Recently, the Economic Daily released data: in 2021, the turnover of domestic children's books increased by 30% year-on-year, accounting for about 16% of the transaction amount of the entire book category, and the consumption of children's books was full of vitality.
The prosperity of children's book publishing can also be confirmed by the results of the "Wenjin Book Award" of the National Library. On April 23, World Book Day, the results of the 17th "Wenjin Book Award" were released, with a total of 20 award-winning books, 6 of which were children's books. In 2019, only 2 of the 10 winning books of the 14th "Wenjin Book Award" were children's books. In the past three years, children's books have accounted for a higher proportion of the award, reflecting the increased importance of children's reading in the whole society.
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Children's book publishing is a huge market cake, and the economic and social benefits are good, so publishing houses attach great importance to this field. This also raises a problem, that is, the homogenization of children's book publishing competition is very fierce. For example, in the past two years, the history and traditional Chinese studies themes are very popular, enter "Dunhuang" on the book purchase platform to search, and you will find that many publishing houses have launched Dunhuang popular science books written for children, and the design is extremely exquisite. For example, this year's "Wenjin Book Award" has an award-winning book called "The Secret of the Body: From The Cell to the Incredible You", search for "body" or "human body" on the book purchase platform, and you will see countless popular science children's books on this subject. At this time, how parents and children should choose has become a problem. This "Secret of the Body" can stand out from the massive number of books of the same theme and similar categories, and it must have a very strong advantage in itself. Therefore, children's book publishing is not a hot topic that can be caught, but also needs intensive cultivation to win the market.
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Another problem with children's book publishing is that graded reading is not good enough. Take the "Wenjin Book Award" as an example, many award-winning books can not be judged by the title of the book to determine whether they are written to adults or to children or teenagers. Sometimes it can only be judged from the name of the publishing house (such as with the word "children and teenagers"), sometimes you have to read the content introduction carefully, and sometimes, even after reading the introduction on the book purchase platform, you still can't tell whether it is a children's book or an adult book. Last year, there was an award-winning book called "Six-level Physics", which was awarded as a popular science book, but on the online shopping platform, you will see the introduction of "using science to make children win at the starting line and popularize science with children" and "inspire children's physical curiosity", which makes people mistakenly think that this is a children's science book. Of course, we can also say that popular science books are "suitable for all ages", but the lack of a clear division of readers will still make people have some confusion when purchasing.
Large groups are not well classified, let alone subdivided into age targets. Some people may worry that subdividing the age of readers will shrink the readership of a book, but in fact, the concept of graded reading runs through the whole process of topic planning, content creation and marketing, but it can better reflect the sincerity of the creator and also reflect the quality of the book.
The market generally believes that children's reading is less affected by electronic technology, and there is a background of "double reduction", which will continue to grow in the future. But we also have to see that this is not a field where anyone can make money, the more optimistic the market is, the more it needs intensive cultivation, big IP needs to be carefully cultivated, only by doing it with heart, will we get good returns.
Planner: Chen Jun, Fang Wei
Review: Xu Xin
Hand-drawn: Zhang Dandan
Voiced by: Li Ziyi
Video: Strog
Producer: Daily Business News Rong Media Center
Editor on duty: Shi Zhuoyi
Some of the pictures come from the Internet, please contact the author and this newspaper to ask for remuneration