From blogger to bestselling author

This article is interesting from at least 2 angles. the first is the activity of media in China. It is good to see how the internet does allow individuals to pursue the publishing of their own creative works. Also, it is interesting to see how intangible works published online are leading to published works. While ebooks are continuing to increase in popularity and books overall are not being pursued or read as much in the past decade, there is still a drive to publish physical books.
The second angle is the definition of the internet publishing medium as a karaoke bar. I'm not entirely sure if the quote from Liang is designed to equate the furor over internet publishing with the Chinese people's enjoyment of karaoke or if the publishing of works online is equal to a screechy, off-key rendition of "whoops, I did it again" while accompanied by an awkwardly canned track. Or is the quote attempting to infer that karaoke as an imitative form is comparable to posting one's thoughts or writings online. Is self-expression only found in imitation when self-publishing? "The largest proportion of literary manuscripts on the Internet is entertainment literature."(next to last paragraph) If what is being published is derived mainly from this proportion of online work then yes the internet is like a karaoke bar that publishers are striving to pull limited and imitative talent from while the true musicians are at the other end of the city rocking the dive bars.