Publishers hope for e-books success Although many young people like to use Apple's iPad, or read e-books, the publication of e-books s...

Publishers hope for e-books success

Although many young people like to use Apple's iPad, or read e-books, the publication of e-books still has a long way to go in China. (Provided to China Daily)

Although many young people like to use Apple's iPad, or read e-books, the publication of e-books still has a long way to go in China. (Liu Zhe / China Daily)

Nation's reading habits may soon enter a new chapter, reports Zhang Yuchen in Beijing.

When the first e-book readers appeared in the late 1990s, technology experts predicted a great future for the digital publishing industry, arguing that the development could provide a sea change in the way people consume literature.

The United States currently dominates the sector in terms of popularity and, therefore, revenue, and many in China are now wondering why the country's publishers have taken so long to embrace the world of digital publishing.

As defined by the General Administration of Press and Publication, digital publishing output includes e-books, e-newspapers, digital magazines and online ads.

In 2001, the total output of the digital publishing industry accounted for 105 billion yuan ($16 billion), according to GAPP's figures.

Although that figure appears large, the reality is that currently e-readers are low on the list of people's priorities. In 2011, 1 million Chinese people owned an e-reader, far fewer than the number in the US where there are 12 e-readers or eight tablet computers for every 100 people. 

However, while most Chinese publishers still cling to their traditional business model, a few pioneers have entered the e-book market, even though it's far from mature.

Seizing the nettle

Huang Peijian, manager of the digital publishing and new-media department at Citic Press, a publishing house established in 1988, explained the company's strategy for exploiting the new reality.

"Our readers' habits will be transformed by e-books. We are targeting a mainstream audience that uses the whole range of digital devices, such as tablets, cell phones and smartphones," he said.

Huang said the company provides material tailored to the needs of customers, according to the type of device they use to access digital books. "Depending on the device they use, readers may not like lengthy pieces like those found in traditional books," said Huang. "We have to adapt according to the situation.

"For example, we offer online literature for China Mobile, and most downloads (on feature phones) are made by migrant workers," he said. Because most of these workers have only received a basic-level education, the literature they download tends to fall into two categories, lightweight romances and the "Time Travel" tales that are currently enjoying huge popularity in China. "We recommend more heavyweight books for those people who use smartphone app stores," said Huang.

The tie-up with China Mobile accounts for a large proportion of the company's annual revenue, he added, without disclosing details.

"We decided to grab the opportunity and establish our own bookshelflike app," he said, in reference to applications that provide readers with a huge range of material and regular updates on forthcoming titles. "Unlike single-copy apps, it provides readers with a more upmarket service."

The app appeared online in February and its biggest seller so far is a biography of the up-and-coming NBA star Jeremy Lin. The success is partly attributable to the fact that in China the book is only available in the digital format.

Production took less than 10 days, from purchasing the copyright to publication on Apple's iTunes store, and the 40,000-character biography proved an immediate hit with readers. Traditionally, Chinese books are measured in terms of the number of characters they contain, and not by pages. According to custom, a book should contain at least 100,000 characters.

However, the Lin biography is only Citic's first attempt to publish e-books "at the speed of a magazine".

The app, Citic Speedy Publishing, is maintained by the company itself and not a third party. "We are totally in control of the subsequent marketing and updating."

Although Citic specializes in books on financial matters, a number of the works it recommends in the digital format, through smartphone app stores and large online retailers such as Dangdang or 360buy, are of the "self-help" variety, in deference to the policy of adapting to the market and device used.

Sticking to profession

In the massive Chinese market, textbooks form a significant proportion of the works available through digital publishing.

"A new reading experience equates to a new learning experience," said Li Hongfei, deputy director of the marketing department of the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. "Great customer experiences are based on good-quality books and they stem from good editing."

"Textbooks about agriculture or chemistry will play an important role in the future of e-book reading."

The FLTRP is playing to its strengths. The publisher targets professional customers by offering an online library, self-evaluation test portals, online reading materials, a website teaching foreign languages and an online service for academics.

"In this area, we know the kind of role we should play, and that's to be a provider of professional education services."

Later this year, the FLTRP will introduce a range of foreign-language classics, as part of a campaign to promote foreign masterpieces across all age ranges. "Even though the platform has changed and become digital, most of the content it provides should not be as shallow as time travel literature and romantic novels," Li said.

Everybody ready?

However, this approach does not appeal to everyone. At a digital publishing conference held in March, 80 percent of the participants showed virtually no interest in publishing literature digitally. Mostly, these publishers are involved in government-funded projects to digitize old newspapers to provide a news and history archive, according to an industry insider who asked not to be named.

The attitudes on display at the conference are emblematic of the difficulties faced by Chinese publishers as they attempt to transition from traditional publishing to the new realities in a world where the old certainties are being undermined by new fashions.

"Digital publishing is like a teenager sent to study overseas who must adapt to a different culture and learn new things in order to survive in a strange country," said the insider, who has worked in the publishing industry for more than five years.

Digital publishing will prompt changes in the publishers' business models, especially for those that believe they will be able to survive as a single-content distribution channel.

But the device-based market is unlikely to wait for those who are slow to adjust. Although people had been reading e-books since their appearance, the turning point came in 2007 when Amazon released its revolutionary Kindle e-reader.

At that point, the world started paying attention to the newly formatted content. There are now around 12 e-reader manufacturers in the Chinese market, some with extremely strong links to online stores.

In 2008, Hanvon was the first Chinese technology company to produce an e-reader and the company remains the dominant force in the market. Next comes the Bambook, an e-reader manufactured by Shanghai Nutshell. Meanwhile, the Beijing-based Founder Technology produces the Wefound & Yambook e-readers.

Dangdang, China's largest online book retailer, is also expected to introduce its own branded e-reader in the second half of the year.

However, opinions vary on the development of these devices. "The future of the digital market is still unclear and it would have been better if we'd considered it earlier," said Li from the FLTRP.

Citic's Huang doesn't believe that a Chinese equivalent version of the Kindle will appear anytime soon. "It will be a long road for a domestic company to produce e-readers that reflect the depth of experience that Amazon has," he said. "It will require constant updates and regular development."

Children are the future of e-books

Editor's note: Juergen Boos is director of the Frankfurt Book Fair. He gives us his views on the development of the e-book market.

We should view the success of e-books in the US market by acknowledging that the country has a unique approach to royalty payments, marketing and technology and customer habits. Moreover, in the US, romantic novels in e-book form have extremely good sales and outstrip any other type of literature. That's because of the demographic, whereby women aged 20 to 40 are the main consumers of e-books. So, despite the high sales in the US, the country should not be taken as a benchmark to evaluate the maturity of the world's e-book markets. For example, Germany is the world's third-largest market after the US and the UK, but sales accounted for just 1 percent of total domestic book sales in 2011.

Cultural differences are one of the main factors affecting the development of e-books. One of the reasons Japan is falling behind is that the country has no specified format and can't decide whether to use the horizontal or vertical version. In Brazil, e-readers are not popular because people prefer to read on their cell or smartphones.

Ultimately, successful development will depend on how children use these digital products, because they will decide the future of digital publishing. It is a decisive role. I know that China is now promoting the e-bag - an e-book package for schoolchildren that is used in place of traditional textbooks and learning materials - and I think that's a very good thing. When children get used to the e-reading or e-bag experience, they will feel comfortable using digital books.

Juergen Boos was speaking to Zhang Yuchen.

Wu Wencong contributed to this story.