Kids' books surge 'could cause problems' for China's publishers

Chinese publishers are rushing to capitalise on the growth in the country’s children’s books market, with book sales data company Open Book citing a 15% year-on-year rise in value terms in 2016 to date, following double-digit surges in recent years.

Open Book put the value of the 2015 market at ¥13bn (£1.52bn). But some trade figures cautioned over its future, fearing that the recent rapid growth could precipitate a fall in quality and an overcrowded market.

Speaking at the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair last week, Yang Lei, general manager of Open Book, commented: “More publishers in China are entering the children’s market, both state-owned and private: of 578 state-owned publishing houses, 547 have children’s divisions. Maybe eight years ago, only 300 did children’s publishing.

“Because of the speed and scale that the children’s market is growing [at], there is short-term profit and everyone wants to jump on. With the relaxing of the one child policy in China, everyone thinks the future is strong and wants to invest in it.”

Kan Ninghui, vice-president of Shanghai Century Publishing Group, said that all of his company’s 19 imprints now carried some children’s or Young Adult content, with some lists long-standing and others developed in recent years. He attributed the surging kids’ book market to the “huge growth of the middle-class in China”, with the added impetus of the relaxation of the one-child policy.

But he warned of possible changes in the market: “Maybe the past 10 years have been the golden years: there is mass production now, and so much [output] that’s identical, without added value. The past decade has seen children’s publishing developing hugely, and it could be overworking the publishing industry with everyone piling in. The next 10 years, if we follow current trends, could see huge problems.”

Kan said that the market could continue to boom if publishers tried to understand what the next generation of children wanted, and sought to understand market segmentation and specialise, focusing on quality content.

“For future success, we need a Chinese equivalent of DK in popular science, or specialist music publishers or art publishers [for children],” he said.