Chapter 668 Why?
"Wasted City", written by Jia Pingwa.
Just looking at these few words, anyone who makes a living from literature or who loves literature would not associate this novel or the author's name with the word "best-selling".
But such a pure literary work written by an author who seemed to be insulated from "best-selling" swept the Chinese literary world and book market in just half a month. Its crazy and rapid development was no less than that of "Spirited Away" more than two months ago.
200,000 books in five days, 500,000 books in half a month, 1 million books in a month...
"Wasteland" is selling like crazy!
With sales of one million copies in a single month, before "Spirited Away" and "Wasted City", there had never been such an enchanting work in the Chinese publishing industry and contemporary literary circles.
Who would have thought that two films would appear at once in the early spring of 1993.
"Spirited Away" is after all the work of Lin Weimin. Over the years, Lin Weimin has conquered countless Chinese readers with his talent and strength. All of his novels have sold less than 1 million copies after publication, and there are two or three with sales of more than 5 million copies.
The explosion of "Spirited Away" is due to the word-of-mouth accumulated by Lin Weimin over the years and the natural communication advantage of children's literature.
But Wasted City...
Why does it do that?
Looking back on Jia Pingwa's creative career, he published his first work at the age of 21, and published his first collection of novellas, "Soldier Baby", at the age of 25 (the previous statement that he published his first book at the age of 23 was incorrect, as the author was not good at math and did not understand subtraction clearly). He can be said to have achieved success at a young age.
During these years, he has published 14 collections of novellas and 3 novels, which can be said to be a prolific output.
It can be said that Jia Pingwa is a well-known writer with his own status in the contemporary literary world.
But looking back at his previous works, let alone sales of over a million copies in a single month, he has never even sold over 100,000 copies.
"Wasted City" was selected for the Buhuhu series of books. With the powerful publicity campaign of Guowen Publishing House, it created a sales miracle of one million copies in just one month, making many literary colleagues envious and jealous.
The payment standards for the Cloth Tiger series are clearly stated in the Literary Story Newspaper.
For copies less than 150,000, RMB 150 per thousand words will be paid; for copies exceeding 150,000, a 10% royalty will be paid.
What is the concept?
There are 1 million copies of "Wasted City", and the novel is priced at 6 yuan, which means that Jia Pingwa can get at least 600,000 yuan in royalties.
What’s even scarier is that this is only the first month!
Considering the rapid growth of Wasted City now, I'm afraid even three or five million copies won't be able to stop it?
Doesn’t that mean that Shaanxi’s literary world is about to produce another pure literature writer who will become a millionaire from his writings?
Some superstitious colleagues couldn't help but murmur in their hearts that the feng shui of Shaanxi really does have some meaning, otherwise there wouldn't be so many emperors buried there.
Of course, along with the crazy sales of "Wasted City", there followed the polarization of the novel's reputation. Well, to be more precise, the negative pole overwhelmed the positive pole.
What is the most attractive point of "Wasteland"? To put it bluntly, it is X.
"Delete XX words here", "Omit XX words here", these should be the indelible memories for many readers who were familiar with literary works in the 1990s.
How many young men forced themselves to finish reading this novel?
In the overall conservative atmosphere, the launch of Wasted City, coupled with the overwhelming publicity of the Ragdoll series of books, was like a grand carnival, allowing these readers to burst out with unprecedented power in the 1990s when people were terrified of X.
But for "Wasted City", readers' crazy pursuit with "ulterior motives" is undoubtedly a double-edged sword.
In contrast to the crazy sales, the novel was subjected to overwhelming criticism and suppression from mainstream media and public opinion.
The description of X in "Wasted City" is much more exaggerated than that in "The Lover", so the wave of negative comments that Jia Pingwa has to face is much greater than what Lin Weimin had to face back then.
A month has passed since Wasted City was released, and the criticism has been coming like waves, rising one after another, with seemingly no end.
Jia Pingwa himself remains calm about these critical voices, because the criticisms are limited to the level of the work and have not risen to the level of the writer himself.
Unfortunately, his happiness only lasted for two days, as some newspapers began to name and call him a "rogue writer", which made Jia Pingwa feel very uneasy.
You should know that before "Wasted City", Jia Pingwa had written a series of novels about Shangzhou, such as "Shangzhou" and "Mountain Moon". The simple folk customs and kind human nature he endowed his works with made him once known as "the purest writer in the literary world".
It only took one month to go from "pure" to "rogue", and only by publishing a novel.
The overly strong contrast between the before and after finally made Jia Pingwa's originally relatively peaceful state of mind depressed.
In fact, it was not only Jia Pingwa, the author of "Wasted City", but also Guowen Publishing House that received strong criticism from the outside world during this period.
The promotion of the Buhuhu series of books was huge, and the sales of "Wasted City" which was finally released after much anticipation was very impressive. Naturally, it became the focus of attention in the domestic cultural, literary and even publishing circles.
When some writers and critics criticized Jia Pingwa, they also mentioned the Guowen Publishing House.
Some people believe that Guowen Publishing House is trying to increase sales and attract attention, and some even call the Buhuhu series the "SQ series".
Such radical criticisms were of course in the minority and were quickly refuted.
The reason is very simple. The first three works in the Buhuhu series are "Wasted City", "The World of Bitterness" and "The Season of Flowers and Rains".
"Wasted City" tells the story of a fictional city, the emotional entanglement between Zhuang Zhidie, a cultural celebrity in Xijing, and three women, mixed with all kinds of shit in the cultural world.
Many people only saw the X in it, but failed to see Jia Pingwa's criticism of the cultural circle and literati. Among those who support Jia Pingwa and "Wasted City", some people call this novel "the contemporary "Jin Ping Mei"". This evaluation is naturally exaggerated, but it also indirectly reflects that the connotation of "Wasted City" is definitely not just X.
The story of "The World of Suffering" tells the story of a Chinese doctor who was sent abroad to help and became a bizarre killer because of a plane hijacking accident.
The whole work is very popular. African customs, vast nature, terrorist organizations, mercenaries, killers, all kinds of exciting elements come together, making "The World of Suffering" very readable.
"The Season of Flowers and Rain" tells the story of the youth growth of boys and girls, with a fresh and natural style.
Three novels, three completely different styles, fully demonstrate the diversity of the book selection in the Buhuhu series and also show the colorful contemporary literature.
Not to mention the criticisms that arose because of Wasted City, the open and inclusive attitude of the Buhuhu series has won praise from many people in the literary world.
Moreover, many people criticized that the sales of "Wasteland" were entirely dependent on X, and some people also questioned this.
Because "The World of Suffering" and "The Season of Flower and Rain", which were published at the same time, also achieved impressive sales.
300,000 and 500,000 copies are the sales volume of "The World of Suffering" and "The Season of Flowers and Rains" respectively within one month.
There shouldn't be any X descriptions in these two novels, right? Hong Feng is at least somewhat famous, but Yuxiu is a pure new writer and she's still just a student.
How do you explain the fact that a work sold 300,000 or 500,000 copies without any accumulated works or fame?
Without a doubt, the only explanation is that it is nice to sit under a big tree and enjoy the shade.
Thanks to the heavy investment in publicity by Guowen Publishing House and the powerful distribution channels, the sales of the three novels soared together.
In later generations, Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House spent a lot of money to plan and promote the Cloth Tiger series, which attracted the attention and pursuit of countless readers. In order to recover the cost, the price of each volume of the series was as high as 9.6 yuan. This was 9.6 yuan in 1993 and 1994. Even so, there were still hundreds of thousands or millions of readers who paid for it.
Guowen Publishing House would not do such a thing as draining the pond to catch fish. The price of a single novel is only 6 yuan, which is slightly higher than the market price just to cover the huge publicity costs.
In just one month, the cumulative sales of the three novels have reached 1.8 million copies, with a total sales value of 10.8 million yuan.
The first edition of the Bu Lao Hu series resounded throughout the Chinese literary world and also brought huge attention and benefits to the Guowen Publishing House.
The initial investment of more than 5 million yuan, including royalties, publicity, and printing, was recovered within just one month. In the following days, every additional copy of the Cloth Tiger series sold meant 80 cents entering the profit and loss statement of Guowen Publishing House.
This is a gold mine!
Judging from the potential shown by the first batch of works in the Ragdoll series, even if the subsequent works perform poorly, this will definitely be a series of books that sells tens of millions of copies!
With tens of millions of dollars in profits from a set of books, domestic publishing colleagues are drooling with envy.
Even more greedy than domestic publishing houses are domestic writers.
Even though some people criticize Jia Pingwa more harshly than anyone else, there are few people who do not envy Jia Pingwa.
With an income of 600,000 yuan a month, it would be easy to earn millions in the next few years.
Who wouldn’t be envious?
Not to mention Jia Pingwa, even Hong Feng and Yuxiu are enough for them to envy, two or three hundred thousand a month!
Therefore, although public opinion has been up and down in the month since the release of the Rag Tiger series of books, it has not affected the editorial team's acceptance of manuscripts.
That’s not right. To be more precise, the impact is huge.
Originally, the Buhuhu series editorial team should have focused on finishing the second batch of manuscripts this month, but due to the popularity of several works such as "Wasted City", they were unable to make it.
Within just half a month, manuscripts from all over the country flew to the editorial team like snowflakes.
461 pieces!
This is the number of manuscripts that the editorial team of the Ragdoll Series has backlogged now.
I'm too busy. I'm simply too busy.
During this month, the editorial team of twelve editors, both old and young, worked day and night to review manuscripts for 118 novels.
This group of people had just finished reviewing the backlog of manuscripts from last month, and when they turned around and looked at the mountains of new manuscripts, they couldn't help but fall into despair.
"Leader, please add more people! If you don't, someone will die!" Gao Xianjun pleaded with Lin Weimin.
This is not only the voice of the editors in the editorial group, but also the voice of Gao Xianjun. After all, he is the deputy team leader of the editorial group and cannot escape the responsibility of reviewing manuscripts. If he continues like this, he is really afraid that he will die suddenly one day, or that an old comrade in the editorial group will pass away.
Faced with the calls from the masses, Lin Weimin was a bit embarrassed. He certainly understood the difficulties faced by the editorial team, but the problem was that the Bu Lao Hu series now had twelve editors, a size even larger than many editorial offices. If he transferred more people in, it would affect the work of other editorial offices.
Lin Weimin sighed helplessly, "Let's do a secondment!"
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
