On April 16, on the occasion of the 29th World Book Day, Douyin e-commerce held the "Reading for All in the Live Broadcast Room" activity in Beijing. According to on-site data, Douyin e-commerce sold more than 150 million books in the first quarter, and more than 2 million books were sold every day. Publishing industry participants at the meeting believe that live e-commerce has brought more new and good books to a broader readership.
According to a third-party report, short videos and live broadcasts have become important channels for the first release of new books, and 15 of the top 100 books sold in short videos and live broadcast e-commerce are new books. Mai Jia's new book "Human Letter" became the most popular new book on the platform in the first quarter after its debut on Douyin e-commerce.
Short videos and live e-commerce help increase the reading rate
According to data released by Beijing Open Book Information Technology Co., Ltd., the scale of China's book retail market in 2023 will be 91.2 billion yuan, an increase of 4.72% year-on-year. Ai Limin, chairman of the China Book Publishing Industry Association, said: "E-commerce platforms and the publishing and distribution industry have strengthened the basic market of book readers and promoted the development of the publishing industry to a warm and new level. He emphasized that with the popularization of digital technology and the rapid development of e-commerce platforms, the way authors create, the content production mode of the publishing industry, and the reading methods and habits of readers are all undergoing profound changes, and publishing houses also need to have the courage to break through and insist on innovation.
Ai Limin, chairman of the China Book Publishing Industry Association
While short videos and live broadcasts are driving book sales, they are also increasingly influencing classic and new books. According to Feng Xiaohui, manager of the research department of Beijing Open Book Information Technology Co., Ltd., in the first quarter of 2024, the short video e-commerce channel is still the only channel to achieve year-on-year growth, with an increase of 31.15%. New and old works such as "Letter in the World", "The Right Bank of the Ergun River", and "We Live in a Huge Gap" have been significantly driven by short videos and live broadcasts. In the first quarter of 2024, 15 of the top 100 short video e-commerce sales are new books, and the proportion of new books is higher than that of other channels. This means that short video e-commerce continues to be an important channel for the launch of new books. In addition, the performance of new books in interest e-commerce is even more prominent, and in March 2024, new books in the fiction, non-fiction and children's categories will enter the top 30 list of interest e-commerce sales.
The development of Douyin's e-commerce book industry also confirms this trend. According to Douyin e-commerce data, in the first quarter of 2024, the platform's short video of book trailer will be played more than 21.6 billion times, and the live broadcast of books with goods will be viewed more than 3.9 billion times, and the interconnection of high-quality content and shelf e-commerce will drive more than 150 million book sales on the platform, with an average of more than 2 million books sold per day. From the perspective of age, the "post-00s" have the greatest potential for book consumption, with the number of books purchased increasing by 187% year-on-year, and they prefer psychology, novels, and literary books.
Yu Jintao, deputy editor-in-chief of Douyin Group, said that the long-term social value project "Douyin National Good Books Project" launched by the platform will continue to link publishing houses, writers, high-quality content creators and other parties through platform policies, in-depth operation activities, traffic support and other measures, and use short videos and live broadcasts to sell new books and recommend good books, so as to bring more new books and good books to readers.
Publishers live stream to explore new markets
The rapid development of short video and live streaming e-commerce has driven the rapid growth of the book consumption market and promoted the in-depth transformation of the publishing and distribution industry.
"Books are becoming more and more closely linked to live broadcast room sales, and the book market has undergone structural reshaping. Wang Qiuling, deputy general manager of the People's Literature Publishing House, said that the People's Literature Publishing House has a history of 73 years, and it is the original intention of the Humanities Society to use good books to guide the reading fashion of the whole society. Since 2020, the People's Literature Publishing House has laid out, adjusted and improved book sales channels in a timely manner, opened its own store on Douyin and cooperated with book knowledge experts to recommend good books.
Chi Zijian's work "The Right Bank of the Ergun River", published by the People's Literature Publishing House, was recognized by more readers after being recommended by anchor Dong Yuhui, and formed a huge word-of-mouth effect under the spontaneous promotion of readers, achieving amazing sales in a year and a half, with a total print run of more than 6 million copies. "A Detailed Analysis of Three Hundred Tang Poems" sold nearly 200,000 copies in half an hour in the live broadcast room.
Wang Qiuling, deputy general manager of the People's Literature Publishing House
Social Sciences Academic Press is a publisher of professional books. According to Zhang Peng, general manager of the marketing center and director of the distribution department of the society, more than ninety percent of the new books launched by the Social Science Literature Agency every year are professional books. In order to find a larger market for niche books, the Social Sciences Literature Agency officially launched self-broadcasting on Douyin e-commerce in June last year, and achieved a balance of self-broadcasting and broadcasting performance in just half a year, with annual sales increasing by 120% year-on-year.
Liu Xiaochun, director of the Internet Rule of Law Research Center at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that live e-commerce lowers the reading threshold, stimulates the interest of potential readers, and allows many short video users to directly convert into new reading groups. On the other hand, live streaming and short videos also promote the "return" of high-quality content to the publishing industry, driving book sales and making more people fall in love with reading again. In addition, she also called on all parties in society to work together, and regulators, publishers, e-commerce platforms, readers and other parties to work closely together to protect genuine books and promote the healthy development of reading for all.
Liu Xiaochun, Director of the Internet Rule of Law Research Center of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
In Douyin e-commerce, book knowledge creators are also contributing to the vigorous development of the publishing and distribution industry. Sun Yue, a "post-95" girl, turned her interest in reading into a job, shared and recommended books on Douyin, and sold more than 90,000 copies of "The Classic of Mountains and Seas that Children Can Read" with a video, and her own book "Going Home: 14 Years and 57 Days" is also very popular on Douyin e-commerce. In Sun Yue's view, short videos can make up for the gap in educational resources and information to a certain extent, and provide a relatively equal window for more people. She describes herself as a "window maker" and hopes to "inspire each other, support each other, and grow together with tens of millions of people on Douyin." ”