Recently, Bookdao exclusively released the "2022 Publishers Rankings in Media Impact" based on the media influence data monitored by Bookdao’s Book Influence Data Platform. The rankings are grouped by 8 classifications: Literature, Arts, Juvenile & Children, Life, Humanities & Social Sciences, New Knowledge, Education Materials, and Professional Technology. With their strong media influence, publishers such as People's Literature Publishing House, Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Publishing House, CITIC Press Group, Jieli Publishing House, East China Normal University Press, and Posts & Telecom Press occupy the top positions in each category. CITIC Press Group topped three categories: Life, Humanities and Social Sciences, and New Knowledge.
The data used in these rankings come from the "Book Influence Data Platform" owned by Bookdao. The platform has metadata of 3.6 million titles, including more than 650,000 titles with online media recommendation sources in the past five years. There are currently 4,000 media recommendation sources being monitored by the BIDP, 26% of which come from traditional media and their online platforms, 8% from libraries, and 66% from various websites or self-media.
All media recommendation sources monitored on the BIDP are evaluated according to their authoritativeness, follower counts and reads, level of know-how, as well as frequency of updates. The better quality of the recommendation source， the higher weight assigned to it. The rankings are not based on the number of recommended sources but on the aggregate of weights assigned to all recommended sources, i.e. the influence index.
Media recommendations for titles published in 2022 (including reprints and new editions) are taken into account for the rankings. Out of 8 categories, Humanities & Social sciences, Literature, and Juvenile & Children are among the top influential in the past three years, shown in the chart below. Their sub-classes include financial management, humanities and history, biographies, literary fiction, children's literature, and so on. These genres are closely related to readership preferences, and attract higher attention from the media.
Compared to 2021, the 2022 Publishers Rankings in Media Impact reveal several trends:
First, Professional Technology and New Knowledge showed the fastest increase. Professional Technology gained 51.39% year-on-year growth in the influence index, moving up to the 6th among all 8 categories in 2022 from the bottom in 2021. These fast-growing genres also show improvement in topic selection and media promotion approaches toward mass readership and therefore received more attention. Influenced by market factors, the media impact of the Juvenile & Children's category in 2022 has barely increased much compared to 2021, which should draw the attention of Juvenile & Children's publishers.
Second, the more prominent the market position, the stronger the media influence. Publishers' market sales, brand building, and media influence are directly proportional to each other. The more publishers focus on the market and brand, the greater the media influence, which is helpful to promote the market and brand about, forming a virtuous circle. For publishers, under the buyer's market, it is no longer enough just to produce good books, but also through marketing means to let more readers know, to finally complete the closed loop of consumption and reading.
Third, specialized publishers are facing ever greater challenges from non-specialized publishers. Although specialized publishers such as People's Literature Publishing House, Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Publishing House, Jieli Publishing House, East China Normal University Press, and Posts & Telecom Press are holding on to their position in 2022 rankings, the head-to-head battles with non-specialized or comprehensive publishers are becoming more intense. CITIC Publishing Group, a traditional financial publisher, through the finely built platform infrastructure and brand outreach expansion, occupies the top of the list in three categories: Life, Humanities & Social Sciences, and New Knowledge; Guangxi Normal University Press is listed in the rankings of seven categories respectively (only absent in Professional Technology); Beijing United Publishing, through its brand cooperation with many publishing agents, makes its presence on six rankings.
Literature, Arts, Juvenile & Children, Educational Materials, and Professional Technology rankings show that publishers remain on the list building strength with resources and expertise, and the trend of the strongest getting stronger. However, in Life, Humanities & Social Sciences, and New Knowledge, there is more room for growth for comprehensive publishers, and it presents a diversified picture.
The People's Literature Publishing House and the Yilin Press, one from the south and one from the north, occupy the top two in the Literature Ranking. People's Literature Publishing House has accelerated the pace of publishing masterpieces in 2022, publishing Food is Heaven (《燕食记》) by Ge Liang, Chronicles of Qinling (《秦岭记》) by Jia Pingwa, From All Corners of the Country (《五湖四海》) by Wang Anyi, China's Winter Olympics (《中国冬奥》) by Sun Jingyan, Crossing the ocean to love you (《漂洋过海来爱你》) by Shi Yifeng, Four Harmonies (《四合如意》) by Zhang Yiwei. Yilin Press strengthens its original titles while continuing to introduce foreign copyright titles, published The Golden River(《金色河流》) by Lu Min、Ben Ba (《本巴》) by Liu Liangcheng, Road to Father (《通往父亲之路》) by Ye Zhaoyan, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, Sono nato in America by Italo Calvino.
The Writers Publishing House’s Chinese Peach and Plum (《中文桃李》) by Liang Xiaosheng, page to screen work The Great Game (《大博弈》) by Zhou Meisen received lots of media attention. In addition, Beijing October Arts & Literature Publishing House, together with Thinkdom, reprinted Yu Hua’s Brothers (《兄弟》) in a new edition, and published New Book Notes on Xihaigu (《西海固笔记》) by Ji Dongliang, Wild Hope (《野望》) by Fu Xiuying, Tang Poem Cambrian (《唐诗寒武纪》) by Liushen Leilei. Beijing United Publishing through co-work with several publishing agents, such as Xiron Group (磨铁), United TianChang (联合天畅), Truman Story (真故), China Media Time (时代华语), LO.VE (乐府文化), Post Wave Publishing (后浪), has expanded and enhanced its media influence.
It is no surprise that Shanghai Calligraphy and Painting Publishing House topped the Arts category, as they had a notable breakthrough in art research and art history in 2022. SDX Joint Publishing and Jiangsu Phoenix Fine Arts Publishing are in second and third places. Guangxi Normal University Press has been working deeply in the art category for many years, and shows strong media influence in many titles, such as The Other Half of Art History: Why Are There No Great Women Artists? (《艺术史的另一半：为什么没有伟大的女艺术家？》), and Why the Yangtze River is So Fascinating (《为什么长江如此迷人》). Other non-art specialized publishers have also made the list, such as Five Thousand Years of Chinese Art(《中国美术五千年》), Dunhuang is Like a Painting: Continuing the Journey of Beauty in 1600 Years (《敦煌如是绘：接续1600年美的历程》), and Music of the Chinese People (《中国人的音乐》) published by CITIC Press, Water Village Map Index (《水村图索隐》) and Qi Gong’s Vigorous Style of Chinese Painting and Calligraphy《中国风骨：启功谈书论画》published by the Commercial Press.
The Life ranking also shows a split between specialized and non-specialized publishers, with CITIC Press Group, Beijing United Publishing, and People's Medical Publishing House rounding out the top three. There is a clear contrast in this list: publishers with strong science and technology backgrounds dominate the knowledge titles, such as People's Medical Publishing House's The Truth Behind the Rumors: Doctors Have Good Words (《谣言背后的健康真相：医生有良言》) and China Women Publishing House's Eat Well, Sleep Well, Don't Get Sick: 60 Scientific Parenting Tips for 0 to 3 Year Olds A New Mother's Guide to Scientific Parenting (《吃好睡好不生病：0~3岁的60个科学育儿常识 新手妈妈的科学育儿养护指南》); other publishers focus more on lifestyle, such as Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails, Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, and Living with special seriousness (《特别认真地生活》) published by CITIC Press, and Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career, Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth published by China Machine Press.
The Juvenile & Children's ranking is dominated by specialized publishers, occupying eleven seats in the Top 30 list, with Jieli Publishing House, Tomorrow Publishing House, and Zhejiang Juvenile and Children's Publishing House in the top. The ranking also shows a tendency: specialized juvenile and children publishers have more literary companionship and parent-child growth titles, such as My Mom (《我的妈妈》), My Flying Bird Friend: You're So Brave (《我的飞鸟朋友：你如此勇敢》) and Hand Axe Boy series (“手斧男孩”系列) published by Jieli Publishing House; non-specialized publishers have more general knowledge and popular science titles, such as Quantum Physics Fun to Understand (《量子物理，好玩好懂》), and China's Great Scientific Research Series: To the Poles (《中国大科考系列绘本“向极地进发”》) published by Beijing Science and Technology Publishing House.
CITIC Press Group, The Commercial Press, and Social Sciences Academic Press are among the top three in the Humanities & Social Sciences ranking, and these publishers also represent the three current trends in this category: popularized humanities and social sciences book publishing, academic and tool book publishing, and social sciences history and literature database publishing. CITIC Press Group published Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, and China Machine Press launched new editions of management master Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive, and Liu Run's "The Underlying Logic 2: Understanding the Essence of Business, all of which are heavyweight works in the fields of finance and management.
Guangxi Normal University Press's Kafka: The Decisive Years, Going to the Exhibition: China and the World in the Museum (《看展去：博物馆里的中国与世界》), and The Making of the Modern Chinese (1600-1949) still maintain high publication standards. Zhonghua Book Company's Ten Lectures on Yangming Studies (《阳明学十讲》), Exegesis at the Table (《餐桌上的训诂》), and The Book of Zhou - A Revised Version of the Twenty-Four Histories with Comments (《周书（点校本二十四史修订本·精装繁体竖排·全3册）》) and other works still demonstrate its strong brand appeal to the media and readers. Shanghai Translation Publishing House, on the other hand, has taken its place in this ranking through a series of imported non-fiction works. China Translation & Publishing House has been outstanding in the financial category in the past two years and appears to be the "dark horse". In 2022, the publisher seized the metaverse topic and published several titles ahead of its peers. According to the incomplete statistics of BIDP, there are at least 150 books with Metaverse-related titles published in China, among which more than 30 titles are published by China Translation & Publishing House, such as "Metaverse and Digital Economy (《元宇宙与数字经济》) and Metaverse and Carbon Neutral (《元宇宙与碳中和》), making it a leader in this field and successfully listed in the Humanities and Social Sciences TOP30.
In the New Knowledge ranking, CITIC Press Group, The Commercial Press, and Beijing United Publishing occupy the top three respectively. Specialized publishers including Hunan Science & Technology Press, Shanghai Scientific & Technological Education Publishing House, Science Press, and Tianjin Science and Technology Publishing House are also on the list. Publishers with strong academic and science & technology backgrounds have advantages in this category.
By analyzing the titles from these publishers in 2022, it is found that the majority of titles in the New Knowledge category are introduced foreign copyright works, such as CITIC’s The Idea of the Brain: A History by Matthew Cobb and Tales from The Ant World by Edward Wilson, The Commercial Press’s Guide to the Birds of China by John MacKinnon, and Beijing United Publishing’s There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness by Carlo Rovelli.
The greater dominance of university, academic, and educational publishers in the Educational Materials category is clearly reflected in the top three of East China Normal University Press, The Commercial Press, and Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. In the list of books from these publishers in 2022, works with mass appeal and wider population coverage also attract greater media attention. For example, East China Normal University Press's Study on Compulsory Education Curriculum Program and Curriculum Standards 2022 Edition (《义务教育课程方案和课程标准（2022年版）》研读) and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press's Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary 4th Edition (《现代汉语规范词典(第4版) 》) are books familiar to readers and often appear focus of the media.
The four major professional publishers, Posts & Telecom Press, Publishing House of Electronics Industry, Tsinghua University Press, and China Machine Press, all made the ranking in Professional Technology, fully reflecting their heritage and strength. China Press of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chemical Industry Press, China Agriculture Press, and China Architecture & Building Press have a strong discourse power in their respective fields. Through publications on topics related to social hotspots like the pandemic and Beijing Winter Olympics, China Press of Traditional Chinese Medicine and China Architecture & Building Press have effectively boosted the increase in their media impact.