By Liu Wei

Law student Wang Chen has more than 20 novels under her belt, all published online. It costs about 0.03 yuan to read 1,000 Chinese characters of her works on literature website www.17k.com - money that she shares with the website.

The nation's writer wannabes are discovering that writing online offers the best way out of having to compete for space in literary magazines and lobbying publishers for that all-important chance.

Online literature is big business. According to Time magazine, Shanda Literature, which controls over 90 percent of China's online reading market, rakes in an estimated 100 million yuan ($15 million) every year.

A report released by China Internet Network Information Center shows the country's online readers stood at 162 million in 2009. The report calls online literature the fourth most-popular type of online entertainment after music, videos and games, with E-books emerging as an important new distribution channel.

The only thing, it seems, online writers have to worry about is garnering more clicks.

Yet, the pressures of fierce competition, controversy over their works' literary merit and rampant piracy are all taking their toll.

Wang says she started writing online just for fun. It is still something she does to occupy her spare time. She writes mostly on the supernatural and about ancient dynasties, two of today's popular genres.

According to Wang Xiaoquan, an editor with 17k.com, male readers invariably prefer fantasy, while female ones like romance.

But for both groups, the stories need to be original, suspenseful and well-paced, says Biluohuangquan, a senior editor with www.qidian.com, the nation's largest literature website.

"Most online novels are serialized," he says. "Without an original hook, readers will soon turn to other works - of which there are so many on the Internet."

While both Qidian and 17k do not insist on a daily output from the writers, the direct link between clicks and income leads many to push themselves.

"Of course, those who update their stories quickly tend to win more readers," Biluohuangquan says. "But the pressure comes mainly from the readers, not the website."