中国作家协会主管

出版的前景与理由

随着新媒体的崛起，传统出版业和纸媒发展之路面临着前所未有的挑战。读者兴趣、阅读习惯、信息渠道、购书行为等都深受移动互联网影响，图书出版行业格局也随之改变。针对多样化的需求，细分读者群、制定特色化选题、进行差异化服务和营销，越来越受到出版社重视。

作为出版人，我们常常思考出版的前景，今天我很愿意借此机会和中澳两国的朋友共同探讨一下。

一、出版的现状，纸质书和电子书

2016年3月，AlphaGo和世界围棋冠军李世石的人机大战引得全世界关注，人工智能首次战胜了人类最高智慧。这是一个标志性的事件，证明技术正以迅猛的速度改变着世界，使传统社会发生各种深刻变革。

在中国，就文化传播领域而言，短短一二十年以来，从 BBS、博客到微博、微信，自媒体非常活跃，极大地影响了人们的交流方式、阅读方式、书写方式，出版方式也随之发生变化。这些影响渗透进社会生活的各个层面，有可能打破现有的文化结构，重建新的文化形态。

在我们熟悉的文学出版领域，出现了如下的现象——

1、移动互联网的兴起使碎片化阅读和浅阅读流行。流行文学的出版版图急速扩大，而严肃文学的版图缩小。

在中国，如果把各类网文、网络小说非常发达，如果将这些涵盖进去，从阅读的总量来说，互联网时代，广义的文学阅读并未减少反而大大增加，但传统严肃文学在扩大了的市场中份额减少，它的绝对需求也被稀释了。

2、载体发生根本性变化，纸书电子书并行存在。

网络新媒体盛行，新兴载体对纸质图书造成巨大冲击。虽然2016年，英国行业调查机构尼尔森发布的“年度书籍与消费者报告”显示，电子书的销量在不断下滑，而纸质书的销量则不断上涨，这看似给传统出版业带来了信心，但从长远来看，纸质书的辉煌不太可能再现。从环保的角度看，发现了新载体的人类也不可能再走回头路。作为人类书写的载体，纸上印刷只是一个阶段。就像从前纸书替代了竹简，屏幕、电子传输可能终将替代纸质出版，而关键性的转变将依赖电子阅读器的技术革新实现突破。

但这个结局短期还未到来，在相当长的过渡时间内，我相信纸书和电子书仍然会是并行的态势。就像电视没有让电影消失，电子表没有让瑞士机械表消亡一样，在这个阶段，纸书的出路应该是向特色化、专业化、精品化发展。如果牵强地加以类比，电影、瑞士表、纸书比之电视、电子表、电子书，他们的优势是，除了实用性，还具有不可替代的文化附加值。纸书和电子书分别适合承载不同类别的内容，也分别对应不同的阅读人群。

3、现阶段电子书成为纸书的补充和延伸。

经过近年在数字出版方面的探索，电子书已成为了各出版社纸质出版的重要补充和延伸，kindle等电子书的开发和利用也为我们出版社带来了新的利润增长点，有些书的电子版收入已经超过纸质版收入。

再细分到文学期刊这个特殊的出版类别，比如我所在的《花城》杂志，它隶属于花城出版社，是中国著名的严肃文学期刊，80年代发行量曾达70万份，但90年代后，由于文化市场日益商品化娱乐化，和所有期刊一样，销量持续下滑。而新媒体时代并没有使得这个趋势加剧，订数反而开始回升。原因在于，我们利用了新媒体便捷的宣传手段，使得读者更加了解我们，也更便于互动和订阅。借新媒体之力，我们做了微信公众号、线下沙龙活动网络直播等等，扩大杂志影响力，从而扩大了销售。同时，我们也发行了电子版，海外的读者、习惯在网上阅读的年轻人，可以方便地订阅到和纸刊同样的内容。

对于一个人口基数庞大、文化传统深厚的国家来说，文学读者群依然巨大，文学出版依然有很大空间。我们仍然认为内容是关键，内容做好之后，用户可以自由选择任意一种载体，出版社依然能凭借质量良好的内容获得收益。

所以，新技术不会敲响出版业的丧钟，但会促使出版业转型，新机遇、新赢家就在转型之中产生。

而严肃文学的真正危机所在，是泛娱乐化的趋势，所谓“娱乐至死”是一个世界性的问题。这是另一个话题。

二、转型策略：守护优质资源，开拓新媒体融合

1、营销方式的拓展

目前，对传统出版社来说，纸质图书的销售依然是利润支柱。除了传统的渠道，互联网模式也在不断完善中。

在营销策略上，最基本的方法是尽可能延长图书的销售寿命。在中国，按照传统的图书经营模式，新书在实体店上架的销售时间大约是2-3个月，如果动销情况不理想还会被提前下架。而网上书店因为上架成本低，在架时间长，已成为图书销售的重要途径，但它的问题是折扣也很低，出版社利润空间被大大挤压。于是除了当当、亚马逊等大型电商外，各出版社纷纷开发了自己的渠道，即微信宣传+天猫/微店销售的自媒体电商。自媒体电商规模小、品种少，与品类齐全、排行榜效应强的大型电商不可相提并论，但自媒体电商有较高的性价比、较强的用户黏性、良好的用户信任度，可以形成持续的消费能力，未来会有更大的发展空间。

2、内容的深度开发

市场的热点常常是我们深入思考的起点。

2014年开始，《鬼吹灯》《盗墓笔记》《三生三世十里桃花》等一波又一波的热门IP入侵到我们的生活……从网络文学形式到纸质书出版，从图书改编到电影或电视剧，再开发游戏等周边产品，以IP为核心的多媒体生态链正逐渐形成。有研究报告指出，随着中国互联网市场进入内容时代，IP+精品制作模式将逐渐成为未来市场中的代表类型。

而热闹的IP争夺大战背后，是对优秀内容的渴求，一个IP的成功绝不仅仅是媒体的烘托，内容的支撑才是关键。传统出版业的优势正在于积累和掌握了大量的优质作家资源，虽然与流行网文相比，严肃文学作品在深度开发版权资源方面有难度，但IP热给我们的启示，迫使我们思考如何做好版权的后续开发运营，因为传统出版业的出路正在于此。我们要向国外的出版商学习，逐渐向版权经纪人的角色转换。目前，各家出版社都已起步进行版权资源的多元开发利用，在签订图书版权的同时努力获得多种权利，打造影视、有声书、动漫、游戏等周边产品，使内容的价值进一步被挖掘出来。

就内容的开发，我再以文学期刊来举例。

在中国，与图书出版的市场化发展方向不同，文学杂志走的是专业化的路线，有着更加纯粹的艺术追求。长期以来，中国有很多优秀影视作品的母本均来自文学期刊，因为优秀文学作品首先会在文学期刊刊登。有篇文章题目就叫《【收获】杂志才是最大的IP好么》，举了几十个首发于《收获》而改编成著名影视作品的例子，它们有：《大红灯笼高高挂》《阳光灿烂的日子》《茶馆》《甲方乙方》《活着》等等。张艺谋甚至曾在九十年代和《收获》杂志签过一个“首看权”，编辑部会在刊物没有面世前，先将清样寄给他看。直到前些年，一些大的影视公司，还会有专门的部门负责阅读全国的重点文学期刊，《花城》就是被阅读的对象之一。由《花城》首发而改变成影视作品的也有不少，如路遥的《平凡的世界》、苏童《离婚指南》、毕飞宇《青衣》、刘震云《我不是潘金莲》等等。

所以，《花城》杂志致力于做出版链条的前端工作，同时积极将作品引入图书出版及其他的版权开发。比如，2016年，《花城》杂志首发了吕新和北村两位先锋小说作家的新作《下弦月》和《安慰书》，随后花城出版社推出了两部单行本。目前，两本书已登上了国内多个好书榜，也有多家影视公司接洽。

3、多媒体融合之路是出版社未来的方向

掌握优质版权资源，并进行多媒体延伸开发是出版社未来的的生存之道。鉴于此，花城出版社前两年研发了“花城多元融合传播运营平台”项目，现正进入测试阶段。此项目基于《花城》杂志和花城出版社的品牌资源，延伸出近三十个子项目，目标是建成一个集数字阅读、作者（作品）孵化、作者（作品）签约、自助出版、版权（数字版权、有声版权、影视版权、游戏版权等）运营、版权代理等各项功能为一体的融合数字平台。目的在于构建现代传播体系，实现对受众的广覆盖，可加快创设中央编辑部的全媒体采集平台生产发布体系，实现内容的集成化、形态的多元化和传播的平台化。

这个转型对一个传统的出版企业来说是严峻的挑战，面临诸多困难，既需要编辑的眼光和执行力也需要资本的支持和体制的配合。但它又是关乎未来生存的机遇。

在人类文明史中，语言文字是进步的基础，包括其衍生产品在内，无论载体有何种变化，出版物者都是思想者、知识界和读者间不可或缺的桥梁，承担着文化和知识传播的重任。优秀出版物的交流，也是历来各国人民间深入了解、增进友谊的重要渠道。作为一名从业三十多年的出版人，我这样看待我的工作：我坚持做的，无外乎是促进文化积累和文化交流。所以，除了认真编辑刊登国内作家最新作品的《花城》杂志外，从2009年开始，我还策划出版了大型文学译丛“蓝色东欧”，计划以十年甚至更长的时间，整理出版中东欧当代经典文学作品100本。目前已经出版三十多种。这是一项艰巨的工程，但我相信对中国读者了解中东欧、了解世界，将有着深远的意义。

谢谢大家！

Prospects and Reasons of Publishing

Zhu Yanling

With the rise of new media, the development of the traditional publishing industry and paper media is facing an unprecedented challenge. Readers’ interests, reading habits, information channels, book purchases and other activities are deeply affected by mobile Internet services. The structure of this industry will also undergo change. In view of the needs of diversification, grouping readers, developing selected topics, providing differentiated services and marketing have attracted the attention of more and more publishers.

As publishers, we often contemplate the prospects of publication. Today I am willing to take this opportunity to discuss this topic with friends from both China and Australia.

I. The status quo of publication, paper books and e-books

In March 2016, the competition between AlphaGo and world go champion Lee Sedol attracted worldwide attention as artificial intelligence defeated the highest level of human wisdom for the first time. This was a landmark that technology is changing the world at a rapid pace, bringing about profound changes to conventional society.

In China, in the field of cultural transmission, the self-media from BBS, blogs to micro blogs, WeChat have greatly affected people’s methods of communication, reading and writing in such short one or two decades . The methods of publishing have also been changed. These effects have penetrated into all aspects of society, and it is possible to break the existing cultural structure and rebuild new cultural forms.

In the literary publishing field we are familiar with, there are the following phenomena:

1. The rise of mobile Internet services have made fragmented reading and shallow reading popular. The publication of popular literature has expanded rapidly and the layout of serious literature has become narrower.

In China where many varieties of web articles and network novels are highly developed, generalized literary reading has not decreased but greatly increased in the Internet era if these are included. But the share of traditional serious literature in the expanded market has reduced and its absolute demand has also been diluted.

2. Carriers have undergone a fundamental change, with paper books and e-books existing in parallel.

New network media prevails, so the emerging carrier has had a huge impact on the paper books. In 2016, according to the "Annual Books and Consumer Reports" released by Nelson, the British Industry Survey Agency, the sales of e-books are declining, while the sales of paper books are rising. This seems to have given a boost of confidence to the traditional publishing industry. But in the long run, the glory experienced by paper books is unlikely to recur. From the perspective of environmental protection, human beings who have found a new carrier cannot go back. As a carrier of human writing, paper printing is only a historical phase. Just as paper books replaced bamboo, the screen reading and electronic transmission may eventually replace the paper publication. The key change will rely on the technological innovation in electronic reader to achieve a breakthrough.

But in the short term this outcome has not yet arrived. I believe that paper books and e-books will exist in parallel over an extended transition period. Just as Television did not cause movies to disappear and electronic watches did not cause Swiss mechanical watches to die out, at this stage, the way out for paper books should be specialized, professional and exquisite. If we want to compare films, Swiss watches, paper books and the television, electronic watches and e-books, we must admit that the latter have irreplaceable cultural value in addition to practicality. Paper books and e-books were suitable for carrying different categories of content, corresponding to different readers.

3. At this stage, e-books become a supplement and extension of paper books.

After years of exploration in digital publishing, e-books have become an important supplement and extension of publishers’ paper publishing. The development and use of Kindles and other e-book readers have brought a new profit growth point for publishers, for the income of some electronic versions of books has been more than that of paper versions.

Let’s have a look at literary journals, a special publishing category, such as the Flower City magazine I am working for. It is operated by Huacheng Publishing House, which is a famous journal for serious Chinese literature. In the 1980s, it had a circulation of 700,000 copies, but after the 1990s, the sales volume continued to decline as a result of the growing commercialization of the cultural market. However, the new media era did not aggravate this trend, for subscriptions began to rise. The reason for this was the use of new media and convenient means of publicity, enabling readers to better understand us, interact with us and subscribe to the magazine. With the power of new media, we have applied for an official account on WeChat and broadcasted offline salon activities on the internet to expand influence and thus sales. At the same time, we also released the electronic version for overseas readers and young people who are used to reading online, so that they are able to subscribe to the same content and paper without hassle.

For a country with a large population and a deep cultural tradition like China, literary readership is still huge and so is the potential for the publication of literature. We still believe that the content is the key. After the good completion of the content, users can freely choose any kind of carries and publishers can make profits relying on contents with good quality.

Therefore, new technology will not sound the death bell of the publishing industry, but will promote the transformation of the industry itself, with new opportunities and new winners emerging in the transformation process.

The real crisis of serious literature is the trend of excessive entertainment. The so-called “entertainment to death” is a worldwide problem. This is another topic.

II. The transformation strategy: guarding high quality resources and integrating with new media 

1. The expansion of marketing modes

At present, for traditional publishers, the sales of paper books are still a pillar of profit. Not only are the traditional channels, but also the Internet mode is constantly being improved.

The most basic marketing strategy is to extend the sales life of books as much as possible. In China, with traditional book business models, the sales time of a new book on the store shelves is about 2-3 months. If the sale is not ideal, it will be removed from the shelves at an earlier date. Online bookstores, due to the low cost and long shelve time, have become an important means of selling books. But the problem is that they offer very low discounts, greatly squeezing the profit margins of publishing houses. In addition to Dangdang, Amazon and other large e-commerce, publishers have developed their own channels, that is, self-media e-businesses, including WeChat publicity and Tmall/micro shops. Due to their small scale and limited varieties, they are different from the large electric businesses which have a complete list of goods and strong rankings effects. However, since they have a higher cost performance, stronger the user viscosity, good user credibility, self-media businesses can create a sustained spending power and will have more room for development in the future.

2. The deep development of content

The hot spots in the market are often the starting point for our in-depth thinking.

Since 2014, Candle in the Tomb, Tomb Robber’s Journal, Ten Great III of Peach Blossom and other popular works have appeared in our life. A multimedia ecological chain centered by IP has gradually formed, from the form of Internet literature to the publishing of paper books, from books to films or TV series or even games and other peripheral products. Studies have shown that the exquisite IP+ production model will gradually become the representative of the future market player with the Chinese Internet market entering into the content era.

Behind the busy IP war is the desire for excellent content. The success of an IP is not just a result of media support, but the content plays a key role. The advantage of the traditional publishing industry is the accumulation and mastering of a large number of high quality writer resources. It is more difficult to further explore the copyright of serious literary work than Internet articles. However, the IP heat shows that we should consider means to carry out follow-up development and the operation of copyright, because this is the way out for the traditional publishing industry. We shall learn from foreign publishers, and gradually shift the role to copyright brokers. At present, various publishers have started to use the diversified development of copyright resources, obtained a variety of rights for creating film and television, audio books, animation, games and other peripheral products while signing the rights of books, so that the value of the content is further excavated.

I then take literature journals as an example to talk about content development.

In China, unlike the direction of book publishing market development, literary magazines follow a professional path with a much purer pursuit of art. For a long time, the original texts of many excellent films and television works have come from literary journals, because outstanding literary works are first published in journals. An article named Harvest magazine is the largest IP, cited dozens of first published works in the Harvest which have been adapted into famous films and TV series. They are Raise the Red Lantern, In the Heat of the Sun, Teahouse, The Dream Factory, Lifetimes Living and so on. Zhang Yimou even signed an agreement “first to read” the articles in the Harvest magazine. The editorial department will send the final proof to him before publication. Until a few years ago, some large film and television companies had dedicated departments responsible for reading the country’s key literary journals. Flower City is one of the works to be read. There are many articles in the Flower City adapted into films and television works, such as Lu Yao’s Ordinary World, Su Tong’s Divorce Guide, Bi Feiyu’s The Moon Opera, Liu Zhenyun’s I Did Not Kill My Husband and so on.

Therefore, the Flower City is committed to carrying out the upstream work of the chain, while actively introducing works into books and other copyright development. For example, in 2016, the magazine published “Last Month” and “Comfort Book”, both new works by Lyu Xin and Bei Cun, two pioneering novel writers. After that, Huacheng Publishing House released two kinds of offprints. At present, both books have been on a number of domestic good book lists and a number of film and television companies have contacted us.

3. Multimedia integration is the future direction of the press

Grasping quality copyright resources and implementing multimedia extensive development are the way of the survival of publishers in the future. In view of this, Huacheng Publishing House developed a project of Huacheng Multi-Fusion Spreading Operation Platform two years ago, which is now under test. Based on the brand resources of Flower City magazine and Huacheng Publishing House, this project is extended to nearly 30 sub-projects. Its goal is to build digital platforms integrating digital reading, author (works) incubation, author (works) signing, self-publishing, copyright (digital, audio, film and television, game copyrights, etc.) operations, copyright agency and other functions. The purpose is to build a modern communication system to cover a large audience. With that, we can speed up the creation of a production and distribution system based on the whole media collection platform of the central editorial department to integrate content, diversify channels and build a disseminating platform.

This transformation is a severe challenge for a traditional publishing company. Facing many difficulties, we need editorial vision and execution, and also capital and system support. It is also about seizing future opportunities for survival.

In the history of human civilization, language has formed the basis of progress. Regardless of changes in the carrier, including its derivatives, publishers are the indispensable bridge between thinkers, intellectuals and readers. They undertake the responsibility of disseminating culture and knowledge. The exchange of excellent publications is also an important channel for people to understand and enhance friendship. As a practitioner with thirty years of practice, I insist on doing nothing more than promoting cultural accumulation and exchange. So, in addition to carefully editing the latest works of the domestic writers who published in the Flower City magazine, I also planned the publication of a large-scale translation of literature Blue Eastern Europe from 2009 onwards. I have planned to collect and publish 100 classic contemporary literary works of Eastern Europe. More than 30 kinds have been published at present. This is a daunting project, but I believe that for Chinese readers to understand Central and Eastern Europe, and the world as a whole, it will be of far-reaching significance.

Thank you all!