With next week's release of One City (Yizuo Chengchi), a novel written by best-selling author Han Han, rumours are swirling about Han purportedly netting a contracted 20 per cent royalty fee.

If proven true, it will be unprecedented in the history of Chinese publishing, where authors generally get a 5 to 8 per cent royalty fee, or 10 per cent at most.

Such buzz on big money has lead to more interest in the book not only from Han's fans, but also from many insiders in the publishing business.

Some other Chinese media reported that Han sold the publishing rights at 2 million yuan (US$246,600) to Rongshuxia Information and Culture Consulting Company, which is affiliated to Germany-based Bertelsmann.

Rongshuxia's general manager Lu Jinbo, who himself is a renowned Internet writer under the pseudonym "Li Xunhuan," has declined to confirm the media's reports.

But he revealed that his company has a 5-million-yuan (US$616,500) budget for contracts with about 20 best-selling writers.

Among them, he said, Han and Ann Baby, another Internet writer who rose to fame about five years ago but has been experiencing a period of writer's block since then, should have claimed a large proportion of the budget.

Since the company has no authorization to publish books, it has co-operated with the Jiangxi-based 21st Century Publishing House in the actual publication.

The first printing will roll out 500,000 copies.

Cut-throat competition

Meanwhile, another of Han's book, entitled "Days of Drifting" (Jiu Zheme Piaolai Piaoqu)," was published by the Jieli Publishing House in mid-November. It is a collection of essays describing his life as an amateurish car racer.

Chinese publishing companies have already accumulated abundant experiences in cooking up best-sellers, as competition is getting increasingly fierce in the book market.

Generally, best-sellers account for only 20 per cent of the number of the titles in the market, but bring in as much as 80 per cent of revenues and profits.

During the increasingly intense competition, many companies have staked on best-sellers, and have been fighting for the limited resources of best-selling authors.

That explains why Lu is willing to pay a very high price to Han to get the publishing rights.

But Lu said it would still be profitable. "Compared with other trades, it takes a relatively shorter period two to three months to retrieve the investment of best-sellers," he said.

Even if the 20-per-cent royalty was deducted, he estimated that the returns would still reach somewhere around 10 per cent higher than the average return rate of 8 per cent in commerce.

Lu said he would launch a series of marketing projects to further promote the sales of the book.

"The author has been too low-profile," he said. "He never marketed his books. His books would have sold better if well marketed."

But he would try to respect the individualism of the author and such marketing projects would not make Han's writing more commercialized, he said.

Rongshuxia also reportedly got the book's international publishing rights, and if "everything goes smooth," the English language edition will be published in the United States in the second half of 2006, according to Lu.

However, some industry insiders have accused Rongshuxia of being too commercial.

After years of free development, book publishing is now the most mature and commercialized sector of China's prosperous cultural business.

Unlike many film studios, theatres and newspapers, which are still bound up by the remains of the planned economy, many publishing companies have already fully embraced the benefits and the pains of the market economy.

Because of that, there are more risks in the market. Li Bo, deputy president of the Changjiang Literature Publishing House, warned that Rongshuxia should do more analysis of the market.

"The trends of the market are changing very quickly. An author welcomed by readers yesterday will probably be disliked tomorrow," said Li, who is famous for his promotion of some of the most successful best-sellers in China in the past several years.

Li also doubted the genuineness of the allegedly handsome royalty.

"In fact, some publishing companies tend to fake the figures just to attract attention," he said. "It probably is only a trick, a game of numbers. In the long term, it will do harm to the publisher itself."

Another publishing insider who declined to reveal his name criticized Rongshuxia for raising the cost.

"It is very irrational to promise authors a 20-per-cent royalty," he said. "The more you give to writers, the less discount you can give to distributors. In that case, you have to invest more in marketing. The costs will finally be shifted to readers."

According to Han, One City is a novel completely different from his previous works in both style and content. He said he even could not summarize it in simple words.

"It is a brand new work," he said. "All I can say it is one of the books I am most satisfied with."

Talented writer

The 23-year-old Han has been a cultural phenomenon in China, not only for his talent in writing and the popularity of his books among his peers, but also for his individualism, an attitude rarely seen in the previous generations of Chinese.

At the age of 17, Han established his name after winning the first prize in a national writing contest for middle school students.

He later dropped out of senior middle school after freshman year to write his debut novel The Three Gates (San Chong Men), a scathing critique of the contemporary Chinese educational system through the context of an adolescent love story.

It was published in 2000 and the first printing was sold out in three days. A television drama series based on the novel is still in the making.

When the prestigious Shanghai-based Fudan University offered an admission, he refused the invitation. At the same time, he shrugged off controversy surrounding his persona with pride and indifference.

His notoriety for embarrassing critics and baiting interviewers has expanded his fame. Since then, he has risen to become one of China's most profitable writers.

His commercial success has also stimulated the publishing industry's interest in teenaged writers.

Over the past years, Han has been chased by many press companies eager to get the rights to publish his books.

In November, he suspended his publishing contract with the China Youth Press, claiming that the publishing house had cheated on the amount of copies sold and intentionally acquiesced sales of pirated editions.

In addition to One City, 21st Century Publishing House will also re-publish the books originally published by China Youth Press.

(China Daily December 14, 2005)