晚清小说市场的“广告战”——以晚清报载小说广告为中心

“Advertising War”of Fiction Market in the Late Qing Dynasty——A Case Study of Newspaper Fiction Advertisement

在晚清小说的市场发展过程中,此起彼伏的降价、促销活动,书局之间的竞争倾轧,以及书局与不法书商的盗版斗争,对于促进小说市场的有序化都有重要贡献。经过多次降价促销,以及盗版市场的利润瓜分,晚清小说的书价已经大大降低至老百姓能够接受的程度。这一时期小说市场的竞争一方面使得西方石印技术迅速推广,为新小说的出版传播提供了技术上的准备;另一方面,也致使小说读者群迅速扩大,为近代小说的繁荣做好了准备。

In the development of fiction market in the late Qing Dynasty,numerous price cuts,promotions,competitions among different bookstores,as well as their fights against piracy with unscrupulous booksellers have contributed greatly to the orderly fiction market. After rounds of competition,the prices of the late Qing fiction had been evidently reduced to the extent affordable to people in general. Moreover,the fiction market competition,on the one hand,helped to promote the Western lithography technology,which provided a technical support for publishing and distributing newfiction. On the other hand,it expanded the scope of fiction readers due to its much lower prices. All above made a good preparation for the prosperity of the modern fiction.