Uneven Road for Out-going of the Publication of Science and Technology

"File No. 1 " of 2012 - "Several Decisions on Accelerating the Out-going of Chinese Press Publishing Industry" was released by GAPP at the beginning of this year, aiming at taking more effective measures and adopting more effective policies to accelerate the pace of exporting press publishing industry, enhance the international competitiveness, transmissibility and influence of Chinese press publishing industry, and quicken the promotion of Chinese culture to the world.

The international exchange and cooperation of Chinese publications on science and technology have always been relatively active, and the achievements acquired by different publishing houses are of diversity. A lot of science and technology publishers have steadily promoted the copyright export and enhanced the international influence of Chinese technology and culture in recent years, which made enormous contribution to the Out-going of science and technology publishers.

While acquiring great achievements, all the publishers have been profoundly aware of the uneven road for exporting books and they still confronted with many difficulties and challenges. Many publishers put forward their problems including all the difficulties restricting the book export such as translation work of Chinese to foreign languages, import and export rights for books, copyright demanding information, lack of relative polices, etc.. Suggestions for the common dilemma confronted have been actively proposed by all the publishers. Hurrying up the construction of internationalized exporting personnel, increasing the financial support, improving statistics and evaluation system, building China's own publishing platform for international academic journals and papers, etc. are the important aspects, proposed by quite a few publishers, for promoting the realization of booming prosperity and development for exporting Chinese science and technology publications.

Higher Education Press

Higher Education Press (HEP) has encountered many problems on the way of exporting books of science and technology. Firstly, problem of negotiating terms. In order to open market as soon as possible, terms of the agreement signed by HEP with other countries are relatively loose in the early stage of export. With more and more exporting experience gained by the HEP, the competition ability of the products getting stronger and the market influence getting better, lots of the contracts signed recently are supposed to raise the standard to conform to the international standard. However, the foreign party tends to depress the standard by adopting the previous exceptions as a practice, which is bad for the press. In order to change this situation, not just individual press should strive for its profits, but also an alliance should be formed by the whole industry to protect their own copyright interests in international negotiations by fair competition and abiding by the rules.

Secondly, problem of platform construction. In order export successfully, we have to, at first, "navigate with a borrowed boat", that is entering the international market channels by taking advantage of the mature marketing platform and digital content platform of the foreign publishers, and their own platform will be impregnate and products will be enriched by the superior resources of oversea publishers at the same time. If this persists, however, the products will result in intense dependence and the exporting will be under others charge. In order to transit to the stage of "navigation with a self-built boat" and "navigation with a purchased boat", it is unavoidable to get rid of dependence on foreign platforms. It is a long term for building our own platform with high degree of credibility and influence, but the pace of exporting may not allow the publishers for too much time.

Thirdly, problem of financial security. Exporting is a fully market-oriented behavior at last, but sufficient and continuous capital investment and complement is needed in early stage to ensure the starting of good projects and the sustainable development of ongoing projects. A lot of pre-input for the work of exporting publishing has been provided by the government and a good beginning has been made; while regarding of the press itself, most of the exporting projects are of low profits or even unable to make both ends meet, which is unable to form the market scale yet. We shall consolidate the achievements and develop new domains at the same time. Lots of substantive work is to be carried out in the next stage.

Finally, role of government. The government has attached great importance to the work of exporting cultural publishing over the years, which promote the business development and transformation of enterprises, and enhance the enthusiasm and confidence of enterprises to participate in. However, comparing to the actual product benefits, internal impact and sustainable development of the project and products, the government has put too much emphasis on the requirement of quantity growth when evaluating the enterprises, resulting in the current fact that enterprises are exhausted for competing for the quantity growth. Foreign publishers often present harsh conditions to Chinese publishers by taking advantage of the attitude of completing the task and seeking for fund after being familiar with the exporting policy of Chinese publishers, which impel our publishers in the passive position in the negotiations of copyright business. Therefore, HEP expect the government shall make adjustment according to the specific circumstances while playing the role of baton.

China Machine Press

To further promote the implementation of the strategy of exporting publishing industry, China Machine Press (CMP) has made the following recommendations against those actual situations or problems encountered in the previous process of export:

Firstly, further improve all the functions of existing exporting service platform. The existing service platform should make full use of its own informative advantages to better provide the Out-going of publishers with the international information required. Exporting is becoming the most important task of external work for all the publishers and even the whole Chinese publishing industry. However, the relative deficiency of information on the oversea market and reader demands restricts the speed and efficiency of the Out-going of publishers in a certain degree. Providers of existing service platforms possess great advantages in this area. We can make full use of this advantage to provide a better market for the exporting of publishers to obtain the effect of getting twofold results with half the effort in the exporting work.

Secondly, establish the key projects or major projects for the Out-going of scientific and technological books, encourage and recognize the Science and Technology Press and its outstanding exporting projects. For those exporting projects representing the national level, several key projects or major projects of national level can be set up or planed to set up by relevant departments. With the rapid development of economy, China's overall level of science and technology has been greatly improved than that a few years ago. More and more scientific research achievements, obtained by independent innovation of local scientific and technological personnel or returned oversea scholars, has entered into the book market of western mainstream countries such as Britain and the United States in the form of English high level academic monograph. This is what expected by Chinese scientific and technological personnel and technology publishing workers over the years. The Out-going of Chinese excellent scientific and technological projects can be better encouraged and promoted by the establishment of scientific and technological key projects and major projects of national level.

Finally, the preferential policies relevant to export shall in favor of scientific and technological projects appropriately. As the export has been raised up to a part of long-term development strategy for the national cultural, scientific and technological publishing industry, many preferential policies related to funding the Out-going of Chinese publishing have been made by the national or local government. But scientific and technological projects are sometimes more difficult to obtain the general benefit from this kind of policy. Increasing the preferential and support strength of all kinds of policies (including all kinds of allowances and subsidies) on the Out-going of scientific and technological projects can effectively encourage authors to create for exporting projects and improve their enthusiasm; the publishers can therefore benefit from partly releasing their cost pressure.

Science Publishing House

Firstly, the translation work is the biggest bottleneck for the export for Science Publishing House (SPH). On the way of exporting products, the biggest problem is translation. The translation of books on Science and Technology is more important than those of more popular, not only the language has to pass the standard, but also a strong professional background is required. The best translators are those scientific research workers engaging in the identical and similar research field with the author, however, such translators rarely have the time or willing to undertake the translation work. Therefore, a lot of good projects cannot achieve export for lacking of suitable translators. In order to solve this problem, the SPH has specially set up a language processing base in India in cooperation with another company. But "language processing" can only optimize language to a certain degree, but cannot solve all the problems in translation.

Secondly, lack of internationalized talents. The implementation of export is firstly counting on the internationalized talents. Not only should they master English, but also should have the concept and connections of global management. Presently, talents of Chinese publishing industry are cultivated by the local culture, and few of them possess the management experience in large international publishing group. Few Chinese publishers attend to the numerous organizations such as the International Publishing Association. Even though the international exchange and cooperation of each publishing house is becoming more and more widely, the majority are at the project level rather than the operation level. The Chinese publishing industry can truly step on the international stage only by strengthening the construction of a team with internationalized talents.

Finally, further support from national policy and capital. The national policy guidance and the strong financial support are the important guarantee for export. Various plans and funds set up by government, such as the "Program to Popularize Chinese Books Abroad", the "Project of Translating and Publishing Chinese Cultural Works", and even the "Central Cultural Industry Development Fund" and so on, have provided publishers with many a policy and financial support, SPH has benefited a lot from them as well. With the continuous strengthening of exporting scale, however, the support to some projects seems to be insufficient and the project itself is relatively simple. Currently while the Europe, the United States and other countries are in recession, it is a great opportunity for Chinese publishers to enter the international market, but the support of government policy is required. Therefore, SPH hopes the government to increase input to export, both in strength and scope, to facilitate this strategy to proceed continuously.

China Architecture & Building Press

At the time of remarkable results of “Out-going” achieved, China Architecture & Building Press deeply realizes that the road for promoting books “Out-going” is not smooth, but faces a lot of difficulties and challenges, which requires the guidance and support of the General Administration in various aspects, as well as the joint efforts of everyone in the whole agency.

Firstly, the translation from Chinese to Foreign Languages is the important point and the difficult point for “Out-going” of books. At present, the translation from Chinese to authentic Foreign Language becomes the bottleneck for the “Out-going” of Publishing House. Translation becomes the most important issue for the output of books’ copyright, especially at the time of China Architecture & Building Press’s contact with some publishing houses from nations with small languages. In this regard, China Architecture & Building Press hopes that more support shall be obtained from the General Administration of Press and Publication and the Books’ Promotion Plan Working Group, as well as its continuous enriching of translators to assist the professional publishing house such as China Architecture & Building Press to solve these difficulties.

Secondly, the import and export rights of book products become the important factor of constraining the output of books in kind. Presently, the output of book-in-kind for the publishing house is increasing. But considering the publishing house’s lack of books’ import and export rights, the bulk physical export shall be moved to be done by the company with the import and export rights, which will not only increases the cost of transportation, but will greatly influence the number of book exports and its enthusiasm. If the country can entitle more books’ import and export rights to various publishing houses, the expansion of book trading in kind will be greatly encouraged.

Thirdly, the timely and convenient information for the needs of copyright is the key for the promotion of books’ “Out-going”. As a monomer-publishing house, China Architecture & Building Press expands the “Out-going” channels of book actively, but the needs of book copyright in some nation and area of small language cannot be grasped on time due to its limited contract range. General Administration of Press and Publication and the Books’ Promotion Plan Working Group as the superior authority, may learn more information of book needs than publishing houses. If this information can be communicated to the publishing houses promptly, the publishing houses will go all out, grasping the opportunity to expand the results of books’ “Out-going”.

Tsinghua University Press

Pay close attention to building a team of internationalized talents for “Out-going”. “Out-going” is a systematic project that needs internationalized talents in all aspects and professionals in direct full competition with overseas publishing houses in the aspects including editing, publishing, design, marketing and copyright. In particular, it needs senior manager with international vision and management experience.

Firstly, for Tsinghua University Press, one of the reasons for the number of “Out-going” projects difficult to enhance significantly is the shortage of translation talents, especially the shortage of technology translation talents. It is difficult to find the right translators for technology books with strong Professionalism and cutting-edge. It is more difficult for the authors busy in scientific research to take time to do it. For a set of Power Book Series with 10 volumes in Tsinghua University Press, their copyrights both Elsevier and Wiley have interested in buying. However, the project cannot be carried out due to lack of translator.

Secondly, “Out-going” also needs financial support. Taking regardless of “Out-going” in what mode, the funds are the crucial factor, particularly the financial support during startup. In the mode of going to the sea with borrowed boat, when purchasing the copyright resources of China, the overseas partners with commercial operation hope the Chinese Side provide English manuscript and pay the cost of subscription rights according to international royalty standard, which makes the translation fees become a funding gap. Can publishing houses start up and see results only by cooperating internationalization into their development strategies, by formulating a rigorous business plan and having continuous and appropriate special funds for supporting and input.

Finally, improve the system of statistics and evaluation, and increase the aiding amount to the “Out-going” of scientific publications. Currently, statistics, evaluation, and funding system of "Out-going" pay more attention to cooperation and less to the forming of a book, pay more attention to books and less to journals, more attention to paper books but less to electronic, more to Social Science but less to Science and Technology. This can be improved for it is not conducive to objective evaluation and guidance for the work of “Out-going”. Tsinghua University Press recommends that English projects published independently by publishing houses and directly sold overseas and the project of “Out-going” with the sales methods of periodicals, digital copyrights shall be listed into the "China Book International Plan” and consider giving financial assistance. It is said that relevant departments began to pay attention to this problem, yet there is a lack of implementation rules. In addition, the current government-funded projects such as “China Classics International” and Propaganda Projects focus on social science books, but science and technology books and journals are difficult to obtain funding. I hope the government set up special funding for the "Out-going" of scientific publications and support the project, and strongly support the "Out-going" of scientific publications.