WU SHUJUAN, a 23-year-old student at Beijing University, picks through books on a stall. Aware of the tough job market she faces after graduation, she's on the hunt for self-help titles and biographies of the rich and famous that may give her an edge. 'I used to read novels when I was in my junior high and senior high school days,' she says. But it's several years since she read a book for pleasure. As job competition intensifies and the Chinese gain access to alternative forms of entertainment, reading for fun has become a luxury many can no longer afford. The trend is forcing publishers to become more creative and concentrate on niche markets, including imported books and youth literature. A decade or two ago, when choice in China was limited, distractions were few and the economy was still in its infancy, there was a strong appetite for fiction, with many titles selling more than a million copies. According to a recent study by the Chinese Publishing Science Research Centre on reading and buying habits, fewer than 50 per cent of Chinese have read a book in the past year - part of a steady decline since 1999 - with those in the 20-49 age group frequently citing 'no time to read' as the explanation. The world's most populous nation is not on the road to illiteracy, however. Rather, reading habits are changing, with the same study revealing strong growth in online and magazine reading. Zhou Jinyan, another Beijing University student, is a case in point. He says he no longer buys many books, which only 'crowd my schoolbag'. Magazines and internet surfing can be absorbed in snatches and don't require sustained concentration. 'Besides, reading books will only make me more tired,' he says. Analysts say the youth fiction market remains vibrant, in part because this age group is not yet obsessed with careers and tends to have 'more time to dream'. Although adult literature sales saw an 18.5 per cent year-on-year rise, most of that was fuelled by the growth of the youth literature sub-category. Foreign titles are popular because they have cachet and satisfy readers' curiosity about life overseas. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code was China's top fiction seller for the first half of this year, according to analysis by Beijing Kaijuan Information Service Group, and four of the next nine frontrunners were new titles in the youth literature category: Han Han's A City, Anni Baobai's Lotus and South Korean writer Lovely Tao's The Outsider 1 and The Outsider 2. Sales of imported books last year rose 19.4 per cent from 2004, according to trade newspaper Publishing Today, suggesting that imports are starting to gain a significant foothold in the Chinese market. Even lesser-known foreign authors are making inroads. Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, fast rising in the best-seller list in recent months, has reportedly sold more than 100,000 copies since its May release. Yao Yingran, assistant chief editor at Horizon Media, publisher of The Kite Runner, says the company hopes to sell 150,000 copies by the end of the year. Although time constraints and the internet have changed reading habits in recent years, a shortage of worthy titles may also be to blame. 'There just haven't been enough deep, thoughtful works written with conscience and responsibility lately,' says Luo Siling, an editor at Beijing Alpha-Books, part of the Chongqing Publishing Group. Many authors are now too focused on turning a profit, she says, and the result is weak writing. The numbers appear to bear this out. Among the current best-sellers, many are hardly hot off the press. Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem and Du Liang's Flashing Swords were published in 2004 and 2000, respectively. That both continue to enjoy popularity suggests a dearth of good quality new fiction. Zhao Meng, a spokesman from the Changjiang Literature Press, publisher of Wolf Totem, says the novel's enormous success came as a surprise. 'We only printed 20,000 copies for our initial run,' he says. The publisher never dreamed it would still be on the best-seller list with sales of more than one million copies many months later. Wolf Totem's success lies not only in its being an original work written with sincerity, Zhao says, but also in its offering lessons applicable to people's fast-changing lives in modern China. 'In Wolf Totem, Jiang Rong speaks of a collective spirit that can also be used to teach young people about how to co-operate in the corporate world.' Zhao says many of those who buy the book are white-collar workers. Ultimately, you need good stories to hit the target, says Zhao, who criticises publishers that rely heavily on big-name authors and media hype to spur sales. Still, with China's 53 publishing houses turning out about 110,000 new literary titles each year, there's plenty of competition and an awful lot of hype. Sales of Flashing Swords, a work of fiction about the endeavours of a legendary general, benefited from CCTV's adaptation of the book last year. Yi Zhongtian's vernacular version of a historical classic, Savouring the Three Kingdoms, from Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing Group, became popular after the author started a primetime CCTV lecture series. That has helped boost sales to 700,000 copies since its release in July. Until the next Jiang or Du arrives on the literary scene, many publishers will continue to rely on well-known authors and media exposure to propel sales. In the longer term, as China continues to adjust to globalisation and consumers are left with less time to read, publishers must lift their game to keep the pages of fiction turning.
