Online literature platform "rushes into the short drama circle": more than 600 adaptation authorizations in one year, giving both IP and money

Whether it is a horizontal screen split-revenue short drama or a vertical screen mini-program drama, more and more popular short dramas are hidden behind the shadow of online literature IP. The author talked with people related to the mini-program short drama production platform, micro short drama screenwriters, and online literature platforms, and analyzed and interpreted the hot topic IP transactions and adaptation of popular dramas.

Whether it is a horizontal screen shared-revenue short drama or a vertical screen mini-program drama, more and more popular short dramas have the shadow of online literature IP behind them.

Among the mini-program short dramas, three of the top five short drama rankings last week shown by App Growing were adapted from IP novels. Among them, the top 1 is the hit "I was a stepmother in the 1980s" which was adapted from the Tomato novel IP "Kicked out of the family compound: Marrying an old man to raise a child"; the second place "Boss Li, you got the wrong wife" was adapted from the Tomato novel IP "After secretly getting pregnant with her boss's child, she resigned"; the fifth place "Lucky Pregnancy and Pampering Wife: Mr. Zhan, Good Night!" was adapted from the novel of the same name by Caiwei Academy under NetEase Literature.

On the side of horizontal screen short dramas, in 2023, Tencent Video's annual top-scoring short drama "Provoke" was adapted from "The Revenge of the Republic of China" by April Sky Novel Network, a subsidiary of China Online; Youku's annual top-scoring short drama "Love Locked for Three Lifetimes" was adapted from Tomato's novel "Young Marshal, Your Wife Has Been Flirted With Again".

What does the adaptation of online literature IP mean in the micro-short drama creation market? After talking to relevant people from the mini-program short drama production platform, micro-short drama screenwriters, and online literature platforms, Doujiao found that over the past year, the proportion of online literature IP in the micro-short drama creation market has increased significantly, and the participation has gradually deepened.

Tomato, Chinese Online, iReader, Qimao and other online literature platforms will participate in the development and production of short dramas by means of copyright equity, cash investment and main production control. In particular, Tomato Novels can not only sell copyrights to production companies in bulk in the form of "income sharing", but also provide cash investment for a large number of small program drama production teams that lack funds in the form of guaranteed profit sharing, and can maintain the birth of an average of one hit IP adaptation project with a turnover of over 10 million per month.

Under the hot trend, free online literature has accelerated the content creation of mini-program short dramas, explored new channels for the value-added monetization of online literature IP, and achieved a relatively clear business model.

1. Original scripts cost up to 8,000 yuan, and online novels start from 10,000 yuan. Why do short drama producers still need to buy IP?

Since the rise of short dramas on mini programs and the establishment of a C-end paid business model, a typical low-cost and high-return path has been constantly breaking the content production rules of the traditional film and television industry.

Especially on the creative side, it is relatively easy to create lightweight scripts with a total length of less than two hours, and the professional threshold has been greatly reduced. A large number of film and television creators, online writers, and short video script writers have flocked into the industry to become micro-short drama screenwriters. Original scripts have quickly changed from "in short supply" to "in oversupply" within a year.

"Since the second half of last year, the script circle has been in a state of internal competition. The price has fallen very seriously. You can receive a finished script for 4,000 to 8,000 yuan, and a mature editor can complete the revision in about a week . Even if the bonus share after the content is launched is included, the script price can be controlled at 15,000 to 20,000 yuan. Moreover, there is not much difference between these scripts and works adapted from online literary IPs." Ajiu, a practitioner of mini-program short dramas, told Doujiao.

In contrast, the cost of purchasing online literature IP for adaptation will be greatly increased. According to Doujiao, the licensing price for the adaptation of S-level works into short dramas is 50,000 to 80,000 yuan per copy for free online literature IPs in the market, and the licensing price for popular A-level works is 30,000 to 50,000 yuan per copy. The cheapest licensing fee is also around 10,000 yuan.

"Moreover, the platform generally does not sell individual books. Take Fanqie as an example. The business editor of its short drama department will issue a book list containing 100 books with different prices to the production team at one time. Different volumes have different prices, and the production companies will make corresponding purchases. Most production companies will adopt the model of purchasing 5+ books or even more in packages." Jiu said.

For this reason, in the current market, the share of micro-short dramas adapted from online drama IPs is limited, and a large number of production companies or creative teams mostly choose original scripts, which are relatively cheaper and save the adaptation process.

However, in the past year, the participation of online literature IP in micro-short dramas, especially mini-program short dramas, has increased significantly. According to the "2022 China Online Literature Blue Book", more than 300 new IP licenses were granted for micro-short dramas adapted from online literature in 2022. Xiao Zhao, an online literature platform insider, revealed to Doujiao that this number at least doubled last year.

Behind the growth is the obvious acceleration of online literature platforms in the short drama side . Since the second half of 2022, reading platforms including Tomato Novel, Chinese Online, and Zhangyue Technology have been deeply involved in the upstream production and development of short drama projects, and have participated in the production of a large number of short drama projects in the form of cash investment.

Taking Tomato Novel as an example, it is reported that in addition to platform control and self-made projects, its core currently participates in the development of short dramas in two ways. The first is to purely obtain licensing income, and the profit point is "IP sales + back-end sharing". "Tomato will not sell online literature IP to the mini program short drama party at a fixed price, but will take a share of the back-end income. Generally, 10% of the net profit of the final short drama production team will be extracted, and it may reach 15% if the turnover is high."

Brother C, the content manager of a short drama on a leading platform, told Doujiao that 80% of the short drama projects produced by his company are adapted from online literature IPs, and most of the IP licenses come from Tomato. Thanks to his team's previous experience in cooperating with Tomato in novel distribution, they can obtain bulk IPs from Tomato for free and cooperate with Tomato in back-end revenue sharing.

At the same time, Fanqie will also participate deeply in a large number of IP short drama projects. In addition to front-end online literature authorization, it will also provide contracted screenwriters to help with adaptation, publicity and distribution resource support and some cash investment. "For this part of the cooperation, Fanqie adopts a guaranteed profit-sharing model, which not only ensures that the cash investment is recovered, but also obtains a profit share from the short drama copyright team based on the proportion of the overall investment." Xiao Zhao said.

According to him, when Fanqie participates in short drama projects, it does not have high review standards for the content, but rather reviews the company's qualifications to ensure the return of the invested funds. "As long as the ROI is ≥ 1, it's fine. Therefore, many copyright teams that are short of money are willing to cooperate with Fanqie."

"In a sense, it is equivalent to an interest-free loan. For example, when we need investment from Tomato, we will select online literary IP works from Tomato, and the copyright fees and on-site promotion and marketing resources will be converted into 5% investment. Tomato will then add 10%-20% cash investment and become a co-producer of the project." Ajiu told Doujiao.

This is also the reason why a large number of short drama producers introduce online literature IP. For small and medium-sized teams, what they value is the cash investment of Tomato.

According to Xiao Zhao, under the two cooperation models, a mini-program short drama adapted from the IP of Tomato novels can produce a hit with a turnover of more than 10 million yuan on average every month. For a hit project with a turnover of 50 million yuan, based on a rough calculation of a total profit of 5 million yuan and a profit of 2.5 million yuan by the copyright holder, Tomato can get at least 250,000 yuan in the back-end share of the copyright. If it participates in the project investment, the income will be even higher.

Obviously, in the past year, several popular mini-program dramas adapted from Tomato Novel IPs, such as "Oh! The Queen Comes to Work" with a single-day turnover of over 12 million, "The Black Lotus Manual" with a single-day turnover of over 20 million, "Mr. Fu's Vest Can No Longer Be Hidden After a Flash Marriage", and "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s", have brought clear benefits to the copyright holders of the novels.

Xiao Zhao added that the short plays adapted from the Tomato Novel IP will also flow back to the Tomato Short Play Platform (formerly known as Hongguo Short Play) under Tomato Novel after the payment period ends and will be launched online for free. The copyright holders of the short plays can obtain advertising revenue share. "For some projects whose profits are lower than expected, even a small amount of money is still meat."

Doujiao also learned from an insider that this year, the Tomato Short Drama APP will further increase its efforts to change the current core free model and try to become the first paid platform for more short drama content.

2. From "This Male Lead is a Bit Cold" to "I was a Stepmother in the 1980s", how are free online novels adapted into hits?

Apart from the cash investment value of online writing platforms, online writing IP can also provide strong content value to the short drama copyright team. As early as 2021, when mini-program short dramas had not yet emerged, the first vertical screen sweet drama "This Male Lead is a Bit Cold" that was popular on the entire network was adapted from the Tomato Novel Online Article "Quick Wear: The Sickly Male Lead is Jealous Again", which brought out the first popular screen CP in the short drama industry, Li Lulu and Li Mengran. In 2023, the mini-program short dramas "Oh! The Queen Comes to Work" and "Just Like Ice Meets the Sun", produced by the Yuanshang Muguang team and adapted from the Tomato novels "When the Queen Becomes a Rich Wife" and "After Rebirth, She Was Spoiled to the Sky by the Scumbag Enemy", brought out the top men and women in the current short drama industry: Sun Yue and Xu Yizhen.

Many interviewees revealed to Doujiao that if online literature IP is used well, it can directly increase the popularity of popular short dramas.

On the one hand, although multiple factors such as storyline, shooting effect, production level, and actors jointly determine the popularity of mini-program short dramas, in the development stage, content is the key to determining the investment scale of a project. "The boss gets the script and judges the content. If he thinks it has the potential to be a hit, he will invite more top directors and actors to work together on the project. Since the initial investment in works adapted from online literary IPs has already been made, naturally more bets will be placed later, and the chances of a hit will be greater," said Jiu.

In addition, unlike traditional film and television works, which mostly select top IPs from paid novel platforms and have their own traffic development logic of attention and fan base, free online literature IPs can also provide content trend value. Especially the users of mini-program short dramas have a high degree of overlap with the people behind the sinking, fast-paced, high-traffic free online literature.

" The logic behind short dramas is the rise of free novels . Tomato is the best at new media novels. We have distributed a lot of its content and understand the real data and user situations of many of its contents. We will combine the company's expertise in subject matter and choose the corresponding IP for adaptation." Brother C said.

"The core audience of many female-oriented short dramas on mini-programs nowadays are small-town moms and retired aunts. On Fanqie, a large number of female-oriented articles are written by moms in third-tier cities and below. They understand what users want to watch best," said Xiao Zhao.

Doujiao learned that the most popular male themes on the site are fantasy cultivation, war gods, treasure appraisal, and border themes. Taking into account multiple factors such as cost and review, the war gods and treasure appraisal IPs are the most popular for adaptation in mini-program short dramas. On the female side, the most popular novel themes on the site are revenge novels, urban sweet pets, and urban life novels, all of which have produced top hits in the micro-short drama track.

The content editor of a short drama company told Doujiao that the script development of his team is mainly divided into three categories. The first is the current hot market themes . "For example, if one-child and two-baby are popular, then look for this kind of cute baby IP, make similar content, and chase the hits." The second is the types that have not yet successfully emerged in the hot themes in the field of online literature . "For example, period literature has always been a very popular type of online novels, but it has not emerged in the field of short dramas. Since last year, companies have started to do it. In the second half of 2023, "Beauty in the 1980s" and "Reborn in the 1970s Little Hot Wife" became small hits. At the beginning of 2024, "I was a Stepmother in the 1980s" became a big hit. This theme has become a hot theme."

The third category is the popular topics decided by the boss on a whim . “The online article has not verified it, and there is no similar topic in the market, but the boss just thinks that this fits the current emotional hotspots of Douyin and can generate a wave of traffic.”

But after obtaining the IP, adapting a novel of hundreds of thousands of words into a 50,000-word mini-program short drama script in a period of as short as a week or as long as a month is also another test for the editor.

Multiple creators revealed three key steps and one core taboo to Doujiao. Taking female-oriented stories as an example, the first step is to take the framework, combine the world view, and refine the most popular and most critical plot points . "For example, time travel elements, several cool points of revenge, the core CP to advance the plot, and the sweet and sad points."

The second step is to delete the side plots and create characters, merge the characters with duplicate functions, delete the unimportant stories, and use the characters to connect the key points . Take "I Was a Stepmother in the 1980s" as an example. During the adaptation process, the three children adopted by the male protagonist Zhou Yueshen were reduced to one boy and one girl, the plot of the female protagonist conquering the children was greatly accelerated, the side plots of the former engagement object were greatly deleted, the core point of getting rich in business was quickly brought forward, and the final story ended at the emotional peak of the male and female protagonists, ensuring that the rhythm and information content of each episode were sufficient.

The third step is to add differentiation and freshness, to create interesting and different content that the public finds interesting . "There are too many similar works on the market, and we need to innovate. For example, everyone is doing heart-wrenching stories, so we can add some comedy elements. Everyone is doing revenge stories about mistresses, so we don't do female competitions, but female mutual assistance. Everyone is doing sweet and pampered wives, but our heroine is stronger, like a female boss."

A typical example is the work produced by the Yuan Shang Mu Guang team and starring Sun Yue and Xu Yizhen. The factors of the actors and CP temperament are taken into consideration, and a lot of light and sweet interesting content is added to strengthen the comedy elements of the male and female protagonists, which has a significantly differentiated temperament among the domineering president romance short dramas.

The core taboo is "you can be innovative but not too innovative" . "In the original work of a certain ancient Chinese novel IP, the heroine and the second heroine turned against each other and finally joined hands to kill the hero and reach the peak. This cannot be retained during the adaptation process. There are also some works that try too hard to be career-oriented heroines, and the market feedback is very bad in the end. In essence, many women in the sinking market who will recharge the mini-program short dramas adapted from female IPs do not really want to see the heroine doing business. The setting can be fresh, but it must ultimately serve the purpose of falling in love." Ajiu said.

To some extent, mini-program short dramas may be the core desire samples of the current market population after they tear off their disguises. Xiao Zhao said with emotion, "After "I was a Stepmother in the 1980s" became popular, our team reviewed internally and asked why this drama was not only loved by low-end users, but also by many urban women around us? Because this kind of period writing is essentially our best fantasy of being able to achieve financial freedom. When I found that I was destined to be unable to have wealth in the current society, I hoped to go back to an era that was not so far away, an era where a few hundred thousand yuan could make you rich, and complete my dream. At the same time, whether it is a factory director, company commander or something else, my other half must be in a stable system. Isn't this a downgrade of high-ranking official writing in the current society?"

Author: Guo Jian, WeChat public account: Spicy