Reading the future

Visitors at the 2015 Beijing Book Fair. [Photo by Wang Jing/China Daily]

China Citic Press has also published the Rumor Grinder book series to counter widespread misunderstandings about science in partnership with popular-science website Guokr.com and The First Day to Earth with Elephant Association, a new media account on the instant-messaging platform WeChat that publishes articles about trivia.

Fledgling crowdfunding website Zhongchou.cn and publishing social network Zan Shang Books both encourage professionals to publish their books via advances paid by fans.

More than 88,000 readers attended the Beijing Book Fair. And 864 publishers sealed contracts with libraries nationwide worth 85 million yuan ($29 million), calculated according to cover prices.

Overall, 2015 is looking to be a good year for publishers.

Beijing-based research company Open Book says in its 2014 report that China's book-retail market has grown 10 percent year-on-year. That includes a 3.4 percent increase of offline sales, ending the decline that began in 2012.

So, it seems the paper-book tradition isn't－at least currently－struggling in China's digital age.

Instead, new technologies are producing innovative converges of old-fashioned and newfangled publishing that are helping physical books to thrive as 2015 begins.

As for the years to come－well, that's another story, one yet unwritten.