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HANGZHOU, April 14-- China had 8.62 million online authors as of 2018, a significant increase from 4.8 million in 2017, according to a national conference on digital reading. Among the digital reading materials, original online works took up 79.8 percent last year, up from 69 percent three years ago, while Liu Shu, vice president of Amazon China, said that e-book readers still love classic works. An industry report released by the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association at the conference showed that the value of China's digital reading market reached 25.4 billion yuan last year, a 19.6 percent yearly growth. About 432 million Chinese read digital publications on electronic devices during the year, averaging 12.4 digital publications per person and 71.3 minutes per read, the report said. Over 66 percent of the respondents of the report were willing to pay for digital publications, up from 60.3 percent in 2016. Since 2017, the conference has been held annually in east China's city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province before World Book Day, which falls on April 23. | 
