The 2026 Publishing Imprint Influence Conference concluded successfully in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Thursday. Co-hosted this year by Southern Publishing and Media Co, Ltd and Bookdao, a publishing and book market intelligence information platform, the conference marked its third consecutive edition and was held for the first time as part of the Southern China Book Fair. Bringing together institution representatives, brand managers, and industry experts from the publishing sector across the country, the event convened in Guangzhou to explore the pathways and possibilities for building a publishing brand through data insights, strategic dialogue, and brand recognition.
Wu Shulin, chairman of the Publishers Association of China, says that brands should not remain at the level of names, logos, and marketing, but should use an organizational approach that connects quality content, professional talent, technology platforms, reader communities, and cultural missions.
He notes the critical importance of recognizing the significance of building a publishing brand in China. First, the social development environment for China's publishing industry has changed; the long-established mechanism of using profits from one type of book to subsidize others must evolve with the times. Second, the structure of China's publishing industry itself needs to keep pace with the era; the previous global pattern of education publishing, trade publishing, and academic publishing each accounting for one third has now shifted. Third, technologies represented by artificial intelligence have placed entirely new demands on the publishing industry.
Tan Juntie, Party secretary of Guangdong Publishing Group, said in his conference address that brands are the lifeline of publishing houses, the credentials of reader trust, and even more so, the passport for cultural dissemination. At a time when the publishing industry is transitioning from scale expansion to vertical deepening, brand building has become a key pathway for high-quality development in the sector.
At the conference, the 2026 Chinese Publishing Imprint Influence Report was released by Bookdao for the third consecutive year. Based on data collected from publishing institutions nationwide, the report systematically reviews the current development landscape and major trends of publishing brands in China.
The conference also honored this year's influential publishers, publishing brands and managers for the innovative spirit they demonstrated and the outstanding contributions they made in building brands, providing valuable experience for the wider industry.
