A “JDrone” demonstration image from Chinese e-commerce retailer JD.com
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
A Competition for Chinese Drone Delivery
Zhang Hao Chen’s ‘A Matter of Love’ enters the overall fiction list in China in August at No. 3.
These two companies will be at Frankfurt Book Fair (October 11 to 15), and you’ll find them in Hall 6.0, Stand C59.
At Frankfurt, Bryant says, “We’re meeting with publishers to discuss new [distribution] channels in China and Korea that are available to them for the first time.”
And one of the biggest developments in the Chinese market, Bryant tells us, is a furious competition among retailers for fast delivery of print books to consumers. When a state-owned bookstore in Beijing reported delivering a book in under 10 minutes after the order came in, China’s second-largest e-retailer JD.com answered by revving up its drone-delivery development.
Among the most popular foreign authors in China is Japan’s Higashino Keigo, with such titles as ‘After School’.
In May and June, CNBC reported that JD.com was working in Sichuan Province on a drone that could deliver packages weighing up to a ton to rural parts of China. The company’s technology chief Chen Zhang told CNBC’s Sam Meredith and Arjun Kharpal that the trickiest issue for JD has been battery life in drones that can deliver up to 30 kilograms, but have a range limit of 100 kilometers before needing a recharge.
Nearly 2 million people in December saw the video made of Amazon’s first test drone delivery in the UK countryside near Cambridge. But the program JD is working on differs from Amazon’s in destination. Rather than landing a drone at a consumer’s address, JD’s drones are being developed to fly large loads to local delivery people in villages and outlying areas. Those local delivery workers then take the drone-delivered packages on the “last mile” route, as it’s called, to specific consumers’ addresses.
And this month, Business Insider’s Stephanie Pandolph reports that JD.com is offering 100 million yuan (some US$15 million) in a drone delivery competition. “The online retailer wants to be seen as China’s leader in fast delivery,” Pandolph writes, and urban delivery issues, of course, are the most difficult both in regulatory issues and in sheer logistical effectiveness.
New Bestseller Charts
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ holds at No. 7 on the Chinese chart in August, as it did in July.
Trajectory and OpenBook have provided us with the bestseller charts for the month of August, and you’ll find some explanatory notes after the fourth (of four) charts below.
In August, we saw six new titles make their debuts. Among them were Zhang Hao Chen’s A Matter of Love and Yishu’s The First Half of My Life. The latter is a television series tie-in.
And in terms of foreign authors doing well in China, Khaled Hosseini of The Kite Runner and Japan’s Higashino Keigo’s books are abiding fixtures, along with classics: this time, Gabriel García Márquez is again in seventh place with One Hundred Years of Solitude.
OpenBook’s Overall Fiction Bestsellers in China, August 2017
| Rank: Jul 2017 | Rank: Aug 2017 | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Chinese Publisher |
| 1 | 1 | 9787544270878 | Apr-14 | Miracles of the Namiya General Store | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 2 | 2 | 9787544258609 | Jan-13 | Journey Under the Midnight Sun | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| Not Ranked | 3 | 9787201120713 | Jul-17 | A Matter of Love | Zhang Haochen | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 3 | 4 | 9787208061644 | Apr-06 | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini | Shanghai People’s Publishing House |
| 4 | 5 | 9787544267618 | Jun-14 | The Devotion of Suspect X | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 6 | 6 | 9787550013247 | May-15 | Ferryman | Claire McFall | Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House |
| 7 | 7 | 9787544253994 | May-11 | One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel García Márquez | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| Not Ranked | 8 | 9787556231928 | Jul-17 | Douluo Continent III: Legend of the Dragon King (17) | Tang Jia San Shao | Hunan Juvenile and Children’s Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 9 | 9787530215593 | Jun-17 | To Live | Yu hua | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| 5 | 10 | 9787500601593 | Aug-05 | Red Crag | Luo Guangbin, Yang Yiyan | China Youth Press |
| 12 | 11 | 9787559603340 | May-17 | Home of the Sleeping Mermaid | Higashino Keigo | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| 9 | 12 | 9787506365437 | Jun-10 | To Live | Yu hua | The Writer’s Publishing House |
| 11 | 13 | 9787536692930 | Jan-08 | The Three-Body Problem | Liu Cixin | Chongqing Publishing House |
| 16 | 14 | 9787020090006 | Jul-12 | Fortress Besieged | Qian Zhongshu | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 18 | 15 | 9787540455958 | Jun-12 | The Shadow Thief | Marc Levy | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| Not Ranked | 16 | 9787540481124 | Jun-17 | The First Half of My Life | Yi Shu | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| Not Ranked | 17 | 9787544285148 | Oct-16 | Malice | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 17 | 18 | 9787530216194 | Jan-17 | In The Name of People | Zhou Meisen | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| 14 | 19 | 9787559602398 | May-17 | The Legend of Wu Kong (Collector’s Edition) | Jin Hezai | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| Not Ranked | 20 | 9787544277617 | Jun-15 | Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel García Márquez | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 23 | 21 | 9787201116693 | May-17 | My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry | Fredrik Backman | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 22 | 9787020008735 | Jul-98 | Journey to the West | Wu Cheng’en | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 8 | 23 | 9787530211267 | Sep-11 | Ordinary Word | Lu Yao | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 24 | 9787530216781 | Jun-17 | Ordinary Word (3 Volumns) | Lu Yao | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 25 | 9787544285643 | Dec-16 | Salvation of a Saint | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 28 | 26 | 9787540458027 | Oct-13 | I Belonged to You | Zhang Jiajia | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| Not Ranked | 27 | 9787544266222 | Oct-13 | After School | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| Not Ranked | 28 | 9787539971810 | Apr-15 | The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry | Gabrielle Zevin | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 27 | 29 | 9787530212837 | Sep-15 | Muslim’s Funeral | Huo Da | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| 29 | 30 | 9787536693968 | May-08 | The Dark Forest | Liu Cixin | Chongqing Publishing House |
OpenBook’s Overall Nonfiction Bestsellers in China, August 2017
| Rank: Jul 2017 | Rank: Aug 2017 | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Chinese Publisher |
| 1 | 1 | 9787020116133 | Jun-16 | Red Star Over China | Edgar Snow | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 4 | 2 | 9787508672069 | Jan-17 | Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow | Yuval Noah Harari | CITIC Publishing House Co., Ltd |
| 7 | 3 | 9787508660752 | Feb-17 | Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Yuval Noah Harari | CITIC Publishing House Co., Ltd |
| 3 | 4 | 9787550263932 | Nov-15 | Genius on the Left, Lunatic on the Right (Full Version) | Gao Ming | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| 2 | 5 | 9787549550173 | Jan-14 | Seeing Off | Long Yingtai | Guangxi Normal University Press |
| Not Ranked | 6 | 9787503561634 | Aug-17 | Xi Jinping’s Seven Years as an Educated Youth | Party School of the Central Committee of C.P.C | Central Party School Press |
| 6 | 7 | 9787108042453 | Nov-12 | We Three | Yang Jiang | SDX Joint Publishing Company |
| 18 | 8 | 9787539999883 | Mar-17 | 30 Minutes of Chinese History in Cartoon | Er Hunzi | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 15 | 9 | 9787508671505 | Dec-16 | Speak Well: Fresh and Interesting Speaking Skills | Ma Weiwei, Huang Zhizhong, Zhou Xuanyi | CITIC Publishing House Co., Ltd |
| Not Ranked | 10 | 9787020130702 | Aug-17 | The Reader (Vol.1) | Dong Qing | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 9 | 11 | 9787535447340 | Feb-14 | The Poignant Culture Traveling | Yu Qiuyu | Changjiang Literature & Art Press Co., Ltd. |
| Not Ranked | 12 | 9787540480837 | May-17 | Green: A Journey Through Time With Anthony | Anthony,R.N. | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 8 | 13 | 9787549564125 | Apr-15 | Dear Andrea | Long Yingtai | Guangxi Normal University Press |
| Not Ranked | 14 | 9787540482169 | Jul-17 | It’s a Long Journey | Lu Sihao | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 17 | 15 | 9787503560620 | Mar-17 | Ask | Ding Jie | Central Party School Press |
| 12 | 16 | 9787549550159 | Jan-14 | My Child, Just Take Your Time | Long Yingtai | Guangxi Normal University Press |
| 5 | 17 | 9787544710817 | Jun-10 | Souvenirs Entomologiques | Jean-Henri Fabre | Yilin Press |
| 23 | 18 | 9787535488473 | May-16 | Walk Alone Freely | Jia Pingwa | Changjiang Literature & Art Press Co., Ltd. |
| 27 | 19 | 9787540476892 | Jul-16 | Goodwill | Da Bing | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 19 | 20 | 9787530214787 | Apr-17 | The Stories of the Sahara | Echo Chan | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 21 | 9787201088945 | Dec-14 | No More Than Skins | Cai Chongda | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 14 | 22 | 9787201089140 | Jan-15 | Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk | Lu Xun | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 20 | 23 | 9787101117479 | Feb-17 | Chinese Classical Poetry Quiz Show (Vol.1) | CCTV “Chinese poetry conference” column group | Zhonghua Book Company |
| 21 | 24 | 9787549529322 | Dec-12 | Insight | Chai Jing | Guangxi Normal University Press |
| 30 | 25 | 9787506379236 | May-15 | The Tough Brilliance (New Revised Supplement Edition) | Jin Yinan | The Writer’s Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 26 | 9787514208788 | Jul-13 | The Willpower Instinct | Kelly McGonigal | Cultural Development Publishing House |
| 24 | 27 | 9787101117721 | Feb-17 | Chinese Classical Poetry Quiz Show (Vol.2) | CCTV “Chinese poetry conference” column group | Zhonghua Book Company |
| Not Ranked | 28 | 9787020130719 | Aug-17 | The Reader (Vol.2) | Dong Qing | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 29 | 9787020130726 | Aug-17 | The Reader (Vol.3) | Dong Qing | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 22 | 30 | 9787108051714 | May-15 | We Three | Yang Jiang | SDX Joint Publishing Company |
Foreign Author Fiction Bestsellers in China, August 2017
| Rank: Jul 2017 | Rank: Aug 2017 | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Author nationality | Chinese Publisher |
| 1 | 1 | 9787544270878 | Apr-14 | Miracles of the Namiya General Store | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 2 | 2 | 9787544258609 | Jan-13 | Journey Under the Midnight Sun | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 3 | 3 | 9787208061644 | Apr-06 | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini | USA | Shanghai People’s Publishing House |
| 4 | 4 | 9787544267618 | Jun-14 | The Devotion of Suspect X | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 5 | 5 | 9787550013247 | May-15 | Ferryman | Claire McFall | UK | Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House |
| 6 | 6 | 9787544253994 | May-11 | One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel García Márquez | Colombia | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 7 | 7 | 9787559603340 | May-17 | Home of the Sleeping Mermaid | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| 9 | 8 | 9787540455958 | Jun-12 | The Shadow Thief | Marc Levy | France | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| Not Ranked | 9 | 9787540481124 | Jun-17 | The First Half of My Life | Yi Shu | Canada | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 14 | 10 | 9787544285148 | Oct-16 | Malice | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| Not Ranked | 11 | 9787544277617 | Jun-15 | Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel García Márquez | Colombia | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 12 | 12 | 9787201116693 | May-17 | My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry | Fredrik Backman | Sweden | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 15 | 13 | 9787544285643 | Dec-16 | Salvation of a Saint | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 19 | 14 | 9787544266222 | Oct-13 | After School | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 17 | 15 | 9787539971810 | Apr-15 | The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry | Gabrielle Zevin | USA | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 20 | 16 | 9787544277723 | Jun-15 | Tokio | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 16 | 17 | 9787544244190 | Mar-09 | The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | Brazil | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 8 | 18 | 9787544760843 | Aug-16 | Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | UK | Yilin Press |
| Not Ranked | 19 | 9787020111893 | Dec-15 | Different Seasons | Stephen King | USA | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 20 | 9787530216842 | May-17 | The Anguish of Galileo | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
Foreign Author Nonfiction Bestsellers in China, August 2017
| Rank: Jul 2017 | Rank: Aug 2017 | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Author nationality | Chinese Publisher |
| 1 | 1 | 9787020116133 | Jun-16 | Red Star Over China | Edgar Snow | USA | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 2 | 2 | 9787508672069 | Jan-17 | Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow | Yuval Noah Harari | Israel | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 4 | 3 | 9787508660752 | Feb-17 | Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Yuval Noah Harari | Israel | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 3 | 4 | 9787544710817 | Jun-10 | Souvenirs Entomologiques | Jean-Henri Fabre | France | Yilin Press |
| 11 | 5 | 9787514208788 | Jul-13 | The Willpower Instinct (Hardcover) | Kelly McGonigal | USA | Cultural Development Publishing House |
| 9 | 6 | 9787535732309 | Nov-11 | A Brief History of Time | Stephen William Hawking | UK | Hunan Science & Technology Press |
| 14 | 7 | 9787544762885 | Apr-16 | 84, Charing Cross Road | Helene Hanff | USA | Yilin Press |
| 6 | 8 | 9787301109489 | Oct-06 | A Global History: From Prehistory to the 21st Century (Vol.1) | L.S.Stavrianos | USA | Peking University Press |
| 8 | 9 | 9787301110522 | Oct-06 | A Global History: From Prehistory to the 21st Century (Vol.2) | L.S.Stavrianos | USA | Peking University Press |
| 16 | 10 | 9787308161459 | Aug-18 | The Silk Roads: A New History of the World | Peter Frankopan | UK | Zhejiang Eniversity Press Co., Ltd |
| 17 | 11 | 9787508650890 | May-15 | Who Moved My Cheese? | Spencer Johnson | USA | CITIC Publishing House Co., Ltd |
| 5 | 12 | 9787544711623 | Mar-11 | Francis Bacon’s Essays | Francis Bacon | UK | Yilin Press |
| 15 | 13 | 9787101054491 | Feb-07 | 1587, a Year of No Significance | Ray Huang | USA | Zhonghua Book Company |
| 19 | 14 | 9787800875830 | Sep-99 | How to Win Friends and Influence Others & How to Stop Worrying and Start Living | Kale Carnegie | USA | China Development Press |
| Not Ranked | 15 | 9787300126210 | Nov-10 | Mao: A Biography | Ross Terrill | USA | China Renmin University Press |
| 7 | 16 | 9787544760850 | Jan-17 | Michelangelo / Tolstoy / Beethoven | Romain Rolland | France | Yilin Press |
| Not Ranked | 17 | 9787101052039 | Aug-06 | 1587, a Year of No Significance (Commemorative Edition) | Ray Huang | USA | Zhonghua Book Company |
| Not Ranked | 18 | 9787550252585 | May-15 | Secret Garden | Johanna Basford | UK | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| Not Ranked | 19 | 9787514205039 | Jul-12 | The Willpower Instinct | Kelly McGonigal | USA | Cultural Development Publishing House |
| 20 | 20 | 9787530209073 | Feb-09 | Walden | Henry David Thoreau | USA | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
Notes on the Charts
OpenBook is a privately owned industry-data research firm based in Beijing. It functions somewhat as Nielsen and NDP do from the West, and Nielsen Book Research International chief Andre Breedt tells us that Nielsen has worked with OpenBook in Asian operations.
Trajectory, based near Boston, is an importer of Western-language ebooks and audiobooks into China. Trajectory is also helping China’s largest publishers export their books and audiobooks through a proprietary global ebook distribution network that includes hundreds of retailers as well as library and school distributors.
This data is estimated by OpenBook to represent some 30 to 40 percent of the total sales activity in China. OpenBooks draws point-of-sale data from a total 3,115 stores located in 1,247 cities. These stores include:
- Traditional bookstores
- Supermarkets
- Campus bookstores
- “Professional” stores, which are said to be small stores with a specific industrial or trade focus
- Airport stores
In addition, OpenBook is drawing data from online bookstores of two main types:
- The “Tmall” stores, of Alibaba (Tmall described as a marketplace of companies that create storefronts online to sell products including books)
- Ten independent online bookselling retailers
China has some 500 or more publishers in operation today. Most of them, Trajectory’s Bryant clarifies for us, are government-owned. Private publishers are required to purchase ISBNs for their titles from a publishing company that is government-owned—which, in other words, creates a system in which all ISBNs are in one way or another registered through government channels. The government approves each book published in China.