interface news reporter | Pan Wenjie
interface news editor | Huang Yue
The 36th Beijing Book Ordering Fair in 2024 has just concluded. Compared with the optimistic attitude within the industry at the beginning of the epidemic, the book industry was devastated at this ordering meeting. “The industry is in a recession,” said every interviewee the reporter met at the scene.
An on-site staff member of CITIC Publishing Group said: “After the epidemic was relaxed last year, we expected there would be a great boom. Although in fact (sales) did develop, it did not meet the overall expectations of the industry. ."
In all online channels, live book sales, especially live book sales by leading anchors, are hot topics of discussion in the industry. Half a month ago, the Oriental Selection 1 Yuan book selling event caused a bloody storm in the book industry. Many publishers believed that the live broadcast of selling books at low prices caused the publishing industry to lose its dignity. However, the book industry has become inseparable from live streaming. The day before the order fair, the "Young Publisher" public account pushed a report titled " Dong Yuhui's personal account premiered. Half of the book industry was squatting on the message he left for books. 20 minutes 》.
Ordering Fair Site
According to the "2023 Book Retail Market Annual Report" released by Beijing Open Book, the overall retail market code Yang (the total pricing of all books) turned from negative to positive year-on-year, and the actual price (the actual price of books sold at a certain discount rate) year-on-year down 7.04%. Short video e-commerce has become a traffic highland. According to the report, short video e-commerce will still show rapid growth in 2023, with a year-on-year growth of 70.1%, becoming the main driving force for the growth of the overall retail market. At the same time, the physical store channel still showed negative growth, down 18.24% year-on-year, and platform e-commerce and vertical and other e-commerce dropped 3.68% and 10.08% respectively.
Nowadays, can publishing houses really only rely on the live broadcast rooms of Dong Yuhui and other leading anchors to support book sales? During this year’s book ordering fair, Interface Culture (id: booksandfun) discussed the current industry dilemmas and solutions with some publishing houses.
Consumption downgrade hits book sales, multi-channel distribution has both advantages and disadvantages
When entering the ordering meeting, Jiemian Culture reporter received many flyers, many of which read "Three networks, Douyin, private domain, video account, all support one-stop generation hair". At the 2023 order fair, many publishing houses attracted people to stop by their live broadcast rooms. The number of live broadcast rooms has increased this year. Many publishing houses have set up more than one live broadcast room. The official order fair is also on the 2nd floor of Hall 1. A live broadcast room was set up and a total of 15 live broadcasts were held.
Official live broadcast room of the order fair
Zhao Qingming, marketing editor of Life Bookstore Publishing Co., Ltd., has three live broadcast rooms near the booth. There are 6 QR codes on the table in front of him. He told the readers next to the booth: "Scan the WeChat video number If you scan this on Xiaohongshu, you can also join our readership."
Zhao Qingming said that new media distribution in the book industry has gone through two stages. From 2014 to 2018, new media distribution mainly relied on WeChat official accounts for graphics and text To bring goods, a public account article can clearly explain the selling points of the book, and at the end of the article, readers can click on the QR code to complete the purchase. Later, the epidemic drove live broadcast sales, and new media distribution has since become another logic.
"At this year's order fair, more and more new media customers are participating, and there are particularly many delivery experts and distributors from Weidian, video accounts, Douyin and other platforms." Speaking of his feelings about this year's order fair, Shanghai Zhang Jinglei, director of the distribution department of the Ancient Books Publishing House, believes that new media sales are of great help to the distribution work of professional publishing houses. "In the past, our company's sales relied more on mid-market merchants and could not reach end readers. But with new media, we can bring loyal fans together and quickly find target customers." She said that Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House's new Media sales started relatively late. The Xiaohongshu store was just opened in November 2023. In two months, the number of fans has reached more than 8,800. Two Xiaohongshu reader chat groups have also been established, with more than 800 people in the group. Professional readers. Through these channels, publishing houses can communicate directly with readers, helping us quickly understand readers' needs and find market directions."
But another publisher from a state-owned company believes that more and more new media channels have also had a negative impact. She told Jiemian Culture that in the past, readers would go to traditional book buying platforms such as JD.com, Dangdang, and Tmall to buy, but Now Pinduoduo, Xiaohongshu, WeChat video accounts, Kuaishou, etc. are also sharing traffic. “The entire traffic is shared very much. However, without traffic, there will be no sales, so the overall sales situation is not very good now. However, even when all traffic is lumped together, overall sales are declining. "
Why is the book industry in such a slump? Several interviewees talked about "consumption downgrade". Compared with food, clothing, housing and transportation, books are not just needed at the moment. Zhao Mingqing's colleagues also told Jiemian Culture that short videos and other media are reducing the public's reading ability. In addition, more and more readers are willing to use mobile phones to read e-books, which has also had an impact on the sales of physical books. According to reports, although the publishing house has cooperation with WeChat Reading and other platforms on e-book copyright, this does not belong to the book The sales part.
Where is the depth of live broadcast book sales?
In the overall slump of the industry, only live short video channels, especially leading anchors, can sell books. Sales are gratifying, but for publishing houses, cooperation with big anchors is also There are both advantages and disadvantages. Zhao Mingqing mentioned in the interview that the anchor will ask for the lowest price on the entire network and an exclusive period, which means that related books in the same period cannot be put on the shelves in other channels, which disrupts the business environment. The cooperation between Life Bookstore and major anchors sometimes Success - not only produced publicity effects, but also produced satisfactory sales - but there are also cases of failure. "Once the two parties could not reach an agreement on the commission; another time a book was priced at 49.8 yuan, and the anchor asked for it to be broadcast during the live broadcast. It costs 10 yuan a copy. "When working with a big anchor, he found that the conversion rate was very low. The traffic exceeded 100,000 but only more than 100 sets of books were sold. The reasons for this situation are multifaceted and difficult to predict. "It may be The tonality does not match. It is possible that the people watching the live broadcast are not the audience of the book... This is where the water of selling books through live broadcast is deep. "
Book sales in live broadcast rooms
In the context of the boom of live broadcasts, book prices have become a problem in the industry. Zhao Qingming explained that major anchors will break the price through the first launch of new books and get the lowest price on the entire network to attract readers to complete the transaction. "The anchors have obtained In terms of commission, readers get discounts, and logistics also earns express fees, but the publisher makes no money. "The reason why publishing houses are willing to participate in such price-breaking activities is because they believe that after selling a certain amount of books, the discount can be diluted and evenly distributed. The profit margin may not be high, but there is still a very low profit margin.
live broadcast Book sales have also led to more readers developing the habit of price comparison, comparing the price of the live broadcast room with the prices of the three networks (JD.com, Dangdang, and Taobao), and thinking that the live broadcast room should be cheaper than the three networks. "Some readers asked as soon as they came. , isn’t the book 50% off? Every time the book industry gets attention, a certain live broadcast room sells books for 1 yuan and free shipping for 9 yuan and 9. If there are too many price-breaking behaviors, readers will misunderstand and think that books are very cheap products. "Zhao Qingming mentioned, "Books are cultural products. Not to mention the cost of paper, design and binding, the editor may also spend three to five years to make them. These costs are not felt by readers. "
Big anchors use their traffic and fan base as bargaining chips to get discounts and sell amazing sales at live broadcasts. The publishing house's self-broadcasting is much more calm and in no rush to sell. A marketing editor of CITIC Publishing Group believes that, Reports such as "Dong Yuhui's personal account premiered, and half of the book industry was waiting for the 20 minutes he left for books" is a bit one-sided. "Our sales channels are very wide, and it doesn't take a certain expert or a certain channel to strangle the industry." throat. Big anchors are a convenient and efficient channel, and we also have slow channels that we are deeply involved in. Self-broadcasting is a slow channel, hoping to deliver good content to readers, rather than relying solely on commissions and low prices to impress experts. "
Zhang Jinglei realized that instead of asking top anchors to bring goods, you might as well find some mid-level experts to bring goods, or have professional editors bring goods in your own live broadcast room. "The purpose is not to sell many books, but more importantly Find your target group."Zhang Jinglei also said that the commissions of top anchors are quite high, which is difficult for traditional publishing houses to bear. At the Beijing book ordering meeting, she met many distributors who reported that some categories were difficult to sell, such as children's books, which were priced higher and higher. It is getting lower and lower, and the commission for experts to bring goods is very high, and the profit margin is getting smaller and smaller. Next year, I want to change categories and try social sciences, especially traditional culture.
Zhao Qingming also believes that publishing houses can directly interview For readers, it means that they can save the cost of sharing profits with others, but in fact there are very few "running out" publishing houses - "running out" means the business of indirectly selling books from other publishers through live broadcasts. He believes that he The main role of the broadcaster is to "plant grass", and readers may later complete the purchase behavior during the promotion through price comparison.
(Photography for this article: Pan Wenjie)
