He asked me if I wanted to open a publishing house: In memory of Guo Chongxing, the founder of Reading Republic

In the early morning of September 7, Mr. Kuo Chung-hsing passed away at the National Taiwan University Cancer Hospital at the age of 77.

I am neither his employee nor an old friend. The number of times we have met can be counted on two hands. I went through my letter box and calendar to make sure my memory was correct, and I found that the traces this elder left on me in the past few years were much deeper than I thought.

The question he asked me

Mr. Guo once asked me if I would be interested in setting up a publishing house in the Republic of Reading (opens in a new tab) group to create a magazine dedicated to AI applications.

My reaction at the time was very honest: I was interested, but not completely sure. At that time, I was still studying for a doctoral degree, and then I put this matter on hold. But every time I meet Mr. Guo, he never forgets to ask me about the latest progress in AI.

Only later did I understand what he was asking.

Mr. Guo once said something that has been quoted by many people these days: “An editor is the owner of a publishing house.” He allowed each editor-in-chief to choose books independently, saying, “Everyone has his own garden.”

In 2000, just before the city-state changed hands, the fifty-year-old left and started a new business with five publishing houses: Trojan Horse, Left Bank, Hiking, Savage, and Muse, and named it Reading Republic. Over the past twenty years, more than 60 brands have grown in this garden, including Eight Banners, Acropolis, and Zimu, and thousands of new books are published every year. In 2017, he won the Golden Tripod Special Contribution Award.

When I read the sentence “Everyone has his own garden”, I looked back and understood what he was asking me back then.

He’s not looking for a managing editor to do his job for him. He was asking me if I wanted to have a garden of my own.

It’s not like he was particularly kind to me. This is what he has been doing for more than 20 years: when he meets someone who he thinks has something, he asks him if he wants to open his own business. This is how the Eight Banners came about, this is how Acropolis came about, and this is how the more than 60 brands came about. I was just one of the people on the long list he asked about.

And I said, I’m not completely sure.

He changed his approach

I thought it was gone after that time. It turned out not to be.

Later, he helped me publish a book under the group’s True Culture.

That book is called “Can Create a Personal Brand and Monetize It Without Writing Programs (opens in a new tab)”, which was released at the end of February 2025. It talks about how to start a business online on your own. The publishing house is True Culture, and the legal entity is Yuanying Culture Co., Ltd., which was the parent company that he founded and later grew into the Republic of Reading.

This is how the record in the mailbox begins. On September 4, 2023, True Culture editor-in-chief Liu Weijia sent me the first letter. The letter was not to invite me to publish a book, but to ask me to recommend another book:

Hello Brother Zheng, I take the liberty to write you this letter. I am Liu Weijia, the editor-in-chief of Zhenwen Publishing House of Reading Republic.

Nine days later, on September 13, the topic turned to my own book. I told him:

I have to think about the details, but basically I hope to lead readers to create a truly feasible project. Therefore, it will not be just talk on paper, but it will actually be possible to open the door and do business.

From that letter to the actual release of the book, it took a year and a half. In November 2024, I finished writing the last chapter of “Gold Flow” and entered the first school at the end of December. At the end of February 2025, it was laid out on the road.

I still remember that I wrote back to Weijia at that time, and wrote in the letter: “It’s really not easy, keep working hard!”

Well, this is the publishing scene in Taiwan in 2025. President Guo Chongxing has been in this kind of business for twenty-five years. Not only that, he also created more than 60 brands and published thousands of books a year.

I checked and found that from 2018 to now, I have dealt with at least seven brands under the Republic of Reading: True Culture, Happy Culture, Good Man Publishing, Savage Culture, New Paradise Publishing, and Guangxian Publishing. Some are nominal recommendations, some are written recommendation prefaces, and some are published by me myself.

The editors of these seven brands are completely different in their tone of writing, topics of concern, and methods of judging how to sell a book. I always thought it was because of the different personalities of the editors. Now I know that was by design.

No. 129, Section 1, Dihua Street

I still remember that at 4pm on Sunday, April 21, 2024, Mr. Guo and I met for coffee at Guo Yimei Bookstore.

The bookstore (opens in a new tab) is located at No. 129, Section 1, Dihua Street, Datong District, Taipei City. It is a three-story red brick old house. At the end of 2022, at the age of seventy-two, he rented the house back. That was the place where his grandfather, Guo Wulong, opened “Guo Yimei Trading Company” during the Japanese occupation, wholesale of grains, flour, and sugar. He changed it into a bookstore selling only books and coffee, with more than 20,000 books, and the store name followed his grandfather’s business name.

At the age of seventy-two, I returned to my hometown and did something that I knew would not make any money. And he said that he wanted to open a hundred bookstores, and each one should have its own personality.

One hundred families. This is what he said when he was seventy-two years old.

The things sold in that bookstore were the same thing that concerned him. He said:

Why are relatively few of us writing books? The really fundamental point is that Taiwan has no real identity.

Let Taiwanese write about Taiwan and read about Taiwan. This is something he has been suspense about his whole life. I have written about The glimmer of thought, penetrating the page and the future, and I have also talked about What is the charm of publishing a book, but compared with what he did, those are just the readers’ experiences.

The last twelve days

On August 14, Wei Jia wrote to ask me if he could go on UFO Radio to talk to Tang Xianglong about a newly published translation book “AI Changes Your Customers”. At noon on August 20th, I went to the 25th floor of the building in Section 2 of Roosevelt Road to record. The program was broadcast on August 26. After listening to it, Wei Jia wrote to me:

After listening to the program, I felt that I had found the right person. Brother Zheng is very familiar with AI.

That day was August 26th. Twelve days later, Mr. Guo left.

Before, I had contacted him through LINE. Unfortunately, I didn’t know his physical condition in the past few months. All I know is that in the last days of his life, he was still thinking about the group he had built.

An editor is the owner of a publishing house. What the boss is doing is this little thing.

I’m not sure

Over and over, I have published twenty-one books, the first one in 1995, and the 31st year of this year. The latest one is “Zero Basics Vibe Coding” which was just released in September. Someone opened the door for me on this road, and Mr. Guo was one of them, and he was the one whom I hadn’t even had time to thank properly.

When he asked me if I wanted to open a publishing house in the group, I said I was not sure.

I’ve been thinking about that sentence these days. Thirty-one years and twenty-one books, I probably never started writing with complete confidence. Was it possible that when he left the city-state in 2000 at the age of fifty and started over with five publishing houses? Is it possible to rent back your ancestral home and open a store that only sells books at the age of seventy-two?

He never asked me to be sure. He just asked me if I wanted to have a garden of my own.

I didn’t plant that garden. But he later found another way and put my name in his garden and printed it on the cover of a book.

Thank you, Mr. Guo. Have a good trip.

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Extended reading: Openbook Reading Magazine’s condolence article (opens in a new tab), Free Art and Literature Network’s report (opens in a new tab).