Chapter 662: Something Inside
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, firecrackers were set off until two o'clock last night in the middle of the night, and they continued from four o'clock this morning. It is rumored that starting this year, fireworks will be banned in Yanjing.
The people seemed to want to take this opportunity to have one last carnival.
After the family members greeted each other early in the morning, Lin Weimin and Tao Huimin picked up the small bean buns and prepared to go out to pay New Year's greetings.
The car was covered with paper scraps. After cleaning them up, Lin Weimin started the car. Because of the long period of setting off firecrackers, the weather that should have been bright became foggy, and the smell of saltpeter and sulfur in the air became more pungent.
So, the ban is not unreasonable.
The car drove to the high-rise building in Muxidi, and the family of three went upstairs. It was Wan Fang who opened the door.
Mr. Wan's family is also prosperous this year. Both daughters and their families have come, only the eldest daughter and the youngest daughter are far away abroad.
Mr. Wan has been in poor health in the past two years and wants to spend the New Year with his family.
Lin Weimin and his family were warmly welcomed by Mr. Wan's family. Except for Wan Fang's family who were more familiar with Lin Weimin, Wan Rao's family were very curious about Lin Weimin.
Of course they knew that Lin Weimin was their father's student, but they seldom met him. Moreover, Lin Weimin's reputation in the country is now at its peak, and he is likely to be better than his teacher, but he is younger than them sisters.
Tao Huimin was holding Xiao Doubao and chatting with several female comrades, while Lin Weimin was sitting on the sofa and chatting with Mr. Wan. There were also two sons-in-law next to them, but they didn't talk much. Most of the time, they were listening to Mr. Wan and Lin Weimin chatting.
"The 'Rag Tiger Series' you published at the Guowen Publishing House has become quite popular. Even some of my old comrades are asking about it," Mr. Wan said with a smile.
"We pay such a high standard of remuneration for advertising purposes. Your words prove that we are successful."
“Have many people contacted you?”
"A lot, more than you can imagine." Lin Weimin paused and said, "Writers have had a hard time in the past two years. Some of them even have difficulty publishing their works. The remuneration standard for the Buhuhu series is unique in China, and the requirements are not high. Many people want to give it a try, and it doesn't matter if they fail."
When he said this, a mischievous smile appeared on his face. "Many people asked us to keep it a secret and not let anyone know about his application, as they were afraid that he would be embarrassed if he was not selected."
Hearing this, Mr. Wan and his two sons-in-law all smiled.
Those who can contact Guowen Publishing House to make such a request must be well-known domestic writers, and it is normal for them to have such concerns.
"Can I ask around and see who I know?"
Mr. Wan suddenly revealed a mischievous look and asked Lin Weimin.
Lin Weimin hesitated for a moment and said, "You put me in a difficult position now."
"Isn't it even allowed for me to ask?" Mr. Wan pretended to be unhappy.
“It’s not impossible.”
Lin Weimin glanced at his two sons-in-law. Mr. Wan looked at them, and they tactfully got up and walked away.
Only then did Lin Weimin feel at ease and sit down next to Mr. Wan and mutter to himself. Mr. Wan's face jumped from time to time as he listened to Lin Weimin's words.
“And him too!”
"Why is he joining in the fun?"
"I really didn't realize that this person is also short of money?"
…
The teacher and the student gossiped for a long time, and Mr. Wan finally satisfied his gossiping desire and was content.
After sitting in Mr. Wan's house for nearly an hour, Lin Weimin and his family of three came out and ran to Shi Tiesheng's house.
The new home on Jintai Road is a little more remote than before, but it is in a new building and very convenient to live in.
It is not allowed to set off firecrackers in several buildings near Muxidi, but it is not allowed in Jintai Road. Firecrackers were set off for most of the night last night. Neither Shi Tiesheng nor his father slept well. When they met, they both looked haggard.
Lin Weimin was busy with work and hadn't met Shi Tiesheng for a while. They chatted for a long time. After lunch, Lin Weimin saw that he looked not well, so he pushed him into the bedroom.
There is a very large bed in Shi Tiesheng's bedroom. It is different from the beds in ordinary people's homes. It is a raise and lower bed, which is very common in hospitals. The bed rails are painted white.
"I didn't sleep well last night. Let's have a rest after dinner. Huimin and I will leave first. We will see when we are free and get together later."
Lin Weimin carried Shi Tiesheng to the bed and said to him.
"good."
After leaving Shi Tiesheng's house, Lin Weimin and his family of three returned home.
Now that I have a child, I can’t greet New Year’s friends as casually as before. Most old friends can just call to say hello, and everyone understands that.
Two days later, the Spring Festival holiday ended and Lin Weimin resumed his normal work rhythm.
After work, he first went to Tongwen Society.
After two years of development, Tongwenshe has made great progress in both personnel and efficiency.
There are still two editorial offices, except for the "Jiuzhou Heroes" editorial department which maintains its unchanged organization. The original martial arts literature editorial office has expanded into the popular literature editorial office. The number of editors has increased from four to eight, and the editorial department is divided into several editorial groups according to literary genres such as martial arts, romance, officialdom, etc.
Throughout last year, Lin Weimin devoted less and less energy to Tongwen Publishing House, and delegated the power of the publishing house to Li Xin, the vice president who was in charge of the work.
During this year, the sales of "Jiuzhou Heroes" have been steadily increasing, with sales of each issue stabilizing at between 4.2 million and 4.5 million copies. It has firmly established itself as the number one domestic martial arts magazine and is also the second-best magazine in the field of popular literature. Its only competitor is "Story Club".
In terms of book publishing and distribution, in addition to the works of several famous Hong Kong martial arts writers such as Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, Huang Ying, and Huang Yi that have already been published, last year Tongwen Press also introduced some works of Gu Long and Wolongsheng, two famous Taiwanese martial arts writers.
In addition, in the field of romantic literature, Tongwen Publishing House has also introduced works by several writers such as Yi Shu and Xi Juan, with good sales. It has published 12 books with cumulative sales of 3.2 million copies.
As for criminal investigation and officialdom literature, the works are mainly composed of domestic writers. Nine books have been published with cumulative sales of 2.1 million copies.
Combined with the sales of existing martial arts literature works, Tongwenshe's cumulative book sales reached 23.5 million copies last year. Taking into account the total sales of 42 million copies of "Jiuzhou Heroes" throughout the year, Tongwenshe's total annual sales reached 190 million yuan, which has surpassed its big brother Guowenshe.
Last year, the total sales of Guowen Publishing House was only 180 million yuan. It was really embarrassing to be surpassed by a younger brother who had just been established for two years.
From this it is not difficult to see that pure literature is now in an awkward situation facing popular literature.
Apart from my fame, there's really nothing else I can boast of.
Of course, things like code value are just illusions.
Compared with the fixed audience of pure literature, popular literature is more dependent on the distribution capabilities of channels. In order to quickly open up the market, Tongwenshe is particularly generous to booksellers, so booksellers can get bigger discounts.
Tongwen Press's actual total revenue for the year was around 110 million yuan. The royalties and royalties alone amounted to 16 million yuan. Add to that the largest expenses of printing, binding and publicity, and the net profit for the whole year barely reached 13 million yuan.
Among the royalties and fees paid to writers, Jin Yong alone received nearly 3 million yuan.
In addition to Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, Huang Ying, Huang Yi and others also earned incomes ranging from millions to hundreds of thousands. For these Hong Kong martial arts writers, this is also a considerable income.
Other new writers I collaborated with last year received royalties ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands of yuan.
It is worth mentioning that the martial arts novel "The World's Number One" written by Lin Weimin under the pseudonym Xiao Zuanfeng was published and distributed last year. The cumulative sales of the two volumes reached 4.6 million copies, bringing Lin Weimin more than 2 million in royalties.
One cannot help but sigh once again at the money-making ability of popular literature.
Tongwen Press has inherited the fine tradition of Guowen Press in terms of payment of manuscript fees and royalties, and has never defaulted on payments. It has gradually gained a good reputation among popular literature writers in both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong and Macao, and no longer needs to worry about the source of manuscripts.
The first meeting of the year was chaired by Lin Weimin. Li Xin was responsible for reporting on the achievements of the previous year, which had already been reported at the end of the year. Today, his main report was on the work direction of Tongwen Press in the coming year.
In addition to exploring the potential of several major types of literature and opening up new types of literature markets, Li Xin proposed the idea of founding a romance literature magazine.
After hearing his thoughts, Lin Weimin couldn't help but fall into deep thought. The domestic romance literature in the 1990s reached its peak right from the start, especially the introduction of Qiong Yao's TV series, which further boosted the popularity of romance literature.
Including Liang Fengyi's financial romance literature, there is also a huge market.
After thinking for a while, Lin Weimin thought that romantic literature magazines were indeed promising, and readily agreed with Li Xin's idea. He praised him, "Your idea is very good. You should be willing to spend money on the establishment of the magazine and strive to make our name famous in one go."
"Then President, look at the title of this magazine..."
The naming of publications is the power of the head of the unit, and Li Xin dare not overstep his authority.
Lin Weimin pondered for a moment, "Wang Wei's poem says: Red beans grow in the south, and spring comes with a few branches. I hope you will pick more, as this is the most nostalgic thing. Wen Tingyun also has a poem: The exquisite dice are filled with red beans, and I miss you deeply. I think it's better to call it "Red Beans"!"
"Red Bean?" Li Xin repeated, his eyes sparkling. "What a good name!"
Lin Weimin nodded with satisfaction. Well, this vice president has some interesting features.
Li Xin added, "President, there is one more thing. Last year, our publishing house set new records in terms of the types and catalogs of books it published. We are also launching a new romance magazine, and the workload for content review is increasing. Do you think we should add a deputy editor-in-chief position?"
Last year, Lin Weimin focused most of his energy on the Guowen Publishing House. Tongwen Publishing House is not only responsible for administrative affairs, but also for content review, which is shared by him and Li Xin. As more and more affairs need to be handled, Li Xin is somewhat overwhelmed.
Lin Weimin said: "We are missing such a person. Let's do this..."
He looked at Li Xuegang and said, "Xuegang, you can be the deputy editor-in-chief. Yu Hua will be transferred to the popular literature editorial department as the director. We will conduct an internal investigation on the director of Jiuzhou Heroes and see which comrade is up to the task."
If Lin Weimin dared to have the final say in personnel changes at Guowen Publishing House, without Cheng Zaochun's intervention, the vice presidents and deputy editors-in-chief would have rebelled.
But it was he who founded Tongwen Society. In this small piece of land, Lin Weimin really has the final say.
But he thought about it again and said, "Let's make another report to the publishing house, saying that Tongwen Publishing House is short of staff and needs a deputy director for the popular literature editorial department."
Li Xin immediately understood what he meant. Any personnel changes usually involve moving one person, or a group of people. Now all the positions have been taken up within Tongwen Society. If the society knew about it, there would definitely be objections.
Lin Weimin offered him a deputy director position, which could be considered as an explanation to the publishing house. The work of an editor has professional barriers, and not everyone can get started immediately. Giving him the position of deputy director is just right.
Without mentioning Li Xin's thoughts, Li Xuegang and Yu Hua, who had been promoted, were extremely excited. Before the meeting was over, they started arranging a dinner.
Looking at Yu Hua jumping up and down, Lin Weimin couldn't help but shake his head.
A dog’s stomach can’t hold two ounces of sesame oil!
(End of this chapter)
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