Why "Dream of Red Mansions" Up to 230 Versions

According to statistics from the State Press and Publication Administration, there are 230 versions of "Dream of the Red Chamber", and versions of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Water Margin" and "Journey to the West" are also close to this figure; the reprinted ancient books cause an astonishing waste of 200 each year. Billion-million-stock book was turned into pulp.

According to a recent survey conducted by the "Legal Evening News" reporter, more than 80% of the country's annual inventory of 50 billion yuan comes from repetitive publishing and speculation, among which nearly 40% are ancient books.

In order to facilitate people's learning and study, relevant departments and scholars have spent a lot of energy and introduced the most authoritative version. For example, the two volumes of the “Dream of Red Mansions” published by the People's Literature Publishing House are the best versions recognized in the market. With this version, it is necessary to re-publish a large number of "Red Mansion Dreams" in various editions. Why are so many publishers reluctant to join the "big army" of repeated publication?

Or interest

The four classical classics are well known in China and are the long-selling books on the book market. It is reported that in a long time ago, a major publishing house relied on publishing four masterpieces to pay employees. With the increase of royalties for writers and the high cost of printing, the publication of ancient books is due to its “acquisitionism” and low cost, which has led to the situation that many publishers have been contending for.

Today, nearly 220,000 books are published every year in China, and cooperation with foreign publishers has also enabled a large number of the latest bestsellers to enter the country at the first time. Readers have a lot of room to choose from, and masterpieces have also started to fall. Although repeated publication does not destroy the traditional publishing industry, it is at least one of the incentives to aggravate the speed of its decline. At present, the vicious circle of repeated publication has attracted the attention of some publishers, but there are still a large number of duplicate publications being printed every day, which is indeed worrying.