China Literature, the country's top online literature company, is prioritizing North America as a key destination for overseas push this year.

Webnovel, the company's the global online reading platform, aims to have 100,000 writers in the region by the end of 2021, according to Sandra Chen, head of Webnovel, international business of China Literature.

"We aim to target existing content curators, who either have written literary works in their spare time, or are themselves film and television script writers, or even who have interest in writing but have not yet started," said Chen. "We hope to grow this fictional web app into the largest such community in North America and provide writers a reliable platform with financial rewards."

To beef up such an ambition, the company on Wednesday launched its writing contest, Webnovel Spirity Awards 2021, targeting North America. The competition will run throughout the year to encourage creative English online literature originals.

Winners will receive cash prizes of up to $20,000, as well as advertising resources to present their works on Times Square screens in New York.

English-language literature is being prioritized given the extensive coverage of readers, and the COVID-19 pandemic also has caused a surge in remote working opportunities, potentially sparking enthusiasm for writers, Chen said.

"We are also eyeing to leverage China Literature's domestic experience, which incubates original IPs and adapts them to a range of digital entertainment mediums, such as movies, TV series, animation and games," she said.

For instance, the award-winning stories from the Webnovel Spirity Awards will have the opportunity for further commercial development, such as adaptation to other entertainment productions, including film and TV drama, in cooperation with Tencent Pictures.

Debuted in 2017, Webnovel attracted 54 million visits last year in markets spanning Southeast Asia, North America and Europe. More than 100,000 original novels written by overseas authors have been published on the site, a lot of which carry Chinese elements.