Quick review| Book price legislation breaks the "theater effect"

Recently, the State Press and Publication Administration released the "Development Plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan period of the publishing industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Planning"), which mentions the plan to promote the formulation of relevant laws and regulations, including the "book price legislation" that has been proposed by industry insiders for many years. In the section "Regulating the Order of Online and Offline Publishing", the "Planning" proposes: Strictly regulate the cooperation between publishing units and private institutions, and seriously investigate and deal with the behavior of "buying and selling ISBN". Strengthen the supervision and management of publication prices, promote book price legislation, effectively stop the vicious "price war" of online and offline publication sales, and create a healthy and orderly market environment.

Gorky said that "books are the ladder of human progress" and Maugham said that "reading is a refuge to carry with you". As the carrier of spiritual nourishment, books must have breadth, height, depth, speed, temperature, thickness, strength and attitude to meet the needs of all levels of society, which requires the establishment of a healthy ecosystem including authors, publishing enterprises, channel enterprises, and readers.

In the past decade, online book sales have attracted traffic and venture capital at low prices, but they have squeezed the reasonable profits of authors and publishing companies, and the labor of authors has not been respected enough, which has dampened the enthusiasm for creating high-quality works. The continuation of this situation will inevitably disrupt the order of the publishing market and lead to the deterioration of the book industry ecology. Authors and publishing companies are well aware of the stubborn disease of low-priced book sales on the Internet, but any interested individual is difficult to support, does not want to be abandoned by the market and readers, and is trapped in the quagmire of "theater effect" under the helplessness of reality.

The "Planning" promotes the legislation of book prices, breaks the "theater effect", and promotes the authors, publishing enterprises and physical bookstores in channel enterprises to plan the blueprint for high-quality development, and all parties have entered the track of benign development. The author's labor is effectively guaranteed at the material level, which can promote the production of excellent works. At the same time, publishing enterprises should get rid of the shackles of traffic and move towards balanced development, and online and offline channel enterprises should avoid vicious competition and complement each other's advantages.

Readers should establish a healthy concept of book consumption and fully understand the role, value and significance of books and reading. First of all, books are used to read, rather than picking up cheap facades, the key lies in the amount of reading rather than the amount of purchase; secondly, paying for knowledge is the minimum respect for human civilization, just like eating and dressing to pay, nourishing the spirit should be paid for; finally, with the continuous improvement of the book ecology, we should accelerate the cultivation of reading habits for a wider range of people, so that reading becomes a necessity of life, and constantly climbs the ladder of human progress.

Article/Guangzhou Daily commentator Li Ji

Photo: Guangzhou Daily New Flower City reporter Mo Weinong

Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor Hu Jun