When the original literature is too late to set

Absrtact: When CEO Guoqing (Weibo) January 8 reported that this is not Dangdang's first effort in digital reading, but it seems to be the most reliable one. January 6, Dangdang Publishing Supplier conference, Dangdang related director said 2015 will be by C

When CEO Guoqing (Weibo)

January 8 Report

This is not Dangdang's first effort in digital reading, but it seems to be the most plausible one.

January 6, Dangdang Publishing Supplier conference, Dangdang related director said 2015 will be the CEO Guoqing, to create a variety of digital reading new products, focusing on the investment incubation 100 small micro-studios, accelerate the mobile internet era light reading development. Guoqing said that the future will strive to occupy more than 60% of the genuine reading market, while Dangdang will also enter the original field, contracted to cultivate excellent original authors, the simultaneous development of film and television, online games and derivative development.

Dangdang Digital reading Director said, Dangdang internal already in the New Year's Eve reorganization structure, digital reading business will operate independently, the new office space will also become a small micro studio incubator base. It is understood that Dangdang will also enter the online education market, in addition to its good teaching materials teaching-supplemented content of electronic, but also with the online education company, launched including multimedia lectures, digital test questions, online correction, including the overall solution.

The continuous big, looks like Dangdang is to be real. But the person who understands Dangdang still wants to ask two natural questions, the old electric dealer with abundant resources in the book field why is it so slow in the tide of digital reading? What has guoqing done in digital reading over the years?

E-book hand-to-hand Beijing east

Dangdang in the field of digital reading the earliest layout from the physical book electronic, which is understandable.

The book business has been at the heart of a veteran electric dealer who landed early in the U.S. capital markets. According to Dangdang in the third quarter of 2014 earnings, Dangdang total net revenue of 2.0028 billion yuan, of which media products revenue for the 1.3205 billion yuan, an increase of 26.3%. And another data shows that in the first half of 2014, Dangdang Book category half a year to break through 100 million volumes, reached 160 million volumes, sales also grew more than 40%. This means that Dangdang still occupies a very important position in the Chinese book market.

Dangdang announced the launch of its electronic book business on the eve of the IPO in November 2010. 4 years later, Guoqing at the annual digital publishing conference that 2013 of E-book sales have accounted for 10% of all books sold, and 2014 has expanded to 20% per cent.

However, with the electric dealers in the book field layout, the E-book market began to become an important part of the electric business battlefield. February 20, 2012, Jingdong mall E-book platform officially online, on the same day, Dangdang announced the expansion of 100,000 kinds of e-books; the same year in mid-April, Taobao bookstore officially online, soon after, Suning also online their own E-book platform.

In foreign countries, book dealers and authors directly signed the model is not uncommon. Amazon, the electric-business giant, is one of the leaders who, after releasing its first Kindle in 2007, changed book economics in its own way, creating the "Amazon" model: passing publishers, signing contracts directly with authors, and paying authors 45%-50% of the book price. This ratio is much higher than the traditional publishers pay the authors.

In China, E-book profitability remains very difficult. At an industry meeting in 2013, Dangdang vice President Wang said that Dangdang ebook was online at the end of 2010, at the end of 2012, sales revenue reached 3 million, but the processing costs of e-books cost nearly 5 million.

Even more let Dangdang feel headache is, to the Beijing-East led by other electronic business platform in the field of e-books many times a wave of price war, the whole network free, limited and other activities frequently appear.

This is Dangdang in the field of digital reading for the first time, the momentum is very large, but trapped in several other electric platform of personal melee, the effect is not particularly prominent.

Look at the Kindle.

Dangdang's second punch in the field of digital reading is hardware, compared to E-books, which remain an important part of the business, the result is a breakdown.

July 2012, Dangdang launched its first electronic reader, called "See Doucon", the price of 499 yuan, the screen is 6 inches, supporting PDF, EPUB, HTML, TXT and other e-book formats, can be purchased by 3G or Wi-Fi ebook.

According to relevant information, at that time, Dangdang Digital Library can browse to download a total of 100,000 books, and at that time some mainstream network literature platform, Dangdang's ebook more focus on providing traditional content.

This is a delicate node, when the ebook giant Kindle has yet to enter China, and the proud Wah of the Chinese e-book is accelerating its decline. The reason for the Kindle's guoqing is that only the Chinese understand the Chinese better.

Although a number of internet people said that they do not look good, Qihoo 360 chairman Zhou (Micro-blog) has said: "I am not pessimistic about digital reading, but given the situation in China, I think China does not have a professional e-reader development space." "In his opinion:" With a laptop, 2 phones, you do not want to install an E-book reader to go out. ”

But the number of e-readers and tablets used in the United States was 2:3, and the electronic reader's standby durability, no eye-breaking trait, closer to the reading experience of the paper, is the irreplaceable advantage of tablet computers and mobile phones.

This is the most important reason why Dangdang is bullish on the E-reader market, plus the advantages of Dangdang in the domestic book publishing industry and many readers, even critics think that they can seize the dominance in the E-reader market before the Kindle, and drive the development of the content production behind the hardware.

The wish is good, but all the bad reading experiences shatter all this. 2013 Dangdang had launched the second generation to see the shipwreck, still not in the market caused much repercussions.

Even though the Kindle's domestic sales still have no official figures, the Kindle is one of the most popular e-readers in the country, as seen from the sales of various electric-power platforms. As for Dangdang's look, in their own platform has been no news.

IP Snatch War

Guoqing is well aware that E-book replacement paper has a long way to go, and he has emphasized it more than once in public. And according to Tencent insiders said, Dangdang push digital reading, the main purpose is still in copyright.

Dangdang has previously been in the contract with the author of the Swing, in the beginning of the E-book field, the Dangdang has made it clear that the publishers will not bypass the direct contract with the author, that this will undermine the relationship between Dangdang and the publishing agencies. But all this began to break last year, in 2014, Dangdang officially announced the signing with Yuanjie, this is also when the first time to bypass the publisher contract author.

This may mean that for Dangdang, the importance of IP began to crush the interests of the publishing organization.

At this time when the original division has begun to promote, the goal is directed to the network literature, members from a number of network literature platform before the staff. Dangdang vice President Yao Dan said that in the acquisition of copyright resources, Dangdang will be through book publishing to dabble in film and television, hand tour and other cultural industries.

However, this is a red to no longer red Sea, and do not say that the money behind the game companies, the network of literature has been three major giants in front of Dangdang. The beginning of the 2013 Chinese network team fled and joined Tencent, Baidu acquisition of Chinese network, plus the old giant grand, constitute the first three Chinese network literature.

Obviously, after the start of Dangdang and the Giants are still a certain gap. But smart Dangdang found another way out, the current education, such as vertical subdivision of the digital reading of the vacuum zone, when it will be through the field of digital reading to teach the advantages of secondary books further expansion, but also with other online education companies to carry out deep cooperation.

From happy selling books to Happy selling e-books, Dangdang has a long way to go.