TikTok Sells a Lot of Books. Now， Its Owner Wants to Publish Them， Too.
TikTok卖书卖得不错，现在，其母公司还想涉足图书出版
By Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter
A new publishing company began courting self-published romance writers earlier this year.
今年早些时候，一家新的出版公司开始向个人出版的言情小说作家抛出橄榄枝。
The publisher was ByteDance， the parent company of TikTok， a social media company that traffics in short videos and has， over the past several years， helped create some of the biggest best sellers on the market. Along with an advance and royalties， the company was offering comprehensive online marketing services， according to several authors and publishing professionals with knowledge of ByteDance's offers.
这家出版商就是字节跳动，也就是TikTok的母公司。TikTok是一家以短视频为主的社交媒体公司，在过去几年里，它协助缔造了市场上一些最受欢迎的畅销书。据几位了解字节跳动报价的作者和出版界专业人士的说法，除了预付款和版税，该公司还提供全面的在线营销服务。
Ella Fox， a self-published romance author and advertising consultant who runs ad campaigns for other writers on TikTok， said that， presumably， ByteDance could make sure the algorithm prioritized their own books.“People would give their eye teeth to get in front of that audience and to be pushed in that way，“ she said.
埃拉·福克斯（Ella Fox）是一名个人出版的言情小说家，同时也是一名广告顾问，她在TikTok上为其他作家开展广告营销活动。她表示，字节跳动很可能会确保平台的算法优先推送他们自己出版的图书。她说：“人们（指作者）会不惜一切代价走到观众面前，即被算法机制推到TikTok的观众面前。”
Some in the industry are dubious that ByteDance can carve out a sizeable chunk of the market， in part because publishing remains a stubbornly analog and relationship-driven business. Print sales still account for more than 70 percent of trade publishers' revenues， according to the Association of American Publishers.
行业内有些人对于字节跳动能在市场上占据一席之地表示怀疑，部分原因是出版业仍然是一个顽固守旧的行业——数字化程度低，依赖于人际关系。根据美国出版商协会的数据，印刷销售仍然占出版商收入的70%以上。
There are industry veterans who take comfort in the fact that ByteDance will likely face the same challenges as traditional publishers: Readers are fickle， and ultimately， viral videos won't automatically create a blockbuster if the books themselves aren't appealing.
令一些行业资深人士感到安慰的是，字节跳动可能会面临与传统出版商相同的挑战：读者是善变的，归根结底，如果书籍本身不够吸引人，就算短视频火爆出圈，也不会自动成为轰动一时的畅销书。