2004’s Top 10 Book Publishing Terms

At the close of 2004, the publishing industry trade paper China Book Business Report issued its list of the top 10 terms in Chinese publishing for the year.

1. Plagiarism: 2004 saw several high-profile cases in academia, and at the end of the year a plagiarism verdict went against the best-selling post-80’s writer Guo Jingming.
2. Organizational purchasing: Motivational, team-building, and marketing strategy books are purchased in quantity by work units or private enterprises. Publishers have started to take advantage of this fact by positioning books especially for purchase by organizations. Think Who Moved My Cheese (itself a hit in translation in 2003) and memoirs of CEOs.
3. Magic: A large volume of domestic and translated fiction hit the market in the wake of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. This has ties to #5.
4. Korea: There was a large volume of translations from Korean this year. This was mostly literary fiction, although books like That Guy is Hot, second only to Guo Jingming in the adolescent market, were were popular in the second half of the year as well.
5. Post 80’s: A generation of authors born during or after the late 1980s became a significant force in fiction this year.
6. Wolf: Wolf Totem (cover at left) was just the most visible of a variety of fiction and non-fiction books with names like Wolf Spirit and Way of the Wolf that shared a central symbol.
7. Adolescent materials: Sex-ed was no longer something merely to be whispered about, though euphemism is apparently still encouraged.
8. SMS fiction: Fiction about SMS, as well as fiction written expressly for SMS. “Fiction” in this case refers to short stories; it was often mistakenly translated as “novel” in the English language press.
9. Counterfeit books: Publishers’ rights, authors’ rights, and the increasingly sophisticated infringement of both attracted quite a bit of attention this year.
10. Classics made-over: From the slightly risqué, anime-influenced new graphic novel adaptation of Dream of the Red Chambers to the juvenile humor of the exploded classics in Q Reader, the new look of traditional favorites attracted no end of criticism.