“Pretty good,” “flat,” and “selling well” were some of the phrases used by the exhibitors that PW spoke with to describe the Chinese children’s book market during the 31st Beijing International Book Fair, which concluded its five-day run on June 22.
The numbers from OpenBook, the Beijing-based clearinghouse for publishing statistics, are much less ambiguous. The Chinese children’s book market saw an increase of 11.92% year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2025, according to Feng Xiaohui, OpenBook’s senior research manager. “It demonstrates the segment’s resilience. At the same time, sales of children’s titles through content-driven e-commerce channels rose by 61.73%.” The overall Chinese retail book market grew 10.7% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2025, sustaining its recovery momentum. Last year, the total market, valued at ¥112.9 billion ($15.72 billion), saw the publication of 1.92 million new titles, which was the highest in nearly a decade.
As for the latest e-commerce report on children’s book sales from Douyin (or Tiktok as it is known internationally), it indicated that the number of people purchasing children’s books grew 45% over the past year, with daily sales exceeding 900,000 copies. On the average, Douyin Mall sells 625 copies of children’s books per minute—or 10 books per second—through user searches and live-stream shopping. Over the past year, search-driven transactions on Douyin e-commerce grew 62%, live-stream sales by book merchants rose by 37%, and more than 200 book promoters generated more than ¥1 million ($139,117) each in children’s book sales via live-streaming.
Insights from Overseas Exhibitors
“China has become a tougher market for us as well as for our local partners,” said Nosy Crow managing director Kate Wilson. “There are several factors at play here. There is the demographic shift with only about seven million babies added annually to the population in recent years compared to double that amount pre-pandemic. Decreasing birthrate is also seen in other Asian countries as well as in Europe. Then there are economic uncertainties due to the tariff wars and a globally challenging market. So there is less urgency in signing deals despite the presence of strong interest in a title.”
In China, Wilson found that it’s hard to debut projects. “Existing bestsellers are naturally of known quantity and are easier to sell, like our Bizzy Bear and Pip and Posy series, which were published many years ago. With the ever-increasing role of short-video e-commerce platforms such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu and influencers in promoting books, there is a major shift in marketing and sales activities. It also brings about the practice of heavy discounting.”
At the same time, the increased focus on promoting Chinese authors, culture, and stories along with the double-reduction policy—reducing student workload and easing financial burdens on families by regulating compulsory edition and making it illegal to offer Chinese, English, and math classes for profit—means there are fewer opportunities for overseas publishers offering such titles. “For now,” Wilson said, “many Chinese publishers are going back to asking for nonfiction series and, given the demographic shift, they are also asking for titles for ages seven and up. As for direct imports of English editions, those have suffered. The discounting model makes it tough for us to compete as we have a higher list price to start with.”
The whole world is in turmoil and such uncertainties are always bad for business, said publisher Philippe Werck of Belgium-based Clavis. “In my 50 years in this business, I have seen so many crises, but it hardly ever affected the book business. This time, it sure does,” he said. “Many local publishers are looking to sell their inventories, especially of picture books—which had accumulated during the long pandemic lockdown—cheaply. They are definitely not looking for picture books now and so our rights sales have been decreasing in the past two years.”
Werck found that publishers are going for educational and STEM titles targeted at nine-to-12-year-olds. “We have to adjust to their needs and now we are looking at new ways of doing things and mixing media to bring freshness and excitement to the marketplace. For instance, we have merchandise to go with one of our bestsellers, Guido van Genechten’s Little White Fish. We are doing more with the characters, such as creating animated features for broadcast.” Werck said: “There are a lot of fish in this publishing sea, looking for opportunities. We must be humble, continue learning, and adapting. It’s either sink or swim.”
As for Chinese publishers being extra selective in recent years, Werck said that’s a good thing. “If previously they bulk-bought and over-produced, nowadays they are putting more thought into how a title may work in the market and how it can be marketed properly.” Sales of Clavis titles in English edition are doing very well. “Our titles are expensive but our team of eight sells to a small professional group of parents who like our brand very much. One parent even bought over 450 titles from us.” Right now, Werck is looking into AI to help with the marketing, especially in building the metadata to increase content discoverability by search engines. “Marketing support and translation assistance—these two are the areas where I think AI can help us to increase our productivity and sales.”
“The current Chinese market is less about learning English and more about enjoyable content,” said James Hall, sales director for global content licensing at Highlights, who was back at BIBF after a seven-year hiatus. “I’m meeting lots of new people at this fair, including one potential partner from Mexico. For sure, BIBF has become much more international over the years and there is a lot interesting technology—and a number of opportunities—in areas such as AI tutoring, which is now a global trend, and audiobook hardware. At the same time, I’m seeing many Chinese edtech companies now looking to expand their market outside of China.”
The recent slump in the demand for English-language learning materials in China after the July 2021 policy change on after-school tutoring services afforded Highlights the opportunity to revise its business strategy and to look beyond exports and rights sales. Last year, Highlights director of global content Sarah Hooks mentioned talking to potential partners at BIBF about preschool curriculum and franchising, and this year, the Highlights team was in town to promote the newly launched Preschool with a Purpose, a boxed set offering 10 months of curriculum. “We have signed two international partnerships—in South Korea and Turkey—and we are seeing lots of interest from China for this product,” Hall said.
Teaching children English so that they can communicate and spread Chinese culture to the rest of the world—that seems to be one of the goals for the Chinese education department, said sales manager Jun Kang of Seoul-based Seed Learning. “Our graded readers—created by nonnative speakers of English for nonnative learners—are easy to read as we simplify them for the readers. Right now, titles on Chinese culture such as the Dragon Boat and Lantern festivals are very popular with teachers and teacher trainers here. Another series, Future Jobs Readers, is also popular because of China’s focus on STEM and innovation.”
As for the popularity of Paul Nation’s Timed Reading for Fluency at the booth and rising demand in the Chinese book market, Kang attributed it to the use of one passage from the book in a recent major school exam. “Paul Nation is a well-known name here for English learning materials, especially his vocabulary titles. We once did a Zoom session with Paul and more than 50 teachers from China participated in it.”
Hard knowledge plus soft stories, summarized Sally Mak, exclusive agent for French publisher Flammarion Jeunesse/Casterman, about the Chinese children’s book market. “Parents and educators want useful content that is educational with moral values for their children. They are very demanding and much more selective nowadays, which makes selling rights to them tough. But we offer unique content and plenty of choices—since we have 400 new titles to choose from—and that give us great opportunities in this market.”
The Chinese children’s book market is flat for Marco Rodino of the eponymous rights agency. “Previously, we could sell the rights based on a new idea or concept of a series. Now, publishers will only be interested if we have a whole book almost ready for publication to show them. For a 10-title series, we may need to show three or four nearly completed titles to get their attention whereas previously, just one title would do the job.”
Rodino, who hadn’t attended BIBF since the pandemic, was pleasantly surprised by the many activities at the fair. “We have a lot of prearranged meetings this year and it’s fabulous to see extra meetings from walk-by visitors. I’m definitely more positive about the Chinese book market this year.”
Next year’s BIBF will be held in the same venue, June 17–21.
