Interview with Dr. Steven Luk, Director of The Chinese University Press Q: I understand you were in Toronto in June to participate in the Annual Conference of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) and also went to Shanghai recently to participate in the East Asian University Press’s Annual Conference (EAUPAC). How often do you go there and why did you go this time? A: This was the first time the Chinese University Press (CUP) went to either place although we have been a member of AAUP for many years, and the conference in Shanghai was the fifth meeting of this kind. As ideas, scholarship and business are going global, there are a great number of issues that confront us as academic publishers. It is important that we share our concerns and experience. Q: What was being discussed in these conferences and how were they different? A: The AAUP is very well organized and there were over 400 participants, mostly from the US, UK and Canada. Colin Day of Hong Kong University (who was an active member when he was with the Michigan University Press) and I were the only delegates from Hong Kong. There were several participants from Japan. The events were well covered by The Chronicle of Higher Education (Washington, D.C.), The New Republic (N.Y.), The Publishers Weekly and book review sections of many of the major national newspapers. It lasted for four days and there were over thirty sessions ranging from web-marketing to techniques in copy-editing. In the other conference in Shanghai, there were over forty delegates from Japan and over thirty from Korea in addition to seventy some participants from the Mainland. I was the only Chinese publisher outside the Mainland. We spent most of the time in the discussion of electronic publishing including e-books, web-marketing and print-on-demand services. It lasted for one and a half days, and because every statement had to go through two sets of translations, it was very time consuming. Everyone was very enthusiastic nevertheless, and I think we could get our ideas through although we failed to get into serious and detailed discussions. Q: Can you tell us what has happened to electronic publishing since“dot com” has turned to “dot gone”? A: Indeed, the euphoria has gone, but what is useful still remains useful. For instance, a website is more or less like a signboard in front of your office and you must have it. However, it is doubtful that it will bring in additional business. It definitely speeds up the business process, just as a fax machine is faster than the mail. There is an increase in productivity because libraries can now browse and order through our website (<chineseupress.com>) instead of waiting for a printed catalog. Q: What about electronic publishing itself? A: Different formats target different markets and each has its advantages and disadvantages. First, CD-ROMS are now widely used for games, reference and educational titles. The same case is true for print-on-demand (POD) for short run academic titles. Electronic data-base products are widely used in research libraries. In fact, a major electronic publisher, Proquest U.K., has approached us recently to lease the copyright pertaining to the China Review (to be published in October 2001) on a non-exclusive basis for their mega-database project, Know Asia, which is structured similar to their existing Know UK and Know EC. These are online databases available to libraries and government/international bodies for policy research purposes. Obviously, many of the scientific magazines are now available online. Having said this, e-books are not widely in use yet because people still prefer to read on paper and neither the legal nor the business infrastructure for e-books are ready yet. When is it going to come I do not know. However, we should continue to monitor its impact on the industry even though we may not be able to follow the development of the minute technicalities. Q: What is the mission of the Chinese University Press nowadays? Have there been changes in the last several years? A: We were set up in 1977 as an academic publisher of scholarly works, although we have also been publishing general trade titles since the late eighties. There won’t be any change on the whole. This is to say that quality academic works are still our mainstay. It is for this reason that we have to maintain good relations with academia locally and abroad. The publication of general titles is a challenge in a small market such as Hong Kong as professional writers cannot survive in Hong locally. (Jin Yong, the martial art novelist, was a very successful newspaper publisher when he also serialized his novels on the daily. They did not come out as independent titles although they became best sellers for the next forty years afterwards.) Local book publishers, many of which also operate retail stores, can better afford to publish trade titles because they can be assured of the best shop display of their titles. Aside from this, Taiwanese publishers also come out with good titles through copyright acquisition from the US. They have a much larger home market and their cost of production is much lower now owing to the depreciation of the NT dollar. Under these circumstances, the Chinese University Press will develop titles in the reference and professional fields rather than purely general trade titles. Q: I understand more titles are coming out from the Press in recent years. Are you satisfied with the progress? A: We published 72 titles last year and 48 during 1999/20 including reprints/revisions. We used to do below 40 titles annually prior to that. It is important to have more titles because the logistic/operation costs have been fixed. However, we also have to publish books that sell. The best strategy is to publish few titles and sell more copies. This is more easily said than done. Indeed, we have been having more reprints in the last couple of years, as we had 31 reprints/revisions last year compared to 6 the year before. However, this is only the beginning. As title development takes a couple of years, if not longer, we will have more reference titles in the future. The most important thing is to build up our image as a quality publisher of academic titles and to try not to worry about the short term. However, one has to know that successful branding comes from repeated scores. Q: Why are we publishing more journals in recent years? A: That is a good question. Out of our commitment to the academic community I would say. We used to publish only the Educational Journal but we added the Hong Kong Journal of Sociology, Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, and the Journal of Psychology in Chinese Societies last year. The Journal of Translation and the Journal of Asian Anthropology will be added this year in addition to the China Review. The Press is involved in the editorial policy of only the China Review because we have neither the editorial capacity nor financial resources to handle so many scholarly journals. As such each one has its own editorial board and policy. We only provide the editorial service and marketing/sales network for their distribution. These journals will carry our name and the University’s logo to academic libraries all over the world. It is not enough for Hong Kong scholars to have good research results, it is important to have them disseminated to the scholarly communities all over the world. As such, if the Chinese University is a world-class institution, so is the Chinese University Press. It is only natural for the press to get involved. As you might imagine, it is very difficult to market and distribute one journal. However, as we have now a total of nine journals (including the Lingnan Journal of Chinese Studies from Lingnan University and the Journal of Chinese Studies by the Institute of Chinese Studies) under our umbrella, it is much more cost-effective to build up a marketing and sales network. As such, I regard this as helping ourselves through helping others. Q: How is the China Review doing? A: I should say we are very satisfied with the progress. We have set up an international Advisory Board and an Editorial Board together with an intercollegiate Executive Editorial Committee under Prof. Wang Shaoguang of the Department of Government and Public Administration. This structure is to carry out the referee process and to guarantee the quality of our articles. The first issue will come out in mid-October. We are currently busy introducing the journal to scholars and libraries for subscription. As I mentioned earlier, Proquest U.K. has offered to include the contents into their database for a fee. This is an encouragement to us as we have succeeded to attract interest even before its publication. Q: Thank you for your time with us. A: Thank you.