Insider Talk

Pan Kaixiong, vice-president of China Publishing Group Corp.

The big picture revolves around the upstream and downstream ends of the publishing industry, more simply described as content and marketing. When people focus on the format of digital books, the content is subconsciously ignored. The content created and published online should be classified into "edited" and "unedited". This is a big difference.

The core value of a publishing house, even nowadays, relies heavily on the process of selecting content. High-quality content is the most important thing, regardless of whether a book has been published digitally or in the traditional format. The content provider should be responsible for quality.

How to protect excellent quality and purify it should be the first priority when digital book editors think about their work. No decent publisher with a good reputation is proud of quantity on its own.

Also, heavy competition is unavoidable at this stage of development. It is not a good sign for any part in the industry to worry only about the product price at the expense of the service provided and brand value established. No clear rules and regulations have yet been set and the market needs time to mature.

- Zhang Yuchen

(China Daily USA 07/11/2013 page7)