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Book industry facing crisis

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-04 11:44

China's publishing industry is facing a crisis, says an article in Oriental Morning Post. The following is an excerpt.

A recent report said that seven or eight years ago, Japan began to face a crisis in its publishing industry. Is China facing the same crisis? It seems absurd to mention the topic following the presentation of the first government award to the publishing industry.

Professionals believe the biggest crisis in China's publishing industry lies in the soaring price of paper. In recent months, the price has risen by 16 to 20 percent, far surpassing the CPI index. What is more, it seems a further rise is on the cards. The direct consequence of the soaring price of paper is that most of China's publishing houses will face great pressure to survive and the price of books will go up.

China is a big publishing country. In 2007, it published 230,000 books on various topics, most being educational textbooks.

According to statistics 20 percent dealt with culture and education, and among the top 10 bestsellers, four were purely on teaching guidance materials with such titles as College Entrance Exams and Test Questions.

In today's China when test-oriented education still dominates, competition in the publishing industry revolves around teaching guidance materials. We do not know whether it should be described as an educational crisis or publishing one.

Readers do not go for books that deal with boring subjects but instead go for the bestsellers. But we should not forget that apart from the bestsellers, a huge number of books end up being stored in warehouses because of their failure to achieve success in the market.

In fact, popular books are not the straw for publishing houses to clutch at. The real success lies in its ability to publish high quality books.