Chapter 31

"Have the monthly sales figures been tallied?" Director Li paced anxiously in the office.

Ever since the fourth issue of "The Great Song" was released in "Wuxia", Li Ang has been waiting for the total monthly sales this month, because it has been almost a month since the serialization of "The Great Song" in "Wuxia", and the total monthly sales will soon be released.

Li Ang is under tremendous pressure.

On the one hand, we are facing the closure of the magazine. Once the Guangzhou branch is closed, many employees of the magazine's Guangzhou branch will face layoffs.

On the other hand, after the magazine's sales had been declining for five consecutive years and there were piles of unsold magazines piled up in the warehouse until the monthly sales dropped to only 500,000, he withstood the pressure and once again decided to print a first print run of one million copies in two years.

If the magazine company still cannot sell its magazines and has a pile of inventory, then the magazine company may be closed even faster, and even its branches in Nanshi and Shanghai may be affected and go out of business faster.

Even Bao Huixin, who worked with him to bring the "Wuxia" magazine from its founding to its glory and to its present day, couldn't help but admire Director Li's courage.

Not everyone has the courage to take such a desperate step after experiencing the decline of a magazine.

Once it fails, it will inevitably speed up the closure of the magazine.

Li Ang could not sleep day or night these days. On the one hand, it was due to the great pressure, and on the other hand, it was due to the excitement.

Years of experience told him that this was a great opportunity and he must seize it, but the market was unreasonable and the final outcome would be determined by sales volume.

From the first issue to the fourth issue, "Da Song" has been serialized in "Wuxia" for a full month. The first issue exceeded the first print of 500,000 in one week, and the second and third issues were reprinted, and the first print of the third and fourth issues directly exceeded one million copies.

The fourth issue has been on the market for a week now, and the specific sales volume will not be released until next month, but the total sales results of "Wuxia" magazine this month have come out.

"How much?" Li Ang was sitting in the office, his hair had already been messed up by him, but he didn't notice it at all.

The marketing staff didn't care about their director's image at all, and reported excitedly: "3.2 million copies."

As soon as this data came out, the entire "Wuxia" magazine erupted in cheers of joy.

Director Li, who is nearly fifty years old, kept waving his fists excitedly at the air: "YES! YES! YES!" Then his eyes turned red again.

How long has it been? How long has it been since "Wuxia" magazine achieved such sales since its inception?

How could the marketing staff not understand Director Li's excitement? He was excited too. This was the first time since the late 1980s that their magazine's monthly sales had exceeded three million again.

Yes, even though they had declined before and their total monthly sales had dropped to 500,000, even in the middle and late stages, their magazine could still maintain monthly sales of 2 million.

However, the number of members has never exceeded three million since the 1990s.

The marketing staff couldn't stop smiling. "The fourth issue of the journal has only been on the market for a week, and the South City and Shanghai City branches have just started selling the products. The market feedback is not that fast. If the popularity continues at this rate, the total monthly sales next month is estimated to be no worse than this month."

"Yes, yes, we must strike while the iron is hot." Director Li understood very well that the popularity of "The Song of Song" had a certain element of luck. First of all, it took advantage of the subject matter, and secondly, it rode the popularity of "Justice Bao". Once "Justice Bao" was off the air, the popularity of "The Song of Song" was bound to decline, and as a result, the sales of "Wuxia" would follow suit.

But he could definitely seize this favorable wind and take off on the cusp. Before Justice Bao was released, he could catch this fiery hurricane and make the magazine he founded once again flourish!

He calmed down, took off his glasses, wiped his eyes and glasses, put them back on and said, "Wang Yong has signed a contract with Ningmeng. Ningmeng sent over 40,000 words more than a week ago, and Wang Yong also sent over 15,000 words as an expedited delivery. Ask the manuscript receiving department to sort out the manuscripts. With Wang Yong in Wucheng taking care of Ningmeng's manuscripts, there's no need to worry about the lack of money in Wuxia for the time being."

They still had 6,000 words left, plus the 55,000 words sent by Ning Meng and Wang Yong, the total was 61,000. 61,000 was enough for them to serialize three issues, and they suddenly had a lot more time.

The marketing staff also asked happily: "Director, has Ningmeng replied to the email?"

Director Li had suppressed his excitement at this time, and said unhappily: "Why reply to the email!" He wanted to say that Ning Meng was still a student, a student who was locked up in the boarding school and couldn't leave, but after thinking about it, he held back and said, "I have left Wang Yong with Ning Meng, and he is responsible for Ning Meng's manuscripts. I will go up to the Finance Department and tell them to transfer Wang Yong's salary for this month, including bonuses and travel expenses, to him at the end of the month."

Logically speaking, Wang Yong has completed his task perfectly on this business trip and it is time for him to return to the magazine. This is just in case; it is better to have a lot of manuscripts.

"Oh, right, recruit people. Haven't various schools just graduated a batch of college students? Continue to recruit people from their schools. This time we need five, no, six. Once the new recruits arrive, first arrange an office operator to sit in the office and answer calls, especially calls from Wang Yong. Then arrange another person to check and reply to emails."

Because of the wave of layoffs, the policy of guaranteed job assignment was cancelled in 1995. At that time, many college graduates had not yet found suitable jobs.

Ever since Ning Meng left Director Li her email address, Director Li has understood that this is no longer the 1980s when manuscripts were submitted purely by hand. Since they added Yahoo mailbox as the submission address, they have received many manuscripts from authors. This is a completely different way of receiving manuscripts from the past. He has a hunch that this way of submission may become mainstream in the future as computers are used more and more and the country develops faster and faster.

He thought of the recently popular communication method, something like MSN? I will apply for it soon.

With the resurgence of "martial arts" and its impact on the martial arts market, many magazines of the same type have noticed the most popular article on the market, "My Years as a Constable in the Song Dynasty". In fact, not only martial arts magazines have noticed this article, but also female-oriented romance magazines have noticed it.

Because the article is written from a female perspective and is delicately written, unlike previous martial arts styles, the editors of romance magazines quickly realized that the author of this article, Ning Meng, was most likely a female author.

At that time, no one knew that the Lemon Meng of "Wuxia" and the Lemon of other magazines such as "Zhiyin" were the same person.

When it comes to other martial arts magazines and periodicals, the first thing they think of is poaching people.

After all, an author who can single-handedly revive a dying magazine and make it take off must be of enormous value.

dig!

Must dig!

Not only martial arts magazines, but also romance magazines are inquiring about Ning Meng's news.

Their magazines can also serialize the stories. They can also commission articles from Ningmeng and directly sign the next article to their romance magazine.

Therefore, all major magazines of the same type arranged for their reporters to go to Guangzhou, either undercover or by other means, to find out Ning Meng's current royalties and obtain Ning Meng's contact information.

This is actually not difficult. Bribe a few staff members of the mail receiving department of "Wuxia" magazine. This is how they operated in the past and they poached many people from "Wuxia" magazine.

"Wuxia" magazine was almost bankrupt by them. The news had been circulating in the industry before that the Guangzhou branch of "Wuxia" was going to be closed down.

They are in the same industry, even if they are not in the same city, they all have their own information channels.

But Li Ang, the founder of "Wuxia" magazine, had already been prepared for this. After the magazine staff were transferred out, only a few were left, and the rest were all die-hard fans who had followed Li Ang since the founding of the magazine, or honest people with no connection. Anyone who had any connection was transferred away.

Director Li said very bluntly: "Once Ningmeng's information is dug out, you can get some money temporarily, but so what? I believe everyone knows what we will face in the future." Director Li said: "At worst, I will be transferred away, and I will still be the director. In a few years, I will retire and still have a pension. What about you?"

"The only thing waiting for you is to be laid off!"

The shadow of layoffs a while ago still loomed over these people's minds, but it has finally dissipated a little now. How could those people come here to poach Ningmeng? It is obvious that they are digging into their work and their foundation, so how could they tell others about Ningmeng's information?

They didn't know Ning Meng's identity, but they knew her contact address.

Is there any difference between knowing the address and finding Ning Meng herself? It's just a matter of time.

As a result, these old employees were on high alert, and would treat the slightest sign of trouble as a threat, suspecting that the event was an undercover agent sent by a rival magazine.

It’s no wonder they were suspicious. Their magazine had been undercover many times before and was almost robbed.

For this purpose, Director Li held a special meeting with old employees: "We are not limited to defense, we can also attack, right? Now only we know the information about Ningmeng, but this does not prevent us from releasing some true and false news, such as Ningmeng's identity and Ningmeng's job." He paused and took a sip of tea. "Didn't many readers write to analyze what Ningmeng's real job is? I think the readers have made very good analyses, with sharp eyes and golden vision!"

"Ning Meng, he is actually a public security officer in a government agency. Doesn't that make sense?"

Although the old employees don’t know Ning Meng’s specific identity, since the director said so, it must make sense.

Soon, the news that the author of "The Great Song Dynasty" was actually a police officer in a certain city within a government agency spread from Guangshi.