In recent years, with the rich and colorful domestic publishing market and the changes in readers' tastes, news about small and beautiful books will always surprise us or worry. Recently, from a publishing media, "Deer Book" and "Xingsi" bid farewell on the same day, where is the difficulty in publishing small and beautiful? The news caught my attention.
According to the report, the publishing brands "Deer Book" and "Xingsi" have successively issued statements on the WeChat public account to cut off the original company. "Lushu" means that the three members of the Lushu team have left from Wuhan University Press, and will set up a new brand "Surprise"; "Xingsi" is due to the problem of the capital chain of the wholly-owned investor Shandong Booker Books, in the case of salary arrears for three consecutive months, the editorial staff decided to divest from the company, and the original team set up an independent publishing brand "New Xingsi" on the spot. As soon as the statement came out, the circle of friends of book industry practitioners was brushed off the screen, and two distinctive publishing brands in the industry announced a "farewell" with readers, which undoubtedly made many readers who liked the books of these two brands regret it.
After reading this news, I also wondered, is the market for small and beautiful books really exhausted? How can small and beautiful books further get rid of the survival dilemma of "applauding but not calling"?
01 Small and beautiful books have irreplaceable reading value
Regarding what is a "small and beautiful" book and its development in the domestic publishing industry, it has not been discussed much in the media and industry. So many publishing institutions, when they hear about the "small and beautiful" book topic, they must first ask whether there is special financial support? Is there enough readers? Is there a strong product line? Therefore, in recent years, publishers who insist on small and beautiful book publishing, in addition to the strong support of their own publishing institutions, most of them cooperate with other companies to invest in the publication of books.
Strictly speaking, in the early years, the domestic publishing industry did not pay much attention to small and beautiful books, believing that it was a delay in time and a waste of investment, and basically engaged in mass publishing. I remember when I was an editor decades ago, I filled in the reader's object of writing for all ages, suitable for readers of all ages. It's really strange that, like a commodity, how can a book be read by people of all genders and ages?
With the continuous development of the publishing industry to the market and to readers, the emergence of small and beautiful books has allowed us to see another dawn of publishing - the classification of readers. In addition to age, it is also necessary to have a more accurate positioning, income, education, occupation, hobbies are different, the books readers read, the problems they think, and the areas of concern are very different. Especially with the burst of economic vitality in the mainland, the middle-income population has increased significantly, and there has been a huge diversion at the reader level.
The common denominator of this group of people is the pursuit of lifestyle in different cultural ways. Their requirements for books are not determined by the level of pricing, but by quality, vulgarity and so on. This segment of the population is the social basis for "niche" readers. Their enthusiasm for paper book consumption has not faded with the development of digital technology. On the contrary, the nostalgia complex has led this consumer group to search the world for books that are nostalgic enough, and exquisite paper books are still their favorites. Therefore, niche reading is not only not a pseudo-proposition, but also an important inflection point that the publishing industry must face towards high quality. Only by further refining and quality book publishing can we influence the public with a small and broad, so that the minority can influence the public, and then enhance the prosperity of the publishing industry.
The so-called mass reading materials and mass market in the past may face greater reader challenges in the future. In my decades of publishing career, I've been a popular book curator for more than a decade, and I know the difficulties involved. Because you don't know, where are the readers of the popular topic you are planning? In the vast sea of people, who is your true reader? There is neither specific data nor accurate research on this, and it is all estimated readers there.
Speaking of mass publishing, in addition to those limited large societies and famous societies, the general publishing institutions, even if they do mass publishing, are only 3,000 copies per edition. This number is said to be popular reading, and sometimes it is far less than the circulation of those small and beautiful books. Sometimes, niche books have more influence and circulation, and their financial returns even exceed those of popular books.
Small and beautiful books are actually niche publishing. More specifically, Focus Publishing is a book that more accurately reaches its target audience. Small, is to say that its scale and the audience it faces, will not print tens of thousands of copies, hundreds of thousands of copies; beauty, is that its production, must be more refined, like a work of art, people love it. This kind of book is tailored to individual needs, does not cater to the taste of the public, does not win by quantity, and is not kitsch and does not follow the trend.
I think of the outbreak in Wuhan in 2020, when a patient in the Wuhan International Convention and Exhibition Center Fang Cabin Hospital leaned on the bed, he looked through the thick book in his hand, and his expression was concentrated. In Wuhan, which is shrouded in the clouds of the epidemic, there may be noisy noises around him, hurried steps, and hidden uneasiness in his heart, but he holds a book in his hand and calms down, but he has infected countless netizens. Subsequently, the young man in his 30s who read in his hospital bed, along with the books he read, became famous on the Internet. The book he read was actually a niche book, The Origins of Political Order: From the Pre-Human Era to the French Revolution, which was a political science book.
The book is an encyclopedic work on the origins of political order, depicting a comprehensive picture of how today's political institutions have evolved from history. The author is Francis Fukuyama, one of the most important political thinkers of our time, and is a book that explores the political order. It can be seen that in the face of the epidemic, some people will choose popular reading materials, such as celebrity biographies, novels, poems, etc., and some people, like "Brother Fang Cabin", rely on niche books to heal their hearts. Therefore, different cultural backgrounds, knowledge structures, and economic income determine a person's reading orientation.
We say that niche reading should not only not be an embellishment and a suitable work for the publishing industry, but also an important choice for all publishing institutions with vision, ambition and achievement. Because, although mass reading materials must maintain strong publishing capabilities and high-quality standards, niche publishing must not be abandoned or avoided. Because the small and beautiful books will win the reputation of more high-end readers and bring more unexpected high-quality topics. Today's niche reading, who can say that it is not tomorrow's towering tree?
02 Small and beautiful books urgently need the guidance of blockbuster books
Among the publishing institutions in the mainland, there are more small and medium-sized publishing institutions. For these institutions, only with their own publishing characteristics, publishing taste, in order to find a suitable living space for themselves, small and beautiful may be said to be one of the ways to survive, I see many local children's clubs, will position themselves as niche publishing houses.
Niche books are relatively small but fixed target groups compared to popular books, which is the result of the segmentation and optimization of the book distribution market, mainly refers to books that target the market for readers with a certain professional background or groups with specific hobbies, and the positioning of books is often more clear and clear. For example, some children's clubs, science and technology clubs, and art clubs take the road of small and beautiful books.
When we think of a kind of topic selection, we often first think of those small and medium-sized publishing institutions that occupy an absolute advantage in this kind of topic selection, and Beijing Children's Publishing House has always insisted on the "small and beautiful" children's literature publishing. In recent years, the "Colorful Kite Original Book Series" planned and launched by Beijing Children's Publishing House is to focus on the future development and inheritance of children's literature, and constantly gather more outstanding young and middle-aged writers in China, hoping to use a variety of genres, themes and text expressions to present the multi-dimensional landscape of China's contemporary original children's literature creation. The project team of "A Brief History of the Human Body" of Reader Culture has made the niche book "A Brief History of the Human Body" listed for 5 months, reprinted 5 times, and nearly 6 million yuan. They are precisely planned, focusing on the direction of human evolution, because this direction is at least unique in human science books. They curated "Your body is 3 billion years old!" This slogan is fully in line with the characteristics of the reader's method of requiring the reason for purchasing", "not forgetting, blurting out, and not shying away", and can also perfectly reflect the value of this work. The cover of the book uses similarly shaped pictures of real nebulae to reflect the two most important human organs of the brain and heart, thus achieving a high degree of fit between the cover and the slogan.
Among niche books, art is a very representative one. When I wandered around hundreds of bookstores in Beijing, I was surprised to find that those bookstores that specialized in art books not only did not discount, but the price of books was quite high, but the readers were very accurate, no matter how many came, they would buy a lot of art books and go away satisfied. Art books often reflect some of the characteristics of small and beautiful books.
According to a previous report by Shanghai Wen Wei Po, a number of new art bookstores in Shanghai, Such as Duoyun Academy Drama Bookstore, Shangju Art Bookstore, FILM Film Time Bookstore, Yuanlong Music Bookstore, etc., have become Internet celebrity punch cards. Experts also predict that the scattered art professional bookstores can glue the upstream and downstream of the industry, and creatively empower more cultural connotations and temperature memories of urban architectural landmarks. At the same time, behind the popularity of these art bookstores is actually an important sign and product support for the popularity of niche books. I remember that in a book fair in Shanghai a while ago, readers who bought art books also lined up in a long line, and many people bought two books for one kind of book, one for reading and one for collection, which shows the great charm of art books.
Houlang Publishing Company is a well-known niche book art variety in the industry and outside the production place. Its niche book brand "Houlang Theater", focusing on drama and performance books, can be described as a minority among the minority, Houlang Theater has published nearly 50 kinds of books, including foreign classic works, but also including the experience summary of domestic outstanding teachers and creators. In order to open up the industrial chain, Houlang Theater began to try on podcasts, which is also the beginning of the brand being well known to readers. On platforms such as Archimedes FM, Himalayas, Dragonfly FM, netease cloud music, etc., Houlang Theater has opened relevant audio columns, and there are currently about 230 online programs, with each session lasting about 1 hour. This practice of deep cultivation in the industry has also enabled Houlang Theater to establish various forms of contact with the industry, such as planning new plays with the crew, holding reader sharing meetings with the authors, and telling behind-the-scenes stories. This effective stickiness with readers and authors has given these niche books a good market effect.
In addition, as a major publishing town of humanities and social sciences, Sanlian Bookstore has adhered to the Xinzhi Library for 30 years, published more than 100 kinds of new books, and the new edition of the Xinzhi Library has been published for more than one year, and the average sales volume has reached more than 10,000 copies, so the sales volume is amazing among niche books. It can be seen that the sales of such niche books even far exceed the sales of popular bestsellers. Its success lies in the precise positioning of the selected topic, the accurate positioning of the reader, and the strong brand effect of the series of books for decades.
03 Small and beautiful books in particular need carefully crafted slow publishing
With the process of high-quality development of publishing, the publishing industry is increasingly pursuing the high quality and slow pace of books. The so-called publishing miracle of publishing a new book a week and a new book in January, which was widely praised in the past, is no longer a typical example of the worship of publishing institutions. Because books are different from newspapers and magazines, books are cultural slow consumption products that need to have long-term reading value, rather than becoming waste after a gust of wind. Based on this particularity, advocating slow publishing helps publishers to judge the situation, carefully planned, carefully edited, and carefully marketed, so as to have a good market return.
It should be noted that due to the protracted need to make high-quality publications, the editors of some publishing institutions cannot insist on it, and in fact, they do not provide this insistence support in the assessment. Therefore, in order to catch up with the publishing task, it is no longer news to publish a book in one or two months, and even some books can be listed in ten days and half a month. Naturally, such new books can only be published "fast moving consumer goods" at best, and most of them may disappear in a few days, in fact, they are wasted publishing resources.
Small and beautiful books, unlike those who often invest millions and tens of millions of book topics, need to be appropriately scaled, grasp the most core readers, tailor-made, exquisite planning, and the characteristics of slow publishing are more prominent. It can be said that high-quality products are boiled out with "slow fire".
In the industry has a certain degree of popularity of the casting culture, specializing in niche books, founded two years, three people out of 18 books, in addition to the "Waiting Field" such a printing volume of 500,000 copies of the best-selling book, other books have almost all been printed. Such slow effort, in many publishing institutions, may be a typical example of "grinding foreign workers" and "incompetence", which needs to be marginalized. However, they know what they want to do and how to do it well, so each of the 6 books they make a year becomes a masterpiece. At present, the casting culture basically only makes original books, mainly concentrated in the fields of literature, humanities and art. They argue that selling good books is the right thing to do. They argue that "the market is a process of free choice, and the only thing that the publisher can control is how far a book is done and how many channels are used to disseminate it, and whether readers are willing to spread these things after receiving them, and what uncertainties they may encounter in the process of dissemination, are difficult to control." ”
It can be seen that slow efforts also need to be based on a precise market grasp of the topics selected in the published field. Just as Lu Jinbo, chairman of Mai Culture Media Company, said, under normal circumstances, a private publishing company needs at least five years of accumulation to form a certain number of books and yards. This is a kind of publishing savings. "Because every time you make a book, it will continue to sell for years to come, and it will continue to generate commercial value."
Therefore, whether it is a publishing institution specializing in niche books, or a studio cooperating with other institutions to develop niche books, it is necessary to fully consider its own planning ability, market ability, and the spirit of nails, in a certain section, accurate force, lock target readers, and then create a complete niche book industry chain. In this way, we will not be exhausted and even defeated in Maicheng.
About the Author
Zhao Qiang, who used the pen names Chaoxiang, Yuanhang, Gong Sui, etc., is a senior publisher, editor, well-known commentator, columnist, and has worked in the publishing industry for nearly 40 years and served in many publishing institutions. Over the years, he has planned, edited, and edited more than 300 kinds of books for children, literature and art, social science, science and other aspects, and many books are bestsellers.
He is the author of 7 kinds of essays, including "The World of Lengke Tianxia" and "Publishing Travels - Notes of the Editor-in-Chief", and has published nearly 2,000 essays, reviews, and essays in more than 100 media. Among them, in recent years, he has paid special attention to the trend of the publishing industry and the difficulties, pain points and hot spots of the development of the industry, and has published more than 300 publishing reviews. At the same time, it also pays attention to social hot topics and publishes a large number of social comments. He is a member of the Beijing Miscellaneous Literature Society and still works hard today.