Walter Isaacson's new Elon Musk biography was released in the Chinese market on Tuesday. Citic Press Group upped the book's cost to 79 yuan ($10.84), which is higher than the original 59 yuan, according to Chris Sun, translator for the Chinese edition. On Tuesday, the JD.com app revealed that the three most popular finance and economic biographies were all versions of the new Musk biography.
Walter Isaacson's new biography of Elon Musk arrived in China on Tuesday, prior to its U.S. release due to the 12 hour time gap between Beijing and New York. The publisher, Citic Press Group, increased the book's cost to 79 Chinese yuan ($10.84) from 59 yuan due to an unexpected print run before its launch. Lead translator Chris Sun stated that Citic Press had treated this work as their "highest-level confidential project" of the year according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese comments. When CNBC asked for confirmation, Citic did not provide a response. The Shenzhen-listed company reported first-half revenue from operations of 872.65 million yuan, a 2.9% increase from a year ago.
Sun mentioned that as of Tuesday, Citic was yet to provide sales figures of the new biography.A look at the online retailer, JD.com's app on Tuesday revealed that versions of the new Elon Musk biography in Chinese topped the list for the category of most popular finance and economics biographies, with Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs in Chinese coming in at fourth place.Sun went on to say that a decade ago, books about Jobs could easily be found at numerous street-side stands in China, although most of those were probably knockoffs with the black-and-white cover recognizable.He further pointed out the differences between the U.S. and China since then, as well as ordinary Chinese people's increased knowledge of tech entrepreneurs such as Jobs.At the time of his death in 2011, he was more widely known among the elites within China whereas the general public was still in the process of learning about Apple's products.Sun stated that today, Musk enjoys a high level of admiration among the Chinese public and Tesla owners take pride in their ownership.Also, Vance's earlier biography of Musk has been quite popular in China.Read excerpts from Isaacson's new Musk biography here:Bill Gates and Elon Musk: An excerpt from Walter Isaacson's new biography of MuskHow Elon Musk set Tesla on a new course for self-drivingElon Musk moving servers himself shows his 'maniacal sense of urgency' at X, formerly Twitter.
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