Chapter 584 New Publication

Albert Mondadori was just a bit of a chatterbox, but when Lin Weimin wanted to get down to business, he immediately became serious.

In recent years, after winning awards in France, the United States and other countries, Lin Weimin has gained considerable international fame, so Albert Mondadori knows something about Lin Weimin.

With Roger Strauss's introduction, the two had a very pleasant conversation.

Albert had collected some of Lin Weimin's works in English and knew that he was a prolific writer, and publishing houses liked writers like him the most.

Once the cooperation is agreed upon, as long as a book can become famous in Italy, there will be basically no need for excessive investment and it will bring a steady stream of cash to the publishing house.

They could only discuss their intentions over the phone. Albert and Lin Weimin agreed that he would go to China next week to discuss the matter with Lin Weimin in detail.

But after a week, Lin Weimin still didn't wait for Albert. Another four or five days passed before Albert showed up at the Guowen Society.

Albert explained that he was late because he wanted to wait until their dog had puppies before going on a business trip.

This reason left Lin Weimin speechless. It seems that Jie is a dog lover!

Apart from the label of being a dog lover, Albert is quite normal, especially when talking about Lin Weimin's works, he seemed very excited.

Albert's English was fluent in both reading and writing. He had read all of Lin Weimin's English novels published abroad and he was full of praise for them.

"Lin, you are a talented novelist! It is hard for me to imagine that so many novels with different styles and wonderful and magnificent stories are actually written by the same writer!"

Albert's flattery made Lin Weimin somewhat alert. Could it be that this Italian guy was trying to drug me?

Sure enough, after agreeing on the list of books to be published, when talking about the issue of royalties, Albert almost broke the floor price with his one word "8%", and Lin Weimin almost served him tea and sent him away.

"Albert, you are kidding me! No country in the world where my works are published has a royalty rate lower than 15%."

Who can't ask for a high price and pay back the low price?

"Lin, you have to know that our Mondadori Publishing Group is the largest publishing house in Italy. If you cooperate with us, your works can be spread throughout Italy. You will never achieve this effect if you cooperate with ordinary publishing houses."

"Albert, the sales of a novel depends on the work itself. The channel is only one factor. Besides, you know that my novels are published in English-speaking and French-speaking countries, and have a large audience. As for you Italians, you have such a small population, not even as many as Nihong. With the sales ceiling set there, how much royalties can you get?"

Lin Weimin's tone made Albert want to hit him, but he had learned about the publication of Lin Weimin's works and knew that Lin Weimin earned millions of dollars every year from royalties from overseas publications of his works.

The two men argued for a long time. After Lin Weimin reduced the royalty share to 13%, he refused to reduce it any further. Albert kept persuading them and finally decided on this number.

After the negotiations, Mondadori Publishing House obtained the publishing authorization for seven works: "The Lover", "Farewell My Concubine", "The Horse Catcher", "The Chaser", "Burning", "Life is Beautiful Anyway" and "The Hunt".

The contract stipulates that Mondadori Publishing House must publish these seven works successively within two years, otherwise the publishing authorization will be withdrawn.

Albert spent a few days in Yanjing and then returned to Italy.

After seeing Albert off, Lin Weimin was in a good mood. No matter how small a mosquito leg is, it is still meat!

Time flies and it is already early May. Shi Tiesheng's "I and the Altar of Earth" has been published for a month. During this period of time, it has caused quite a stir in the domestic literary circles and among readers.

Shi Tiesheng's style is different from that of most domestic writers of this era. He is a unique writer with his own unique personality charm and writing style.

From "My Distant Qingping Bay", "The Story of Joining the Team to Work in the Countryside" to "I and the Altar of Earth", his style is consistent, between novels and essays, which often makes readers feel dazed and wonder whether they are reading a novel or an essay.

But this is not important. Whether it is a novel or an essay, readers can touch Shi Tiesheng's soft heart through these works, and feel his rich emotions and profound philosophical thoughts.

Over the past month, thousands of letters have flown to the editorial office and Shi Tiesheng's home.

Before "I and the Earthen Altar", Shi Tiesheng was a famous writer in the domestic literary world, but after "I and the Earthen Altar", Shi Tiesheng completed a transformation and he truly became a popular writer known to everyone.

For a long time, novels have always been the mainstream genre in the domestic literary world, and essays have not been well received. Except for the works of an older generation of essayists, the very few excellent essay works since the new era have almost all been written by writers from Taiwan and the island.

But the rise of Shi Tiesheng broke this situation. His article "I and the Altar of Earth" alone brought the domestic prose field to a new height.

Among the readers' letters to the editorial department of Contemporary Magazine over the past month, the calls for increasing the length of the prose column are growing louder day by day. There are also many radical readers who hope that Guowen Publishing House can establish a literary magazine focusing on prose.

He Qizhi even took these letters from readers to find Lin Weimin, hoping to lobby him.

Later, "Contemporary" did undergo a split in the 1990s, and the essay column of the magazine was separated to form "Chinese Essays". From the name, you can tell that this is a literary magazine specializing in publishing essays.

In the early 1990s, the domestic novel craze subsided somewhat because a large number of prose works from Taiwan were introduced into the country, and with the rise of famous prose writers such as Shi Tiesheng and Yu Qiuyu, the prose genre ushered in its highlight moment and was extremely popular for a time.

In the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, there were actually quite a few prose journals in China.

In 1980, Tianjin’s Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House sponsored the monthly magazine “Prose”, in 1984 Henan’s “Selected Prose” was born, in 1987 “Prose World” was founded in Yanjing, and in 1989 “Prose Hundreds” was founded in northern Hebei…

The emergence of more and more prose publications indirectly confirms the trend of prose development, and these prose publications have also developed very well in recent years.

Readers hope that Contemporary will increase the length of its prose column, but this is unrealistic. The space in the magazine is limited, and if there are more prose, there will be fewer other types of works. It’s okay to publish one issue occasionally, but most of Contemporary’s readers come to read novels, so over time it’s like driving readers away.

Therefore, in response to the calls of some essay lovers, establishing a new essay magazine became the best choice.

After He Qizhi explained his ideas, Lin Weimin fell into deep thought.

The 1990s was indeed the golden age of prose as a genre. The most vivid example was that Yu Qiuyu's prose collection "Cultural Journey" sold 1.5 million copies in just over a year after its release.

In 1988, at the invitation of Ba Lao's daughter Li Xiaolin, Yu Qiuyu opened his own essay column "Cultural Journey" in "Harvest". He published more than ten essays in "Harvest" for six consecutive months, which aroused considerable discussion in the literary world and among readers, and also brought Yu Qiuyu, a cultural scholar, reputation in the literary world.

Calculating the time, it seems that "Cultural Journey" will be published in a collection in one or two years. Such a best-selling work cannot be missed. I will think about contacting Yu Qiuyu later.

After a short break, Lin Weimin's mind was on the prose magazine again. He thought for a moment and said to He Qizhi, "Now it's just the voice of a small number of readers. I think we should do a reader survey in the next issue of Contemporary to see what everyone wants. If the survey results are ideal, you can make a proposal and we'll discuss it."

With the background of Guowenshe, there would be no problem for a prose magazine to survive, but that was all.

After 2000, the popularity of pure literature publications took a sharp turn for the worse, and this publication might even become a burden to the publishing house.

So Lin Weimin's attitude was not enthusiastic, but he would not reject it outright.

Because the existence of Guowen Publishing House is not for profit, it shoulders more of the mission and responsibility of the development of national literature. As long as the results of the reader survey are not too bad, he will support the publication of this publication.

As for making money, just leave it to Tongwenshe!

He Qizhi was somewhat excited to get Lin Weimin's support.

The establishment of a prose magazine will not bring any great benefits to Contemporary Magazine. On the contrary, Contemporary Magazine may even allocate some of its efforts to support the construction of the prose magazine.

But what he thought about was that Guowen Publishing House had one more literary magazine, and the domestic literary world had one more literary magazine, and readers would also benefit from it.

After He Qizhi left, Lin Weimin picked up the phone.

"Hey, Sister Xiaolin, I'm Weimin!"

Li Xiaolin is Ba Lao's daughter and now the deputy editor-in-chief of Harvest. Ba Lao has not been involved in the specific work of the magazine in recent years, so she is the actual head of Harvest.

Lin Weimin was Ms. Wan's student, so they were on equal terms.

Lin Weimin called her naturally because of Yu Qiuyu's matter. When she heard that Lin Weimin wanted to publish a collection of Yu Qiuyu's essays, Li Xiaolin happily said, "I'll contact him for you."

Yu Qiuyu's proposal to open an essay column in Harvest was approved only after Li Xiaolin overcame many objections. Now that Guowen Publishing House is going to publish Yu Qiuyu's essay collection, it is enough to prove the influence of these essays, as well as her vision and work achievements.

After the two chatted for a few words, Li Xiaolin hurried to help Lin Weimin contact Yu Qiuyu.

Not long after I hung up the phone with Li Xiaolin, the phone rang.

Before the publication and great success of his essay collection Cultural Journey, Yu Qiuyu was best known as an official and cultural scholar.

He was appointed as the president of Shanghai Theatre Academy in 1986. In recent years, most of his works are research works in the field of drama, such as "Draft History of Drama Theory" and "Drama Aesthetic Psychology".

The essay column "Cultural Journey" has sparked some discussions in the literary world since its launch in 1988.

Since it is a discussion, there will naturally be praise and criticism.

His prose style is unique and different from that of his predecessors. It has a grand structure and a broad vision. People who like it call it "great prose", while people who don't like it criticize it for being pretentious. There are also many flaws in the use of allusions in the article, which are completely laughable.

Yu Qiuyu heard from Li Xiaolin that Lin Weimin was going to publish a collection of his essays. He was very excited and the first thing he said when he called was, "Editor-in-Chief Lin, can my essays really be published?"

(End of this chapter)