"The main battlefield of competition in the book industry has shifted. In the past, competition occurred among publishers, mainly for high-quality content resources, and its core competitiveness is also reflected in the uniqueness of the product, which belongs to horizontal competition. In recent years, the game between publishers and channels has become the focus, which can be described as vertical competition." On July 7, Yu Xiaojie, deputy general manager of Chemical Industry Publishing House Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chemical Industry Club"), talked freely at the "Reading X" forum, pointing out the changes facing the publishing interface.
is co-organized by the China Publishing Association and the China Book and Publication Industry Association and hosted by Beijing Kaijuan Information Technology Company. It focuses on studying new problems in book production and sales links like the previous four sessions, and strives to solve unknown X.
According to statistics from the Kaijuan, in the first half of this year, short video e-commerce book retail increased by 60% year-on-year. In June, Dongfang selected Dong Yuhui to promote book sales with his literary and knowledgeable copywriting, and even affected the rankings. The role of channels was further highlighted. Many publishers regarded traffic and exposure as key to operation, and the importance of book quality seemed to be relatively weakened. How should the publishing industry go?
Wu Shulin, chairman of the China Publishing Association, pointed out in his speech that after the emergence of the information expressway, the production and dissemination of knowledge began to be completed by institutions outside the publishing industry, such as Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Baidu, and Alibaba. The publishing process and carrier have undergone a revolutionary change, and the definition of professional publishing has become a knowledge solution. This just forces publication, making the content more suitable for the needs of science and education, economic development and people's lives, and finding a way out for healthy development under the conditions of new technological revolution.
reporters found on the forum that some publishing houses actively responded to new challenges and achieved remarkable results.
"Exploring" needs
In 2014, the Chemical Industry Society released a set of children's literacy and 4 nude books. Later, a set of literacy cards were attached according to the channel requirements, which was indeed easy to sell. Some parents asked, can it make it more interesting? The editor has upgraded for the second time, and added a set of game-oriented teaching aids, which has increased the price, but it sells particularly well in the community. Later they developed audio and video, and the total sales code of the product was nearly 50 million yuan. The Chemical Industry Society realized that at the beginning of product design, we must dig deep into all readers' reading needs and accurately match them.
Yu Xiaojie believes that it cannot be unilaterally attributed to the changes in readers' reading needs and channels. The key to the problem is that the publisher's products cannot keep up with the iteration of readers' reading needs, and the information delivery ability cannot keep up with the iteration of information dissemination methods. Today's reading is manifested as instantaneous, fragmented, video-based, and mobile reading. The demand for paper books is declining, and the relatively stable demand is only children's group and learning reading scenarios.
In the era of physical bookstores, readers go to the store to choose; in the era of traditional e-commerce, readers compare similar books online; in the era of live streaming, only one similar book would be selected, and the platform or anchor has completed pre-screening, blocking readers' choice space. If the publisher does not open up channels to grab traffic, he will not even have the chance to show his face. How to deal with
? While the chemical industry club is laying out incremental developments in the fields of digital reading and integrated reading, it explores the value of paper books and opens up new topics.
has editors to report the topic "elderly models". In the past, the topic selection will be destined not to pass because the elderly are scattered and rarely buy books. But the editor said that the elderly model coach’s self-written books are sold thousands of sets in the local area a year, and can also contact the elderly model training classes in various places. As long as the books are good, tens of thousands of sets can be promoted a year. "Now that readers are segmented, we don't need to find what most people generally need, we should provide customized services for specific groups of people," said Yu Xiaojie.
"Touch" readers
"Basic Logic" "Deliberate Practice: How to Go from a Newbie to a Master", "The Courage of Being Hateful"... In recent years, the professional club of the Machinery Industry Press (referred to as "Mechanical Workers Club") has often appeared in the best-selling list and has maintained the first place in the national book retail market share for several years.
Miao Lijin, deputy president of the Machine Workers Club, said that publishing is a cause. We ask ourselves every day, who are our customers? What is the value we offer?
high-quality content is the hub connecting publishers and readers.Peter Drucker is known as the father of modern management. The Machinery Society organized the publication of his complete works, and has published 39 copies, of which "The Effective Manager" sells more than 200,000 copies every year.
On the premise of paying attention to the value of content, everything the machine workers do is to "reach" readers. The science and technology books are highly professional and have few audiences, so the Machinery Workers Club invites authors and knowledge experts from their own fan base to broadcast live streaming. The host directly brought 3,700 unpopular books such as "Learn CNC Machine Tool Programming with Brother Xiaoji". Mass publishing books use short videos, live broadcasts, and community marketing, while digital publishing relies on digital projects, department teachers and core textbook distributors.
They cover one-on-one libraries of thousands of engineering colleges and universities across the country. They often visit departments. The Mechanical Education Service Network has gathered 500,000 teacher users. In the first half of this year, the Machinery Workers Association organized 132 teaching materials training and seminars online, with 280,000 teachers watching. The online learning platform "Tiangong Lecture Hall" created by the Machinery Workers Club specializes in vocational education and skills training.
has become the main battlefield for private domain operations in self-operation. Today, when self-operation in the Machinery Society has opened 13 stores, more than 300 WeChat groups, and more than 200 public accounts in Tmall, Pinduoduo, JD.com, short video, etc., with a total number of fans of nearly 10 million, and the operating volume of new channels has exceeded 200 million yuan, accounting for 10% of the annual sales of the society. Last year, the brand started to broadcast itself and built its own platform "Jiuzhou Cloud Broadcast". Every year, they reach 300 million readers, and naturally stand at the forefront of their caring services to target users.
traffic empowers
Life·Reading·New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore Publishing House, "Sanlian Life Weekly", is a nationally renowned comprehensive publication that values both cultural and news. "In 2014, revenue was 128 million yuan and profit was 58 million yuan, reaching a peak. In 2015, due to the impact of the Internet, revenue and profit began to decline." He Kui, deputy editor-in-chief of the publishing house in charge of Sanlian Life Weekly, made a speech "From 1 to N, it is not just a channel change", clearly depicting the transformation path of the weekly - content productization and diversified development. The initial attempts of
are a bit immature. "Pinecone Life" builds a platform to bring readers who are interested in art, food, and wine tasting online, while "Sanlian Ai Tea" sells tea and cultural and creative products on e-commerce platforms.
Colorful Music appears when doing "read in the middle". If reading paper books is slow reading and reading news online is fast reading, then there is medium reading between fast and slow reading. He Kui said: "To achieve media integration, we must give full play to the comparative advantages. Depth is our track, speed is not. What kind of knowledge do we produce? First, originality, second, system, digging out a phenomenon and topic from the outside to the inside, third, trends, focusing on the trend of changes in the times, the trend of society, and the trend of public emotions." The first lesson read in
, "Why do we love the Song Dynasty" was opened in "Get", the content from "Sanlian Life Weekly" was restructured, and the content of the lectures of 10 scholars was made into audio. Although the column is priced at 199 yuan, which is much more expensive than a magazine, it is a hit product when it is opened, and the technical platform cannot hold on the first day. This course turned back to the book of the same name, and sold nearly 20,000 copies that year. At present, more than 20 books are published every year according to the categories and audio courses of the sub-issues, and the printing is more than 10,000 copies. The "Understanding China" course developed last year has attracted attention from a two-way perspective of overseas sinologists and Chinese scholars, and has understood Chinese civilization from a global perspective.
, founded in 2020, is positioned as a teenager aged 9-16, helping to enlighten thinking, learn emotions, and pursue meaning. It printed 40,000 copies in the trial issue, and the number of copies in the fourth issue has exceeded 150,000 copies. Relying on group purchases by community mothers, almost no copy was sold on traditional channels, with revenue of more than 10 million yuan last year. In 2021, new media revenue accounted for 78% of Sanlian Life Weekly's revenue and 32% of the entire publishing house's revenue. In the future, they will also make data-based content assetized and become a new product model.
He Kui said that the goal of integration is to establish an interconnected and organic ecological system. 1 is content, it is unchanging, it is the stabilizing needle, it is the content output ability, shaping ability, and structure ability; N is change, it is innovation, it is different products, channels, commercial operation methods and value monetization methods.
content-based, actively participate in the new marketing ecosystem, and publishing can bring flowers and fruits to beautiful flowers.(Reporter Zhang Zhidan's article/photo)
Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition
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