Chapter 52: Storytelling
When this idea came up, the first thing Gao Jialin thought of was "Story Club". Serious literature can establish a reputation, but when it comes to making money, popular literature is still the best.
Articles that can be published in "Harvest" and "Germination" are time-consuming and laborious to write, and they also have to be revised according to the requirements of the editorial department. There is no such problem when submitting articles to "Story Club".
The money is paid quickly and the requirements for manuscripts are not that strict. As long as the story is attractive, some flaws do not matter. Anyway, the readers of these popular magazines just read for fun and are not as picky as the readers of orthodox literary magazines.
During this period, many popular literature authors were making a fortune in silence. If we talk about the mainland authors who earned the most in the 1980s, 1990s, it was not Lu Yao, Yu Hua, or even Wang Shuo. Wang Shuo's works were indeed popular, with high sales and royalties, but his output was too low, so his total income was still not that impressive.
The most profitable series should be the "Xue Mili" series. Two young writers born in Dazhou, Sichuan, Tian Yanning and Tan Li, used Xue Mili as their pen name and wrote a bunch of works with underworld, business wars, spy wars, etc. as gimmicks, and then gave these works eye-catching titles such as "Female Headmaster", "Female Informant", "Female Hero", "Female Special Police", and "From Female Star to Death Row Prisoner". Once they were launched on the market, they became an immediate hit.
These two people are very productive, publishing one or two books a month at the earliest. Their book writing speed is comparable to that of later online writers.
Later, these books became so popular that the two of them alone could no longer meet the demands of booksellers from all over the country, so they found more than 20 experienced authors. They were responsible for finding suitable topics and writing outlines in newspapers and magazines. These young authors then wrote novels based on the outlines. The output suddenly increased to five or six books per month, or even more than ten books.
Isn’t that amazing? They created the writing studio in the 1980s.
This assembly line-like operation method has resulted in Xue Mili's astonishing output, with a total of more than 100 books published, with an average sales volume of several hundred thousand copies.
During its peak period, Xue Mili's novels were displayed in villages, airports, street stalls, train stations, library buildings, department stores, etc. Some booksellers even labeled slow-selling works by Qiong Yao and Cen Kailun as "Xue Mili's New Work" in the hope of making them popular, creating the myth of best-selling books by Chinese mainland writers.
With so many best-selling books, one can imagine how much the two authors earn.
In addition to publishing books, the sales of many popular magazines were also very hot. "Story Club", "Friends" and "Girlfriend" were the best among them. These magazines made money and paid generous royalties to authors. In the era when the traditional magazine remuneration standard was only a few dozen yuan per thousand words, they were wealthy enough to offer high royalties of hundreds or even thousands per thousand words.
Even Lu Yao could not resist the temptation and wrote many articles for "Girlfriend" magazine. The creative essay "Morning Starts at Noon" which records the creation experience of "Ordinary World" was published in "Girlfriend".
"Zhiyin" and "Girlfriend" mainly target the female reader market, and most of the articles published are emotional articles, which are slightly similar to female-oriented online novels. "Story Club" is closer to the style of male-oriented online novels, including stories about people's livelihood, various aspects of the market, and legends from ancient and modern times. Whatever is interesting is published.
Gao Jialin read martial arts novels when he was in middle school, and started reading online literature when he went to college. He has also watched so many film and television dramas. He has accumulated a lot of knowledge in this area. Just a few of his articles would be enough to make the editor of "Story Club" feel like they have found a treasure, and they would treat him as a great god.
So if you were reborn in the 1980s, you don’t have to worry about being poor. Just go to the newsstand and find "Story Club", write down the submission address, and then choose a few suitable stories from the martial arts, online literature, and film and television works you have read in later lives, write them and submit them, and you will definitely have no problem solving food and drink.
If I could write the book faster, I could have made my first pot of gold.
Gao Jialin went to a newsstand near the school and bought a few of the latest copies of "Story Club". He planned to study what kind of routines "Story Club" likes now. When buying magazines, he found something interesting.
There were quite a few college students who came to buy "Story Club". When buying the book, each of them acted like a thief, just like when he was in middle school and rented pornographic books, afraid that others would see them.
Because "Story Club" is indeed attractive, but it is not presentable. Your classmates are reading "Faust", "Oliver Twist", "Thunderstorm" and other famous Chinese and foreign classics, but you are reading "Story Club" with great interest. How embarrassing it is.
Gao Jialin didn't think there was anything shameful about reading "Story Club", but when he returned to the dormitory and lay on the bed, he still had to cover it up.
There was nothing he could do. This was the current atmosphere in universities, and he couldn't go against others. If he was just laughed at, it would be fine. He was thick-skinned and could handle it.
I was afraid that his teachers and classmates would worry that he would degenerate, become addicted to these vulgar stories, and give up his bright future as a writer, so they would come to him one by one and persuade him under the banner of "I'm doing this for your own good."
Wow, this scene makes my scalp tingle just thinking about it.
After reading a few books, Gao Jialin basically figured out what kind of works the current "Story Club" likes.
Folk tales, interesting stories from China and abroad, celebrity anecdotes, martial arts legends. These stories are indeed fascinating and much more interesting than those in serious literary magazines.
Or I could also copy a martial arts story, and it would be best if it could be made into a film or television work in the future, so that I can make some money from adapting it in the future. Gao Jialin found a suitable work after a little thought.
We certainly cannot plagiarize Jin Yong and Gu Long, and the works of Huang Yi and Wen Ruian may not suit the tastes of today's readers. Fortunately, there are still domestic TV dramas, and the magical drama "Jianghu Enchoulu" released in 1991 is quite suitable.
Although this plot is full of pitfalls when viewed later, it is very much in line with the preferences of current readers. When the TV series "Jiang Hu En Chou Lu" was broadcast, almost everyone who had a TV at home was following the show. Such a good work should have been released in advance.
It tells the story of how Li Xiaogang, a disciple of Emei, was retaliated by the Black Phoenix, the wife of Jiang Shangfeng, because he fought against injustice and solved the problem. In order to eradicate this cancer in the martial arts world, Li Xiaogang had to seek help from others, thus unfolding a series of stories about the love and revenge he experienced while traveling in the martial arts world.
The actress who plays the Dark Phoenix is Dongfang Wenying, who is Tanchun in the 1987 version of A Dream of Red Mansions. She later became a producer and worked at CCTV's TV drama production center, which specializes in TV drama creation and production. Although she is not well-known, her influence in the TV circle is not small.
Gao Jialin took out the manuscript paper and wrote the five words "Records of Enmity in the Jianghu" on the top.
Now that I’ve decided on the title of the book, what should I use as my pen name?
Thanks to Qingzhi Youming and Guangtou Dashu for their tips on reading books
(End of this chapter)
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