A bookstore staff shows a copy of the first issue of Han Han's magazine, the Party, in Changsha on July 6,2010. [Asianewsphoto]
BEIJING - Controversial Chinese writer Han Han, who recently made TIME magazine's top 100 most influential people in the world, has added another notch to his belt - editor and producer of a wildly popular magazine.All 500,000 copies of the first issue of his magazine Party - called Duchangtuan in Chinese - were sold out in just four days after hitting the streets in China on July 6.
Tianjin Chinese-World Books Inc, the publishers, has printed extra copies to cope with the demand.
"We have been printing additional copies since the first day of the release," Liu Qi, a spokeswoman for Tianjin Books said. "We were confident of the sales. But we did not expect it would be so popular."
The literature-themed magazine, priced at 16 yuan ($2.40), has been a cash cow for the publishers as it has been breaking many sales records for booksellers in the country.
"The pre-ordered sales - more than 30,000 copies at the country's two leading online bookstores Amazon.cn and Dangdang.com - are unprecedented," Liu said. The company is affiliated to Shanda Literature Ltd (SDL), one of the leaders of China's online literature industry.
Initially, Han rejected several publishers before signing with Tianjin Books.
"Some publishers were not willing to offer book issue numbers, some asked abridgements, which was refused by Han Han," said Wang Guanghua, the publisher's public relation director who was quoted by Qilu Evening Post, a Chinese-language newspaper in eastern China's Shandong province.
The grueling labor of the bi-monthly publication, in gestation for 18 months, has been hailed as a major victory for Han, whose charm and popularity no doubt boosted sales.
Customers read the Party at a book store in Changsha on July 6, 2010. [Asianewsphoto]
Han Han
The 28-year-old, already a top-earning author with 14 books published, is also a champion amateur racecar driver, a social rebel who dropped out from high school and a wildly popular blogger. Indeed, his blog has registered more than 200 million hits since it began in 2006, making it one of the most popular blog in the world.Time magazine said Han, the son of a Shanghai newspaper editor, is widely seen as "a torchbearer for the generation born after the beginning of the country's opening to the outside world, a group the Chinese call the 'post-80s' generation': apolitical, money- and status-obsessed children of the country's explosive economic boom".
Han has kept a low profile about Party's publication, giving no press conferences or media interviews.
On his blog, Han wrote: "Although writers have produced articles of great quality, it is, after all, a cultural book. It cannot carry the expectation from the people who want to change and improve the society. The change comes from oneself."
An audience will be surely disappointed if they watch an art movie, expecting a warfare epic, he said.
The magazine's Chinese name Duchangtuan means solo choir. But its content is not from just one writer, but contributions from well-known individuals including a TV anchor, a singer and an Internet celebrity.
"The success of the magazine depends on whether the content can be maintained such a level," said Yang Wenxuan, an editor from Tianjin Books.
