With 90 new titles scheduled for publication this year, Beijing Dandelion is abuzz with activity. Two works have founder and editor-in-chief Sally Yan particularly excited: an upcoming title on the black-necked crane in its Chinese Flagship Species series and a series of psychological literature books to help teenagers, especially older ones, to deal with difficult emotions and feelings.
Last year, the team published 85 titles, of which three original works have been very successful: Liu Haiqi’s Ping-pong Shouts, Gerelchimeg Blackcrane and Jiu Er’s The Elephant’s Journey, and Zhu Dake’s The Adventures of Yan series. Then there was Zhu Yongxin’s I Love Mummy, I Love Daddy, which was launched at the 2024 Bologna Children’s Book Fair; a few months later, a copyright export signing ceremony was held at the Beijing International Book Fair to celebrate its sales to eight countries in 11 languages. The team also translated The Magic School Bus series, Jakob Martin Strid’s The Incredible Story of the Giant Pear, and Nicholas Allan’s Where Willy Went.
Diversity is the hallmark of Beijing Dandelion’s publishing program, Yan says. “This year, we will go from titles on nature—such as the one on black-necked crane—to those on science and space, particularly in our 30-title Science Comics series by Liz Prince, Falynn Koch, Joe Flood, et al.,” Yan says. “Variety is the spice of life. We want to introduce children to the widest range of topics to keep them entertained and learning many new things along the way.”
Meanwhile, Yan has been experimenting with new distribution and marketing models. In 2023, a Douyin account was set up by the publisher under the name of “Children’s book detective Yan Xiaoli. It started with short videos and last October, the team started livestreaming. “This is all about recommending our titles to readers and reaching Key Opinion Consumers and Key Opinion Leaders. We also obtain direct feedback from readers and potential consumers that we don’t get to meet directly. Such feedback is critical in helping us to identify emerging trends and market preferences—and tweak our publishing program accordingly.”
Since its December 2006 establishment, Beijing Dandelion has adhered to its mission of publishing good books—originals and translations—for children. “Our editorial team takes an inordinate amount of time and care to polish each title,” Yan says, adding that some are “incubated” for up to five years before they go to press. “We think pragmatically in the long term, protecting our hard-earned reputation as a professional publishing house and working on extending the lifecycle of our titles. Profit-making is well and good, but providing children with quality reading materials and helping them to cultivate a good reading habit and lifelong learning mentality is much more important to us as a company.”
