Internet pushes comics entrepreneur to make it big

　　Chen Anny on campus in May 2014. [Photo/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

　　"Our programmer became an instant hit on Weibo yesterday. His fans increased by 5,000 overnight. Look, there are more than 1,000 comments," said Chen Anny, founder of mobile app Kuai Kan Man Hua (Read Comics), the moment she sat on a chair in a meeting room at her company in Beijing.

　　The sudden growth of followers is simply because Chen put her staff's photo on one of her Sina Weibo accounts (China's version of Twitter), which in total have nearly 10 million fans, an amazing number for a post-90s blogger who started from an ordinary comics artist and publisher.

　　In the last four years, Chen, 22, became a recognized comics artist, a comics company founder and an owner of the most popular comics mobile app in China. It's an experience that she deemed achieving " with a low probability of 1 percent".

　　The miracles, seemingly pennies from the heaven, were achieved reasonably. One of the means is that she has successfully utilized the power of the Internet to attract numerous online fans.

　　"The increase of followers stood very slow at the very start. Then it sped up by hundreds or thousands. The number reached 200,000 in the first year (2013), 3 million in the second year, and 9 million in the third year," Chen said as she leisurely tapped her fingers on a table in front of her.

　　She began to draw comics and put them on Weibo in her spare time on campus starting in late 2011. The comics depicting an undergraduate's daily life and love story resonated with many people about their own time at school and they became her followers.

　　A sketch drawn by Chen Anny from her comic series, Anny and Wang Xiaoming, a school love story. The subtitles read："At that time, they did not have much pocket money. They usually eat fried rice noodles worth 5 yuan ($0.8) when dating." The heroine says: "Yummy." He replies: "Wipe your mouth."[Photo/Sina Weibo]

　　"I started up my career on the Internet," Chen said in a self-assuring tone.

　　Most of Chen's readers are teenage girls and young women between 12 and 20 years old, a generation that has grown up with the emerging and developing Internet in China. The Internet has become one of their most important channels for recreation.

　　"She has a good feeling towards new media and the readers," said Luo Zebo, a co-worker and classmate of Chen.

　　Besides publishing comic stories, Chen showcased a more live and complicated drama by turning her friends circle, now her company, into a source of gossip.

　　From photo streams of gatherings occurring on campus or in her company, to a photo display of her good-looking friends or staff, these daily details form a reality show to satisfy the imagination of her fans, a creative way to boost social media users' activity.

　　And this effect is further intensified when several friends and employees themselves are popular bloggers who have hundreds of thousands of followers.

　　Chen uses the Internet wisely and more.

　　A photo display of Chen Anny's staff on her Weibo account. [Photo/Sina Weibo]

　　When she shifted her career focus from producing comics to building a platform for all comics artists, her distribution platform stretched from Sina Weibo to other social media, like messaging app WeChat and the company's own mobile app Kuai Kan Man Hua, which attract not only readers but also authors.

　　"Our platforms support new comics artists," said Chen, "We have more than 150 authors now. A majority of them are in their 20s."

　　Increasing numbers of young comics artists are willing to share their productions on Chen's new media platforms to win reactions from readers and get help from Chen's editorial team, which is made up of comic authors. They often offer advice to contributing authors on improving their work, according to Chen.

　　Now, Chen has developed her social media platforms into an interactive one, a place where comics artists, readers and the editorial team share their ideas on comics, and aim to push the domestic comics industry forward.

　　"I think it is worthy and interesting, so I do it," Chen said, referring to her career. "It will promote China's comics industry by making it more valuable in a commercial sense."

　　Chen Anny's staff at work in Beijing, Dec 19, 2014. [Photo/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]