(Yicai Global) Sept. 3 -- Qutoutiao and video sharing platform Kuaishou will join forces to produce short video dramas based on the Chinese news aggregator’s free online literature works in order to attract more users and monetize the content.

Qutoutiao’s free reading app Midu Novels will link up with Kuaishou to adapt a number of its popular novels into short videos, Midu said today.

Short dramas are a fast-growing new business, an insider at Kuaishou said. However, every short drama needs to be based on a good story in order to be a hit, he added. By linking up with Midu, Beijing-based Kuaishou can select high-quality content based on readers’ taste.

The partnership will help to overcome the long development cycle and high investment cost of traditional content incubation models, Midu’s Chief Executive Officer Yang Ji said.

Literature works used to be adapted into films and long television series which involved a lengthy period of development, heavy investment, a low success rate and high trial-and-error costs, an industry insider told Yicai Global. It used to take three to four years to turn a book into programming and hundreds of millions of Chinese yuan to complete.

Short dramas cost much less to adapt to the screen and to film, but there are still risks, he added. Adapted works face intense competition and will not necessarily be a hit.

Midu has produced more than 10 high-quality short dramas so far which have garnered over 880 million views. Two of the shows were even incorporated into major online video platforms as TV dramas, Midu said.

Kuaishou intends to buy more copyrights and develop more than 200 short dramas this year, it announced in July.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor