Make a fine public edition book to test the wisdom of publishers

At the beginning of the New Year, it is precisely when various publishing institutions begin to work hard to select topics. Among the many topics selected, those classic public edition books with high demand and high popularity in the book market have been favored by many publishing institutions. However, making public books has never been an easy task. Because, if it is not done well, it will not only ruin the reputation of a publishing institution, but also aggravate the trend of repeated publication and disorderly publishing, and the majority of readers will suffer spiritual losses and material losses from reading classics.

Every year, a number of domestic and foreign masterpieces will enter the public edition field, and the same will be true in 2022. Writers and scholars who entered the field of public edition this year include Chen Yuan, a famous historian from the mainland, Shen Yinmo, a famous calligrapher and educator, Pan Tianshou, a modern painter and educator, Wen Jie, a famous poet, as well as the Greek poet George Sephiroth, the famous Hungarian philosopher and literary critic Georg Lukács, and the famous Japanese novelist Naoya Shiga. These famous artists and scholars had a high reputation during their lifetime, and their works also had a great influence, and some works were no longer popular at that time.

However, after all, time has changed, and with the development of the times, today's readers may not be easy to find their works in libraries or on the market. Therefore, the entry of the works of these famous artists into the field of public edition is a gospel for the majority of readers who are eager to read with high quality, and for many publishing institutions, it is also a major opportunity for topic discovery, topic expansion, and variety improvement.

The author believes that although the public edition of the book has been subjected to various criticisms for many years, how to cut this huge "cake" does test the publishing wisdom of a publishing institution. Nowadays, making a public edition book is by no means as simple as taking a copy of the works of famous artists who have entered the public edition field, drawing a tiger according to the cat, redesigning the cover, and re-producing and publishing it.

All well-informed publishing institutions have incorporated the publication of public edition books into their own publishing strategies, cautiously promoted and rationally laid out. For example, the "Classic Translation Forest" series of books by Yilin Publishing House has both academic and disciplinary construction significance. Editors need to carefully select the original version on which to base themselves, and more importantly, carefully select translators, both of which require expertise, professional ability and professional experience. The team of translators of "Classic Translation Forest" brings together English, French, Russian, German and other multilingual translators: Fu Lei, Zhu Shenghao, Xiao Qian, Cao Bao, Li Gang, Yang Yuan, Xu Yuanchong, Wen Jieruo, Li Wenjun, etc.; in order to ensure the quality of the text, almost all of the "Classic Translation Forest" is translated from the original text, for example, "Ancient Greek Tragedy and Comedy Collection" is translated from Greek, and the famous ancient Greek literature research experts Zhang Zhuming and Wang Huansheng have sharpened a sword for ten years; "Heavenly Night Tan" is directly translated from Arabic, and the translator Is Zhi Puhao is a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Expert in Arabic literature.

It can be seen that publishers who have made achievements regard public edition books as a work with great cultural inheritance value, and works without cultural influence will not do it. This not only highlights the cultural mission and cultural feelings of the publisher, but also meets the needs of today's readers who are eager to read truly valuable cultural masterpieces.

Not long ago, the State Press and Publication Administration issued the "Development Plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan period of the publishing industry", which put forward 39 key tasks and 46 major projects, and clearly put forward the grand goal of building a cultural power by 2035, and to achieve the above goals, it is impossible without the high-quality support of publications, including high-quality public books. In order to achieve high quality of publication, the preliminary planning of book topic selection is particularly critical.

Although the public edition book is the "Tang monk meat" in the eyes of everyone, this piece of "meat" is not as easy to eat as people think. Because today's book market environment has changed, the reader's reading taste has changed, the way of publication management has changed, and then try to get a public edition of the book to choose the topic of hasty, hasty publication, blindly put into the market, then think that it will be harvested full of pots, obviously in vain.

The author believes that the publication of public edition books should be in awe and have skills in mind, not simply to take it, but to increase its "added value" by excavating its stock, improving the publishing character, creative transformation, innovative development, and producing a new version, bringing readers more knowledge connotation and new reading experience, and increasing its "added value" through deep secondary development. As experts suggest, it is necessary to be meticulous and exquisite in indexing, arranging, editing, and designing, and pursue excellent editions to make them into books and fine books.