Even though China is seeing a blue ocean market for kids’ books, there are two types of gaps Chinese parents and sector players need to consider. 

(Photos: VCG)

Acknowledged blue ocean
China’s book retail market size was 80.32 billion yuan ($12.52 billion) in 2017, with kids’ book market share about 24.6 percent, according to the book retail market report.
Kid’s book market has been growing at more than 10 percent year-on-year since 2002. The market segment has emerged as the most dynamic and fastest in terms of growth. 

Generation gap
Many parents are willing to pay a premium to purchase better books for their children. Such investment is necessary and some parents are misled by the myth that the more expensive, the better.
Paperbacks imported from the UK or US are great and we need to consider the consequences of buying such books as the major or only option.  
“I tried translation books at the library and found they did not make sense. I bought a book on Chinese myths,” a consumer surnamed Liu told the People’s Daily on Thursday.
If a kid reads about Harry Porter and Star Wars all through their childhood, when people talk about stories related to Journey to the West or other Chinese classical fairy tales, there might be hardly anything to share. As a result, our cultural heritage could be fading away as there are no shared childhood stories between generations. 

Gold mine
To unleash the power of Chinese traditional culture for growth, the sector players need to reflect on how Chinese culture could be relevant today and transform from ‘printed in China’ to ‘created in China’. Once the difficulty is overcome, the cultural element will be repositioned as the revenue source.
Statistics show that in 2017, overseas books accounted for 25.63% of the total retail market in China and 13% of the proportion of varieties. However, the proportion of original domestic children's books has risen in recent years. Online book retailer Dangdang Children's Book’s marketing report in 2017 shows that in the past five years, the sales volume of original Chinese children's books continued to grow rapidly. From January to August 2017, Dangdang sold 120 million children's books, and original works accounted for one-third.
Associate Professor at Capital Normal University and Founder of the Children's Book Parenting approach Chen MiaoMiao suggested that the talent development for kids’ books should start in college for the industry to be prepared for original stories.
The director of the Children's Book Publishing Branch of Guangxi Normal University Press, Liu Yang, said that even though we stand at the perfect timing window for original stories, in some way we are also confronting many problems.
“For instance, when original stories are in demand, many players are keen to access limited resources. We need to keep quality standards for original content,” Liu stressed.
Liu suggested that we should feel the pulse of the kids’ book market and create interesting topics rooted in Chinese culture and develop more talent to create original stories.