时间：2022-08-28 02:12:27
John Makinson, CEO of Global Penguin Group, had dialogue with senior leaders of Joint Publishing; Derk Haank, CEO of Springer Group, spoke for China Book International and released new database products; Stephen Bourne, Chief Executive of Cambridge University Press, will attend the ceremony of for issue of a new book,ie Ten Chapters on Publishing: Cross-cultural and Beyond, co-authored by himself and Wu Wei, Party Secretary of Committee of China National Publications Import and Export Corporation. At this year's Beijing International Book Fair (hereinafter referred to as the BIBF), the participation of these large international publishing group executives will become one of the highlights of the Fair, which undoubtedly reflects the importance these international giants show for the Chinese market.
In fact, the concern of these international publishing giants about Chinese market is not limited to BIBF. In this year, Oxford University Press, a well-known publishing brand, set up an office in Beijing, and cooperated with Xi'an Jiaotong University to issue a new law journal. An official of Global Academic Publishing Division of Oxford University Press said: "Global Academic Publishing Division of Oxford University Press regards China as an important market in the future. Publication and dissemination of splendid academic books is the mission of us. We have to establish our status in the market where academic books are issued and used, so we hope to involve in Chinese market, in order to understand local construction of academic knowledge and establish connection with major academic institutions. Meanwhile, we are also very concerned about the development of Chinese market. Thus, the headquarters of Oxford University Press in England and America will support our development plans in China. "
Li Dong, Managing Director of Wei Li Global (Beijing) Consulting Co., Ltd., holds the post of the representative of a foreign publisher in China from the late 1990s. At that time, as one of the first chief representatives of foreign publishers in China, Li Dong founded the China office of CCH, a sub-company of Wolters Kluwer, and afterward joined the law and taxation publishing company under Reed Elsevier Group PLC - LexisNexis. In 2008, he became one of the partners of Wei Li Global C Weldon International Group in China. The identity of "first-generation" in nearly 10 years’ make him have a rich knowlage of foreign companies: "Chinese market is certainly full of opportunities, but the specific ways of cooperation remain to be explored." "As far as I know, some foreign companies were not well-managed. With regard to professional publishing, we were actually faced with a variety of issues at that time. Taking the price for an example, for similar product, we sold at U.S. $ 2,000, while local products were sold at RMB 2000, which made us lose advantage immediately. "
It has become the consensus of many foreign publishing giants that huge opportunity exists in Chinese market. When many companies angle for Chinese market, how to overcome the "non-acclimatization" and how to achieve a winning of both sides in the Sino-foreign cooperation are issues for both domestic and foreign publishers to think about.
From Silent Sideliner to Close Cooperator
In the long course of foreign publishers’ entry of Chinese market, one incident impressed Li Dong. When some foreign publishers came to China in the late 1990s, domestic publishers reacted as if "the wolves were coming", and held a seminar devoted to discuss the ways to deal with the coming foreign publishers. Li Dong forgot the name of the seminar, but he remembered that the seminar specifically forbade the participation of representatives of foreign publishers. As a staff of China office of a foreign publisher at that time, Li Dong quietly came to the seminar to audit. Most participants gave recommendations on how to "fight against wolves with door closed", only Li Pengyi, formerly president of Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, put forward a bold theory: "Dance with wolves rather than fight against wolves with door closed!"
This is the seventh year since Penguin Group entered Chinese market. By reviewing the past, Zhou Hailun, General Manager of Penguin Group (China), said: "Actually, we don't have any plan for the future when Penguin just entered China. Our idea at that time was to promote our brand and book sales here. Penguin (China) only had me in the first year, and for the main purpose of cultural exchange, I intended to survey what good books in Chinese market could be translated into English." Today, Penguin's business in China is thriving. In addition to the sale of original books and import of copyright, Penguin constantly exported a number of Chinese contemporary literatures to international market, including Complete Works of Lu Xun, English by Wang Gang and Girl from the North by Sheng Keyi, etc.
At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009, Cambridge University Press announced to initiate “Cambridge China Library” program. Currently, five major projects have been included into its publication plan. During the London Book Fair in April of this year, Cambridge University Press held a large release conference for “Cambridge China Library” and officially released English editions of “Cultural China” series and Economic Reform and Development the Chinese Way, etc. Zhu Qifei, Greater China senior business development manager of Cambridge University Press, said: "In future, we will continue the selection and introduction of more high-quality books for Cambridge China Library." Currently, he is negotiating with Central Party Literature Press and Joint Publishing for cooperation of copyright transfer, such as Mao Zedong and The Collapse of the Qing Dynasty.
Difficulties and Confusions in Book Trade
Beijing office of Italian Mediterranean Cedar Press has been established for almost 3 years, and has maintained sound cooperation with 21st Century Publishing House and other juvenile and children’s publishing houses. In the meantime, they also begin to consider exporting Chinese books to overseas. Wang Shaohua, Chief Representative of Mediterranean Cedar (China), said:" China has plenty of good books, and I very much want to export them to overseas. The biggest problem we are faced with is no suitable translator can be found." Penguin Group also encountered a similar problem, and opened its own translation training courses a few years ago. Zhou Hailun said: "During the process of copyright import, it was found that good translators are so few. Currently, only three or four translators of Chinese literature enjoy international reputation. Howard Goldblatt is one of them; he is usually busy and he is more than 70 years old. Therefore, we hope to train young people to be excellent translators, which is also one of our ways to participate in China book market. '
In addition to translation, the differences of publishing philosophy and cultural background between Chinese and foreign publishers also remain as a problem for foreign publishers. Li Dong said that he often encountered such problem in the process of copyright cooperation: “The foreign side must repeatedly revise the content provided by the Chinese side according to local practice while the Chinese side must do secondary processing of the content provided by the foreign side based on local demands, and some topics are shelved in the initial stage of communication because the content does not quite fit.”
Cambridge University Press has made a positive attempt with respect to secondary processing. In 2009, English version of The History of Chinese Civilization, published by Peking University Press, was included into the first publication plan of “Cambridge China Library” program of Cambridge University Press. And the two parties formally signed the agreement in 2010. Their mutual concerns focus on how to make the English versions both authentically reflect their original style and features, and conform to the interest of Western readers. Zhu Qifei presented that during the publishing process of this book, Cambridge editors came to Beijing specifically to talk repeatedly with Peking University Press in terms of details (such as illustration choice, binding and layout design, and preface writing), and Yuan Xingpei, editor-in-chief of its Chinese version, attended the discussion in every time and gave advices and requirements. The English version of this book finally came out in 2012. And "the result is fairly good", Zhu Qifei said.
Li Dong deemed that co-publishing may be more suitable to Chinese and foreign publishers, compared with simple cooperation of copyright transfer. "I assumed the ideal way is that people from various countries work in the same office, and define words and expressions of the targetd countries from the beginning, edit language editions and decide the way to cater to local market and fit reading habit, as a result,it is more convenient and faster than repeatedly to revise and translate after the book has come out." New Long March, large album co-published by Weldon International Group and Qingdao Publishing Group, took a similar approach, and the English version of this book was first released at the London Book Fair. "Next, we will carry out a series of promotion activities especially for European and American markets. At the BIBF of this year, Sales Director of Weldon will come from Australia to participate in the promotion of this book in China." Li Dong said.
Attempt for Deeper Cooperation
With the opening-up of market and the progress of digitization and business diversification of publishing groups, foreign publishers expect more than traditional business such as product distribution and copyright transfer cooperation. Wang Shaohua said: "Mediterranean Cedar is a multimedia company with content resources like cartoon and animation, and we want to import these when time is right.”
Li Dong states that Weldon International Group plans to shoot a set of Australia's natural scenery documentary, and he looks forward to Chinese partners. He believes that cooperation through products such as film and cartoon are a good opportunity for Chinese publishers to reach the globe so as to expand international influence.
The entry of capital has gradually been recognized in the past two years. In the 1990s, Children's Fun Publishing Co., Ltd., co-invested by Egmont Group headquartered in Denmark and Posts & Telecom Press, became the first state-chartered joint venture publishing company, and quickly opened market of juveniles and children's publishing through a range of products like Disney series of books. In the following 10 years, the entry of foreign capital ocurred quitely. The only foreign group involved in the field of distribution - Bertelsmann suffered from a loss in China, and was forced to close its book stores and clubs in 2008. Until September 2010, Phoenix Publishing & Media Group and the French publishing giant - Hachette Livre established a joint venture named Hachette-Phoenix Culture Development (Beijing) Company Limited, which was inaugurated at the BIBF of that year. Co-invested by Macmillan Publishing Ltd. and 21st Century Publishing House, Macmillan Century Consultancy Services Co., Ltd. was established in Beijing at the end of 2011 after more than three years of preparation and improvement.
What does capital injection bring about? Li Dong considers that Chinese publishers should think deeply about what joint capital could bring about except from being named as a resounding international publishing group. For example, the target market for Children's Fun Publishing Co., Ltd. was very clear. Because there was no cartoon characters like Disney in China at that time, Children's Fun Publishing Co., Ltd. successfully brought such products into China. "We might have to draw support from their capital if it had been 10 years ago, and what does foreign investment bring about nowadays in terms International channels or rich resources?" Li Dong said.