16 May The Chinese Publishing Market Emerging from Covid-19 (Podcast #6)
The Chinese Publishing Industry Emerging from Covid-19 Lockdown
By Marleen Seegers, Co-Founder of 2 Seas Agency and Host of The Make Books Travel Podcast
May 16, 2020
Gloria Masdeu
After having interviewed publishing professionals from Mexico, Spain and Germany and heard about their experiences connected to the Covid-19 pandemic, I now wanted to focus on the Chinese publishing industry.
I’m truly delighted to be joined today by Gloria Masdeu, who works for the Rights Department of the Thinkingdom Media Group in Beijing.
Gloria, who is originally from Spain, and I met in person for the first time at the Beijing Book Fair many years ago. Now that really seems like another lifetime to me. On a personal level, that Beijing trip turned out to be a life-altering experience. But that’s another story perhaps for another podcast episode…
Among many things, Gloria talks about how she ended up moving from Barcelona to Beijing, what the 3-month lockdown was like for her, and how the Chinese capital is slowly opening up again.
Here are a few of the questions I asked Gloria:
- Why did you decide to move to Beijing?
- What it was like to move to China from a Western country?
- Which measures were taken in response to the Coronavirus spread in China?
- What is it like now, after the country reopened?
- Did you continue to acquire and publish books at Thinkingdom, or did everything come to a standstill for a while?
- Before the pandemic, what was the market share in China in terms of sales for ebooks and audiobooks, versus physical books?
- Was there an increase in demand for ebooks and digital audiobooks during the lockdown?
- Where did Chinese tend to buy their books before the start of the pandemic?
- Are there any independent bookstores in China?
- What do you think will be the mid-to long-term consequences of this crisis for the Chinese book market?
Thank you for listening, and enjoy!
PS: If you are a publishing professional and are interested in participating in a new podcast episode, let us know!
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