The types of books published in the Ming Dynasty were particularly rich. In addition to the four major categories of "Jingshi Ziji", the types of books published in the book market mainly included popular novels, eight-legged essay anthologies, daily-use books, and Business books, etc.
Popular novels began with the scripts of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and entered a period of prosperity and development in the Ming Dynasty. Since the Jiajing period, popular novels have gradually become bestsellers. For example, "Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Jade in Yun Mansion", "Yun Yu in Brothel", etc., became famous and highly valued, and there was a rush to buy them all over the country.
As for the eight-part essay anthology, the Ming Dynasty implemented the imperial examination system for selecting scholars, and the examination was based on propositions from the "Four Books" and "Five Classics". Many bookstores took a fancy to this market opportunity and hired literati with large sums of money to select one or two hundred topics from the contents of the "Four Books" and "Five Classics". Each topic was made into an eight-legged essay and published in a volume. An anthology of eight-part essays that is very popular on the market. For example, in the late Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, anthologies of eight-part essays by literati such as Chen Ji and Ai Nanying from Jiangxi were once popular. Bookstores in Suzhou and Hangzhou often pay large sums of money to hire them to select articles.
Daily books are daily reference books suitable for the general public. Their contents are complex, including astronomy, geography, tourism, transportation, health care, divination, etc.
Business books are mainly about business operations, including business management ideas, business ethics, business methods, etc. At that time, there were nearly 10 kinds of business books with the title "Wanbao Quanshu". Books such as "An Overview of Huayi Scenery and Business Courses", "Essentials of Scholars and Merchants", "A Overview of Merchants and Merchants", "Essentials of Scholars and Merchants", and "A Guide to Merchants" are particularly popular among merchants.
The price of books in the Ming Dynasty was quite cheap compared with the previous dynasties. The prices of the Ming Dynasty's engravings, Song engravings, and manuscripts were all very low. For example: the Ming Dynasty's "Newly Engraved Collection of Five Chests and Wanbao Quanshu" has 34 volumes and 8 volumes; the Ming Dynasty official Ge Yinliang wrote "Jinling Fansha Zhi" in 53 volumes; the famous novelist Xu Zhonglin wrote "The New Engraved Mr. Zhong Bojing's Commentary on the Romance of the Gods" in 20 volumes , 100 chapters; during the Chongzhen period, Chen Huaixuan of Cunrentang published the newly engraved version of "The New Edition of Mr. Ai's Tianlu Pavilion Compilation and Collection of Essences and the Wanbao Quanshu" in 37 volumes and 5 volumes; "Nanhua Zhenjing", Song Dynasty edition, 5 volumes, etc.