An operational philosophy
Chien established the principles of balancing cultural, social, and market factors in promoting the company’s development, and of making sales an explicit element of its publishing strategy. He also decided to focus on publishing works written in an accessible style as a means of getting good books into ordinary households.
These moves quickly transformed Taiwan’s publishing industry. Hotshot mass-market writers like Tsao Yu-fang, Lin Qingxuan, Wu Danru, and Guang Yu began moving to Eurasian. With the support of readers, Eurasian grew from a single imprint into a full-fledged publishing group and the Taiwanese literary community’s longstanding, if nebulous, distinction between pure literature and mass-market literature crumbled.
Over the years, Chien developed what he calls his “75, 85, 95” management philosophy.
It’s basically a ratings system in which 75 equates to “passable,” 85 to “good,” and 95 to “excellent.” No matter how good a book is, it has to sell well to rate higher than a 75. It’s the job of the publishing team to elevate good books from “75s” to “95s.” When a finished book elicits a “Wow!” from every department prior to its publication, the team is sure that readers will love it.
By systematizing the ratings process, and placing the department of planning and marketing and the department of sales and distribution on an equal footing with the editorial department, Chien has created a sort of “iron triangle” specializing in the production of bestsellers.
The approach has made Eurasian popular for more than just its books: its sales and marketing strategy has now been incorporated into business-school curricula. Take, for example, how it handled the 2006 release of the popular Japanese novel Saga no Gabai Bachan. Chien was very impressed with the readability and power of the Chinese-language translation, and with how well the book conveyed human tenacity and the idea of bettering oneself. Feeling that it would be a shame not to share the book with the broad public, he wrote some 50 letters to the principals of high schools around Taiwan that very night, recommending the book to them.
By writing the letters by hand with a calligraphy brush, he expressed a passion and sincerity beyond the capabilities of email to convey, moving the principals who received them to read the book for themselves. When they thought highly of it and mentioned it in meetings, the book’s word-of-mouth began to spread like wildfire. It went on to sell more than 300,000 copies in just one year. Management magazine then named Chien’s letters the most innovative marketing campaign of the year, an honor in which all three segments of the “iron triangle” took great pride.
Eurasian plunks down a hefty chunk of change on its annual company trips, which have taken employees all over the world. Here, Chien and his colleagues pose for a group photo in a hot-air balloon during a company trip to Turkey.