春天來了，紙質書的春天也來了？

資深品牌咨詢師、《紐約時報》（New York Times）旗下時尚雜志《T》的時尚主編瑪麗-艾美莉·索維 （Marie-Amélie Sauvé）自立品牌，逆潮流創(chuàng)辦紙質時尚雜志，哪里來的自信？電子書閱讀器和網(wǎng)絡資源風靡全球，紙質書是否氣數(shù)已盡？中國的出版市場，風往哪邊吹？freemium為何意？

“我不是針對誰，我只是說在座的各位都是垃圾?！?/p>

Marie-Amélie Sauvé, a whip of a woman in leather trousers and new-season Louis Vuitton boots, is in her Left Bank offices near the Eiffel Tower.She has a lean patrician grace and a Parisian's candour：she's sparklingly direct.

時尚達人瑪麗-艾美莉·索維（Marie-Amélie Sauvé）穿著皮草褲與最新季路易威登（Louis Vuitton）皮靴，坐在距離艾菲爾鐵塔不遠處的左岸辦公室里。身材苗條的她渾身透著優(yōu)雅的貴族氣質，說話是巴黎人的率直：說起話來直來直去。

“Most of them look like garbage,” she says of fashion magazines.“What I see in magazines is not desirable.That needs to change.For me, all the fashion shoots I see, they all look the same.”

“多數(shù)雜志就像垃圾。”她這樣評價時尚類雜志，“我覺得內容差強人意，需要大動。在我看來，所有的時尚廣告片都大同小異?！?/p>

After years in the shadows of the fashion spotlight, Sauvé is about to step into its glare with a new project of her own.Mastermind, her debut magazine, is launched next week.

遠離喧囂時尚多年后，索維即將用自己的全新項目閃亮登場時尚界——她創(chuàng)辦的時尚雜志《Mastermind》將正式發(fā)行。

信心來源于全新的時尚理念。

“I've tried to make an international magazine,” she says of its ambitions, which are trans-generational, global and, crucially, garbage-free.For starters, it's not a fashion magazine.“It's about many different things：society, architecture, literature, what is going on in the world,” she explains.“You can't talk about fashion alone.It's not relevant.I love fashion, of course, but now, because of the internet, I see differently.”

“我一直想打造一本具有國際影響力的時尚雜志?！彼@樣評價自己這本雜志的“雄心抱負”——跨越代際，以及具有全球視野，更重要的是：不含有任何時尚垃圾。首先，這并非單純的時尚雜志。“它的內容五花八門：社會，建筑、文學以及全球動態(tài)?！彼忉尩?，“我們不能單純談論時尚，這并不重要。我當然酷愛時尚，但網(wǎng)絡無處不在，所以我如今看待時尚的角度變了?！?/p>

網(wǎng)絡如此發(fā)達，為何卻反其道而行之，從紙質書入手呢？

Sauvé has a lot of point.And a lot of view.But if her candour catches one off-guard every so often, so does her confidence in an old-fashioned print magazine format for which she has yet to develop any significant digital strategy.“For the moment it's just an object,” she says of the magazine.“I think it was really important to create that object, and for people to touch it.But[in future]we want to develop something on the internet, of course, because that's the future anyway.”

索維言之有理，而且想法很多。但如果說她的率直有時讓人措手不及的話，其對傳統(tǒng)紙質雜志的信心也讓人大感意外（她仍未推行意義重大的數(shù)字化雜志戰(zhàn)略）?！澳壳埃禡astermind》只是本紙質雜志。”她說，“我當時覺得實物雜志以及讓讀者真正觸摸它至關重要。但將來我們當然想推出網(wǎng)絡版，因為那是未來發(fā)展趨勢?！?/p>

索維選擇從紙質書入手與近年來紙質書回暖也不無關系。

There are signs of the book's renaissance all around.Waterstones, the UK book chain, returned to profit last year after suffering six years of losses.Sales of print books in the US rose by 3 per cent, while those of ebooks have fallen.Digital technology has not unleashed the same revolution in publishing that it has for music, television and news; we still like to read books.

如今到處都有圖書復興的跡象。英國連鎖書店“水磨石”（Waterstones）在6年虧損后，去年恢復盈利。美國紙質圖書銷售增長3%，同時那些電子書的銷售下降。數(shù)字技術沒有推動出版業(yè)爆發(fā)音樂、電視和新聞領域的那種革命，我們仍然喜歡讀書。

紙質書起死回生，其原因竟是紙質書與電子書價格的博弈。

The book's enduring popularity is widely hailed as a heart-warming tale of traditional values triumphing over cold, hard technology.This is not the whole story, however.It can equally be read as the narrative of Amazon's growth：if you cut prices, people buy more and if you raise prices, they buy less.

圖書持續(xù)受歡迎，被普遍譽為溫暖人心的傳統(tǒng)價值故事勝過了冰冷的技術。然而，這并非故事的全部。它同樣可以被解讀為亞馬遜成長的故事：如果你降價，人們就會更多購買，如果你提價，他們就會減少購買。

Customers enjoy the touch and feel of printed books：Americans read an average of 12 books a year, and most of those are physical.But they also prefer low prices, and do not like the fact that ebooks are comparatively expensive.Take The Whistler, John Grisham's new blockbuster, which was selling on Amazon this week for $14.47 in hardback and $14.99 on Kindle.

顧客喜歡紙質書的觸感：美國人平均每年閱讀12本書，其中大部分是紙質書。但他們也青睞低價，不喜歡電子書相對昂貴的事實。以約翰·格里沙姆（John Grisham）的新暢銷書《吹口哨的人》（The Whistler）為例，它本周在亞馬遜的精裝本售價為14.47美元，而Kindle上的售價是14.99美元。

That is the new reality：ebooks from publishers such as Penguin Random House and HarperCollins often cost more than hardbacks as well as paperbacks.Mr Bezos's efforts a decade ago to promote mass adoption of the Kindle by discounting bestsellers to $9.99 and making ebooks cheaper than books has faded.It is now the other way round：Amazon favours print.

這是新的現(xiàn)實：企鵝蘭登書屋（Penguin Random House）和哈珀柯林斯（HarperCollins）等出版商的電子書售價往往超過精裝本和簡裝本。貝索斯不再像10年前那樣，為了推廣Kindle而將暢銷書打折到9.99美元，使電子書比紙質書更便宜。現(xiàn)在正好顛倒了過來：亞馬遜青睞紙質書。

It makes perfect sense for Amazon.The company invested in launching and developing the Kindle and now dominates the ebook market：B&N has retrenched with the Nook and iPhones are used for other activities than reading ebooks.To the degree that cheap ebooks were needed to promote Kindles, the urgency has passed and some profit-taking is rational.

這對亞馬遜來說非常明智。該公司投資推出并發(fā)展了Kindle，如今在電子書市場占據(jù)主導地位：巴諾已停產(chǎn)Nook電子書閱讀器，iPhone被用于其他活動而非閱讀電子書。就當初利用廉價電子書推廣Kindle來說，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)沒有那么急迫，斬獲一些利潤是理性的。

For now, the book's renaissance suits Amazon, publishers, and readers.“It turns out people like paper if they are not penalised financially,” says Mike Shatzkin of the consultancy Idea Logical.

就現(xiàn)在而言，圖書的復興符合亞馬遜、出版商和讀者的利益。咨詢公司Idea Logical的邁克·沙茨金（Mike Shatzkin）表示：“事實證明，只要人們在經(jīng)濟上不吃虧，他們就會喜歡紙質書?！?/p>

然而對于中國來說，情況似乎還有所不同。

我們以亞馬遜2016年度圖書排行榜第一名《島上書店》為例：

該書屬于kindle unlimited 免費范圍，購買kindle版本需9.99元，而紙質書則是24.2元

Photo Credit：Amazon

世界上最大的出版業(yè)科技服務供應商Ingenta總結了中國出版業(yè)的幾大特點：

1.Books are cheap （literally）

書都很便宜（真的）

In China books are cheap, and this is especially so in the case of ebooks.The typical selling price of an ebook in China tops out at around 8 Yuan（around $1.30）, putting books in the same price range as basic grocery items as rice or potatoes.Consequently it's rare for people in China to buy books as gifts, and books remain something that consumers buy for themselves.

在中國，書都很便宜，尤其是電子書。一本電子書一般價格在8元左右（即約1.3美元），與大米、土豆等食品雜貨的價格處于同一水平。因此，在中國人們很少買書作為禮物，消費者們一般只會買給自己。

2.Chinese reading…is all about mobile phones

中國人的閱讀大多在手機上

China is an example of what is often called a ‘mobile-first' economy, meaning that many consumers primarily use their phones to access the internet.One estimate by Boston Consulting Group suggest that as much as 90% of internet browsing in China is conducted on smartphones.This means that any company looking to capture a slice of the Chinese digital reading market needs to target mobile phones.One early entrant into this market was China Mobile, one of China's biggest mobile carriers.It launched its own ebookstore in 2009, aiming itself at the growing number of Chinese commuters, many of whom have long journeys to and from work.

中國是通常被稱為“移動優(yōu)先”經(jīng)濟的典范之一，也就是說，許多消費者優(yōu)先選擇用手機上網(wǎng)。波士頓咨詢公司（Boston Consulting Group）估計，在中國，約90%的網(wǎng)頁瀏覽都是在手機上操作的。這也就意味著，如果哪個公司想要在中國的電子閱讀市場分一杯羹，就必須將目標對準手機。較早進入這個市場的是中國最大的移動運營商之一，中國移動。該公司于2009年上線電子書城，專門針對數(shù)量不斷增加的通勤者，他們大多上下班路程很遠。

Photo Credit：Ingenta Source:Enfodesk

3.Chinese readers love serial fiction

中國人喜歡連載小說

One key difference between the Chinese reading market and the book market in the west is that millions readers in China are hooked on serialized fiction.We reported on the Chinese phenomenon of ‘freemium fiction' back in 2011, and since then the trend has only grown in popularity, with some series racking up in excess of 200 million readers.

中國的閱讀市場與西方的一大不同就是上百萬的讀者喜歡連載小說。2011年我們就報道過中國的“免費增值小說”的現(xiàn)象，自那時起，這個趨勢只增不減，有的系列竟擁有超過2億讀者。

新詞速遞freemium

這是一個“新生的”組合詞：由free和premium組成，自然也就結合了兩者的意思，“免費增值”。這個詞也代表這一種新興的商業(yè)模式：免費增值商業(yè)模式（Freemium business model）。這種商業(yè)模式利用了消費者的心理，從一開始的免費提供，到消費者產(chǎn)生產(chǎn)品依賴后，則開始收費。或者利用相似的方法，在產(chǎn)品上免費，卻在其他地方獲取利潤。如今，免費使用卻付費升級的軟件，以及會員才能看大結局的電視劇都是利用了這一種消費模式。文中的freemium fiction就是指許多網(wǎng)絡連載小說（serialized fiction），通常會在一定量的免費閱讀后開始收費。freemium，你記住了么？

詞匯總結

unleash[?n'li??]

v.發(fā)動；解開…的皮帶；解除…的束縛

Digital technology has not unleashed the same revolution in publishing that it has for music, television and news; we still like to read books.

數(shù)字技術沒有推動出版業(yè)爆發(fā)音樂、電視和新聞領域的那種革命，我們仍然喜歡讀書。

hail[he?l]

v.致敬；招呼；向...歡呼；猛發(fā)

The book's enduring popularity is widely hailed as a heart-warming tale of traditional values triumphing over cold, hard technology.

圖書持續(xù)受歡迎，被普遍譽為溫暖人心的傳統(tǒng)價值故事勝過了冰冷的技術。

candour['k?nd?]

n.正直，公正；直率；潔白

format['f??m?t]

n.格式；版式；開本

If her candour catches one off-guard every so often, so does her confidence in an old-fashioned print magazine format for which she has yet to develop any significant digital strategy.

如果說她的率直有時讓人措手不及的話，其對傳統(tǒng)紙質雜志的信心也讓人大感意外（她仍未推行意義重大的數(shù)字化雜志戰(zhàn)略）。

freemium['fri?m??m]

n.免費增值

We reported on the Chinese phenomenon of ‘freemium fiction' back in 2011.

2011年我們就報道過中國的“免費增值小說”的現(xiàn)象。