PW Studio: Publishing in China 2026: Phoenix Publishing and Media Group
With 30 brands operating under the PPMG umbrella of nine publishing subsidiary companies, the company has no shortage of success stories.
Yilin Sci-Fi from Yilin Press, for instance, is one brand that is near and dear to a sci-fi aficionado’s heart. Liu Cixin, a nine-time Galaxy Award winner who also won the 2015 Hugo award for The Three-Body Problem, is a flagship author. The brand’s core publications include Liu’s new sci-fi fairy tale The Fire Keeper, Stanislaw Lem’s collected works, Ted Chiang’s acclaimed titles, those by Andy Weir and Philip K. Dick, and James Gunn’s a six-volume anthology series The Road to Science Fiction.
“Many titles have been named the best book of the year by various media, and individual sales of The Martian, Story of Your Life, Exhalation, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? have each exceeded 200,000 copies, reflecting the brand’s strong influence and reputation among readers,” says company chairman Li Zhenqiang. “In building the brand, we have many classics that transcend the sci-fi genre boundaries into film, television, and pop culture, thereby enriching the reading experience.”
In recent years, PPMG has used new media and integrated media channels to diversify the formats of Yilin Sci-Fi titles. “When the Zhurong rover landed on Mars in 2021 and captured nationwide attention, we launched The Martian and audio dramas based on Lem’s works,” Li says, adding that collaboration with actor Pan Yueming, sci-fi influencers on Weibo, and top Bilibili creators have resulted in more than 50 million unique web visitors that effectively boosted print sales.
“We recognize the natural connection between sci-fi literature, cutting-edge technology, and youth reading, and so we have released age-appropriate titles such as Visiting the Stars: Chinese Stories of Spaceflight, Dream Builders: Chinese Stories Driving into the Future, and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game,” Li says. “While Made in China achievements have inspired these writings, the resulting works in turn sparked new industrial imagination. We want to inspire scientific literacy as well as cultivate future readers of sci-fi.”
The PPMG team is innovatively developing a comprehensive line of suspense fiction by women. “It encompasses works by authors local and international, ranging from those by young contemporary writers to classics from the Golden Age of detective fiction,” Li says. Asako Yuzuki’s novel Butter, He Ronglu’s short story collection No Time to Die, and six Agatha Christie works are among the published titles.
PPMG’s children’s literature titles have long exerted strong recognition and broad market influence. “We have established the Cao Wenxuan Children’s Literature Award, which calls for submissions from around the world,” says Li. “It has nurtured 44 outstanding titles, with total sales exceeding one million copies, and several of which have been adapted for film and television,” Li says. “With ‘literature, the Earth, freedom, and dreams’ as its aesthetic principles, and with the mission of supporting and nurturing emerging voices in children’s literature, the award serves as a key platform for bringing outstanding original children’s literature to a global audience.”
As for The Comprehensive History of Major Powers, which started as a series back in 2007, it has since released multi-volume histories of Britain, France, Germany, and Japan; sales are fast approaching the ¥20-million mark. “With large-format hardcovers and premium editions, these works demonstrate that high-end academic books can build a solid brand reputation while commanding stable and robust market demand,” Li says.
Another PPMG subsidiary, Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House, offers the New Poetry Canon brand. “If we can cultivate a small poetry community—even one with just 5,000 people—where every new release is eagerly anticipated by the same loyal readership, then that is precisely the value of our poetry publishing. After all, poetry has never been a mass-market industry,” Li says.
Then there is the rapid organic growth of Yilin Press’s Obelisk brand, which was launched by a two-person team. After 40 titles, the team has constructed an Obelisk Universe of history and culture books. “It employs a user-generated content (UGC) publishing model with readers stepping up to become our designers, translators, and even authors. This model makes our readers the true driving force behind the brand’s potential,” Li adds.
“Finding great content to create top-notch publications that carry our distinctive brands for readers domestic and overseas is our goal, which is also about going beyond traditional paper- based books to include multiformat content as well as our own IPs,” Li says.
Visit them at Booth D101 in Hall 5.1 at the 2026 Frankfurt Book Fair.