Wang Song
Genre literature is an important publishing content of book publishing houses, which is not only the inevitable result of the long-term vigorous development of genre literature, but also the objective presentation of the strong market attractiveness of genre literature. Over the years, on the sales list of various literary books, genre literary books have always firmly occupied the top sales with their incomparably vivid vitality, and a large number of outstanding writers have emerged and published a large number of literary masterpieces. As a large-scale literary publishing unit at the national level, since the reform and opening up, the Writers Publishing House has taken it as its mission to create best-selling books of contemporary literature for the market, forming a good publishing pattern in which pure literature and genre literature are published at the same time, famous masterpieces and new works are promoted by newcomers, and literary quality and market repercussions are attached equal importance. For genre literature, from the perspective of publishing, the relevant books published by Writers Publishing House in recent years show the following distinctive characteristics.
——The publication of suspense genre literature is growing day by day. In terms of genre literature publishing, Writers Publishing House has published a large number of genre literary books with wide social influence and loved by readers, such as Qiong Yao series of romance novels, Wen Rui'an series of martial arts novels and "Qing Science Fiction" series of science fiction novels. In recent years, as suspense mystery novels have been widely loved by readers, Writers Publishing House has keenly discovered the profound literary value and market value contained in them, and since 2014, it has cooperated with writer Cai Jun to jointly plan and publish the "Suspense World Library" series of books with the goal of building China's first type of novel library. The library has selected a series of suspense novels that are both storytelling and literary, and strives to redefine genre literature and suspense novels, so that readers can read the real suspense literature.
Up to now, "Suspense World Library" has published more than 60 works. Cai Jun's novel "Peeping One Hundred and Twenty Days" is the first work launched by the "Suspense World Library". After that, Cai Jun's "Heavenly Chance", "Murder Like Water Age", "Lover's Head", "Lost City", "Holy Child", "Hell Change", "Virus", "Cat's Eye", "Curse", "God Is Watching You", "Midnight Flute", "Ghost Inn" and other works were included in the "Suspense World Library" and published. In order to adapt to the reading habits of different readers, the Suspense World Library has innovatively opened a short suspense novel category, and has published short suspense novels such as Zhou Haohui's "Forbidden House" and "Devotee", Yan Leisheng's "Cat Dream Street", and Wang Jiajun's "4 Abusers in the Dark". The library also includes original suspense and mystery novels by other outstanding domestic writers, such as Pu Pu's "Teacher, Please Name Before You Start", and Ge Shuyi's "Love Trilogy" describing the apocalyptic disaster. At the same time, the library also selects foreign suspense mystery novels for publication, such as the Japanese writer Minato Kaome's "Sapphire", the German writer Ingrid Noel's "The Rooster Is Dead", "The Lover's Ashes", "The Female Pharmacist", and the American writer Howard Lovecraft's "The Myth of Cthulhu". Judging from market feedback, "Suspense World Library" has been sincerely loved by the majority of readers, and the variety of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of copies has gradually increased, and many books have become bestsellers and frequently sold books. These deeply rooted works profoundly embody the suspense of fate, which can be described as "suspense without boundaries, impermanence of the story", which is also the "infinite possibilities of fate" embodied in the "Suspense World Library".
-- The publication of online genre literature is becoming more and more intense. In addition to suspense novels, fantasy, urban, romance, history, games, crossing and other genre novels have also shined, and a large number of online literary writers and phenomenal works with different styles have emerged. These themes, which are rarely touched upon by traditional literature, form a unique landscape of online literature. However, it is precisely because of the popular and popular characteristics of online literature that in order to cater to the tastes of netizens, the types of works of online literature have also appeared in the situation of flooding in quantity, low quality, and fewer fine products. To this end, in the physical publication of online literary works, Writers Publishing House focuses on high-quality publishing and guidance of public reading interest, and plans to publish two sets of key publishing projects, "Online Literature Masterpieces Collection Series" and "Online Literature Masterpieces Guide Series". The "Internet Literature Masterpieces Collection Series", with the goal of publishing the classic works of online literature, was the first to launch two classics of occult literature - Chendong's "Tomb of the Gods" and catty". In the process of publishing the two sets of books, the Writers Publishing House set up a refined team composed of senior online literary critics, literary editors and authors to jointly explore the optimization plan of the work of "removing the crude and storing the essence", deleting the dragging part of the structure, re-polishing and polishing the text, and realizing the overall improvement of the work in terms of artistic value. The "Introduction to Famous Works of Online Literature" has been published to the sixth series of 30 books, and the editor-in-chief is Xiao Jinghong, an expert in the field of online literature research. In the form of a combination of introduction and selected articles, the book conducts a comprehensive and in-depth review of the famous works of mainland Internet literature. The series of books selects the most representative types of works in the development of online literature so far as the object of introduction, invites authoritative experts who have long been engaged in the study of online literature to write about 60,000 words of guide text for the text, assists the original text of about 200,000 words, and uses the traditional literary creation concept and evaluation method to evaluate and correct the ideological value concept and aesthetic concept of online literature, with the intention of enabling the vast number of online literature creators to establish correct writing values and guide online literature readers to form a correct aesthetic orientation. Through the publication of two sets of series of books, the Writers Publishing House shoulders the responsibility of the publishing unit for realizing the high-quality online literature from the two levels of work promotion and reading guidance, and it is also some useful exploration provided by the Writers Publishing House for the healthy development of genre literature.
-- Genre literature and film and television are increasingly closely related. Genre novels have a natural intimate relationship with film and television dramas, and many popular film and television dramas come from genre novel adaptations. Genre novels have strong storytelling and many characteristics, providing a very good basis for film and television dramas and an audience base. Therefore, genre novels and film and television are closely linked based on common genre needs, forming a good interactive situation in which novels and film and television are simultaneously or successively introduced to the market, so as to promote and attract each other. Many types of literary works published by writers publishing houses have been adapted into film and television dramas, such as Cai Jun's "Curse", "Murder Like Water Years", "The Nineteenth Floor of Hell" and many other works have been adapted into movies or TV series, which have been welcomed by the audience; Wang Xiaogun's spy war type novel "Opponent" has been adapted into a TV series of the same name and broadcast, and in addition to light and shadow, books that tell confusing stories with words are also selling online and offline; Zhou Mason's anti-corruption genre novel "In the Name of the People" Adapted from the TV series of the same name has caused a national sensation The novel also sold 2 million copies at the same time, and his later novel "People's Property" was also adapted into a TV series "Breakout", which attracted the attention of the audience because the plot was close to social reality and tapped the hearts of human beings. In addition, the film and television rights of the long password warfare novel "Superposition of Life and Death" created by the writer Yu Zhiyan published by the Writers Publishing House have also been purchased by the famous spy drama production agencies, and it is believed that the broadcast of TV series and book sales will have a positive mutual impact. It can be seen that the dissemination of genre novels today is no longer a simple book publishing, but should be more three-dimensional and diversified, which is not only a real test of the publishing house's vision of the selection of topics, but also a real test of the multi-dimensional transformation ability of the IP of genre novels.
-- The promotion of genre literature is increasing day by day. For the publication and promotion of genre novels, writers publishing houses have always attached great importance to it. The first is to firmly grasp the literary quality of the work, always adhere to the publishing orientation of profound thinking, exquisite art, and excellent production, in addition to entertainment and readability, guide the author to give more spirituality and ideology to the genre literary works, and continuously improve the literary and artistic level of the genre literary works, so as to win the recognition of a wider range of readers; secondly, it is to firmly grasp the road of brand publishing, cultivate and build brands such as "Suspense World Library" and "Qing Science Fiction", and win the attention of the market and readers with the brand publishing and distribution strategy. In order to effectively strengthen the dissemination power and market share of genre literary books; in addition, it uses its own resource advantages to hold seminars on various types of works, media communication meetings and reader exchange meetings for the publication and distribution of key types of literary works, strives to enhance the literary status of genre literary works in the minds of readers, continuously introduces new writers and new works, and continuously enhances the sense of communication and identity between works and readers, so as to achieve a double harvest of social and economic benefits.
In order for contemporary literature to retain or win more readers, publishing units must attach great importance to the publication of genre literary books. In terms of the publication of genre literature books, the degree of integration of writers' publishing houses will become deeper and deeper, the scope of genres will become wider and wider, the pace of progress will become larger and larger, and the public response will certainly be better and better.
(The author is the deputy editor-in-chief of Writers Publishing House)