The Chinese mainland is now the world's largest market for Chinese-language publications, and Taiwanese writers, with the help of some savvy publishing companies, are making a big splash across the Strait.
A key element to being a good publishing agent is to know which way the wind is blowing. In the past several years, the wind for Chinese-language publications has apparently been blowing west--not to Western countries but to Taiwan's western neighbor, the Chinese mainland. Clearly, it is easier for Taiwan's publications to penetrate the Chinese market than to break through the linguistic and cultural barriers of other markets around the globe. Publishing books in China requires only the conversion of traditional Chinese characters to the simplified version used on the mainland, and Taiwanese publishers have found that interest in Taiwan is putting Taiwanese authors on the mainland's bestseller lists.
Within three months, for example, half a million copies of 61x57, a novel by Taiwanese writer Wang Wen-hua, published by Century Publishing Group of Shanghai, moved from the shelves of mainland bookstores to the homes of eager readers; the novel, published earlier in Taiwan by China Times Publishing, was a bestseller.
Wang is not the only Taiwanese author receiving such interest on the mainland. Tsai Jih-heng, who is also a best-selling author in China, took a less conventional route but ended up capturing the attention of mainland readers just the same. He started writing stories online that he posted as a diversion while working on his doctorate in hydraulics engineering. Much to his surprise, his first work, The First Intimate Contact (1998), was so popular among the Internet community that it was downloaded and spread by email not only in Taiwan but also among Chinese readers everywhere. Publishers took note of Tsai's online success and produced paper versions of his novel, which sold 200,000 copies in Taiwan. It was "translated" into simplified Chinese for the mainland market the following year, and sold 500,000 copies, making it a bestseller and indicating a real hunger across the Strait for books by Taiwanese authors.
Other Taiwanese authors that have gained wide popularity among mainland readers include Chiung Yao, San Mao, Bo Yang, and Chang Man-chuan, to name just a few. If the definition of "literature" is broadened a little, the list grows even longer. The works of several Taiwanese cartoonists, for example, have generated a great deal of interest on the mainland. Among them are the works of Tsai Chih-chung, who transformed the writings of great Chinese philosophers, such as Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu, from esoteric philosophic texts into simple cartoon drawings, and Chu Teh-yung, whose works focus on human relations in modern society. A more recent cartoonist--or illustrator--who is very popular is Jimmy, who presents the feelings and emotions of ordinary people in their everyday lives in drawings with some short captions.
The ease with which Taiwanese publications are moving into the Chinese market belies the long separation between the two countries. Because of the chilly political climate and the differences in economic development, Taiwan and China have had distinct and separate publishing markets in the past. The gamut of differences included everything from subject matter and editorial policies to design and marketing strategies. In fact, China was a very isolated market until the early 1990s, when it passed a copyright law that allowed it accession to international copyright protection treaties and copyright trading. And following China's opening to the outside world and its rapid economic growth, the picture changed completely. Today, Chinese readers want to buy books on everything from scientific and sociological topics to business administration and wealth management. With a growing middle class in China, there is also more demand for leisure reading, including modern fiction and pop culture works such as Jimmy's.
Chen Hsin-yuan, an associate professor at Fo Guang University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences, points out that the mainland is now the world's largest market for Chinese-language books. His surveys show that the market worth there grew from RMB10 billion to over RMB37 billion (US$1.25 billion to $4.6 billion) in the last decade, and is still growing fast. This kind of growth would catch the eye of any Taiwanese publisher, especially since sales in the local market are slowing down and few books can sell as many as 50,000 copies. And so, Taiwanese publishers have followed the winds westward and are exploring the mainland market.
It is easy to understand that with the rapid growth of its economy, Taiwan's books on business administration and wealth management are selling well in China. But why are Taiwanese fiction, nonfiction (other than business-related books), and comic novels so popular among mainland readers who are neither familiar with the place nor local attitudes? Wang Wen-hua believes that people on the mainland are simply interested in the wealth of human experiences presented in books by Taiwanese authors. "The economic and political differences between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait do not seem to lead to a gap when it comes to peoples' attitudes toward life," he says. "Human nature simply remains human nature."
Hao Ming-yi, president of the Locus Publishing Co., the Taiwanese publisher of Jimmy's works, admits that he was concerned whether the get-rid-of-the-restraints-and-do-what-you-like attitude of Jimmy's books would appeal to mainland readers. The worry proved to be unnecessary when Jimmy's four-book set hit a Beijing book fair in January 2002, and 30,000 sets were sold within three days. "It was much to my surprise," Hao says. "The difference in readers' mindsets doesn't seem to be as enormous as many might think."
However similar the author's and reader's human interests are, publishing on the other side of the Taiwan Strait is subject to very different laws and regulations. The ins-and-outs of doing business on the mainland have presented some significant obstacles to Taiwanese publishers, including a lack of copyright protections and an industry shielded from market competition by the government. Moreover, Chinese officialdom is very leery of works with an ideological bent and has put numerous restrictions in place.
For many years, Taiwanese publishing houses have had their mainland operations restricted to buying and selling rights, and to publishing works in cooperation with a mainland partner. Even now that China is a member of the World Trade Organization, it has made it clear that it will temporarily continue to protect its publishing industry from outside competition. Sole ownership of distribution networks for books, newspapers, and periodicals, for example, will not be opened until next year, and complete liberalization of the publishing market will take at least five years.
To get over the hurdles, Taiwanese publishers often forge links with mainland counterparts. There are now several types of cross-Strait cooperation in the publishing industry. One successful joint venture involves the publishing of oversized volumes that Taiwanese publishers have difficulty manufacturing, such as encyclopedias and reference books. Another joint-venture strategy has been the use of the mainland's abundant writing and translating talent to complete projects developed in Taiwan, such as translating foreign classics.
For literary works, copyright trading is still the way to go. Generally, a Taiwanese publishing agent sells the copyright of a work to a mainland company, which then converts it into simplified Chinese characters and publishes it. The job for the Taiwanese agent, however, does not end there. To sell the books, the agent needs to provide certain "technical assistance," such as layout design, marketing strategy, and even arranging for authors to meet mainland readers.
Despite the smooth cooperation between publishers in Taiwan and China, the market is still fraught with difficulties for the Taiwanese. For one thing, books sold on the mainland are cheap. A book priced at US$10 on the Internet generally costs less than RMB20 (US$2.50) in a mainland bookstore, so the profit from royalties on Taiwan's books is low. Some Taiwanese publishers joke that when they go to the mainland to collect the money, it does not even cover their travel expenses.
But this is a minor issue compared with losses from piracy. Taiwan's Red Ink Publishing estimates that there are over 3 million pirated copies of Tsai Chih-heng's works in mainland bookstores, while there are only 36,000 authorized copies. Even worse is the stealing of authors' names. Some writers who publish on the Internet have their works downloaded and published without ever being consulted. And as soon as an author becomes popular, a bunch of books under his or her name suddenly appear on the market--some of them even get reviewed in newspapers and magazines. Chen Hsin-yuan of Fo Guang University points out that piracy on the mainland has been a persistent headache for publishers, but until mainland authorities are willing to crack down on the problem, there is not much that Taiwanese publishers can do about it. In the meantime, Taiwan is working toward becoming a regional publishing and copyright center and hoping that the industry matures throughout the region.
Despite the obstacles to publishing in China, Taiwanese companies still feel that it is worthwhile to gain a foothold in such a large and rapidly expanding market. And Taiwanese publishers have the advantages of good management, well-structured business models, good content, and lots of experience. So successful are the Taiwanese models, in fact, that publishers on the mainland are imitating them to produce marketable products for more sophisticated readers.
The Chinese government is also subsidizing large publishing enterprises to prepare them for future open-market competition with international houses. It is possible that in specific fields of publication, such as computers or finance and business management, the gap between the two sides of the Strait may narrow as mainland publishers advance. Or, maybe Chinese-language publishers will embark on closer cooperation forming regional giants.
Literature is a different thing altogether. It is universal and very local at the same time. Good fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and even comic novels can appeal to the shared human interests of all Chinese readers and even readers around the globe. At the same time, works by a Taiwanese writer with his or her unique background and life experiences on the island are one of a kind. The text may be converted from traditional to simplified Chinese, but the style will remain uniquely Taiwanese.