From March to May this year, Shanghai's region-wide static control for nearly three months brought great challenges to local publishing institutions. With the book publishing process and logistics obstructed, the sales order of the book market reshaped, and offline activities put to a halt, the publishers suffered serious losses in the short term. "In the face of all the resistance, the only way is to find a path and rhythm to adapt to the 'closure' and try 'self-rescue'", Wang Yan, chairman and president of East China Normal University Press (ECNUP), expressed. ECNUP has actively taken countermeasures during the pandemic, ensuring that key operations are not affected, and amplifying their social benefits online and offline to minimize the impact of the pandemic. Wang Yan repeatedly emphasized that talent is the key to the continued prosperous development of the publishing industry while introducing her experience and future development strategies during her interview with Bookdao.
Wang Yan, Chairman and President of East China Normal University Press
Bookdao: This year, Shanghai has implemented a region-wide static control for nearly three months. What is the biggest impact this has had on the ECNUP, and the entire Shanghai publishing industry?
Wang Yan: The book publishing process was hampered by the "closure" of Shanghai for more than two months. From the beginning of April to the end of May, we were unable to carry out the normal process of editing, publishing, printing and distribution for new books, resulting in a reduction in the variety of new books published and a significant drop in total production. We also missed several peak sales seasons in the first half of the year, such as "school season", "4.23", "6.18" etc., which affected the overall sales. Especially in the second half of the year, due to the lack of new books in the libraries and bookstores, our market share decreased compared with the same period of previous years.
The logistics industry is seriously affected by the pandemic, which caused book delivery stalled both in and out for more than two months. After the booksellers and e-commerce channels are out of stock, our top products and frequently selling products cannot be replenished and reprinted in time, resulting in the market share being taken by similar products from publishers in other regions. Some publishers' self-operated stores were unable to deliver books due to the pandemic closure, therefore faced a large number of chargebacks and refunds.
The inability to invoice led to a longer billing period for customers, increasing the difficulty and risk of payment collection. Major traditional e-commerce sales declined overall, affected by the impact of various new media platforms and sales diversion, dangdang.com sales decline is particularly significant. Recently, traditional e-commerce companies further suppressed settlement discounts, and publishing houses that do not participate may face order withdrawal in its entirety.
The static control in Shanghai also means the distribution personnel cannot travel. The offline marketing and promotion activities for new books could not be carried out, therefore various cooperations with bookstores or on campus were canceled. Several campus cooperation, rural bookstores, and school teaching materials bidding projects were aborted due to the pandemic, and higher education teaching materials could not be promoted and marketed as they used to be. All the above had a great impact on publishing houses that mainly focus on education books.
Bookdao: What control measures did you take during the "closure" to reduce losses and ensure the smooth publication and distribution of key products?
Wang Yan: During the pandemic from April to May, we actively took countermeasures, insisted on working from home, and strived to minimize the impact of the pandemic. Mobile ERP plays a key role in working from home. During the pandemic, the ECNUP used the so-called model of " mobile ERP + enterprise WeChat + cloud network" which allows employees to access the entire digital resource at home through our self-developed ERP system. The information center technicians were online at all times to provide timely support, helping us all to minimize the impact of the pandemic by "stopping work but not production".
It is also important to adjust the management process of editing, printing and distribution, and the external printing and distribution of key varieties. During the pandemic, we made adequate preparations and coordinated the smooth progress of all links in the book publishing process. During the extraordinary period, every effort should be made to guarantee the publication progress of key and urgent books; the departments of the reviewer, quality control, printing, paper, marketing, distribution, and logistics, etc. have repeatedly adjusted the publishing work process dynamically through online meetings to ensure that all work is carried out steadily. On April 23, the ECNUP's "Feng Zikai's Home School Class: Grandpa Taught Me Poetry" was selected as one of the "2021 Annual Chinese Good Books". The publisher promptly coordinated with the Beijing branch to entrust this title to the Beijing printing house for printing; in addition, in order not to miss the release time of teaching materials, the publisher's regular sales titles "2023 Edition of 100 Questions Over the Top" (51 varieties) was entrusted to Anhui Xinhua for printing and distribution; the distribution personnel outside Shanghai, on the other hand, actively adjusted the transfer of goods for the key product by keeping in close contact with customers. It is worth mentioning that eight employees of our logistics center were restricted in the office during the static control, but they actively cooperated with Shanghai Xinhua Media to deliver several children's books to the designated warehouse.
Feng Zikai's Home School Class: Grandpa Taught Me Poetry
During the pandemic, ECNUP also joined hands with several organizations to plan and participate in more than 60 public service, live lectures and online reading activities. The "Teachers Joyful Education" series, which focused on the mental health of students, parents and teachers during the pandemic and was broadcast live with Shanghai Library and other platforms, with top media coverage, attracted tens of thousands of viewers at each show. We have also live-streamed the series of "Reading to dispel the pandemic" program (30 lectures), in which teachers from different departments lead the audience to read a good book online every day, on Wechat video and Bilibili platforms. There were also online reading activities for books such as "Red Archives" and "Light and Shadow Enlightenment Education", which attracted many readers.
From March 31 to May 31, ECNUP launched 9 weekly "Cloud Lectures" staff training, inviting more than 10 experts and scholars in the field of education and publishing to share their views. The online learning content includes lectures on a macro level, such as international publishing industry trends, Chinese book retail market performance under the pandemic, metaverse interpretation and next-generation 3D digital leap, thematic publishing and creating fine products, as well as a practical level, such as emergency electronic processing of book manuscripts, new media technology and short video production, etc. During the pandemic, the ECNUP also organized a short video collection activity. The staff made more than 60 short videos through cloud collaboration and put them on our WeChat public account and other new media platforms, effectively increasing the enthusiasm of all staff members to use new media technology.
Bookdao: Now Shanghai is back to normal from static control, what initiatives will you carry out first and what are your plans to quickly resume normal production and operation?
Wang Yan: First of all, we should optimize the structure of publishing varieties, increase the reserve of strategic, forward-looking and think-tank major selections, and create a recognizable brand product line. We must further play to our strengths in the selection of topics and continue to optimize the variety of publications. ECNUP has been adhering to academic publishing, and has been effective in organizing ancient books, introducing foreign academics, developing education, and promoting culture in major projects. And it has created several recognizable brand product lines in the fields of pedagogy, psychology, ideology and culture, and ancient books. The major projects such as "A Century of Chinese Children's Literature", "The Complete Works of Chen Tingzhuo", "The Collation and Compilation of Ming and Qing Dynasty Genealogies" and "The Dictionary of Hermeneutics", which were selected for the "14th Five-Year Plan" national key publication plan, are being promoted continuously. Through the "Shanghai Academic-Pedagogical Publishing Center" platform, the "Daxia Book Series", "Education" and "Psychology" sections continue to maintain the industry's leading position in teacher education and psychology, etc. Furthermore, we also plan to launch the "Modernization of Basic Education Schools Research Series" and the "Educational Governance and Leadership" series. The recognition and social influence of "Vihorae Books" in the academic community continue to grow, and we will soon launch the hardcover annotated edition of "The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche" and "Oxford History of Western Music". The second is to accelerate the construction of digitalization and informatization, deeply promote integrated publishing, and increase the supply of high-quality digital products. We earnestly promote integrated publishing by the relevant regulations. Focusing on preschool education, basic education, teacher education, and intelligent education, ECNUP uses books as the entrance and online platforms as support to develop integrated publishing product lines based on quality educational resources, forming an interactive closed loop of online and offline businesses and products.
The third is to accelerate the readiness for emerging Internet platforms. We are also actively adjusting our business structure and layout to accelerate the pace of our deployment to emerging Internet platforms in response to the changes in book market sales caused by the pandemic, and in keeping with the shifting focus from traditional e-commerce to hobby e-commerce. ECNUP vigorously carries out its cooperation with medium-sized internet companies and individual influencers to expand the scale of live streaming sales, establishes operating accounts on platforms such as Tiktok, WeChat video, Bilibili and Little Red Book (Xiaohongshu), and invests more in new sales methods such as social media marketing and live streaming.
Finally, we should establish the concept of "people-oriented" development and strengthen team building and team management. The publishing industry has a high entry barrier, high pressure, and lacks advantages in terms of income and career development mechanisms compared with other industries, making it difficult to attract quality talents, which is not conducive to the improvement of industry competitiveness and future development in the long run. To establish the concept of "people-oriented" development, publishers need to continuously improve the professional ability of the talent team and create conditions for the creation of a high-quality composite publishing talent team, on the other hand, they also need to continuously improve the existing incentive and promotion mechanisms to empower all employees to achieve self-development.
During the pandemic, most of the time we can only work at home and communicate online, so it is necessary to strengthen team building and team management as well as the physical and psychological management of employees. During the pandemic, employees will have various psychological conditions, and the publisher can help people do a good job of psychological construction by strengthening various online communication and training, to face some negative and complicated conditions and reasonably arrange production and life.
Bookdao: After the severe pandemic and the lifting of the "closure", what kind of policy support do you think the Shanghai publishing industry needs urgently, in addition to its efforts to recover its losses? What are your strategic thoughts?
Wang Yan: Shanghai's publishing industry occupies an important position nationwide, but this time it has been affected by the pandemic and is facing greater difficulties in its development. Therefore, we urgently hope that the authorities can give overall support to Shanghai publishing, including the "14th Five-Year Plan", platform construction, major project cultivation, etc., and give a certain tilt in the investment of production resources to help publishers to complete the planned schedule and overcome production difficulties.
I think we should increase the training of talents in the publishing industry in the future. Talent is the key to the sustainable prosperity of the publishing industry, especially during the pandemic, it is necessary to promote the deep integration of the development of the publishing industry, which urgently needs a composite talent team that "knows publishing" and "knows technology". I hope that in future training, we further strengthen our new business learning. At the same time, policies should be formulated to improve the treatment of talents to promote and guarantee the high-quality development of the publishing industry.