A reading pavilion, one of several mobile recording studios placed in cities to promote the CCTV’s ‘The Readers’ series. Image: Provided by OpenBook
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘The Readers’ Are the Viewers of a TV Show
Occasional reports have come from China about the popularity of “reading pavilions” in some cities. In 2017, for example, there was news of citizens waiting in line for some nine hours to get into one of these venues in Chengdu. The kiosks are said to be found in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Xi’an, as well, and to make appearances in various first- and second-tier cities.
A reading pavilion in Chengdu. Image: Provided by OpenBook
Your first thought may be that a “reading pavilion” is some version of a reading room. But in fact, these pavilions are recording booths, set up with cameras and audio equipment. You step in, get settled, and spend three minutes recording an excerpt from a book, essay, story or poem, and emerge with an audio file you can post and share on WeChat, Weibo, QQ and other social media platforms. Not surprisingly, the mobile units tend to pop up near university campuses or large libraries.
And when we asked our OpenBook associates in Beijing about what one report called this “public reading craze,” we learned that the kiosks are a promotional element of The Readers, a show that premiered in February 2017 on CCTV and was declared by the state television system to be “an instant hit.”
On the show, themed weekly, according to an early story about the program from CCTV.com, viewers see both celebrities and regular citizens read passages of literature that mean something to them and then talk about how they relate to their lives.
In its second season, for example, last year, the Chinese basketball star Yao Ming read from Hemingway and physicist Xue Qikun read from Confucius. It’s reported by the network that clips from the first season were downloaded more than 580 million times from ximalaya.com.
The program’s concept and intention is, in part, a deliberate breakaway from the more common singing-and-dancing variety show format, which is said by network officials to be derivative of the West’s standard performance-show formats. Descriptive accounts of the show talk about its “slow pace” and “soft focus” as part of the series’ appeal, as are, apparently, the reading pavilions that draw the public into an interactive bond with the show.
At OpenBook, the team reports that it’s finding links between titles that are featured on the show and books’ performances on the bestseller charts. The researchers refer to the trend as “fragmented reading,” in that no one work gets a full reading, just a sample—whether on the show or in a pavilion.
‘Guardian’ by Priest
In June, OpenBook’s overall fiction bestseller list shows few surprises, and the company’s researchers emphasize that the top four or five titles of the list consistently show far more sales than those charting below them.
An interesting feature to note this month is that new editions of abiding favorites tend to sink or swim on their own in popularity. So it is that in June, two versions released in May of Guardian by Priest–both from Guizhou People’s Publishing House—were newcomers to the list, at No. 24 and No. 25.
Also ‘Guardian’ by Priest
The two editions of Guardian are a reflection, in fact, of the popularity of “online reading” in China, the serialized literature followed with particular devotion by younger readers.
Guardian was serialized, OpenBook’s Rainy Liu reminds us, on the Jinjiang Literature platform in 2012 and 2013. So popular was the series that other works by the author known as Priest also saw big gains in sales and—as we’ve seen happen in some markets with series popularized by Wattpad—publishers have stepped forward to produce book-length iterations of these serialized stories, assured of avid audiences because of the tales’ online success.
In nonfiction in June, China’s leading titles, classics gained traditional boosts from mid-year promotions, as you can see in such entries as:
- Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China at No. 9
- The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo (Commemorative Edition) by Lin Yutang at No. 22
- 1587, a Year of No Significance by Ray Huang at No. 26
‘Getting Things Done’
The author Da Bing, with a new title The Kids at No. 1, also saw a bump for the earlier You Are Bad.
And one of our favorite Chinese authors, Feng Tang, is out with a new nonfiction work, Getting Things Done from Tianjin People’s Publishing House.
Many English readers know Feng from his novel Beijing, Beijing, which was produced in a translation by Michelle Deeter in 2015 by Amazon Crossing. With a huge following in China, the 48-year-old author has worked as a consultant with McKinsey and at last report was living in Hong Kong.
Inside a reading pavilion.Image: Provided by OpenBook
Below, then, are OpenBook’s overall lists from June 2019 of bestsellers in fiction and nonfiction, followed by its lists of bestselling fiction and nonfiction in China by authors from outside the country.
At the end of our article, as always, you’ll find notes on how the lists are constructed.
OpenBook’s Fiction Bestsellers in China, June 2019
| May 2019 Ranking | June 2019 Ranking | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Chinese Publisher |
| 2 | 1 | 9787536692930 | 2008-01 | The Three-Body Problem | Liu Cixin | Chongqing Publishing House |
| 4 | 2 | 9787229030933 | 2010-11 | Death’s End | Liu Cixin | Chongqing Publishing House |
| 3 | 3 | 9787536693968 | 2008-05 | The Dark Forest | Liu Cixin | Chongqing Publishing House |
| 1 | 4 | 9787506365437 | 2010-06 | To Live | Yu hua | The Writer’s Publishing House |
| 6 | 5 | 9787208061644 | 2006-04 | The Kite Runner (2018 Edition) | Khaled Hosseini | Shanghai People’s Publishing House |
| 8 | 6 | 9787530216781 | 2017-06 | Ordinary Word (3 Volumns) | Lu Yao | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| 9 | 7 | 9787544270878 | 20140-4 | Miracles of the Namiya General Store | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 15 | 8 | 9787544291163 | 2017-08 | Journey Under the Midnight Sun (2017 Version) | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 5 | 9 | 9787221150639 | 2019-02 | Ran Freely (2) | Wu Zhe | Guizhou People’s Publishing House |
| 18 | 10 | 9787530219218 | 2019-02 | Life is Like Ocean | Mai Jia | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| 19 | 11 | 9787020090006 | 2012-07 | Fortress Besieged | Qian Zhongshu | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 10 | 12 | 9787550032125 | 2019-02 | Outcasts | Claire McFall | Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House |
| 17 | 13 | 9787544291170 | 2017-08 | One Hundred Years of Solitude (50th Anniversary Edition) | Gabriel García Márquez | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 22 | 14 | 9787559427434 | 2019-02 | The Outsider | Albert Camus | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 12 | 15 | 9787550013247 | 2015-05 | Ferryman | Claire McFall | Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House |
| 7 | 16 | 9787500601593 | 2005-08 | Red Crag | Luo Guangbin,Yang Yiyan | China Youth Press |
| 14 | 17 | 9787559620187 | 2018-10 | Ran Freely | Wu Zhe | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| 24 | 18 | 9787544267618 | 2014-06 | The Devotion of Suspect X | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 23 | 19 | 9787544285148 | 2016-10 | Malice | Higashino Keigo | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 28 | 20 | 9787532776771 | 2018-03 | Norwegian Wood (30th Anniversary Edition) | Haruki Murakami | Shanghai Translation Publishing House |
| 16 | 21 | 9787540487645 | 2018-06 | Moments We Shared | Zhang Jiajia | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 11 | 22 | 9787530215593 | 2017-06 | To Live | Yu hua | Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House |
| 27 | 23 | 9787506365680 | 2012-12 | Chronicle of a Blood Merchant | Yu hua | The Writer’s Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 24 | 9787221150615 | 2019-05 | Guardian | Priest | Guizhou People’s Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 25 | 9787221150622 | 2019-05 | Guardian (2) | Priest | Guizhou People’s Publishing House |
| 13 | 26 | 9787506344791 | 2008-12 | Street Wizards | Feng Jicai | The Writer’s Publishing House |
| 20 | 27 | 9787511360809 | 2016-06 | The Wandering Earth | Liu Cixin | China Overseas Chinese Press |
| Not Ranked | 28 | 9787544384636 | 2018-09 | The Long Goodbye | Raymond Chandler | Hainan Publishing House |
| 25 | 29 | 9787020151271 | 2019-02 | The Cat Emperor and His Friends (4) | Bai Cha | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 30 | 9787544277617 | 2015-06 | Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel García Márquez | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
OpenBook’s Nonfiction Bestsellers in China, June 2019
| May 2019 Ranking | June 2019 Ranking | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Chinese Publisher |
| Not Ranked | 1 | 9787540492380 | 2019-06 | The Kids | Da Bing | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 19 | 2 | 9787521702415 | 2019-02 | The American Trap | Frederic Pierucci,Matthieu Aron | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 1 | 3 | 9787550268517 | 2016-07 | Positive Discipline | Jane Nelsen | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| Not Ranked | 4 | 9787559436184 | 2019-05 | 30 Minutes of Tang Poetry in Cartoon | Chen Lei | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 4 | 5 | 9787201094014 | 2015-09 | Six Records of a Floating Life | Shen Fu | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 3 | 6 | 9787201088945 | 2014-12 | No More Than Skins | Cai Chongda | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 5 | 7 | 9787559620125 | 2018-05 | Genius on the Left, Lunatic on the Right (Full Version)(New Edition) | Gao Ming | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| 7 | 8 | 9787539999883 | 2017-03 | 30 Minutes of Chinese History in Cartoon | Chen Lei | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| Not Ranked | 9 | 9787020116133 | 2016-06 | Red Star Over China | Edgar Snow | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 12 | 10 | 9787559418111 | 2018-04 | 30 Minutes of World History in Cartoon | Chen Lei | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 11 | 11 | 9787544382052 | 2018-05 | 30 Minutes of Chinese History in Cartoon (3) | Chen Lei | Hainan Publishing House |
| 9 | 12 | 9787544382045 | 2018-05 | 30 Minutes of Chinese History in Cartoon (2) | Chen Lei | Hainan Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 13 | 9787201146669 | 2019-02 | Getting Things Done | Feng Tang | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 22 | 14 | 9787508660752 | 2017-02 | Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Yuval Noah Harari | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 10 | 15 | 9787549550173 | 2014-01 | Seeing Off | Long Yingtai | Guangxi Normal University Press |
| 14 | 16 | 9787508095226 | 2018-09 | Nonviolent Communication | Marshall B.Rosenberg | Huaxia Publishing House |
| 24 | 17 | 9787508689586 | 2018-07 | Economics Lecture Notes | Xue Zhaofeng | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 2 | 18 | 9787503565397 | 2019-02 | Xi Jinping in Zhengding | Party School of the Central Committee of C.P.C | Central Party School Press |
| 15 | 19 | 9787535488473 | 2016-05 | Walk Alone Freely | Jia Pingwa | Changjiang Literature & Art Press Co.,Ltd. |
| 6 | 20 | 9787514365641 | 2017-11 | I Know What I Want, I Know How to Get it, and Do It Now. That’s All | Yang’s Owl | Morden Press |
| 17 | 21 | 9787508684031 | 2017-12 | Principles | Ray Dalio | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| Not Ranked | 22 | 9787540484880 | 201801 | The Gay Genius: The Life and Times of Su Tungpo (Commemorative Edition) | Lin Yutang | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 13 | 23 | 9787201088822 | 2014-09 | How to Win Friends & Influence People | Dale Carnegie | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| Not Ranked | 24 | 9787540487669 | 2018-05 | You Are Bad | Da Bing | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 25 | 25 | 9787535732309 | 2001-11 | A Brief History of Time | Stephen W.Hawking | Hunan Science & Technology Press |
| Not Ranked | 26 | 9787108009821 | 1998-07 | 1587, a Year of No Significance | Ray Huang | SDX Joint Publishing Company |
| 29 | 27 | 9787514219203 | 2017-09 | The Willpower Instinct (New Edition) | Kelly McGonigal | Cultural Development Publishing House |
| 30 | 28 | 9787108063106 | 2018-06 | We Three (Third Edition) | Yang Jiang | SDX Joint Publishing Company |
| 21 | 29 | 9787549550159 | 2014-01 | My Child, Just Take Your Time | Long Yingtai | Guangxi Normal University Press |
| 28 | 30 | 9787549564125 | 2015-04 | Dear Andrea | Long Yingtai,Andreas Walther | Guangxi Normal University Press |
Foreign Author Fiction Bestsellers in China, June 2019
| May 2019 Ranking | June 2019 Ranking | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Author nationality | Chinese Publisher |
| 1 | 1 | 9787208061644 | 2018-02 | The Kite Runner (2018 Edition) | Khaled Hosseini | United States of America | Shanghai People’s Publishing House |
| 2 | 2 | 9787544270878 | 2014-04 | Miracles of the Namiya General Store | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 5 | 3 | 9787544291163 | 2017-08 | Journey Under the Midnight Sun (2017 Version) | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 3 | 4 | 9787550032125 | 2019-02 | Outcasts | Claire McFall | Britain | Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House |
| 6 | 5 | 9787544291170 | 2017-08 | One Hundred Years of Solitude (50th Anniversary Edition) | Gabriel García Márquez | Colombia | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 7 | 6 | 9787559427434 | 2019-02 | The Outsider | Albert Camus | France | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 4 | 7 | 9787550013247 | 2015-05 | Ferryman | Claire McFall | Britain | Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House |
| 9 | 8 | 9787544267618 | 2014-06 | The Devotion of Suspect X | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 8 | 9 | 9787544285148 | 2016-10 | Malice | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 10 | 10 | 9787532776771 | 2018-03 | Norwegian Wood (30th Anniversary Edition) | Haruki Murakami | Japan | Shanghai Translation Publishing House |
| 16 | 11 | 9787544384636 | 2018-09 | The Long Goodbye | Raymond Chandler | United States of America | Hainan Publishing House |
| 13 | 12 | 9787544277617 | 2015-06 | Love in the Time of Cholera | Gabriel García Márquez | Colombia | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| Not Ranked | 13 | 9787506394864 | 2017-09 | Sophie’s World (New Edition) | Jostein Gaarder | Norway | The Writer’s Publishing House |
| 15 | 14 | 9787550024212 | 2017-09 | Trespassers | Claire McFall | Britain | Baihuazhou Literature & Art Publishing House |
| 14 | 15 | 9787544291224 | 2017-08 | After School (2017 Version) | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 19 | 16 | 9787544281102 | 2016-01 | Newcomer | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| 17 | 17 | 9787539971810 | 2015-04 | The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry | Gabrielle Zevin | United States of America | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| 12 | 18 | 9787539983295 | 2015-10 | Foundation | Isaac Asimov | United States of America | Jiangsu Literature & Art Press |
| Not Ranked | 19 | 9787544258210 | 2017-10 | Naoko | Higashino Keigo | Japan | Nan Hai Publishing Co. |
| Not Ranked | 20 | 9787544766500 | 2017-01 | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | United States of America | Yilin Press |
Foreign Author Nonfiction Bestsellers in China, June 2019
| May 2019 Ranking | June 2019 Ranking | ISBN | Release Date | Title (Translated) | Author | Author nationality | Chinese Publisher |
| 16 | 1 | 9787521702415 | 2019-02 | The American Trap | Frederic Pierucci,Matthieu Aron | France | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 1 | 2 | 9787550268517 | 2016-07 | Positive Discipline | Jane Nelsen | United States of America | Beijing Union Publishing Co., Ltd. |
| 12 | 3 | 9787020116133 | 2017-06 | Red Star Over China | Edgar Snow | United States of America | People’s Literature Publishing House |
| 5 | 4 | 9787508660752 | 2017-02 | Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind | Yuval Noah Harari | Israel | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 3 | 5 | 9787508095226 | 2018-09 | Nonviolent Communication | Marshall B.Rosenberg | United States of America | Huaxia Publishing House |
| 4 | 6 | 9787508684031 | 2017-12 | Principles | Ray Dalio | United States of America | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 2 | 7 | 9787201088822 | 2014-9 | How to Win Friends & Influence People | Dale Carnegie | United States of America | Tianjin People’s Publishing House |
| 6 | 8 | 9787535732309 | 2001-11 | A Brief History of Time | Stephen W.Hawking | Britain | Hunan Science & Technology Press |
| 9 | 9 | 9787108009821 | 2014-03 | 1587, a Year of No Significance | Ray Huang | United States of America | SDX Joint Publishing Company |
| 8 | 10 | 9787514219203 | 2017-09 | The Willpower Instinct (New Edition) | Kelly McGonigal | United States of America | Cultural Development Publishing House |
| 7 | 11 | 9787220102912 | 2017-09 | Rich Dad, Poor Dad | Robert T.Kiyosaki | United States of America | Sichuan People’s Publishing House |
| 11 | 12 | 9787301109489 | 2006-10 | A Global History: From Prehistory to the 21st Century (Vol.1) | L. S. Stavrianos | United States of America | Peking University Press |
| 13 | 13 | 9787301110522 | 2006-10 | A Global History: From Prehistory to the 21st Century (Vol.2) | L. S. Stavrianos | United States of America | Peking University Press |
| 10 | 14 | 9787508672069 | 2017-01 | Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow | Yuval Noah Harari | Israel | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| 14 | 15 | 9787508692098 | 2018-07 | 21 Lessons for the 21st Century | Yuval Noah Harari | Israel | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| Not Ranked | 16 | 9787535733597 | 2002-02 | The Universe in a Nutshell | Stephen W.Hawking | Britain | Hunan Science & Technology Press |
| 20 | 17 | 9787540489304 | 2019-01 | Danshari | Yamashita Eiko | Japan | Hunan Literature & Art Press |
| 15 | 18 | 9787508650890 | 2015-05 | Who Moved My Cheese? | Spencer Johnson | United States of America | CITIC Publishing House Co.,Ltd |
| Not Ranked | 19 | 9787544768559 | 2017-07 | Souvenirs Entomologiques | Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre | France | Yilin Press |
| 17 | 20 | 9787514208788 | 2013-07 | The Willpower Instinct (Hardcover) | Kelly McGonigal | United States of America | Cultural Development 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 has worked with OpenBook in Asian operations. With authoritative data and information resources, OpenBook is able to deliver consulting service to partners who would like to explore the Chinese book market and identify suitable partners.
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. Trajectory recently has added copyright services, both for content going into China and for exports from China to the rest of the world.
Up until July 1, 2019, this data has been estimated by OpenBook to represent some 50 percent of the total sales activity in China. OpenBook draws point-of-sale data from more than 6,000 bookstores in China, including a total 3,496 physical bookstores representative of all the provinces in China except Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
Retail outlets include:
- Traditional bookstores
- Supermarkets
- Campus bookstores
- “Professional” stores, said to be small stores with a specific industrial or trade focus
- Airport stores
In addition, OpenBook is drawing data from online bookstores of three main types:
- The “Tmall” stores of Alibaba (Tmall is described as a marketplace of companies that create storefronts online to sell products including books)
- The “JingDong” Stores of JD.com (similar to Tmall as a marketplace of both individual companies and bookstores operated by JD.com)
- Ten independent online bookselling retailers
China has some 500 or more publishers in operation today. Most of them, Trajectory CEO James Bryant clarifies, are government-owned. Private publishers are required to generate 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.
More China bestseller reports from Publishing Perspectives are here.