Monday morning on the subway. Among the dense crowd of commuters, a Mr. Kim, securing some space for himself to move his arms, touches the screen of his mobile phone. He's reading "A Love Song for the Conqueror" (패왕연가), an adventure action novel published serially online. Since he found that he can read serialized novels online through his smartphone, the frequent reader of mysteries and some other genres has now been enjoying fiction during his daily commute.

Until recently, if an artist were to depict a day in the life of Seoul's subway system, one of the first things in the painting would be a passenger holding a smartphone in one hand and reading online comic strips, or "webtoons," on the small screen. Nowadays, however, another group of phone-users can be added to the painting: readers of serialized online novels, or "webnovels."



An evolved form of online novels: the webnovel

Serialized online novels are not e-books. "Webnovels," if you want to use the word, are stories published serially online chapter-by-chapter, and sometimes only subchapter-by-subchapter, and which are generally read on a smartphone.

This format for online novels reminds one of novels published serially in newspapers of the past. Each episode or post is short, as the reader must be able to finish reading in five or 10 minutes, and is published serially. Only the physical platform has changed, from pulped trees to silicon and plastic.

Novels posted or published online are not at all new. Between the mid- and late-1990s and the early 2000s, some writers who used to write online became big names in fiction by publishing their works as physical books. The author of the fantasy "Dragon Raja" (드래곤 라자), Lee Yeong-do, and Guiyeoni, whose works are mostly teenage chick-lit like "He Was Cool" (그 놈은 멋있었다), are two prime examples. Generally, however, online novels didn't see much success since they failed to develop more profitable publishing models.

Online novels in the era of smartphones, though -- webnovels -- are different. Publishers have adopted some of the success factors that were seen in online comic strips, like being formatted for a smaller, mobile screen, and being basically free-of-charge, though there are sometimes charges or partial charges for past episodes. These have all transformed mere online books into true webnovels: online serialized novels.

Each author and publisher is different, of course, but most such online novels are, like online comic strips, published once or twice a week on a set date. A diversity of genres, from fantasy, romance, adventure and sci-fi through to mystery, is also one of the strengths that online novels share with online comic strips. Fresh material, infinite imagination and popular appeal are the strengths of online comic strips. Similarly, most online novels are fresh, new and light. The formatting and presentation of each episode is edited and designed for smaller smartphone screens. Authors can make a bit of money, even if they don't publish physically, thanks to enthusiastic readers who willingly pay to read upcoming episodes that are not generally open yet to the public.


Can 'webnovels' reproduce the success of 'webtoons'?

Naver, an online conglomerate and Korea's largest search engine, released user statistics for the online novels it publishes on Jan. 15, marking the third anniversary of the launch of its webnovel service. More than five million readers visit a Naver online novel at least once a month. This is a 53 percent increase over the same figure in 2013, when the service launched. Accumulated hits for every novel published on Naver's webnovel portal are about 1.8 billion, which is about 14.97 million readers per novel. Expanding the accumulated hits over the past three years of the service, the number reaches up to approximately 9.5 billion.

As online comic strips appeared like a savior around the time that Korean comics and the cartoon industry in general nearly collapsed, serialized online novels may be the savior for the publishing industry, some industry analysts expect. When faced with the criticism that webnovels' literary value is somewhat low, or even trashy, they reply with optimism. The literary level will get better, publishers insist, as more good writers join and appear in the market, as the market will expand and prove to be profitable, they say.

In fact, such growth expectations may already be reflected in the current state of online publishing. Some literature that used to be published as physical books have now been published online in reedited versions.

One example of this is the steady-selling essay collection "Sentences of the Young" (청춘의 문장들) by novelist Kim Yeonsu, as well as the novel "The Joseon Magician" that was recently turned into a movie. These publications are not like e-books. The essay collection, which went through more than 35 printings over the past 12 years, is being sold chapter-by-chapter at Kakao Page, a platform for online comic books and online novels. Each page has been edited for small mobile screens in terms of display. As for "The Joseon Magician" (조선마술사), its content itself has been reedited. The webnovel version has deleted an entire introduction set in Europe that was in the original novel. Publishers decided that webnovel readers prefer stories in which they can be immersed instantly, since they read it on their smartphones.



Webnovels, as well as webtoons, are now being welcomed by movie and TV producers. One online novel, "Old Man" (올드맨), that was published on Kakao Page, was made into the TV series "Mr. Back" in 2014, and "Vampire's Flower" (뱀파이어의 꽃) was made into an online soap opera under the same title that's available on Naver's TV Cast, its library of online streaming TV shows. A TV adaptation of another online novel, "Moonlight Drawn by Clouds" (구르미 그린 달빛), is scheduled to be broadcast later this year.

Flipping the preconception that they are free comic strips with no cultural value, whose readers are mostly teenagers, online comic strips have successfully become one strong branch on the pop culture tree and revitalized an industry. Will serialized online novels also overturn their initial negative preconceptions that they're just low-end fiction with no literary value, and stand as a respectable publishing platform for the broader world of literature? We shall see.

By Chang Iou-chung
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: captured from Naver Web Novel
icchang@korea.kr