Publishing Sinology at a loss

During a seminar at the Taipei International Book Exhibition earlier this week, local scholars came to the conclusion that Taiwan's literary culture has become marginalized. Instead of looking under their noses and asking any one of the 400 local publishers present why this was happening, they blamed the Chinese movie industry for the lack of interest in, and translations of Taiwanese literature into the English language. According to reports, the global success of Chinese films has meant that international attention has been diverted from things Taiwanese to things Chinese.

Blaming China, however, could be a rather rash move. Of the local publishing houses representing Taiwan at the show -- with the exception of those belonging to the Government Information Office (GIO, 新聞局) and the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA, 行政院文化建設委員會) -- none featured translated or original publications about Taiwan in the English language, or even about Greater China for that matter.

While credit was given to the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (蔣經國基金會) for being one of the few local groups to publish Taiwanese literature in English, the number of copies sold, however, did raise questions regarding the viability of publishing such works. The example given was that of two recent publications which sold between three and five thousand copies; a number few local publishers seem ready to accept.

Finding a niche

Small sales might scare local publishing houses away, but such sales are not only the norm, but have become the backbone of Hong Kong's Chinese University Press. As it is one of the few publishing houses to print academic and general tomes as well as journals focusing solely on Greater China, if you've ever been a student of East Asian studies you will have read -- albeit not out of your own choosing -- one or more of the press's publications.

Founded in 1977 as the publishing house of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the company has been at the forefront of the publication and translation of academic texts dealing with all things relevant to Greater China and the study thereof for a quarter of a century.

As the press now publishes more than 40 titles per year and carries a back-list of upwards of 800 titles, financial loss is an aspect of publishing books relating to Sinology that you simply have to grin and bear, according to Steven Luk (陸國燊), the company's director.

"Not all, but many of the academic books we publish are published at a loss. After all, interest in a specific geographical or historical aspect of Fujian Province is pretty minimal," Luk said. "Publishing house profits come from reprints, which in our case are, for the most part, our textbooks.

With the exception of a weighty tome dealing with Hong Kong's tricky tax laws, very few, if any, of the company's publications exceed sales of five-and-a-half thousand copies per year, with sales of between three and five thousand considered "good."

The company's publications might not be heading for the bestseller lists, but this hasn't stopped several of its titles from becoming the bibles of Sinology, regardless of the small numbers published and sold. Published in 1993, A History of Chinese Calligraphy by celebrated Chinese artist and calligrapher Tseng Yuho (曾佑和) is one such book. Since its publication a decade ago, this coffee-table volume has become one of the most highly acclaimed English-language books charting the history and fundamentals of the age-old Asian art form.