Books are also a commodity to some extent, with costs (paper, royalties, etc. ), pricing and fixed sales channels (bookstores). When readers buy books, they can learn knowledge, or just enjoy the spirit. It should be said that they have the basic attributes of commodities. But the morality and spirit carried on paper make it difficult for us to regard books as real commodities, which may be the charm of the cultural industry.
In fact, the current backwardness of the publishing industry is because we didn't regard books as real commodities at first. The traditional education we have received has always said: "a gentleman is righteous and a villain is beneficial", and the publishing industry undoubtedly carries more idealism. This is an industry related to culture. They are all "cultural people", so it is natural to talk about "profit". Misunderstandings like this have been bothering us for a long time. Seeing that other industries are in line with international standards, our publishing industry is still wandering in childhood.
Of course, it was years ago. At present, most publishing houses and publishing companies have set up planning departments and marketing departments, and some colleagues have been specializing in book marketing. The problem is that we are making overkill mistakes in many things, obviously "overexert", fail to grasp the limits of things, and regard marketing as a panacea for "turning decay into magic".
The book industry's emphasis on marketing should benefit from the growing popularity of the concept of bestseller. The concept of bestseller is imported. Around the new century, with the improvement of people's living standards and the gradual opening of the publishing market, some publishers with a keen sense of smell outside the system breathed freedom in the air early and seized the market opportunity. Millions of bestsellers such as Wolf Totem and Harvard Girl Liu Yiting have appeared in the publishing market. The huge economic and social benefits contained in the best-selling market soon made people flock to it. But the pyramids are sharp, and the winners are destined to be only a few, but this does not prevent the latecomers from marching forward.
With the expansion of the best-selling concept and various Matthew effects, more and more people pay attention to this field. At the same time, various marketing concepts have emerged in China. With the market environment and mature marketing theory, there are many behind-the-scenes promoters in the bestseller market, and the group of book planning has also surfaced.
At that time, the "learning revolution" that swept the country had unprecedented marketing methods, and the publication of this book really "revolutionized" the concept of publishing colleagues. Of course, it is meaningless to ask the real sales of this book and whether the readers have really subverted the learning style. Because Kelihua, who created the "learning revolution", was not published at all, but its "guest performance" made the latecomers wake up, as if they understood the true meaning of bestsellers.
Romantic love is always blown away by the wind and rain, and the glitz of that year has already dispersed. We find that what is left behind after the big waves are often classics. It is king to produce a weighty work in a down-to-earth and calm manner. No matter how superb the marketing is, it just plays a icing on the cake.
Excessive marketing of books directly leads to drug resistance of readers. "You can't miss it ... XXX strongly recommends ... XXX bestseller lists ... XXX websites have tens of millions of hits ..." Similar advertisements have not aroused readers' interest as in previous years. Consumers' nerves have become much stronger, and objectively there has been a phenomenon that "bad money tends to be good money". Some really excellent works may be missed by interested readers.
To some extent, this is also a helpless move of some publishers, because they are faced with channel providers first. Regardless of whether it can be recognized by the market and readers, dealers are the unavoidable first pass. There are countless similar books on the market every day. In order to quickly attract the attention of dealers, it is not surprising to write such a shocking copy.
It is harmful to the market, the readers and the publishing house itself that books should return to the essence, squander market resources without restraint and unilaterally over-market.