The new era of reading

The results of a survey which examined people’s reading behaviors were also released during the Shanghai Book Fair and it revealed that though people today are reading digital books more than ever, they are generally unwilling to pay for digital content. Furthermore, fragmented reading, defined as reading for no more than 30 minutes, has become more common.

Han Weidong, director of Shanghai Translation Publishing House, said that this unwillingness to pay for content could be due to the fact that much of the information found on the Internet is free, and because consumers often don’t understand that a published book has to go through professional publishers and editors in order to ensure its quality.

“We used to price our new digital releases as high as the print versions and readers were infuriated. Some of them even verbally abused me on my personal social media account,” recalled the team leader of the digital books department at Shanghai Translation Publishing House, which has since adjusted its pricing.

Alongside with CITIC Press and other private publishers, Shanghai Translation Publishing House recently signed a partnership with Ximalaya FM, one of the largest online audio sharing platforms in China, to produce audio books.

Yu Jianjun, founder and president of Ximalaya FM, said that the company decided to partner with book publishers as it wanted to diversify and upgrade the quality of its digital content. Dubbing Ximalaya FM as a combination of Apple’s Podcast, Amazon’s Audio Book and other technologies, Yu believes that 2016 will be “the year of audio publishing” in China.

The largest publishing company in the world, Penguin Random House, was one of the first to collaborate with Ximalaya FM. Yu said that more than 6,000 of the brand’s audio books will be available on the platform by 2017.

He added that Ximalaya FM will be aiming to cope with the expectations of Chinese consumers by selling these audio books at prices that are considerably lower than their products in the more mature Western markets.

For example, Penguin Random House’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics audio book is being sold for just 18 yuan ($3) on Ximalaya FM, about half the price of the print book. The book, which is narrated by celebrity actor Huang Lei, was downloaded 56,000 times within a week, surpassing the number of print editions sold.

Jo Lusby, head of Penguin Random House in China, said that quality content will always triumph at the end of the day, regardless of the medium.

“We are not competing for people’s money. As a publisher, we are competing for their time,” said Lusby.

In June, Ximalaya FM launched its first paid program which was created by TV show host Ma Dong. Titled Hao Hao Shuo Hua, the program launched its first episode on Ximalaya FM on June 6, and had in a mere 10 days achieved sales of 10 million yuan. Yu said that this success is an encouraging sign for the publishing industry.

zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn