Audio books－popular, pleasurable

Starting her career at a radio station in a small county in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, Feng Xiaojing has now become an audio host, amassing around 232,000 fans, with her income tripling over two years after signing with Ximalaya FM, a major podcasting platform.

"I could have earned more by signing with publishers. But I signed with Ximalaya as it offers services that help attract more subscribers to my channel and expand my influence in the audio community," Feng said.

Feng, better known as Xiaoran Xiaonyuzi (Lady Xiaoran) on Ximalaya, has read for 13 audio books and grown her fan base to about 232,000 after signing with Ximalaya in March 2018. Before that, she worked at a local radio station, and later took a job as a host at reading app developer iReader Technology Co Ltd.

"I was a host of a radio call-in program at a local station in Xuzhou, offering relationship advice to listeners. The radio station introduced a series of audio books from China National Radio and presented them to our audience. It was then that I came to learn about audio books, became interested, and got a job to know more about the field," Feng said.

She said the more she got to know about audio books, the stronger the urge she had to quit her job and start recording audio books as her full-time job.

"My family wasn't very supportive at first. After all, my previous job was at a government-owned radio station, which was considered an 'iron rice bowl' with guaranteed job security, steady income and benefits. But I want to be fully-devoted so that I could produce better-quality audio books and share my work with a larger group of people," Feng said.

"Besides, I got to earn more," Feng said, adding her income grew from 3,000 yuan ($426) per month as a station host to over 10,000 yuan as an audio host on Ximalaya. "Ximalaya offers audio hosts like me a flat fee of 80 yuan per hour and bonus based on the total number of subscriptions."

She said industry peer Yousheng de Zijin (Zijin with a voice) was her goal. Zijin is one of the top audio hosts and influencers on Ximalaya. To date, Zijin has published 69 audio books and built up nearly 11.86 million fans on the platform. According to The Economic Observer, he reportedly had an average monthly income of about 2 million yuan last year.

Now Feng works from home, where she modified a room into a professional recording studio, from Monday to Friday and records between 90 and 150 episodes per month, with each episode lasting about 20 minutes.

"Working at home and recording audio books all day gives me time and energy to produce better-quality content. But most of my social life now is online and that makes me feel lonely sometimes," Feng said.

Audio books are one of the most important business sectors for Ximalaya. The audio book column was pushed atop Ximalaya's apps and can be easily seen at a glance.

In 2017, Ximalaya stepped up efforts and increased its exposure to audio book development, which by then was still relatively new to the market. At the beginning of the that year, Ximalaya had only several hundred audio books and over 7,000 recording audio hosts. While by the end of that year, the number of audio books increased to a few thousand and audio book hosts increased to tens of thousands.

Jiang Feng, vice-president at Ximalaya, told The Economic Observer that more audience members are getting interested in listening to audio books ... and are willing to pay for the pleasure. Jiang said the outlook for the audio book sector looks very promising.

Jiang told The Economic Observer that by 2019, the number of users for audio books was growing remarkably fast.

User growth has prompted Ximalaya to invest more in the audio book sector. Jiang told The Economic Observer the company has invested tens of millions of yuan in Three-Body Trilogy－a newly released science fiction series.