Press

8 Questions for Tian Feng

China is currently at the crucial structural transformation phase of moving from “business innovation” to “fundamental innovation”. It is transitioning from leveraging “consumption intensive market” to relying on “talent intensive technology”. Sharing bicycles and sharing Charge Pal are business innovations, while “city brain”, “face recognition payment” and “quantum computer” are fundamental technological innovation.

Because of the “Pareto Principle” (the 80/20 Rule), the Internet unicorn winner takes all, but MIT’s latest research shows that “super-Paretos” exist in the AI era. Enterprises that are adept at using “data intelligence” will use data analytics to rapidly increase their unique competitiveness. Market coverage would change from the traditional 80/20 to 10/90 or 5/95.

8 Questions for Yao Wentan

Paid content has only just begun. We have a long way to go. Wait and see. Soft fire makes sweet malt. Douban Time is willing to accompany users to quietly grow into themselves. Douban Time was also the first to provide content services to 150 million Doubon users. Douban is 12 years old, and its users have always loved reading, film and music. They also like creative writing as well as giving ratings and commentaries. They have a great sense of participation and cultural purchasing power. I feel that a platform reflects the makeup of its users. Frankly, Douban users are the strength of Douban Time.

8 Questions for Stephan Orth

I like travel narratives that don't just deal with the touristic aspects of a country. The best stories contain also some political and social issues, facts about everyday life, surprises that don't fit into the known clichés. If the writer really tries to understand how a country works, has amazing observation skills and a good sense of humor (also about his or her own shortcomings), then there is a great chance it will be a good read.

8 Questions for Sven Hänke

Mainly by making a fool of myself on the internet. Five years ago when Weibo was still the new social media kid on the block and I wanted to be part of this evolving personal media world. As hardly anybody was interested in serious topics, I called myself DeyulaoshiSven（德语老师Sven） and uploaded fun stuff on the Germans and their language. I also published some videos of me singing German versions of Chinese pop songs. The lyrics were not bad but I am definitely not a very talented singer. Some videos got quite popular and suddenly I had more than 50,000 followers.

8 Questions for Alvin Juban

Our industry current priority for both Games and Animation is Upskilling; and bringing in more foreign resource speakers and trainors is quite an expensive task. There are always new tools and pipelines available for our trade, but this has to be matched with requisite training. For our studio side, we are burning with excitement with our new IPs for release for both Game and Animation. We are on track to achieve a breakthrough in our domestic digital entertainment scene. We have a small market compared to India or China but if we strike first and fast with our combination of products then we should be making a little of history.

8 Questions for Ahmed Rashad

On the negative side, if we are talking about Egypt, it would definitely be the floating of the “Egyptian pound” and its effect on pricing. On the positive side, we have been working on a very important project, which is re-publishing all the classics to make it easier to read and more appealing to young adults and people below 40.

8 Questions for Arpita Das

Self-publishing is a natural space for an editor who works well with authors because more and more authors will continue to self-publish anyway. With the technology at their fingertips, there's no stopping that. But as an editor I can give these works shape, structure, improve their quality, help pitch them right in the market. And that is exciting. Particularly so with the sort of books I handle at AuthorsUpFront which are mostly by whistleblowers.

8 questions for Stefen Chow

I have been pretty busy. I just came back from a documentary shoot from the Everest Base Camp on the Nepal side. We spent 3 weeks in the Himalayas and 8 nights at 5400m out in the cold and the snow, and I shot a documentary for a Singapore programme. It was really fun and extreme. I have also been involved in various editorial and commercial projects this year, and I haven't really stopped traveling for the past 5 years. Just this year, my projects have gone from the open sea to the high Himalayas, from social projects to advertising campaigns.

8 questions for Zhu Ying

I’m frankly quite fatigued about the notion of soft power, despite the fact that I’m working on two books related to soft power. Emotional resonance is probably a more interesting term, though equally elusive. In this regard, books and audiovisual products, if done well, are equally compelling in their capacity to appeal to emotions. Isn't this what storydrive is about?

8 Questions for Isabelle Fauvel

We work around “storytelling ” in our script analysis by trying to find the best way to match the script we’ve received and read to the writers’ and directors’ intentions, and help them reach that point. The “storyselling ” part of our job is in book and talents scouting, so it’s more about finding the right books, talents and projects for the producers who commission us to conduct a research than “selling ” them a story. But we try to present the books, talents and projects we scout for them in a way that will allow them to see what we saw in there for them. So they are both equally challenging in their own way.

8 Questions for Yang Wenxuan

Our education is one that suppresses children’s imagination and expression. I've come into contact with some young illustrators. They have fairly good foundation in art, but lack a common set of values and do not know how to express these values by way of literary and artistic language. This requires nurturing over a few generations. This predicament is not unique to China’s publishing industry. It is in fact, the predicament of the entire Asian culture. During the Bologna Book Fair, I spoke to an old-timer in publishing from Taiwan. He has had close partnership experience with the Western publishing industry for nearly 40 years, and his advice was to not do meaningless hard work. Take Japan for instance. When Japan's economy was booming, the nation also attempted to export culture. Other than having an impact on neighboring countries in Asia, it returned empty handed from Europe and the US. Now it stays quietly in its corner, and does not carry out any cultural expansion. In fact, being an economic superpower is pretty good thing. Why waste money to keep up appearances?!

8 Questions for Lu Jun

The market has always been fair and good but the premise is a truly market-oriented market. At this time, there is still immense room for a higher level of marketization in the children’s book market. We need to better operate the children’s book publishing business according to the laws of the market. If most of the competing players are true market-oriented enterprises; the choice of users, adequate and free; and intervention from administrative powers appropriate, then this market will grow into a sound, orderly, fair and good market. Marketization issues require market-oriented policies and solutions. A market that does not operate according to market-oriented laws will find it difficult to develop and thrive. On that basis, our aspirations to go global and export culture will become all the more difficult. Put another way, if policy intervention can resolve cultural export issues, then we certainly do not need to have a true market economy.

8 Questions for Michael Neugebauer

While the global markets across the continents are not so extremely different, the biggest difference I find is between the French and German markets. In many cases, the books which are doing well in Germany are flopping in France and vice versa. This may be because the French children’s book market is more artistic and innovative, while I find the German market (including Austria) much more conservative.

8 Questions for Zeng Zirong

After CITIC Art Museum launched the Chinese Art History - Original Works of Masters book series last year, it was a coincidence that “Toutiao Academy” founded by “Jinri Toutiao” (literally: “Today’s Headlines”, a news and information mobile application) also wanted to launch an art course. We hit if off right away, and started a course on Chinese paintings. We also seemed to feel that when it came to paintings, our past memories were dominated by famous paintings of Western Masters like Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso ......, but our impression of Chinese art was somewhat dim and vague. Perhaps Chinese painting classics were often done on very long scrolls, so public display was inconvenient.

Jiang Feng explains Himalaya FM

Ximalaya FM is the largest audio platform in China, and has more than 340 million mobile phone users, as well as 30 million automotive, wearable and audio smart equipment users. In the last three years, Ximalaya FM has become one of the fastest growing mobile Internet platform enterprises in China.

8 Questions for Hou Mingliang

Original picture books from China are witnessing a spurt of creativity at this time. This is a truly encouraging sign. An increasing number of publishers has begun to initiate research in and development of original picture books. Some of these original picture books are of extremely high quality, particularly in the area of cultural content. If I have to talk about areas that require improvement, I personally think that the biggest charm of picture books is its perspective from that of a child. Whether these are illustrations with unique artistic aesthetics or literary text with deep metaphoric significance, they should be child oriented. Currently, there are relatively few exquisite picture books of this sort in China.

8 Questions for Zhu Yingchun

Your books have received the titles “World’s Most Beautiful Book” and “The Beauty of Books in China” several times. What sort of books can be described as being “Most Beautiful”?
A perfect combination of form and content. Of course, the beauty of a book is primarily determined by the beauty of its content.

When did you become interested in bugs? And how did it snowball subsequently?
I became interested in 2007. I find being with bugs untiring and amusing.