Book-reading bloggers become a trend

"We can learn from history as it contains the principles governing the evolution of the society. But how can we effectively interpret it to utilize the laws of a myriad of things? Today I would like to share some insights with you that are from the ancient people's experiences…" Du Liang, a post-90s girl, is sitting in front of a camera and introducing the "Twenty-Four Histories" to her audience.

There are many individuals like Du on social media platforms, who present books to the audiences through short videos and pictures and are called "book-reading bloggers" by netizens, as reported by Workers' Daily.

"I hope my video content can provide knowledge and comfort to audiences," Du said.

With this idea, "Du Liang's Reading" has gained popularity, amassing more than 40 million fans on various social platforms and accumulating over 5 billion video views. The promotion of books surpassed 400 volumes and more than 2 million books are sold.

Except for the promotion of new books, Du pays more attention to the broader cultural field such as traditional cultural knowledge sharing. Additionally, Du's team has also launched a "non-fiction project", the "Corners of the World" mini-documentary since last year, to encourage people to experience real life and to better understand the gist of literary works.

"We hardly follow the online viral trends, but carefully dig deep in our own field and try our best to do small things well one after another," Du said.

Similarly, Niu Weishu, a 45-year-old man running the business of building materials, also operates a book-reading account on Douyin. Most of his videos are related to The Art of War, a classic military work in China.

"The Art of War has been interpreted many times, but it's rare to analyze it in combination with the specific business situation of small and medium-sized business owners," said Niu.

In terms of the reasons for the popularity of promoting books through short videos, Du said that compared with the traditional offline marketing methods, "book-reading bloggers" can vividly convey the core highlights and values of books in a minute or two, allowing readers to quickly generate emotional resonance.

The recent "craze for book-reading bloggers" reflects the continuous improvement of the social reading culture. These bloggers present a unique digital way of reading for the audience, facilitating meaningful communication about books, which is an important manifestation of the development of national reading and scholarly society, according to Wei Pengju, head of the Cultural and Economic Research Institute of the Central University of Finance and Economics.

However, some have raised concerns about homogenized writing styles among bloggers and questioned that some video contents are plain, empty and lacking genuine reading experiences.

Besides, to maintain exposure and cash-ability, book-reading bloggers are inevitably affected by the recommendation algorithms of platforms, resulting in using exaggerated titles to attract audiences while no substance is found after viewing.

Given the problems, Du believes that it would be difficult to compete with book-reading bloggers if they only chase clicks and submit to the routinization of creation without competent ability.

According to Wei, book-reading bloggers should continue to create more professional, more humanistic and high-quality content. At the same time, the management of the platform is also of great significance.

By watching the interpretation of book-reading bloggers, audiences can obtain some reading guidance. "Readers still need to settle down and read the original texts to achieve true in-depth reading," said Wei.