The most important implication of the research may be for the powerful platforms that act as gatekeepers to the creative content we consume: Without an incentive structure allowing content providers to reap the rewards for their efforts, workers may have low incentives to boost the quantity or no...

The researchers discovered that as competition intensified, authors who were paid a fixed price for their work did not appear to change their productivity, whereas those authors who received a cut not only produced more but were more likely to write creatively than those paid a fixed amount.

In China, e-publishing platforms have become a multibillion-dollar industry, attracting more than 1 million authors and over 300 million readers. Authors tend to produce commercially popular fare, such as romance novels, mysteries, crime fiction, and books about science fiction and martial arts.