Online readers can still see some chapters of his story for free but they pay for VIP chapters. He gets about 60 percent of the earnings, meaning he can make an extra income of about 10,000 yuan per month.

Given the popularity of the novel, Motie Book has now decided to publish a print version, which means Xia could earn about 100,000 yuan from royalties, according to Mo Zihan, the publisher, who was also a popular online writer before becoming a publisher in 2011.

He added that very few online novels ever get the chance to be published in print.

"Most online writers are part-time and earn only 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a year. Those with an annual income of millions are very rare," he said.

In November, the 2012 Chinese Writers Rich List launched its ranking of Internet writers for the first time.

It showed Tangjiasanshao, who topped the list, earned 33 million yuan from royalties and other commercial earnings generated by his works between 2007 and 2012.

But Xia said money is not his main concern.

"We in the post-'80s generation are immersed in the Internet. The high click rate means recognition by my peers, which brings me a great happiness that cannot be measured by money."

Malicious online critics

China's growing online shopping sites have created a new breed of critic, who can earn big money from posting feedback and comments on participating vendors.

"These people are like parasites, relying on China's fast-developing e-commerce sector," said Dong Yingqun, the chief technology officer for Hotsales.net, an Internet technology company focusing on online marketing.

Taobao.com, China's popular online shopping site, has a rating system to evaluate shops. Negative feedback from buyers can harm shop ratings and deter potential buyers.

These people, been dubbed malicious critics by the online retail industry, collectively make negative comments, allegedly on their online shopping experience and ask for "compensation" from vendors, many of whom simply pay up instead of risking further negative feedback.

According to Dong, these payments are never more than 1,000 yuan — not significant enough for vendors to file a lawsuit.

Last November, Taobao and the police launched a joint crackdown on a gang of malicious critics.

Seven suspects were arrested on extortion charges, according to a report in the Shanghai Morning Post.

Official data from Taobao shows that 65,000 malicious online buyer comments have been identified by the site.

Dong said that most of the malicious critics are part-time and gather on Internet chat rooms such as QQ.

"Individually they don't earn much, maybe a few thousand yuan a month, but the leaders of the groups, who find target vendors and works out the best strategies to attack a shop, can earn tens of thousands of yuan per month."

Posting positive feedback can also earn money, Dong said.

"If someone posts a negative comment on Dianping.com (an online platform for people to comment on service providers, mainly restaurants), you can hire a group of people to post larger numbers of positive comments so that the negative ones cannot be seen."

A positive posting pays 10 yuan but it has no legal risk, he said.

These groups of people, according to Dong, are often familiar with the rules of online shopping, many having been online vendors themselves, and lack the ethics of legitimate retailers.

"They live in the murky corners of society, but you can do nothing to stop them because they do no serious harm to society," Dong said.

Contact the writes at xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn and wuni@chinadaily.com.cn