Viral Learning 2021: Post-Covid Counseling - Wellbeing in China (Part 1 of 3)
Despite staging an impressive rebound from 2020, recovery from the pandemic in China isn’t on solid ground yet. China’s economy performed better than expected in the third quarter in 2021 as retail sales climbed. However, rising Covid outbreaks and a series of policy changes that effect education and technology mean a nuanced understanding of the market is needed.
In this Viral Learning 2021 series, Alicia Liu, founder of Singing Grass, has identified three key trends on consumer content consumption in Chinese society today that have continued to grow: Wellbeing, autobiographies, and education.
This article was originally published on BookBrunch
Post-Covid Counseling - Wellbeing in China
Chinas experience of the pandemic has deeply affected people's values, behaviours, and lifestyles, which has led to changes in reading habits. People have continued to feel vulnerable and are looking for ways to cope. As a result, they have started to seek out well-being titles.
Counselling for Toads: A Psychological Adventure by UK author Robert de Board was re-published in China by Guomai Culture last year. The title, inspired by 'Toad', the famous character in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, was originally published by Routledge in 1998. It was first introduced as a translation in China in 2013 but didn't perform well. Zhou Ji, the editor at Guomai who is also a qualified counselor, still believed in the subject and decided to re-publish the title.
In August 2020, it was relaunched, with an initial print run of only 6,500. Within six months it had been reprinted 16 times and was selling 3,000 copies per day, ultimately exceeding 1 million copies.
The title went viral through social media marketing and live-streaming influencer endorsement. "Have you ever felt depressed and are thinking of counselling?" asked one young girl in a short video clip on BiliBili, sharing her thoughts after reading the book. Prior to the pandemic, counselling had been viewed as expensive and inaccessible, but as many people struggled with their mental well-being, the subject reached a new generation through social media.
"We started promotion early with a strong digital media presence - through social media recommendations and influencer reviews - which provided the basis for an astounding breakthrough," said Mao Ting, marketing director at Guomai.
Guomai is building on the phenomenon by launching a set of psychological self-tests through their social media account '2040 Bookstore'. In addition, they are also collaborating with audio streaming platform Himalaya FM, to launch a new series of audio dramas based on the title.
The success of Counselling for Toads might be exceptional, but there is one thing worth noting, according to Mao:
"there might still be many other fantastic international titles published over the years that have been lost - perhaps they were not introduced to China by the right people or marketed through the right channels. Even if a book has been published many times before in China and didn't perform well, it can still become popular now. The success of this title is the best example of how this can happen!"
