Chapter 600: A Sample
After September, the weather in Yanjing became cooler and cooler, and the coolness in the mornings and evenings made people feel happy.
Autumn is coming, which is the most charming season in Yanjing.
After the hot summer, the hours of being stuck in the office every day are not so unbearable anymore.
Lin Weimin stacked the reviewed manuscripts neatly in a corner of his desk. This batch of manuscripts were all set to be printed and published in October, including those to be published not only by Guowen Publishing House, but also by Tongwen Publishing House.
He came to Tongwen Publishing House with the manuscript in his hand. The publishing house now has eight editors, divided into two editorial offices, one is the martial arts literature editorial office, the other is the "Nine Provinces Heroes" editorial department. They share a common office, which is a bit crowded. The several pots of green ivy in the office are particularly eye-catching.
No matter how crowded the office is, there must be green ivy.
The second issue of "Heroes of Kyushu" has been on the market for nearly a month, and its circulation has exceeded 1.6 million.
The circulation of a publication is not the same as sales. It means that the goods have been received but not sold yet. At least, no bookstore has reported that the publication is not selling well, so it only takes one month for these circulations to be converted into sales.
Yu Hua and his colleagues have been busy with the third issue of the publication these days. It has been sent to the printing factory today, so the editorial department can relax for a few days.
The sales volume has exceeded one million copies for two consecutive issues, and the sales volume has increased significantly. According to this trend, breaking the sales volume of 2 million copies will only take one or two issues.
So after communicating with Lin Weimin, Yu Hua set the first print run of the third issue of "Nine Provinces Heroes" at 1.5 million copies.
That’s quite a big step!
Seeing Lin Weimin coming, Yu Hua, who was chatting with his editor, stood up and took out a pile of letters without waiting for Lin Weimin to speak.
"Teacher Lin, take a look. These are the letters that readers have written to 'Xiao Zuan Feng' during this period. After publishing two issues of 'Number One Under Heaven', it is becoming more and more popular."
Lin Weimin took the letter and read it. "It's a good thing for readers to write letters. I will pass these letters to 'Xiao Zuanfeng' later."
He then asked Yu Hua, "Did you forget the advertisement for Huang Ying's collection of works?"
"How could I forget such a big thing?" Yu Hua said with a smile.
Tongwen Publishing House obtained the publishing rights for the works of several famous Hong Kong martial arts writers, and Lin Weimin arranged the publication sequence of the collections of works by Huang Ying and Liang Yusheng at the front.
Liang Yusheng's works, like Jin Yong's, will be published as a set of books in the form of a collection of his works, and the work is currently more than halfway completed.
Huang Ying's works are slightly different from previous ones. His works are mostly in the form of series, so Tongwen Press also proofreads and publishes them in the form of series.
In more than a month, the editorial office completed the editing and review work of the "Chen Shengyi" series and the "Tian Can Bian" series. These two series are the most well-known works among all Huang Ying's works. At the same time, the "Chen Shengyi" series is also the series with the most content among all Huang Ying's works, almost accounting for more than one-third of the number of words in all his works.
After completing these two series, the editing progress of Huang Ying's works has almost reached halfway.
Book publishing and distribution also has to have a rhythm. Tongwen Publishing House cannot wait until all the works of the two writers are edited and reviewed before publishing them together. The "Chen Shengyi" series and "Tian Can Bian" series have 34 volumes, with a word count of approximately 7.5 million words, and will be published in October.
With a brother book "Jiuzhou Heroes" that has sold millions of copies, one is a martial arts novel and the other is a martial arts novel magazine, it would be a shame not to do a wave of marketing advertising.
"Xue Gang, what do you think is the appropriate number of copies for the first print of Huang Ying's series of works?"
The novel will be published in more than half a month and the subscription work has just begun. Lin Weimin asked Li Xuegang just to discuss it with him.
Li Xuegang thought for a moment and said, "Huang Ying is not well-known in the mainland. Among his works, only Heavenly Silkworm Change has a certain audience in the mainland because of its TV adaptation. I think a first print run of 30,000 copies will be enough. Of course, this also depends on the subscription volume over a period of time. If the subscription volume is high, we can raise the expectation a little bit."
“Well, this number should be about the same.”
"Teacher Lin!" Li Xuegang suddenly called Lin Weimin.
"What's wrong?"
"After Xiao Zuanfeng's "Number One Under Heaven" is published, it will have 150,000 words. It is enough to publish a single volume. What do you think..."
Lin Weimin was a little surprised by Li Xuegang's initiative. He thought for a moment and said, "Let's wait a bit. There's no rush. The influence of 'Number One Under Heaven' is still not big enough."
Li Xuegang nodded, "Okay, let's wait a little longer."
In the afternoon, Lin Weimin received a call from Liang Fengyi in Hong Kong.
At the end of last year, Guowen Publishing House introduced her three works with a huge publicity. In more than half a year since the novels were published, the total sales of the three novels have exceeded 500,000 copies, and reviews have said that each novel has sold 160,000 to 170,000 copies. This number is quite outstanding among the books published by Guowen Publishing House every year.
So a few months ago, Guowen Publishing House introduced two works by Liang Fengyi. After more than two months on the market, the sales are still good.
Although Lin Weimin's novels can easily sell millions of copies in the mainland, except for the peak sales period of one or two years after the publication of his works, most of his works sell only hundreds of thousands of copies each year, and this is for a writer with top appeal like him.
If the writer has average appeal but his works are well received, normal annual sales of 200,000 copies will be blocked.
Even the works of many famous writers may not sell for more than six figures. The sales of works of quite a number of writers basically hover between 10,000 and 50,000 copies.
In addition, there are a large number of unknown works whose sales volume is in the range of several thousand copies. It cannot be said that publishers lose money by publishing these works, but it is also difficult to make money.
Therefore, it is not easy for Liang Fengyi's works to achieve sales of 160,000 to 170,000 copies per book in just over half a year.
With several of her works selling well in mainland China, the name of Hong Kong writer Liang Fengyi has become very famous in the mainland literary world.
She called Lin Weimin today and first told him the good news.
In the past two years, her works have been popular not only in mainland China but also in Hong Kong.
Liang Fengyi is a person with a very business-minded mind. She is not content to work for a publishing house, so she recently set up her own publishing house, named "Qin+Yuan". This name represents her attitude towards life and work.
Liang Fengyi's approach is not uncommon in the Hong Kong literary world. Many business-minded writers do the same.
For example, Jin Yong found that his martial arts novels could attract readers, so he founded Ming Pao. Wong Yuk-long built a comic empire in Hong Kong with his comics, and Huang Yi also established a publishing house to publish his own works.
Guowen Publishing House is the number one publishing house in the mainland literary world. If she could establish a good relationship with them, she might be able to get many conveniences. That's why Liang Fengyi specifically called Lin Weimin after the publishing house was established.
After congratulating her, Liang Fengyi started talking about business again, which was also the main purpose of her call this time.
Since the beginning of this year, she has created a series of works including "Flower Flag" and "Last Night's Long Wind", which have just been published and released in Hong Kong not long ago. This time she called Lin Weimin to actively recommend her works.
After hearing Liang Fengyi's words, Lin Weimin couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"Ms. Liang, our publishing house should have come to you, but I didn't expect you to come to me first. It was my mistake. There is no problem with the introduction of your works. I will arrange for someone to contact you immediately and strive to release them as soon as possible."
In the mainland, writers have played the role of spiritual mentors for the people for quite a long time.
But this is not the case in Hong Kong. There is no respect for "scholars" and "learned people" as in the mainland since ancient times, so the status of writers as a group has always been low.
Therefore, there are very few Hong Kong writers who create out of their love for literature.
Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that Hong Kong’s colonial government did not support the development of Chinese literature in the early years.
Therefore, if you want to make a living as a writer in Hong Kong, the first thing you should think about is not the ideological or literary quality of your work, but what ordinary people like to read.
Under such an atmosphere and influence, even those very few writers with literary ideals find it difficult to persevere.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Xu Jing became famous for his novel "Ghost Love", and his writing style was beautiful and moving. Later, he published "The Wind Whistles", which became all the rage. The year "The Wind Whistles" was published, it was praised by the domestic publishing industry as the "Xu Jing Year".
But after moving to Hong Kong, Xu Jing wasted several years and only wrote "Jianghu Xing", which readers considered vulgar.
In the 1960s, he completed the novel "Four Sisters", which simply became a popular novel.
There are many writers like Xu Jing whose styles have been changed by the commercialized city of Hong Kong. There is only one reason that prompted these people to make changes.
Forced to make a living!
Compared with these writers, Liang Fengyi, who had a clear positioning from the beginning, is undoubtedly a success. Coupled with her creative efficiency and business acumen, it is hard not to make a fortune.
Liang Fengyi's works are best-sellers in the mainland, and there have been previous collaborations. With the support of relevant departments behind the scenes, Guowen Publishing House naturally had no reason to reject Liang.
Guowen Publishing House is more willing to promote Liang Fengyi, a Hong Kong female writer. This is not only due to the relevant departments, but also because Liang Fengyi's popularity in the mainland will only benefit Guowen Publishing House, not harm it.
There are only a few publishing houses that are qualified to publish literary works from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Making Liang Fengyi famous is equivalent to setting an example for many Hong Kong and Taiwan writers with potential for cooperation.
In recent years, literary exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong have become increasingly close, with more authors and works from Hong Kong and Taiwan, which is also a good thing for the Guowen Publishing House.
After discussing the matter of continuing to publish books, Lin Weimin said, "Ms. Liang, as you know, your works have been welcomed by quite a lot of readers in the mainland in the past six months, and have made a great contribution to helping readers understand the local conditions and customs of Hong Kong. Everyone is very curious about you, a Hong Kong female writer. If you have time, would it be convenient for you to come to our mainland to hold a few book signing events? In addition, our Guowen Press would like to hold a seminar on your works."
Liang Fengyi was delighted to hear this. Whether it was a signing event or a seminar on her works, the purpose was to expand her popularity and influence in the mainland.
This kind of cooperation is a win-win situation for her, the publishing house and the distributor, so she agreed without hesitation.
"After National Day, I will take half a month to go to the mainland to cooperate with your work." Liang Fengyi said.
"Okay, that's settled then." Lin Weimin said.
(End of this chapter)
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