Teenage icon Guo Jingming was the wealthiest wordsmith in China this year, with an annual royalty income of 24.5 million yuan (US$ 3.86 million), according to 2011's China's Richest Writers List released Monday by Huaxi Metropolitan Daily.

The list is based on the writers' royalty revenues from Nov. 10, 2010 to Nov. 10 this year. The list has been compiled annually since 2006 by literature lover Wu Huaiyao. Wu aims to track both the changes in Chinese writers' fortunes, as well as Chinese peoples' literary tastes.

Serious works of literature are losing their market share at an alarming rate. Of the 30 writers included in the list, the top 10 spots were dominated by writers of commercial and popular books, focusing on popular historical narrations, fantasy, martial arts and the workplace.

Young people make up the largest proportion of China's reading population. Of the top 10 writers on this list, seven count children and teenagers as their main readership, representing a new high since the first publication of the list.

Yu Qiuyu, China's wealthiest writer in 2006, is now said to be mainly engaged in stock trading after the publication of his latest book, "I May Wait for Nothing" in 2010.

Read on to discover China's top 15 richest writers:

   He Ma 何马

 Royalty Income: 2.6 million yuan (US$ 0.41 million)

Best seller: "The Tibet Code" series

Buy it on Amazon.cn, Chinese Edition

Born in Neijiang, Sichuan Province, He Ma is a skilled novelist and seasoned explorer who once hiked alone across the primitive Hoh Xil Nature Reserve in Qinghai. In 2005, He started writing his best-selling adventure series "The Tibet Code" as an online project, and gradually attracted many readers. In 2008, the 1.2 million–character book became a best-seller as soon as it hit bookshelves. To help him write the series, He read more than 600 books about Tibet. The well-researched novel, based on He's life experience, wide knowledge and fantastic imagination, presents a mysterious Tibet and Tibetan culture in the context of a global adventure story. His other novels include "Desert Totem" and "Detective Han Feng-High Intelligence Quotient Crime".

Book Description of "The Tibet Code" series:

This is a secret as a grave whereas Tibet has been opened universally as a tourist attraction. In 838 A.D., Buddhism was banned in Tibet. During that period, the monks hid a large number of classics and holy relics in a place where they built a temple called Pagbalha Temple. With the time ticking away and endless war, the temple competely disappeared into the dust of history...  (From Amazon.com)

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