel only lasts for one or two months. Therefore, unknown authors have to keep writing and starting new works. Xiaozhang once wrote 17,732 words from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., which is five times or more the output of an ordinary author.
And this achievement, which is called a “multi - tentacled monster” in the industry, can be easily surpassed by AI. In October 2024, the team led by Wang Feng, the dean of the School of Communication at East China Normal University, released the “Lingkalingka” creative writing intelligent agent, which can generate a long - length novel of about 300,000 words in an hour.
The traffic promotion during the debut period on Fanqie Fiction almost determines the fate of 90% of a new book. Facing the continuous decline in traffic, Xiaozhang was helpless and confused: Is the platform really controlling AI - generated content?
Unable to tap into the traffic gold mine, Cangshu turned to the short - drama track to catch the wave of adapting popular novels on Fanqie into short dramas.
This job doesn't pay well and is much more tiring than writing online novels. During an overtime shift, at around 7 a.m., when people were going to work and pouring into the office buildings in Wangjing, Beijing, Cangshu was just getting off work, walking against the crowd, hungry and dizzy on his feet.
Xiaozhang still decides to continue on the online literature track. Later, she may consider an online literature platform with a guaranteed income, such as Chunhe, a paid - reading platform with a relatively high revenue - sharing ratio. She just graduated with a master's degree from a 985 university this year and officially became a full - time online literature author.
Someone on the social platform asked, “Won't you be anxious to become a full - time author right after graduation?” Xiaozhang replied, “Of course, I'm anxious.” followed by a sighing emoji.
Even though he has been impacted by AI - generated content, Cangshu doesn't think that his writing ability, his specialty, will really be replaced. He shared his experience of trying to use AI for writing: AI often forgets the settings he gave it, the context is inconsistent, the expression is over - decorated and verbose, and it lacks “human touch”.
There is a hierarchy of contempt in the online literature industry, and those who use AI to write on Fanqie are at the bottom. Authors who advocate original writing word by word with down - to - earth efforts still look down on this fledgling new thing and take pleasure in mocking its abstraction.
However, with the evolution of AI, a surprising change has occurred: people are gradually unable to distinguish between AI - generated and original content.
People who oppose AI may also be unable to distinguish between friends and foes
Such a scene once appeared on the social platform.
Someone posted a simple description in the comment section and asked the blogger if it was written by AI. The blogger replied, “It must be.” Then the questioner said that it was from The Black Cat by American author Edgar Allan Poe, a classic horror novel.
The classification, routines, and templated writing of online literature are naturally easy to be disassembled and recombined, and works of the same genre have strong homogenization characteristics. Classic literature is not like this. The latter resists routines and pursues creativity and implied meanings. However, AI seems to be faintly touching this boundary.
Xiaoning still remembers the experience when she was once shocked by AI: “Once, the content generated by AI hardly needed any modification, as if it was a flash of inspiration.” “I gave it my plot, and the content it generated was very well - connected with my previous text and also made foreshadows later.” This almost overcame one of the biggest problems in AI writing - coherence.
In the writing segment shared by Xiaoning, there is such a passage:
I always thought he was dead or swallowed by this nothingness. But now, he is alive, out there, in another world that I can't reach. He even left clues for me to follow in his footsteps. I began to sort out the manuscripts on the wall. The paper was as thin as fog, and each piece was extremely fragile. But when I opened it, I felt a heavy presence.
This passage was created by AI, based on Xiaoning's imaginative setting: Humans regard history as a plague and try to erase all historical traces, and lock themselves in a huge attic. The protagonist's friend accidentally discovers the remaining historical manuscripts, learns that the outside world is vast, and then chooses to escape. After the protagonist finds that his friend is missing, he starts to follow his footsteps to find out the reason for his escape, and the story unfolds from there.
In the content generated by AI and adjusted by Xiaoning, AI is no longer inexplicable. It even perfectly understands Xiaoning's settings and expressions, and co - creates with her like her alter ego.
In addition to its extraordinary understanding and generation abilities, AI also shows strong imitation ability. Xiaoning, who grew up reading Chinese and foreign literary classics, likes delicate descriptions, which is also one of the characteristics of AI - generated content. She once showed her original content and the content generated by AI imitating her to her friends, and they couldn't tell the difference.
More and more money and talents are flowing into this emerging field, and AI's capabilities are still evolving.
When DeepSeek first appeared, its gorgeous writing style surprised Xiaoning. But after using it several times, Xiaoning found that it was easier to recognize than other AIs because its flaws were obvious - the writing style was gorgeous but greasy, and it always liked to use dashes.
Once, Xiaoning read a short story written by the evolved DeepSeek, “It's no different from the sweet short stories on Zhihu.” The iterated DeepSeek - V3 has successfully “removed the greasiness” and no longer has the common problems of AI writing.
“If general - purpose AI writing becomes practical, it means that AGI has been achieved. What we are concerned about is no longer online literature itself.” Hu Shuo, the deputy editor - in - chief of Yuewen Group, told 36Kr. Currently, there are two ways of AI writing - AI - assisted writing and writing completely dominated by AI. Among them, general - purpose AI writing, which refers to the latter, is still difficult to achieve.
However, if one day general - purpose AI writing can be realized, it will replace the entire profession of writers.
Who is making money in this chaotic situation?
AI cannot replace the writing industry for the time being, but the content crudely generated by AI has been seizing traffic.
Who is producing the AI - written online novels on Fanqie Fiction? Jiusi is one of them.
He organized five of his friends. During their breaks at work, they typed in instructions to use AI to mass - produce content and submit it to Fanqie Fiction. In this process, AI can do a good job from creative conception to the production of specific content.
Online novels are more like a commodity. To produce content with good traffic, the best way is to learn from popular hits. Jiusi chose to learn from Nezha 2, which had a box office of over 15 billion yuan this year.
AI helped him analyze the reasons for the popularity of Nezha 2 and extracted the core of the story - “rebellion”, thus determining the prototype of the story.
Jiusi typed on the keyboard: “Based on the original novel, write a derivative novel of Journey to the West, a fantasy and ancient - style romance. Basically follow the story line and world map of the original work, and tell the story of Tang Seng (i.e., Jinchanzi) being demoted and controlled on Ling Mountain, and Sun Wukong (the protagonist) going to the Western Heaven to save his master.”
Relevant content began to emerge from the AI side: “They call me the Demon Child, but they don't know that there are man - eating lotuses at the foot of Ling Mountain!” Nezha roared, and the tip of his fire - pointed spear glistened as he fiercely split the fertile soil in the Heavenly Court's Peach Orchard.
In the past two months, Jiusi has almost been operating AI to generate online novels at his office desk and at home. He can usually finish his full - time job in about two hours a day, and then spends all his remaining time typing instructions for AI. He continues to work after getting off work at around 6 p.m. until one or two o'clock in the morning. “Sometimes I only sleep for two or three hours.”
In less than a month, a popular novel of nearly 200,000 words about Sun Wukong, Nezha, and Tang Seng rebelling against the Heavenly Court was created. During this period, Jiusi was also working on three or four other online novels at the same time. He said that “typesetting and uploading are actually more time - consuming than giving instructions to AI.”
At its peak, the reading volume of Jiusi's works during the debut period reached about 80,000. On the first day of the debut, there were even 8,000 people reading at the same time. However, the good situation didn't last long. A soft ban followed, and he couldn't withdraw his income.
But this doesn't stop another batch of AI - generated content from being put on the platform.
As for whether readers care, Jiusi said that almost no real readers can distinguish or question this content. Only those readers who are obviously also authors will act like detectives to find out the traces of his use of AI.
Countless studios like Jiusi or more professional ones use free large - scale AI models such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek, type in plot instructions disassembled from popular hits, and then produce AI - generated content at a speed of hundreds of thousands of words per day and submit it to platforms mainly represented by Fanqie Fiction.
There are also money - making stories in the promotion of AI writing tools and courses.
A merchant selling AI writing tools and courses said that a member of theirs had a 200,000 - word novel generated by AI, and its copyright was bought out by an audiobook for 500 yuan.
The member completed the 200,000 - word content in just over a dozen hours. He calculated that “it's like working two day shifts, and I can earn 250 yuan a day”. He sighed, “I don't even want to be a doctor anymore.”
Although 500 yuan is not a large amount, it still proves another way for AI - generated content to make money, that is, selling copyrights. In the larger online literature industry, IP copyright was once the core moat of Yuewen Group.
In the more than a month since the author of 36Kr added the merchant's WeChat, the merchant has almost sent several to a dozen WeChat messages every day, sharing success stories, AI writing methods, and how to pass the platform's detection of AI - generated content. There were also constant urges to sign up. “I've shared so much useful information. What do you think now?”
It's hard to tell whether the cases shared by the merchant are true or false, but there are indeed many people in the contact list disclosed by the merchant who have become members after paying an annual membership fee of 1,680 yuan.
Hou Xiangzhong's Lingjing AI (which operates an online literature big data platform) is also a gold - digger in the AI - written online literature track.
According to his introduction, the company currently has a creative team of more than a dozen people, as well as online part - timers. They mainly focus on short - story creation. A 10,00