Maoni is a platinum web-writer. [File Photo]

Fans are really important to web-writers. According to the new remuneration system of China Reading Limited, the biggest internet literature website in China, web-writers can receive up to 50 percent subscription revenue sharing.

Almost all Internet literature websites include a reward function. Readers can award the web-writer money or props which can be "exchanged" for money.

Some sites encourage "fans economy". They publish monthly charts of popular web-writers which are determined by votes from readers. However, readers must pay to vote, and the more they pay, the higher rank their favorite writer will get.

There are millions of web-writers in China. They can be divided into five levels by their income and number of fans. The lowest level is ordinary writer, also known as poor guy (or poor guy writer). Their fans are limited, while their works seldom get recommended. Normally, their annual income is around 1,000 yuan (&161).

Xiaoshen (low rank god) class writers have more than 100,000 fans with an annual salary of more than 100,000 yuan ($16,100). Generally, they are the foundation of a literary website.

Zhongshen (middle class god) class writers earn more than 500,000 yuan ($80,600) per year and have hundreds of thousands fans. There are several hundred such web-writers in China now.

The annual salary for dashen (super god) class writers is more than 1 million yuan ($161,200). The number of their fans is always more than 1 million as well.

There are around 20-30 top web-writers in China. They are called platinum authors or zhigaoshen (the Supreme God) class writers. According to the 2014 Chinese web-writers’ list, Tangjiasanshao, who ranks first, earns 50 million yuan ($8.06 million) annually from royalty income, while the second and third in the list both earn more than 25 million yuan ($4.03 million).