From the Readers

Ads still not up to mark

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-18 07:50

When I came to China 20 years ago, there were few advertisements on TV or newspapers. Then, the publicity material was restricted to giving details of the foundation-laying ceremony for the start of an enterprise and for data related to the company's production and performance.

A little later, advertisements were simply "translations" of foreign images and text, which were totally inappropriate to this country. Nowadays, advertising has developed except in some areas. For example, I have collected the pages of the "Donation Proposal" made jointly by China Youth Development Foundation and China Daily, ever since it started publishing in 2002.

Recently, I was lured by a new background color and new photos. But when I read the text, I discovered that it was identical to the 8-year-old original, except for the cost of a new school - 300,000 yuan in 2002 had become 400,000 yuan in 2008.

For the reader, the call for donations seems to be a failure, as the school building project in Dongxiang (Gansu) is always published as something that will be done in future. Readers want to know what has been done with their money. The article has also been saying for the past eight years that China Daily will run a special column to follow the development of the China Daily Readers Hope School and will give timely reports. That is what I suggested to the organizers years ago. They found it was a good idea, and buried it deep under a pile of paper. Once, I gave 1,000 yuan to that project, but how will I donate again until I see things moving forward?

Another field that needs urgent development is book publishing. As a writer who publishes mostly in China, I know what I'm talking about. After an editor gives the text to the printer, his job is done. The printed books go to the sales department, which is independent of distribution. Books are deposited in some bookstores, not in others. Readers from Shenzhen, Zhejiang and Sichuan ask me where to find my books. What can I say? How can foreign readers get my books? Publishers' websites announce new books months after they are released, that too in Chinese only (English sites are eternally under construction), and they don't have a list of potential customers abroad to whom to send information.

How can a bookstore in Montreal "guess" that I have published a book, and ask for copies? Even when customers ask for a title, they don't know where to order it. Now that publishing houses in China are transforming from State-owned (or partially owned) to private and self-subsidizing enterprises, I wonder how they will survive unless they establish links between their various departments, and really make an effort to advertise, show and sell their merchandise.

Lisa Carducci, Beijing

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(China Daily 05/18/2010 page9)