With the launch of the novel section, Xiaohongshu is trying to compete with online literature platforms

In the wave of digital reading, Xiaohongshu's cross-border attempts have once again proved the infinite possibilities of content innovation. From a community for growing popular articles to a novel reading platform, every step of Xiaohongshu has been at the node of the times. As British writer Virginia Woolf said, "Once a person starts reading, his life will begin to change."

“The book I read most often is Xiaohongshu” is finally not a joke anymore, because Xiaohongshu really has “books” on it.

Recently, Xiaohongshu launched a novel reading section on the site, which includes long and short novels, which users can read for free; in addition, the platform has also launched a two-month writer support plan, providing 100 million traffic.

There are already precedents for content communities to publish online articles, and Zhihu is a successful case. So, can Xiaohongshu tell a new story by publishing online articles?

1. Xiaohongshu enters the online literature market?

Recently, it was reported that Xiaohongshu launched a novel reading section, which includes many novels from third-party platforms, and all of them are free to read.

The entrance is relatively hidden and users need to actively search for "Silent Impact" before they can see it. The section page is concise and clear. In addition to the bookshelf and personal homepage, it also has two columns, "Short Stories" and "Long Stories". Each column presents 20 works, and the new works will be refreshed after pulling up.

Judging from the labels of the works, they cover time travel, sweet pet stories, refreshing stories, fairy tales, etc., and there is no separate classification channel yet.

The page was hosted by an embedded mini program called "Daju Story". The mini program was also linked to the Xiaohongshu account of the same name, and began to release promotional information in January this year, by making screenshots of the novel page into short videos, guiding users to watch the following content through the mini program on the homepage. However, it was probably still in the internal testing stage at the time, and some users commented that "there is nothing in it" and "I can't watch it".

The main company associated with "Daju Story" is "Hangzhou Yaochi Culture Communication Co., Ltd." It is understood that Yaochi Culture is a comprehensive content company integrating online reading, work creation, wireless value-added, and full copyright operation. It owns the male-oriented novel website "Datang Chinese Network" and the female-oriented novel website "Anxia Academy".

Therefore, this is not the official Xiaohongshu, but a third-party cooperation platform.

In fact, there were early signs that Xiaohongshu was planning to enter the online literature market.

In July this year, Xiaohongshu "urgently recruited" interns for the vertical operation of online novels. The first recruitment condition was "experienced online novel lovers, especially female-oriented novels/fan fiction lovers", and internship experience in online novel business on platforms such as Zhihu, Yuewen, Fanqie, and Qimao was considered a plus.

In mid-August this year, Xiaohongshu released the "Xiaohongshu Online Novel Interest Survey" to some tweets and reading creators on the site. The questionnaire content covered multiple aspects such as reading platforms, reading habits, payment habits, and derivative content.

At that time, many users who received the questionnaire took notes, wondering whether Xiaohongshu was planning to produce novel content.

2. The support plan was questioned as “freeloading”

When entering a new track, a support plan is naturally indispensable.

One of the characteristics of the Xiaohong community is that it will launch an "official potato" in each vertical and operationally intensive field to publish relevant updates, support measures and other content.

Xinbochang discovered that Xiaohongshu has launched an official account called "Kanwenshu", whose profile is "Shushu, the one who loves to read online novels the most in the sweet potato field."

On September 2, "Kanwenshu" posted a note stating that the account will publish official online content support activities, recommendations for treasure articles and high-quality creators.

Moreover, Xinbochang also saw an official announcement of the "Treasure Writer Support Plan" activity, which provides 100 million traffic support for the original short story track and tweet track.

First, in terms of the direction of support, according to the "Original Short Story Release Specifications" of the activity, the key support directions are romance, suspense, fantasy, fan fiction, women's growth, workplace, etc.; the release format is graphic notes, which can be serialized in the body of the note or displayed in the form of 18-grid pictures. It is recommended to try the note collection format depending on the original length.

In terms of specific support, high-quality notes with more than 100 likes per day can receive traffic support ranging from 500,000 to 1 million; creators who update more than 4 complete short stories during the event will be ranked based on total popularity, and the TOP50 will be rewarded and given prizes.

However, because the event is mainly for traffic, the prizes are not of high value and require a high ranking, it has caused complaints from many authors.

Many authors on Xiaohongshu complained: "There is no payment for the article collection", "Isn't it freeloading to collect articles without payment?"...

Some authors also believe that this seems more like it is aimed at in-site creators rather than mature online writers.

Traditional online writing platforms sign contracts with authors and settle royalties, and authors value income more. However, Xiaohongshu's activity allows creators to create their own accounts and publish in the form of notes. After the authors attract fans through content, they can monetize through advertising and content payment.

Therefore, this is still a way of supporting content creators, which is different from the model of online literature platforms.

In fact, before Xiaohongshu launched the essay solicitation campaign and officially announced its efforts in online literature, a group of authors had already emerged on the platform.

Xinbochang has previously seen many fan works of popular TV series and movies on Xiaohongshu, and most of them are about time travel and rebirth, which are quite popular, such as "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "Do You Know?" Moreover, most of these accounts are created by authors for love, and then they monetize by accepting advertisements after their followers increase.

However, this kind of UGC-oriented content cannot support the imagination of Xiaohongshu's online literature business.

Next, whether it will directly introduce third-party companies like Yaochi Culture to enrich the content supply, or introduce mature authors and sign high-quality content, we still need to observe Xiaohongshu’s next move.

3. Can Xiaohongshu do a good job in online writing?

At the current stage, Xiaohongshu’s purpose of doing online writing is probably to enrich the platform’s content ecology and compete for user time. The market size and user scale of online writing are growing rapidly, making it a hot commodity that Xiaohongshu is targeting.

The "2023 China Online Literature Development Research Report" shows that the overall scale of online literature will continue to expand in 2023. Among them, the number of users reached 537 million, a year-on-year increase of 9%.

Some users also believe that the user group of Xiaohongshu is compatible with the online literature reading group. One author said that the traffic of novels written on Xiaohongshu is very good. One author said that she used to write "Picking up Mobile Phone Literature" on Xiaohongshu, and had thousands of followers on two accounts in a week, easily tens of thousands of followers in a month, and several articles had tens of thousands of likes.

There are also authors who believe that Xiaohongshu is suitable for writing novels because "it has many female users and is highly interactive."

However, this also seems to reflect Xiaohongshu's anxiety to some extent.

"It seems like they have hastily launched the novel section and recruited authors before they have figured out what to do. For example, the word limit for notes has not been adjusted on the site. It's only 1,000 words. How can you write online novels?" said one author.

Some industry insiders also think that Xiaohongshu has become more and more diversified. "It was originally a platform for promoting online content, and now it is focusing on e-commerce and online literature. Will this dilute Xiaohongshu's characteristics of promoting online content? Or is Xiaohongshu planning to become a platform for promoting online literature rather than an online literature platform?"

In this era, platforms seem to be in a hurry to conquer new territories and expand their business, rather than guarding their own small piece of land. Becoming a super APP is the ultimate dream of the platform, and it also has a broader imagination space.

For Xiaohongshu, whether it can produce online articles and what it can be like can only be known by trying.