2022 marked the 40th anniversary of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press (SASSP). Looking back on these 40 years of development, this professional publishing house has developed a capable team, accumulated a rich content offering, added award-winning books, and expanded its readership. In addition, it has been able to make timely adjustments in times of pandemic, actively experiment with the opportunities presented by the Internet, and explore a path that suits its own development. On this occasion, Bookdao interviewed She Ling, president of SASSP, and asked her to introduce the persistence and innovation of this small but specialized publishing house.
She Ling, President of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press
The year 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of SASSP. The SASSP enhanced the construction of its editorial team in 2008, which has rapidly expanded from a dozen to more than 30 at present and expanded its publication variety from about 130 to about 350 titles per year. During its long-term publishing practice, it has gradually established six editorial offices, including History, Economics & Law, Culture & Literature, Psychology & Education, Social Sciences & Humanities Think Tanks, and Textbook & Supplement, and formed publishing features such as high-end academic works, world history and culture, psychology, and local chronicles. Since history books have always been an important business segment, SASSP continues to plow deep into the high-end category of history books, forming two routes, original brand, and foreign copyright introduction.
In "General History" and "World History", SASSP has its own stable author resources and readership, therefore sales have been maintaining steady growth. In “Psychological Education”, the most remarkable achievement in recent years is the transformation from paper books to training courses.
SASSP has won many national and Shanghai book awards. Among them, Fair Distribution - Theory and Strategy won the Ninth China Book Award, Dimension of Legal Philosophy won the Third National Book Award Nomination, Scholars' Library History Series and Thesis Series (16 Volumes) won the Second Prize in the Sixth China Book Award, The Second International History won the Publication Award of the National Press and Publication Administration, and Exploration of motivational methods was selected as the fourth "Three Hundred" original books publication project by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT). Since 2014, SASSP has been selected as one of the "Top 100 Chinese Publishers with Impact in Overseas Collections " for many years. At present, as the recommended publisher for the "National Social Science Foundation's Late Stage Funding Program", it has a high reputation in the academic community and is a well-known brand in the book market.
BOOKDAO: You have a lot of good books in the psychology section, what kind of development process did you go through to achieve success?
She Ling: Before the establishment of the Psychology Education Editorial Office (PEEO), two psychology editors undertook the task of publishing books on the subject. During that time, a highly professional psychology section was formed such as the "National Counselor Series" and "Psychology Core Course", including Introduction to Counseling (《心理咨询导论》), Counselor's Handbook (《心理咨询师手册》), Psychopathology (变态心理学》) and many other titles, which have been sold well for a long time. In the second half of 2015, we recruited more editors specializing in psychology. The PEEO was officially established in 2016. The new forces who joined in 2017 have a solid professional foundation in the subject, professional English ability, young age with energy and drive, and they have reserved a certain strength for the publication of books in psychology, education, and special education.
In the past five years, the PEEO has been working on high-quality translated books. The "Advanced Counseling" series, upgraded from the "National Counselor" series, has continued to publish several good books, including Spirituality in Clinical Practice: Theory and Practice of Spiritually Oriented Psychotherapy (2nd edition), Favorite Counseling and Therapy Homework Assignments (2nd edition) (《临床实践中的灵性：灵性取向心理治疗的理论与实践（第二版）》), Couples Therapy: The Drama of Love and Sex, and Systematic Counseling and Family Therapy (2nd edition) (《最受欢迎的心理咨询家庭作业（第二版）》), etc. The "Psychology Core Course" series has published new works such as Positive Psychology (《积极心理学》), which have been well received by professional counselors, therapists, teachers, and students in related fields. In addition, the French Contemporary Psychotherapy Series (12 Volumes) (法国当代心理治疗丛书（共三辑12册）)received funding from the French Embassy in China under the Fu Lei Publication Fund.
While translating classic foreign books, PEEO focuses on the development of local authors and content, and has published Will You Come Back? (《你，会回来吗？——心理治疗师与你对话生死》), Kong Yan Le Dao (《孔颜乐道》), Knowing the Power of Freedom (《懂得自由力量：学校心理咨询师讲述的99个成长故事》), The Psychology of Cultivating Attention (《培养注意力的心理学》), The Secret Behind Your Child's Emotions, What You Don't Know (《孩子情绪背后，你不知道的秘密》), and many other original psychology books with good reputations and sales. In addition, a series of books focusing on the mental health of children with special needs and families, which are My Child Has Autism: A Handbook for Integrative Education Support for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (《我的孩子得了自闭症：自闭谱系障碍儿童融合教育支持手册》) and My Child Has Depression: A Family Guide to Depression for Teens (Second Edition) (《我的孩子得了抑郁症：青少年抑郁家庭指南（第二版）》), were published at the end of 2019 and have achieved good results. There will be several more books to follow, including "My Child Is Too Naughty": Understanding, Preventing, and Effectively Responding to Challenging Behavior in Young Children (4th Edition) (《我的孩子“太调皮”：幼儿挑战性行为的理解、预防及有效应对（第4版）》).
In recent years, the pandemic has brought impact as well as inspiration to traditional publishing work. While cooperating with marketing and other departments, the editorial office has actively participated in various online reading activities at all levels. They communicated and contacted authors, and completed the transformation from paper books to courses, which cover self-help mental health, special education, and other aspects. One of the courses won the 2020 Shanghai Special Education Online Popularity Award.
BOOKDAO: Over the past 40 years, SASSP has created many branded series, what are the main focuses in the work of "making good books and establishing brands"?
She Ling: As a small professional publishing house, form cultural confidence and professionalism have always been our original intention. At present, our "World History and Culture" and "Advanced Psychological Counseling" branded series have been recognized by the market and the publishing industry. In the future, we will also continue to take the path of specialization, fine-tuning in creating original branded content and professional books. We will form effective scale and brand characteristics of our own, and strive to be the most professional and recognized by the market and readers in the field we choose to enter and build our brand. On the one hand, we will continue to deepen, specialize and strengthen the traditional advantageous publishing brands. In the fields of World History & Culture, Psychology, Academic Culture, and High-End Think-Tank Construction, we will continue to review and explore with professional eyes, not only to produce fine books, but also to become a system with its characteristics, to continuously launch good and great works around a section, and to consolidate and establish the relevant publishing heights; At the same time, with the original history and psychology product lines as the matrix framework, we encourage editors to create sub-brands of high-quality publications with continuous output. On the other hand, with knowledge demand as the center, we will continue to promote marketing synergy and integrated publishing to better attract readers, meet demand, lead trends, and spread the unique value of our products.
BOOKDAO: It has been nearly three years since the emergence of the pandemic, under the trend of combining online and offline in the publishing industry, how do you capture and operate Private Domain Traffic? Have you made any effective attempts in acquiring new readers and attracting young people?
She Ling: Since entering the era of self-media, we have started to build our self-media platform. For the use of Private Domain Traffic, it is not only to convey our message out but also to import information from the outside world. We have set up official accounts on WeChat, Weibo, Douban.com, and other platforms, where we continue to export our content, and receive real feedback from readers. Whether it’s their suggestions on selected topics or questions about the content, it helps us to continuously improve the quality of our publications. For example, we collaborated with Modian.com last year on the crowdfunding campaign for Medieval Kitchen (《中世纪厨房》), which was well received by many young people on the platform and showed readers that we, as a traditional publisher, are also experimenting with new publishing models.
In terms of day-to-day marketing, we have gradually increased cooperation with social influencers on Douyin and Xiaohongshu over the past two years. Along with our own private traffic, a closed-loop system of marketing-to-sales conversion is established, which will offset downturns in offline bookstores and the declines of traditional e-commerce platforms.
In the future, we will also create a matrix of digital peripherals with paper books as the core. For example, we will try to develop digital collectibles categories, etc.
BOOKDAO: What are the key projects you are focusing on in 2022?
She Ling: The next title we will launch is The History of World Civilization for Teenagers (《写给青少年的世界文明史》). This set of books, which are divided into three volumes according to historical periods, are popular science books on world history for young people that are both academic and interesting. The contents were well received when it was partially serialized in the press previously. The author combines social history and the history of science & technology, and introduces in depth the relationship between the two as they constrain and promote each other. As a result, a special grant was received from the Chinese Academy of Sciences for science popularization. The book is richly illustrated, starting from things familiar to young people, using their favorite language and methods, relating the past and present, and explaining the history, which is very close to the young audience. The timely and rigorous release of such a set of professional and interesting popular science books on the history of world civilization can enrich the market of original books on the subject for young people and give them correct and powerful guidance. At the same time, it is also an extension of our world history and culture book brand to the YA market.
BOOKDAO: As the person in charge, what aspects do consider the most now? What do you think are the management advantages of SASSP?
She Ling: Our focus in management, one is how to focus on building a cadre of talent, give full play to the initiative of all kinds of talent; the second is in the context of compressed varieties, how to better develop quality publishing resources, enhance the effect of a single product, to take a big step towards high-quality development of publishing. If I have to say management advantages, as an SME, the management is flatter, the operation is relatively more flexible. It is easier for us to participate in the new mode, the small boat is good to turn around, so to speak.
BOOKDAO: After Shanghai is "unblocked", what are the plans to quickly restart production and operation? What will SASSP, at the age of 40, uphold from the past, adjust and innovate in the future?
She Ling: The uncertainty of the pandemic, the general downward economic environment and the change of channels have led to the revaluation of our industry and the advantages of our company. We need to explore and transform from the traditional model of editorial, printing and distribution to a new publishing model. In the future, we will strive to build a sustainable content, marketing and sales system with verticalization, specialization and marketization as the core: i.e. to form a matrix of content product lines, to build a cross-industry and innovative marketing strategy, to standardize grid-based sales, and to deliver integrated publishing products.
In terms of content, we encourage editors to develop branches based on their original product lines and establish boutique sub-brands. In terms of marketing, we are fully embracing new media platforms for transformation by establishing our own brand on Douban.com, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and WeChat platforms. We will continuously generate text and video-based marketing content to form a closed-loop transformation from marketing to self-supporting sales. In terms of sales, we will adjust the sales structure according to the changing market sales model; we will gradually clean up offline business and accounts for risk mitigation; We will standardize the cooperation model of online business, participate in flexible promotional activities while ensuring the profit margin, and cooperate vertically and deeply with key accounts; We will also interact closely with marketing personnel to form smooth and rapid sales. In terms of integrated publishing, we will build a matrix of digital peripherals with paper books as the core. Take integrated publishing as a marketing advantage to reach new audiences beyond traditional publishing, such as participation in digital collections and other new modes.
Note: This interview was conducted on 30th September 2022