The Study On The Chinese E-book Consumption Marketing

As the international market for digital books continues to flourish, China ‘s domesticpublishers present a contradictory picture. While newly emergent digital publishersare determined to tap into this new market, traditional publishers are hesitant to crossover into it. Constrained by traditional research methodologies and conceptions, theChinese academia has either regarded the whole digital book market as ahomogenous entity, or applied economic theories to the digital book publishingindustry without any adjustment, or simply compile officially issued numbers.These research approaches have resulted in two serious defects. The first one is thatthe true situation of the Chinese digital book publishing industry has been obscured,which in turn complicates the process of locating the root of problems facing theindustry. The second one is that an approach which frames issues about digitalpublishing within conceptions based on traditional book publishing models can onlysee the commonality but not the differentiation between the two, which misleadsresearch endeavor and severs the presumed link between research and reality.This dissertation takes China‘s digital book market as its research target. Afterconducting a comparative analysis of the commodity features of digital books andtraditional paper books and elaborating on the uniqueness of digital books, thisdissertation divides digital books into three categories, i.e. digital book1.0, digitalbook2.0and digital book3.0and examines producer status, content and pricingstrategies for each category. Focusing on the development of and problems facingChina‘s digital book market, this dissertation points out that the root of all theproblems and obstacles within China‘s digital book publishing industry lies inChina‘s administrative region-based publishing system.The structure of this dissertation is as follows:The first part focuses on the producers of the three categories of digital books, whichexamines the development situation of and existent problems facing traditional book publishers (producers for digital book1.0), online literature websites (producers fordigital book2.0) and book-app publishers (producers for digital book3.0).Parts two and three analyze the best-seller charts of the three categories of digitalbook markets in order to draw a comprehensive picture of the most popular digitalbook content, types and pricing strategies in China. Particularly, part two points outthe problems and their nature facing the Chinese digital book market by comparingthe digital book markets of China and the U.S., while part three sums up and reflectsupon the most popular pricing strategies for digital books in the world by delineatingthe difference between pricing strategies for traditional and digital books.Part four examines various problems within the Chinese digital book market,especially those facing Chinese paper book publishers. Attributing the root of thoseproblems to China‘s administrative region-based publishing system, this dissertationargues for further reform in China‘s publishing system to enable it to meet thedemands imposed by the trend toward marketization and scalization.This dissertation provides some new insights into the study of digital books:First, digital books are different from paper books in terms of commoditycharacteristics. Digital books have a higher degree of price and income elasticity. Inaddition, due to lax law enforcement and regulation, the positive externality o fdigital books is undermined.Second, since the reading pattern for digital books is one of fragmentation andlightness, there is no strong substitution relation between digital books and paperbooks in general. More specifically speaking, the substitution effect is the strongestfor digital book1.0, because digital book1.0simply copies the content and layout ofits paper counterpart; the substitution effect is the weakest for digital book2.0,because digital book2.0opens up a brand new market for those readers who used tonot read at all or couldn‘t get access to paper books; the substitution effect is modestfor digital book3.0, because digital book3.0has attracted both those readers whohave long been reading paper books and those readers who haven‘t. Third, in China, the market for digital book1.0is monopolized by traditional bookpublishers since they are the main suppliers for the product. The market for digitalbook2.0is relatively oligopolistic, because the current market dominator Cloudaryis facing emerging competitors. The market for digital book3.0is the most vibrantone, which sees orderly competition among the well-established and start-ups.Fourth, the Chinese traditional book publishers are in a serious crisis right now,which stems from the combined competition press from three sources: overseasbook publishers, domestic digital book publishers and producers of other forms ofdigital media.Fifth, the Chinese traditional book publishers are at the same time both the brightesthope and the biggest obstacle for the development of China‘s digital book publishingindustry. They are the brightest hope because they have in stock the largest and bestpool of content; they are the biggest obstacle because the very vast amount ofgood-quality content has not yet been digitalized. The dignified purpose ofpublishing is to enrich human knowledge and civilization along the way ofmonetarily rewarding the publishers themselves.Finally, the Chinese traditional book publishers are actually serving as the scapegoatfor the current Chinese publishing system. Many book publishers have been makingarduous efforts to push forward the development of digital book publishing with thehonorary aim of contributing to the continuous enrichment of humanity. However,their endeavor has been restrained by the current publishing system. Only bymarginalizing the majority of traditional book publishers through the marketmechanism can China‘s digital book publishing industry embrace a promising future.In a sense, the collapse of China‘s current publishing system will be the necessarysacrifice for the redemption of books, publishing, culture and civilization.