With the development of the Internet, many fields have undergone huge changes, and the publishing world is no exception. Geng Xiangxin, editor-in-chief and editorial reviewer of Central China Publishing & Media Group, analyzes the changes and unchanged in digital publishing compared to traditional publishing. In his opinion, no matter how powerful technology and capital is, historical experience proves that books will still exist. If books are there, publishing will be there; if publishing is there, publishers will be there.
The concept and boundary of the word “publishing” are becoming blurred and indistinct under the impact of digital technology and capital investment. Publishers, the original protagonists of “publishing”, are increasingly joining the ranks of those who doubt themselves. In the future, will we all be able to sing together again?
The role of traditional publishers has long been middlemen, that is to edit, process and reproduce works of different authors into products, which are delivered to readers through various channels. This role as an intermediary of information, knowledge, and ideas determines the scale of its organization and mode of operation. In the era of engraving and early mechanical printing, publishing had a strong family workshop nature. In the West, after the Industrial Revolution, the emergence of printing machinery promoted the improvement of productivity, leading to a series of changes in the publishing industry, including the tendency to specialize in editing, printing, and distribution, and the emergence and gradual development of joint-stock professional publishing companies. In China, hand-engraved plates were rapidly eliminated after the introduction of Western mechanical printing in the late Qing Dynasty. This was a typical publishing shock caused by a technological revolution, and the result was the disappearance of engraved-plate publishers, which had been in existence for hundreds of years. Now we are in the midst of another technological revolution, but fortunately, the publishing industry and publishers have not been left behind like outdated technologies and organizations in the previous revolution. It's just that the faces on the publishing stage have changed.
Although the old family-oriented publishers have been baptized by technology or eliminated or taken over, the role of publishers themselves has not fundamentally changed, and they still act as the bridge between authors and readers. Technology has not destroyed the core competencies of publishers - content organization, editing and processing, and channel distribution. The publisher's tenacity is due to the combination, synthesis, and sum of these capabilities.
However, digital technologies, that have emerged since the end of the 20th century, are no longer eliminating outdated technology and outdated people, but are shaking up the publisher's business model - the middleman profit model of making copyright holders' content resources available to readers.
Digital technology companies, the dominant players in digital technology, are deconstructing traditional publishers with new technology and business model. Digital technology companies build technical platforms for content distribution on the Internet, thus enabling direct communication and interaction between authors and readers. They provide readers with a la carte subscription services, which are free or partially free sometimes, by breaking up the overall content of books and magazines. With massive content resources, they build a new business model based on a content publishing platform with value-added services, commissions, and advertisements as the source of income. The owners of digital technology-driven content distribution platforms are replacing traditional publishers as the new digital publishers. The new digital publishers are already on the scene, and their most powerful weapon is the ability for authors and readers to interact and transact directly in almost the same space and time, a change that is almost fatal to traditional publishers. Traditional publishers can either change roles from content intermediaries to service providers,i.e. become digital publishers; or retreat behind digital publishers, i.e. become content providers specializing in a certain category, for temporary survival; or, finally, withdraw from the stage of publishing history.
Traditional publishers in the 20th century not only encountered the technological revolution but also the capital market pressure in the West since the 1970s. Large publishing and media conglomerates, of which the active capital market led to the birth, used a large amount of capital to make extensive mergers and acquisitions. This forced small and medium-sized independent publishers’ submissions and change under different names. In the context of globalization, the Chinese publishing industry has been catching up to enhance its competitiveness and influence, and has entered the 21st century at a fast pace into the period of conglomeration. Following the conglomeration, in recent years, publishing groups have started to enter the capital market and have chosen to go public. Now the protagonist of publishing has changed from a single publishing house to a publishing group and then a listed publishing media company. Whether their original role can be played well or not, it is undoubtedly the right path for traditional publishers to harness the power of the capital market to strengthen their competitiveness and explore new publishing business models under the double pressure of technology and capital force.
Now for the publishing groups, there are two strategic breakout options: first, use existing capital to integrate domestic high-quality publishing resources, especially private resources, to strengthen the core competitiveness as a traditional publisher - i.e.content organization, editing, and processing, channel distribution; second, utilize the capital market to implement convergent development across countries, languages, media, industries, and ownership. Explore the formation of a new business model that integrates the publishing industry with similar industries, and gradually complete the transformation from a single content operator to a comprehensive content service provider, as well as the transformation to the role of a digital publisher.
Characterized by industrial integration, modern publishing and media groups also face the challenge of digital publishers and even digital publishing groups and have the same problem of identity and role transformation. Compared with a single traditional publisher, large publishing media groups have more intensive quality content resources and relatively strong capital in their hands, but in front of digital publishing groups that appear in a disruptive posture, the content resources accumulated in the past are likely to be a historical burden, and the immediate profit might shield the strategic vision. At the same time, content is vitalized by innovation and timely updates, and this is precisely where digital publishers have the advantage. The only way to convert accumulated content resources into profits is for all publishing and media groups to join together in alliances and build common content distribution platforms. More practically speaking, the real advantage of traditional publishers, including publishing groups or listed companies that are still mainly engaged in traditional publishing, in the future competition is the content organization ability, editorial insight, vision, and integrated processing ability, as well as marketing and channel distribution ability, which have been accumulated for generations.
Currently, four types of players are active on the publishing stage in both the East and the West: independent traditional publishers and publishing media groups characterized by the role of content intermediaries; digital technology companies or digital publishers characterized by the role of digital content services; platform operators and technology groups characterized by the role of digital technology services; and large publishing media groups and digital publishing groups characterized by both content intermediaries and digital content platform. Only when traditional publishers innovate their own specialties and featured content, make full use of their original competitiveness, learn experience from digital publishing groups and large multinational publishing and media groups, and form a global advantage in a certain specialty, will they be able to survive. That is their only path to combine the role of content intermediaries and digital platform service providers to a new role as professional content service providers. Otherwise, their days in the publishing stage won’t be long.
No matter how powerful technology and capital are, history proves that books will still exist - if books are there, publishing will be there; if publishing is there, publishers will be there. Perhaps, it is only the faces of publishers that keep changing.
About the author
Geng Xiangxin is a publisher, historical scholar, and poet. He is currently the editor-in-chief and editorial reviewer of Central China Publishing & Media Group. Throughout his career in publishing, he has gained many accolades, including Outstanding Publishing Personality in the first China Publishing Government Award, and National Leading Talents in the Press and Publishing Industry. His academic research focuses on the history of books, publishing history, and publishing theory. He has published 11 books, including The History of Chinese Bamboo and Silk Books (SDX Joint Publishing), The Book World Without Borders (Zhonghua Book Company 2011), The Borders of Publishing (the Communication University of China Press 2020), and The World of the Repeated Eye (People's Literature Publishing House 2021), and has published more than 60 papers.