FOR contracted authors affiliated with Zui Book Company, the days of sending manuscripts to dozens of publishers and anxiously awaiting a reply is over.

    Miss Yexiang, a Shenzhen-based author whose real name is unknown, is going to publish her third book in August. She signed with the Zui company in 2007 when she was 18, becoming the youngest contracted author in the company’s history.

    “There is no deadline or content requirement for Zui company’s authors. You don’t have to worry about what publishers think. However, the company can guarantee a sales volume of over 100,000 copies,” says Miss Yexiang.

    More than 80 writers and some 20 comic creators are now signed with the teen-friendly Zui Book Company, which writer Guo Jingming started in 2008. The literary agency produces original stories, manga and other publications. The magazine Zui Novel has a circulation of 500,000 a month, according to domestic media reports.

    Miss Yexiang says new authors get a good apprenticeship thanks to Guo, who focuses on teen culture or young writers who are entering the world of creative writing.

    “In 2003, when I was 14 years old, Guo’s books were popular among students,” says Miss Yexiang. From Guo’s previous magazine I5LAND in 2003 to Zui Novel in 2006, as well as his other best-selling novels, every student had a copy, according to Miss Yexiang.

    “Guo’s magazines focus on the growth of youngsters. He claims that youngsters should be true to themselves and asks us to express our feelings, which is what teenagers want. Our education system fails to teach us these things,” says Miss Yexiang.

    Since 2008, she has published a dozen short stories in Zui Novel. Her first published story, which was only 5,000 characters long, was about a budding romance between middle school students.

    “Guo’s company produces star authors like a factory, but he allows me full independence,” says Miss Yexiang.

    Guo, 29, says he prefers writers who are distinctive. “Many people can write but have no individual style. Writers are in a long-distance race to win readers,” says Guo.

    Twenty-five of the top 30 Chinese best sellers of 2011 were writers affiliated with Guo’s company. “And the books we published in 2011 brought in 300 million yuan (US$47.6 million),” he says.

    He says building a production line to create star writers like him is one of the business modes of publishing, but not a huge change in China’s literary realm.

    Probably the most fashionable and successful writer in the country, Guo ranked 53rd in Forbes China’s top 100 celebrities list in 2011 and was the only writer listed.

    His latest book “Tiny Times 3.0” has sold 1.4 million copies in the two months since its release in December.

    Reflecting the mentality of today’s youth, focusing on individuality and using a language that is elegant and fashionable, nearly every one of his eight books has been an annual best seller.

(Cao Zhen)