VOL.78/2025.01

Export Case

 

Marketing Strategies for Lane 5 in the Taiwanese Publishing Market

 

2021.12.06

 

 

Publishing background of a grand-prize-winner fiction

 

Publishing company Hsiao Lu, which has been in business for over 35 years, was the first publisher to present a John Newberry Medal recipient in Taiwan. Also, it opened a window for Taiwanese readers to embrace creative literature – excellent grand prize winners – from across the world by steadily importing them. For Korean fiction, Lane 5 (Munhakdongne Publishing Group) was the first Korean young adult fiction to enter the Taiwanese publishing market.
This book is a coming-of-age fiction that features the stories of the 13-year-old main character Xiaojin (Taiwanese translation of "Naru") and his friends taking place in an elementary school swim team. Eun So-Hol, the book's author, is new in the literary world, but her works present new topics, a perfect structure, beautiful sentences, and profound meanings. With charming characters and captivating storytelling, she won the grand prize for the "Munhakdongne Children's Literature Award", making her a highly anticipated writer. Therefore, we decided to import her book after discovering such great potential in her. Regarding the marketing for Lane 5, publishing company Hsiao Lu has been making various efforts, including Facebook uploads, review videos, cooperation with e-commerce platforms and newspaper and media outlets, not to mention online book talks.

 

 

Promotion Strategy 1: Leverage the Tokyo Olympics Boom - Upload Posts and Videos

 

All types of sports were the focus of public attention in Taiwan during the Tokyo Olympics. Publishing company Hsiao Lu used this atmosphere and concentrated on uploading promotional posts on the Facebook fan page. First, we categorized major topics from Lane 5, connected the athletes' performance and what the games imply, and made a series of posts. They recorded more than 1,000 views.
As Lane 5 is a self-help coming-of-age fiction about swimming, we invited readers who are actually in a swim team at an elementary school just like Xiaojin (Naru). We made videos and shared their thoughts on the book online. Four videos were uploaded on the fan page, and each episode recorded much more than 1,000 views.
Also, publisher Hsiao Lu is making efforts in reinforcing cooperation with e-commerce platforms while boosting exposure effects for this book in online bookstores, receiving many reviews from readers on various platforms.

 

 

Promotion Strategy 2: Utilizing newspapers and broadcasting media outlets

 

While the Olympics were receiving attention at its peak, publisher Hsiao Lu requested Xie Hong Won (children's literature writer) to write a review of Lane 5 and posted it on The Mandarin Daily News, a children's newspaper. The editors also shared with the public rich literary implications and the main theme of Lane 5 by doing interviews with a radio station.

 

 

Promotion Strategy 3: Hosting online book talks

 

The Taiwanese edition of Lane 5 was released in June 2021, with COVID-19 at its worst in Taiwan. As a result, we had to modify our plan to host the online book talk based on evolving marketing strategies in this time of the pandemic. During the online book talk, one teacher - the leader - first read the book. Then she picked some agendas from the story and encouraged readers to share their opinions and thoughts.
Publisher Hsiao Lu cooperated with the teachers in charge of promoting books to invite readers from across the country to participate in the book talk online, which had no participation limit. The majority of participants were children, parents, teachers, book promoters, and children's literature enthusiasts. The editors could also feel their lively response and the power of the book through the talk.
Throughout the three talk sessions, we could have talks with Zhang Jingyi (researcher of children's literature), who wrote the reading guide for Lane 5, and reviewer Wu Yaoyu, a swimming coach. They shared their different perspectives on the storyline, starting with their experience of learning how to swim with the readers.
The purpose of the book talk was to help readers have a more in-depth understanding of Lane 5 while encouraging them to do their best in their own situation by sharing the belief and the mindset of the protagonist, "Everyone loses sometime. Perhaps how you lose is more important than winning."

 

 

* Promotional video based on children athletes' reviews of Lane 5
Xiang'an Elementary School, Lin Zhuxuan
Xiang'an Elementary School, Chen Huanyu
Xiang'an Elementary School, Xie Zhen'an
Nanxing Middle School Hong Jieyun

 

 

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Written by The Editing Team of Hsiao Lu Publishing Co., Ltd.
Translated by Shin Sun-Hang (Arui SHIN Agency)