Chapter 465: Weimin, you are a spendthrift!

After winning the Goncourt Prize, I had three days of activities scheduled. These three days were arranged by the Académie Goncourt. After winning the award, I had to give face to the organizer!

For three days, Lin Weimin had almost no rest time except at night.

While he was busy attending events and accepting interviews in France, the interview materials from Xinhua News Agency had already been physically delivered back to Yanjing by reporters.

The edited video material was broadcast on CCTV's "News Broadcast" on the same day and lasted for a full minute.

The news that Lin Weimin won this year's Goncourt Prize for his novel "The Lover" immediately spread across the country.

On the second day after the broadcast of the "Xinwen Lianbo", many authoritative media such as the "People's Daily" and "Reference News" followed up with the news. Among them, the "People's Daily" published on the front page an interview with Lin Weimin by a Xinhua News Agency reporter at the award ceremony in France.

It is very rare for a long article of thousands of words, which is also a personal interview, to be published on the front page of People's Daily.

The reason that prompted the People's Daily to make such a big move is naturally the powerful influence of the Goncourt Prize.

Lin Weimin felt that it was an exaggeration for Ms. Edmond Charles Roux to say that he had become a world-class writer by winning the Prix Goncourt. Judging from the difficulty of obtaining the award, it seemed to be true. After all, the value of becoming a world-class writer once a year was indeed a bit low.

But he did not take into account the filter that the domestic public of this era has for Western countries and literary awards.

Previously, Lin Weimin had won many foreign awards, but relatively speaking, his popularity in China was not high.

For example, he won the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Nowadays, ordinary people rarely receive information about foreign film festivals, and he also won a screenwriting award.

For example, the Tony Awards in the United States are no longer an award in the field of film, but an award in the field of drama. Ordinary people still don’t pay much attention to it. Despite the official publicity, the sensational effect is always a little lacking.

The National Book Critics Circle Award in the United States is a literary award with a large audience, but the problem is that it is not well-known enough in the country. Not to mention ordinary people, even many literature lovers have never heard of the name of this award. So what even if you are one of the major literary awards in the United States?

But the Goncourt Prize is completely different from the above awards. It can be said that it brings together all the points of interest in media communication and public attention.

First of all, this is one of the most prestigious literary awards in France, one of the Western democratic powers, with a long history. Before the 1960s, French literature had always been a big brother in world literature, and no one would disagree with it.

Well, Maozi might have some opinions.

Secondly, the jury lineup of each year is incredibly strong, including Flaubert, Daudet... Such a jury lineup is destined to ensure that the award will be of high quality.

Furthermore, the award has a huge global influence, not just abroad. Nowadays, any young literary person who has the slightest interest in literature knows the name of the Prix Goncourt.

In the hearts of young domestic literary people of this era, the Goncourt Prize is a world-class award second only to the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Taking the above three factors into consideration, from the official to the literary circles to the public, the reaction to Lin Weimin's award this time was even more exaggerated than the last time Zhang Yimou won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival.

The domestic film industry was indeed very hot in the 1980s, but it was nothing compared to literature. This was the era of literature.

As soon as the news came out that a domestic writer had won the Goncourt Prize, domestic public opinion was completely ignited almost within a day. The momentum was so great that it was comparable to the scene when the domestic Olympic delegation won gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The issue of "national confidence" mentioned in Lin Weimin's exclusive interview published in the People's Daily has also attracted widespread attention from knowledgeable people in China.

In recent years, the trend of worshipping foreign countries has prevailed in China. Everyone says that Western countries are good and everyone is running to Western countries. Then who will build our motherland?

Lin Weimin's calm and confident attitude during the interview made many people admire him. There are indeed very few intellectuals as far-sighted as him.

Interestingly, just ten days ago, Lin Weimin was criticized by the media and the public for issues related to "The Hunt".

A few days ago, Lin Weimin published an article in the Literary Gazette announcing that "Hunting" would no longer be published within ten years. Many people were delighted by this and believed that their pressure had paid off.

Then news came out that Lin Weimin was suspended from his post, and this group of people celebrated even more, as if they had defeated a heinous criminal.

Just a few days later, news came that Lin Weimin had won the Prix Goncourt. While the whole country was cheering, this small group of people fell into a strange silence.

Not to mention the reactions of these people, with the help of many authoritative media such as "Xinwen Lianbo", "People's Daily" and "Reference News", the news that Lin Weimin won the Goncourt Prize spread throughout the streets in a short period of time.

Suddenly, more readers came to the bookstore to buy Lin Weimin's works. The buying spree caused by "The Hunting" a few days ago had just entered a stable stage, and a new wave of buying spree came again.

These readers read both meat and vegetables, and they read not only newly published works, but also works that have been published for many years, such as "The Hidden Corner" and "The Cliff". As long as they are works by Lin Weimin, they will buy them all.

Only a small number of these people are Lin Weimin's loyal readers, while the vast majority of them bought the book entirely because of Lin Weimin's award.

Over the years, the sales of Lin Weimin's works have remained high, often starting at millions of copies.

However, compared with the actual existing readers in the country, such sales are insignificant.

This round of public opinion bombardment has greatly expanded the audience range of Lin Weimin's works. It is not only limited to young literary people, but has spread more widely to ordinary people.

These people don't stop reading, they just read relatively less mainstream literary works.

The sales of entertainment magazines or popular literature magazines such as "Popular Movies", "Story Club" and "Wulin" are often in the millions, and this time the public opinion frenzy has stirred up readers from this group.

In the past two days, the phone of Guowen Publishing House has been ringing non-stop, and the staff have been unable to answer it. Even if they missed the call, it doesn’t matter. The content of the call can be guessed. It is nothing more than urging Guowen Publishing House to reprint or republish Lin Weimin’s works.

Except for the new works published in the past one or two years, Lin Weimin's other works have basically entered the long-tail sales stage. The total inventory of each novel in sales channels across the country is between 300,000 and 500,000 copies.

As soon as the news of the Goncourt Prize came out, the number of readers coming to buy Lin Weimin's works increased sharply, and the inventory that could have been sold for several months or half a year was quickly consumed in a short period of time.

If we don’t print more copies, bookstores and post offices will have no books to sell!

Compared with the anxiety of bookstores and post offices, Guowen Publishing House is more anxious.

Although the publishing house learned about the possibility of Lin Weimin winning the Prix Goncourt earlier than anyone else in China, no one took it seriously.

After all, when Lin Weimin won awards in the past, the sales of his works only had a brief surge and then quickly returned to normal, and the channel’s inventory was fully able to cope with it.

Guowen Publishing House did not expect that when the news of the Goncourt Prize came out, readers' enthusiasm for buying the books would be so swift and enthusiastic.

Cheng Zaochun regretted it so much that he almost pulled out all his hair. He was so busy bickering with Lin Weimin in the past few days that he didn't even think about his business.

The buying spree came and went quickly. If he really lost hundreds of thousands or millions of copies of books because of the delay in these few days, he would have wanted to kill himself by buying a piece of tofu.

This is all money!

The subscription information from all over the country came too suddenly. These bookstores and post offices no longer even wrote letters, but contacted directly by phone. The Guowen Press was so busy answering the phone that its hands were tired.

Every few hours, there is an explosive growth in book subscriptions.

Cheng Zaochun contacted the printing factory and all unimportant printing tasks in the company were stopped, and all efforts were made to print Lin Weimin's works.

The buying spree only lasts for a short period of time, and printing one more book is making money for Guowen Publishing House, so we must not miss this great opportunity.

This year's end-of-year bonuses and benefits depend on Lin Weimin!

During the meeting, Cheng Zaochun was chairing the discussion on the award for Lin Weimin. After all, he had won an international literary award, so the Guowen Publishing House would definitely have to express its opinion. Even the Yanbing Literature Award in China had to be expressed, so the Goncourt Literature Prize could not be so shameless.

Suddenly someone came up with an idea - to publish a collection of Lin Weimin's works.

There was a brief silence in the office after hearing this suggestion.

There is no problem with publishing a collection of works. Which great writer doesn’t publish a collection of works?

This is a symbol of status in the literary world!

But the problem is...

This guy is only twenty-seven!

Not to mention Lin Weimin, even literary giants like Lu, Guo, Mao, Ba and Lao Wan did not receive such treatment when they were only 27 years old!

"Zhang Ailing said that one should become famous as early as possible. This is probably the advantage of becoming famous early!" The person who made the suggestion said weakly in the face of everyone's doubts.

The National Literature Publishing House reprinted Zhang Ailing's collection of novels "Legends" in 1986, and the person speaking was the editor-in-chief.

The saying that you should become famous as early as possible does make sense. In fact, literary giants such as Lu, Guo, Mao, Ba, Lao Wan were not very old when they became famous. However, they all had a flaw in that they did not have enough works at that time, and they did not have the hardware conditions to compile a collection of works.

Lin Weimin was different. From the age of 20 to 27, he kept writing, producing works every year, sometimes even two in a year.

Over the past few years, I have written more than a dozen novels, totaling millions of words. It would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that I have written a large number of works, but it is true that I am as prolific as a sow. It is more than enough for me to publish a collection of works.

After hearing his words, everyone in the conference room looked at each other in silence, and then turned their eyes to Cheng Zaochun, the president and editor-in-chief.

"this……"

Cheng Zaochun hesitated for a long time and said, "Let's discuss this matter later when Weimin returns to China. Compiling a collection of essays is not a quick thing, and he is still in the rising stage of his creation. Let's ask for his opinion when he returns."

Cheng Zaochun's speech made the final decision, and no one else bothered about this issue anymore.

After the meeting, everyone dispersed, but still remembered to chat with each other.

Everyone mentioned "Hunting", which Lin Weimin announced would not be published within ten years. If it were published, how many copies would it sell to catch up with this wave?

For the people, you are a spendthrift!

(End of this chapter)