The situation is even more complicated upstream. Only a small minority of firms such as China Times Publishing, Yuan-Liou Publishing, and Hong Kong's Cite Publishing operate on a large, conglomerate level. The remaining 80 % of the business belongs to small-to-medium-sized publishers that take in less than NT $ 60 million a year. The difference between the economies upstream and downstream is apparent.
上游的出版社情況則更為複雜，僅有如時報出版、遠流、（香港）城邦等少數朝集團化、大型化發展，其餘約 8 成仍為年營業額低於 6,000 萬元的中小型出版社，上下游的結構差異十分明顯。