Chapter 177 Earn Money Again
In June in Yanjing, the weather gradually became hotter.
Lin Weimin received a letter from Lu Yao, in which he talked about his recent move to a new home.
In the past few years, he had been living in a small bungalow provided by the Literary Association for his family of three. Until recently, because of his achievements in writing, or more precisely, because of the nationwide popularity of "Life", the Literary Association allocated him a two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment of more than 50 square meters.
In this era, there is no such thing as public corruption in the houses allocated by work units. These 50 to 60 square meters are real areas, equivalent to high-rise houses of more than 80 square meters in later generations. It is no problem for Lu Yao and his family to live in them. People nowadays are not as pretentious as those in later generations.
Lu Yao mentioned in the letter that the biggest benefit of having a new two-bedroom, one-living-room home was that he finally had a study room of his own.
He set up a single bed in his study and would rest in the study after reading or writing late at night.
Lin Weimin nodded repeatedly when he saw this. Comrade Lu Yao had made progress, and he was also happy for the improvement of Lu Yao's living conditions.
In addition, Lu Yao also mentioned that director Wu Tianming, who had invited him and Lin Weimin to dinner when they were in Yanjing before, recently found him and hoped to adapt "Life".
Wu Tianming represented the Xi'an Film Studio, and they were from the same hometown, so Lu Yao was somewhat tempted.
But what bothered him was that the Shanghai Film Studio had been in close contact with him recently, offering very high conditions. He was to personally lead the adaptation of the film script, and the royalties were extremely generous.
After understanding Lu Yao's dilemma in the letter, Lin Weimin picked up his pen and wrote him a reply.
In his impression, the movie "Life" was invested and filmed by Xi'an Film Studio, the director was Wu Tianming, and the screenwriter was Lu Yao himself. The two cooperated seamlessly and became excellent friends.
The quality of "Life" was also very high. It won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Feature Film together with "The Garland under the Mountain" which was released that year. Wu Tianming, who was originally unknown, became famous because of this play.
Lin Weimin remembered that he had seen an interview before he traveled through time. When Wu Tianming was filming "Life", a person in charge of the provincial Ministry of Rites asked Wu Tianming if he would like to be the deputy director of an art factory.
Wu Tianming joked that if he wanted to be a deputy, he would rather be the top leader.
As a result, just when the filming of "Life" was about to end, a transfer order came down from above, and Wu Tianming directly became the director of Xi'an Film Studio.
It is precisely because Xi'an Film Studio had Wu Tianming as its director that it was able to train many famous talents for the domestic film industry in the following years, such as Zhang Yimou, a member of the 1978 class of Yanying.
Knowing this information in advance, Lin Weimin naturally advised Lu Yao not to focus on the immediate benefits and hand over the adaptation rights of "Life" to Shanghai Film Studio.
He knew that Lu Yao was a person who regarded money as dirt, and he cared about the royalties just to make a living.
After replying to Lu Yao, Lin Weimin continued to work.
It was not until the end of the get off work day that Lin Weimin left the office with a package of letters from readers.
After returning home and sorting out the letters from readers and putting them on the bookshelf, Lin Weimin heard some noise in the yard.
He walked out and saw Qu Xiaowei and his wife.
The two men came with nothing in their hands, and it was obvious that they were here to eat for free.
"I say, can't you two open a kitchen? You keep getting freeloaders from other people all day long. Even Zheng State is not as good at it as you."
Qu Xiaowei and Liu Haiyan have been married for almost a month. They first accompanied their relatives in Yanjing for a few days, then went to Shanghai for a week, and then went back to their relatives' home in Nanjing for another week. They just returned to Yanjing these two days.
If this happened in later times, it would basically be equivalent to a trip to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
"It will be done soon, it will be done soon, everything will be ready soon." Qu Xiaowei said.
Lin Weimin was too lazy to listen to his nonsense and shouted into the house: "Zhuangzhuang, cook!"
"Here I come, uncle!"
Han Zhuangzhuang came out of the house holding a book, looking serious.
Qu Xiaowei joked: "Oh, my nephew is getting more and more serious now!"
Han Zhuangzhuang put down the book and gave Qu Xiaowei a silly smile.
Lin Weimin mocked, "Do you think everyone is like you? You are ignorant and incompetent all day long."
Qu Xiaowei was not angry. He took the opportunity when Han Zhuangzhuang went to the kitchen to cook to grab Lin Weimin.
"Weimin, get me some tickets for the premiere of Farewell My Concubine!"
"Want to get a free pass again?"
"I won't do it for free this time. Give me some money and get me some tickets for Farewell My Concubine."
Lin Weimin broke free from Qu Xiaowei's hand and said, "I really can't do this."
The People's Art Theatre's "Farewell My Concubine" has been in preparation for nearly a year and is scheduled to be performed later this month.
As soon as the performance information of this play was released, it immediately attracted widespread attention and heated discussion among the media, critics and drama lovers in Yenching.
Since "Farewell My Concubine" was published in "People's Literature" in April last year, and the single volume was published in September, the cumulative sales of the publication and book have reached nearly three million copies, and the impact it has caused among readers across the country is unprecedented.
The only one that can be compared with it is "Life", which emerged as a dark horse in the second half of the year.
Now that "Farewell My Concubine" is going to be adapted into a drama, all readers who have watched it are naturally very interested in it.
What is a pity is that information is blocked these days and the influence of drama is very limited. This kind of attention and heated discussion is now limited to the surrounding areas of Yanjing.
But even the impact it caused only in Yanjing was enough to make "Farewell My Concubine" come alive before it was even performed.
There were almost no ordinary audience members available for the first performance. All the celebrities in the cultural circle and media reporters, as well as all the famous cultural figures in Yanjing City, became the audience for the premiere of "Farewell My Concubine".
In this situation, being a member of the premiere audience of "Farewell My Concubine" seems to have become a symbol of status.
We work in the same unit and when we chatted, you found out that others were invited to watch "Farewell My Concubine", but you had to stay at home that night. It would be embarrassing to tell anyone about it. Your status in the industry is not good!
Even if you really didn't receive an invitation, you have to get a ticket by force!
This has directly resulted in tickets for the premiere of "Farewell My Concubine" being in great demand, and even the dean, Yi Shizhi, is now afraid to agree to give away tickets.
"Don't worry. I've already promised Haiyan, you can't let me go back on my word, right?" Qu Xiaowei pleaded.
Lin Weimin glanced at Liu Haiyan standing next to him and said helplessly: "We really can't arrange the premiere. Let's arrange another one for you."
Having said that, Qu Xiaowei knew that Lin Weimin really couldn't get tickets for the premiere, so he could only agree to settle for the next best thing.
"Okay then. I'll trouble you this time."
"Don't say that."
The next day, Lin Weimin was called to Yan Wenjing's office while at work.
“After we finished talking that day, I had a thorough communication with my colleagues in the WS department and Random House.
What they meant was that the price was set low simply because it was a Chinese novel and publishing it in the United States was a risky attempt for them, so Random House took the risk.
After our persistent argument, Random House agreed to increase the royalties to $15,000 and the first print run to 30,000 copies.
I talked to colleagues in the WS department and learned that the book pricing mechanism in the United States is similar to ours. The only difference is probably the labor cost paid to the authors.
Our country now implements a royalty system, which is a basic royalty plus a royalty based on the number of copies printed. However, American publishers pay royalties directly to authors, and the royalties of famous writers can basically account for 10% to 15% of sales revenue.
But this refers to famous and established writers. They can even lower the lowest royalty for new writers to 3%. Normally, this amount is between 5% and 10%.
We calculated that a book in the United States costs about 10 million US dollars. The total sales revenue of the first print run of 30,000 copies is 300,000 US dollars. 15,000 US dollars is exactly equivalent to the 5% royalty paid to you.
This price is relatively reasonable.”
As soon as Lin Weimin walked in and sat down, Yan Wenjing started talking like a machine gun. It was probably because he had been talking about this matter to Random House a lot in the past few days.
The manuscript fee jumped directly from 5,000 US dollars to 15,000 US dollars. Lin Weimin was quite satisfied with this price, and he also understood that Random House's considerations made sense.
A novel written by an author from the far east, China, whose name no one has ever heard of, with a time period unfamiliar to local readers, would be a risk if the first print run was 30,000 copies, and there was a high chance that all the money would be lost.
He was not famous in the United States, and he did not expect others to treat him like a celebrity right away.
All he was looking for was respect. Even though he didn't want to admit it, sometimes price represented respect.
“I have no objection to this price…”
Yan Wenjing was about to breathe a sigh of relief after hearing Lin Weimin's answer when he heard him say, "However, if we need to print more in the future, have we negotiated the price?"
Yan Wenjing looked at Lin Weimin with a wry smile, "You, you never suffer any loss."
He continued, "We have also discussed this issue. Random House's opinion is that if you want to reprint it later, they are willing to increase your current royalties by 20%."
Lin Weimin muttered, "These old Americans are so cunning and shrewd. They won't suffer any loss at all."
If there is a real need to reprint copies later, it proves that "Farewell My Concubine" has made money for Michelle Obama, and naturally people don't want to share the royalties with him. A symbolic increase in the price of the manuscript fee can be considered an expression of sincerity.
But this statement was ambiguous, and he needed to ask for clarification.
"What does this 20% increase mean? Is it based on the fee for each word, or just based on the fee for this time?"
Yan Wenjing said unhappily, "Of course it will be increased based on the royalty per word. Do you take me for a fool? If he prints one million copies, he will increase your royalty by 3,000 dollars?"
Lin Weimin had never thought that "Farewell My Concubine" would be so popular in the U.S. book market and top the bestseller list. He asked this question purely just in case.
Increasing the manuscript fee by 20% per word is equivalent to a 6% royalty price, which is quite sincere.
He smiled apologetically and said, "Don't be angry, leader. I was just asking casually. I knew you were here, so this must be right. It has to be you!"
As he spoke, he did not forget to give Yan Wenjing a thumbs up, with a flattering look on his face.
Yan Wenjing completely lost his temper at his playful appearance.
This Monkey King!
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(End of this chapter)
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