Chapter 691: Kill the People's Society
A few days later, Yu Hua came to Lin Weimin and asked Lin Weimin for his opinion on the novel.
"Want to hear me praise you?" Lin Weimin asked.
Yu Hua smiled shyly, and Lin Weimin said, "Your novel is very life-like and natural, and the artistic exaggeration is also very appropriate. It is neither lacking nor overstepping, but just right."
At this point, he concluded: "It's very well written. I think it can be included in the Ragdoll series of books."
Yu Hua looked surprised, "Are you kidding me?"
"What's the point of joking with you? Your novel is a good combination of literary and popular elements. It doesn't look out of place in the Rag Tiger series. Recently, some people have said that the style of the Rag Tiger series is too popular. I think your novel can set a benchmark."
Yu Hua was overjoyed by Lin Weimin's high evaluation.
The Ragdoll series of books has been launched for more than half a year and has become very famous. Almost every work has been enthusiastically sought after by the book market and readers, with sales of 200,000 to 300,000 copies per month.
His book "To Live" has been published for two years now, and the cumulative sales are only more than 400,000 copies, which is not as good as the sales of others in two months.
The later success of "To Live" was actually after it was adapted into a movie.
Thinking about how Jia Pingwa earned two million in less than half a year with "Wasteland", Yu Hua couldn't help but feel envious.
"By the way, Teacher Lin, Yimou bought the copyright of my film "To Live," said Yu Hua.
"I heard him say that during the first meal."
"Red Sorghum" won the Berlin Golden Bear Award, and "Qiu Ju: A Story of Red Sorghum" won the Venice Golden Lion Award. These are the three major European awards, and the only thing Zhang Yimou lacks is the Cannes Palme d'Or.
This year, Cheng Kaige won the first Palme d'Or in the history of the Chinese-language film industry for his film Farewell My Concubine. Although Zhang Yimou didn't say it, he was also very excited.
This time he adapted "To Live" in order to win the Cannes Palme d'Or.
In fact, Zhang Yimou was originally interested in another novella by Yu Hua, "The Mistake by the River", but after reading "To Live", he put "The Mistake by the River" aside.
"To Live" was adapted by Zhang Yimou, his son was born, and his new novel "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" was selected for the Ragdoll Series. Yu Hua feels that he seems to be taken care of by the god of luck a little too often recently, and he is so happy that he can't stop smiling.
While eating, Yu Hua talked about the recent situation of Tongwen Society.
Benefiting from the continuous expansion of the popular literature market, Tongwen Publishing House's book circulation has been steadily increasing this year, and the half-year book circulation has exceeded 15 million copies. Even if the inventory of some channels is removed, there will be no problem in breaking last year's book sales of 23.5 million copies by the end of the year.
In terms of publications, after two years of development, the sales of "Heroes of Nine Provinces" have gradually stabilized at between 4.5 million and 5 million copies. It seems that this should be the sales ceiling of domestic martial arts publications, unless there is another blockbuster work in the future.
The romance literature magazine "Hongdou", which was only founded in late July, has just published three issues. The third issue has just been released, and there is no sign of success yet. The sales of the first issue have reached 400,000 copies, and the sales of the second issue have increased significantly, exceeding 600,000 copies. It seems to have great potential.
"However, this year Tongwen Society can't compare with the society!" Yu Hua sighed while eating.
Since the beginning of this year, Guowen Publishing House has experienced a big boom in book distribution.
The first is "Spirited Away", which was published in January this year. It sold 500,000 copies in a week and exceeded one million copies in half a month. In just eight months, this children's literature work has sold more than 8 million copies. Even now, the momentum is still strong and the sales volume shows no sign of slowing down.
It seems that by the end of the year, this novel will have sold over 10 million copies, creating a historical record that will never be seen before and will probably never be surpassed.
The extraordinary achievement of "Spirited Away" not only broke the record of Guowen Publishing House since its establishment, but also broke the record of the Chinese publishing industry in history, which is unprecedented in history.
Even Lin Weimin, the original author, could not have anticipated such wild success after the novel was published.
Books selling tens of millions of copies a year is a rare achievement even in a big country like China, which happens only once every few decades. But what is amazing is that, right after "Spirited Away", Guowen Publishing House published another "Wasted City".
Although its level of evil has not yet reached the abnormal level of "Spirited Away", the achievement of 3.5 million copies sold in half a year can be said to be unrivaled under "Spirited Away". It seems to be another super bestseller with sales exceeding 10 million copies.
However, compared with the high sales and high reputation of "Spirited Away", the polarized reputation of "Wasteland" is too obvious.
These two works alone have generated book sales of 11.5 million copies for Guowen Publishing House in the past six months. Not to mention the sales of the two books combined, even the sales of any one book would easily beat those of many publishing houses in the market.
The sales of other books in the Ragdoll series are also good, with sales of almost every book ranging from millions to hundreds of thousands.
Among the new books published by Guowen Press this year, there are books such as "The Last Huns" and "Bali Love and Revenge", which sell 100,000 to 200,000 copies in a single month and millions of copies in half a year.
This includes reprinted and republished books over the years, such as Lin Weimin's Farewell My Concubine. Due to the popularity of the movie, this novel actually sprouted new buds and sold 1.2 million copies in more than two months after the movie was released.
The sales volume is already approaching 8 million copies. It is estimated that within two years, it will become another book of Lin Weimin's works with domestic sales exceeding 10 million.
A rough calculation shows that as of September alone, Guowen Publishing House's book sales this year have reached an exaggerated 26 million copies.
In previous years, Guowen Publishing House could not achieve this sales volume in an entire year, and you have to remember that there are still more than three months left until the end of the year.
If we add in the sales of many other publications such as Contemporary, New Literature Materials, Literary Stories, and Chinese Prose, the total sales of Guowen Publishing House's books and periodicals is now at least 50 million copies.
Yu Hua was lamenting the amazing explosion of Guowen Society this year, but Lin Weimin was thinking of the conversation he had with Lao Cheng two years ago.
The building at No. 166 Chaonei Street houses not only the Guowen Publishing House, but also the Renmin Publishing House.
They are all brother units of the same system, but since its establishment, Guowen Publishing House has been firmly suppressed by its big brother, Renmin Publishing House.
The annual circulation of books and periodicals of People's Publishing House exceeds 50 million copies, and even reaches 60 million copies in some years. In contrast, the highest circulation of books and periodicals of Guowen Publishing House in previous years was only 35 million copies.
Lao Cheng is an ambitious leader. After taking office, all he wants to do is to eliminate the People's Society which is in the same building.
Lin Weimin calculated in his mind that even if he didn’t take into account the sales of Tongwen Publishing House, it didn’t seem like a big problem to eliminate Renmin Publishing House this year!
Have I fulfilled my boast?
It’s time for President Cheng to step down and let others take over!
In the 1990s, there were more National Day holidays than before. In recent years, all major tourist attractions in Yanjing have been crowded with people at this time.
People are willing to spend money on travel and consumption, which proves the effectiveness of economic reforms.
Lin Weimin took his family out for two days, but they didn't visit any of the tourist attractions. They just kept counting the number of people.
The opening date of the first Shanghai International Film Festival was set for October 7. After spending two days with his family, Lin Weimin boarded a plane to Shanghai.
When the plane arrived in Shanghai, people from the film festival organizing committee came to pick him up and first took Lin Weimin to the Shanghai Film Festival's preparatory office.
The film festival's preparatory office was squeezed into two offices in the Shanghai Municipal Government, and the conditions were very simple.
The idea of the Shanghai Film Festival was first mentioned by Director Wu Yigong when he went to a meeting in Yenching in 1987. At the time, it was supported by Teng Jinxian, Director of the Film Bureau, and affirmed by his superiors.
However, because the conditions were not met in 1987, Shanghai had to wait until last year to formally apply to the higher authorities to hold the Shanghai Film Festival.
In June of the same year, preparations for the film festival officially started.
Since the day of its preparation, the Shanghai Film Festival has been aiming to become an international A-class film festival. For this purpose, it has applied to the International Producers Guild in the hope that it will become an A-class film festival on its first try.
Unfortunately, it did not receive recognition from the association. The association’s secretary-general, Bei Leisong, hoped that Shanghai would first host the first session to accumulate experience, and then have the International Producers Association evaluate whether it could be recognized as an international A-level film festival.
Therefore, the current Shanghai International Film Festival is not an international A-class film festival.
When Lin Weimin arrived at the film festival preparatory office, the crowded and cramped office was bustling with activity. The person responsible for receiving Lin Weimin was Jiang Ping, director of the film festival office.
"Teacher Lin, I'm so sorry. It's almost the opening time and I've been so busy. I should have come to pick you up in person, but I'm sorry!" Jiang Ping shook hands with Lin Weimin and apologized.
"It's okay. There's no need to be so polite with family members."
Chinese people hold their own film festival, so of course all Chinese are family members. Lin Weimin's words warmed Jiang Ping's heart.
Jiang Ping gave Lin Weimin a brief introduction to the current preparations for the film festival.
In terms of hardware, thanks to the support of the Shanghai Municipal Government, the Shanghai Film Festival has set up eight branch venues including Shanghai Cinema, Grandview Cinema, Hengshan Cinema, and Xingguang Cinema. Each branch venue has multiple screening halls, and the main venue, Shanghai Cinema, has as many as five screening halls.
The projection equipment of the eight cinemas has also been comprehensively upgraded this year to fully meet the screening needs of the film festival.
In terms of software, Xie Jin served as the chairman of the jury, and the judges included Alain Resnais from France, Nagisa Oshima from Japan, Oliver Stone from the United States, Paul Cox from Australia, Xu Ke and Lin Weimin from Hong Kong.
There are a total of seven judges, four of whom come from different countries around the world. They enjoy a high reputation in the film industry of their respective countries and have a high international reputation.
Especially Alain Resnais, whose status and fame in the Western film industry are no less than Godard's. He was actually invited to be a judge of the new Shanghai International Film Festival. He was not even the chairman of the jury. This was of course inseparable from the help of Lin Weimin.
Because Alain Resnais appeared on the jury list, the Shanghai International Film Festival received considerable attention from the international film community.
Apart from the judges, the most important thing for a film festival is of course the participating films.
After screening, more than 100 films from more than 30 countries and regions registered for this film festival. After evaluation by the selection committee, 24 films were finally selected to participate in the awards.
For a new film festival held in a developing country, this number of entries is quite impressive.
In addition, 22 producers have decided to set up booths at the film festival. Except for the nine major domestic studios, the remaining 13 producers are from all over the world.
"We have also invited several internationally renowned movie stars to attend, including Italian actress Sophia Loren, American actress Deborah Raffin, and Japanese actress Momoi Kaoru..."
Sophia Loren is the heroine of "The Cassandra Bridge", Deborah Raffin is the heroine of "Deeper Love", and Momoi Kaoru is the heroine of "The Yellow Handkerchief of Happiness".
Except for Sophia Loren, these actresses are also internationally famous, but they are not big stars. To be honest, they may not be as famous as Gong Li.
The Shanghai International Film Festival really doesn't have much influence in inviting celebrities, but there's nothing that can be done about it, after all, it's a new film festival.
(End of this chapter)
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