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The Publishing Business

Traditional Book Publishing

The company's scope of publication encompasses dictionaries, general and specialized reference books, language learning books, textbooks and readers. Published titles cover practically all subjects, with dictionaries, textbooks and art and pictorial books on history and culture making the widest impact. In recent years, new innovations in the content, format and mode of publication have begun to bring Chinese publishing to the attention of the rest of the world.

Many of the company's art and pictorial books have become award-winners. 5000 years of Chinese Costumes, for example, won the "Best Book Design" Merit Prize at the Leipzig International Book Design Exhibition; the Chinese Medicinal Herbs Series won both the "National Outstanding Technological Books Special Award" from the Press Bureau of the PRC, and Taiwan's "First Lifu Chinese Medicinal Works Award"; Treasures of The Forbidden City won the "Hong Kong Printing Award".

Multimedia Publishing

Value-added products, like audio CDs and multimedia CD-ROMs, are now being produced from printed book originals. Outstanding examples are the Hanyu Dacidian CD-ROM, the world's first multimedia Chinese dictionary, the SEYBOLD Electronic Publishing Award-winner, Hong Kong Stamps, and The Forbidden City CD-I, which won both the International EMMA Award and the International Compact Disc Interactive Association's Silver Award.

Online Digital Publishing

E-books are titles that are published for online reading. With the Digital Right Management (DRM) platform now perfected, and a well-run online secured transaction system available, readers can pay to read quality publications produced by The Commercial Press and its associates in fields such as history, culture, social science, education and other practical subjects. Dictionaries with multiple search functions, like the Hanyu Dacidian (Network Version) and the e-dictionary located on the Commercial Press's Education website, are among the many online digital publications now available.

POD Publishing

Print-on-demand is a new form of publishing made possible by the development of electronic printing technology. The viability of printing small quantities now gives greater flexibility to provide, on demand, books which are no longer in print. At present this POD service is available for rare, out-of-print academic works that were originally published by The Commercial Press prior to 1949. More than 1,000 such titles will eventually be available in this category.

Cross-regional Editing and Publishing

After five years of preparation, The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd. has established a framework for cross-regional editing and publishing. Two editorial and production task forces, one based in Hong Kong and the other in the Mainland China cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, are now working on the whole publishing process, from planning topics, editing and processing, designing and production, right through to marketing. They are laying a firm foundation for publishing for the Greater China market in this new era.

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Copyright business

The objective of the Overseas Co-operation Department is two fold: firstly, to introduce quality Chinese publications to the international market, thereby increasing the world's understanding of Chinese culture, and secondly, to bring the best publications of other countries into the Chinese world, thereby raising the standard of Chinese publishing.

The company's copyright business began in the 1970s. Transactions have covered different kinds of publications, including dictionaries, art and pictorial books, language books and social science books, and have involved various forms of cooperation with prestigious publishers in Mainland China and other countries around the world. To date, more than 1,000 transactions have been concluded.

The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd. has cooperated with several top museums in the publishing of exquisite art books featuring invaluable Chinese relics and artifacts. Major projects in this category include The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum in 60 volumes, jointly published with the Palace Museum of China, and The Complete Collection of Dunhuang Grottoes in 28 volumes, jointly published with the Dunhuang Research Institute.

Many of the company's art books have been translated into different languages, such as Japanese, Korean, English, German, Dutch and French, giving different peoples an opportunity to appreciate Chinese art and culture. Two notable examples are Daily Life in the Forbidden City and The Forbidden City, both of which are currently available in at least four languages.

The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd. has long placed great emphasis on language learning, and is now regarded as an authority on the publishing of English and Chinese language learning texts. With years of experience in copyright trading, The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd. has become a bridge between China and the West, cooperating with world-renowned publishers like Harper Collins, Cambridge University Press and Penguin in joint investment, planning and publishing of English language learning books for Chinese readers. Western teaching materials have and are being adapted to suit the particular needs of the massive Mainland China market.

The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd. has also set up the world's largest Chinese databank, which can generate different Chinese learning materials according to different needs. An outstanding example is the Hanyu Dacidian CD-ROM, which has won awards in both the Education and Technology Sections of the "China Cup" Multimedia Products Competition organized by the Publishers Association of China. Data from the bank can be matched with data in other languages to produce bilingual publications.

With its commitment to both the promoting of Chinese culture and the enhancing of Chinese publishing standards by the assimilation of Western concepts, The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd. will continue to cooperate with different international publishers to produce the best possible reading material for readers around the world.