China Bestsellers in January: Fond Memories Drive Sales

The run-up to the Year of the Dragon in China’s bestseller charts was energized by entertainment and humorous education books for kids.

The ‘Chess Pavilion’ as seen from the eastern peak of Mount Hua in China’s Shaanxi Province. The area is featured in one of January’s bestselling books for young readers, ‘Treasure Hunting in Shaanxi.’ Image – Getty iStockphoto: Jatuphot Phuatawee

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Entertainment and Social Media

In the kind of twist that even many book marketing wouldn’t think of or try to pull off deliberately—or admit they’d tried to pull off deliberately—the author Yu Hua, whose To Live (Beijing October Art & Literature Publishing House, a 2021 edition) returned to No 2 in the OpenBook fiction list in January, seems to owe some of his success to his late nonfiction-writer friend Shi Tiesheng.

‘I and the Temple Earth’

Shi is at No. 1 on the nonfiction list with I and the Temple Earth (People’s Literature Publishing House, 2011). But this is a book by a man who died at age 59 in 2010.

Not that the work wasn’t highly valued on its own—it’s considered by some to a very fine work of modern essay in Chinese—our associates at Beijing OpenBook point out the book seems to be benefiting from the memories shared about Shi by his friend and fiction author Yu, who appeared on a book themed variety show called Read on the Island, discussing the close friendship. As clips from the show were passed around, not only the late Shi’s I and the Temple Earth made progress on the charts but so did Yu’s To Live, which has long been one of the “classics” that Chinese consumers like to read more than once.

‘To Live’

It’s unclear whether the fact that Yu’s work is fiction and Shi’s is nonfiction has anything to do with it, but those “short videos” which now command so much bandwidth on Chinese social media channels were the key to sales movement.

OpenBook’s team estimates that there are as many as 450,000 live social-venue broadcasters in operation on the mainland currently, meaning that getting their attention is a good idea.

Another show-driven success, Blossoms Shanghai by Jin Yucheng (Shanghai Literature & Art Press) began airing in its series adaptation by director Wong Kar-wai, and worked its way up to No. 5 in fiction in January.

‘Blossoms Shanghai’ poster art for the 30-episode TV series

Not only is the book a Mao Dun Literature prize-winner but the show has been a favorite on the awards circuit, with 14 wins and at least two other nominations so far.

Ge Hu, Yili Ma, and Yan Tang star in the series which, by Western standards, is incredibly long, at 30 episodes—not an unusual count in Chinese television series.

The show started running on December 27 and is a production of CCTV, Tencent Video, Jiguang TV, Dragon TV, and Jiangsu Satellite TV.

The ‘Comic+’ Trend in Children’s Books

In January, as the Chinese market worked its way toward the Lunar New Year and Spring Festival, OpenBook’s group was watching a sustained sales dynamic in the children’s sector called “comic+.” It’s a pattern of presenting educational content to young readers with humor and graphical treatment to make what our associates call “boring or difficult to learn” material more fun.

‘Treasure Hunting in Shaanxi’

For example, Comics + Wang Yangming teaches kids about  learn the wisdom of Ming Dynasty calligrapher and philosopher Wang Yangming. The book’s illustrations are meant to lead a child to walk down a pathway toward  cartoons, leading children to “walk into” the 15th-century thinker’s neo-Confucianism.

And Comics + Etiquette is focused, as the title suggests, on etiquette, comportment, best behavior, and other concepts beloved of parents, who seem to be buying up the title  and hit the potential parenting needs of parents with the slogan 

Treasure Hunting in Shaanxi, which entered the chart in January at No. 3, even is credited to an author who writes by the name Jingding Comic. Published by 21st Century Press Group, the book takes that trending humorous touch to the Shaanxi Province, in Northwest modern China, full of some of the oldest parts of Chinese history and considered part of the cradle of Chinese civilization.

Bright illustrations, fun text and cartoon characters are credicted in this book with putting across to the vacationers in the family car’s backseat the importance of the ancient Silk Road and the dangerous magnificence of the areas mountains.

Below, then, are OpenBook’s overall lists from January 2023 of bestsellers in fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, followed by its lists of bestselling fiction and nonfiction in China by authors from outside the country.

At the end of our article, as always, you’ll find notes on how the lists are constructed.

OpenBook’s Fiction Bestsellers, January 2024

OpenBook’s Nonfiction Bestsellers, January 2024

OpenBook’s Children’s Bestsellers, January 2024

Foreign Author Fiction Bestsellers, January 2024

Foreign Author Nonfiction Bestsellers, January 2023

Notes on the Charts

OpenBook is a privately owned industry-data research firm based in Beijing. It functions somewhat as Nielsen and NDP do from the West, and Nielsen Book Research International has worked with OpenBook in Asian operations. With authoritative data and information resources, OpenBook is able to deliver consulting service to partners who would like to explore the Chinese book market and identify suitable partners.

At last report, OpenBook monitored more than 18,000 online and offline bookstores.

The online channel includes digital retailers such as large self-operated online stores, platform stores, and small- and medium-sized stores. The offline channels include more than 4,800 bookstores. Coverage includes most of the state-owned and influential privately owned bookstores in 30 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tibet are not included in OpenBook’s system.

In 2022, OpenBook tracked around 76.21 billion RMB in sales (US$10.62 billion).

Retail outlets include:

• Traditional bookstores
• Supermarkets
• Campus bookstores
• “Professional” stores, said to be small stores with a specific industrial or trade focus
• Airport stores

In addition, OpenBook is drawing data from online bookstores of three main types:

• The “Tmall” stores of Alibaba (Tmall is described as a marketplace of companies that create storefronts online to sell products including books)
• The “JingDong” Stores of JD.com (similar to Tmall as a marketplace of both individual companies and bookstores operated by JD.com)
• Ten independent online bookselling retailers

China has 500 or more publishers in operation today. Most of them are government-owned. Private publishers are required to generate ISBNs for their titles from a publishing company that is government-owned—which, in other words, creates a system in which all ISBNs are registered through government channels. The government approves each book published in China.

More China bestseller reports from Publishing Perspectives are here, more on the Chinese book publishing market is here, and more from us on Asia and its publishing markets is here.