1980 My literary era

After September, the weather in Yanjing becomes cooler and cooler, and the coolness in the morning and evening makes people feel happy.

Autumn is coming soon, which is the most charming season in Yanjing.

After the scorching summer heat, spending time stuck in the office every day is no longer so unbearable.

Lin Weimin neatly stacked the reviewed manuscripts in the corner of his desk. This batch of manuscripts are all to be printed and published in October, including not only those to be published by the Chinese Literature Society, but also those from the Tongwen Society.

He came to Tongwen Publishing House with the manuscript in hand. The publishing house now has eight editors, divided into two editing rooms, one is the martial arts literature editing room, and the other is the "Kyushu Heroes" editing room. They share an office, which is a bit crowded. Several pots of pothos in the office are particularly conspicuous.

No matter how crowded the office is, pothos must be there.

It has been nearly a month since the second issue of "Heroes of Kyushu" was launched, and its circulation has exceeded the 1.6 million mark.

The circulation of a publication is not the same as the sales. It means that the goods have been purchased but have not been sold. Anyway, no bookstore has reported that the publication cannot be sold, so it takes only a month for these circulations to be converted into sales.

Yu Hua and the others have been busy working on the third issue of the magazine these days. Today, the printing factory has finished printing, so the editorial department can relax for a few days.

The sales volume of two consecutive issues has exceeded one million copies, and the sales volume has increased significantly. According to this trend, the sales volume of more than 2 million copies will be exceeded in these two issues.

Therefore, after Yu Hua communicated with Lin Weimin, he set the first printing volume of the third issue of "Heroes of Kyushu" at 1.5 million copies.

That’s a pretty big step!

Seeing Lin Weimin coming, Yu Hua, who was chatting with his editor Hu Kan, stood up and took out a pile of letters before Lin Weimin could speak first.

"Mr. Lin, take a look, these are all letters written by readers to 'Little Zhuanfeng' during this period. Two issues of 'The Best in the World' have been published and 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'll forward these letters to 'Little Zhuanfeng' later."

He asked Yu Hua again, "Have you forgotten the advertisement for Huang Ying's collection of works?"

"How could you forget such a big thing?" Yu Hua laughed.

Tongwenshe obtained the publishing rights for the works of several famous martial arts masters in Hong Kong, and Lin Weimin arranged the publication sequence of the collections of Huang Ying and Liang Yusheng at the front.

Liang Yusheng's works, like Jin Yong's, have been published in the form of a collection of works and are now more than half way through the process.

Huang Ying's works are slightly different from the previous ones. Most of his works are series-based, so Tongwenshe also conducts review and publication in the form of series.

In more than a month, the editorial office completed the editing and review work of the "Shen Shengyi" series and the "Celestial Silkworm Transformation" series. These two series are the most famous among all Huang Ying's works. At the same time, the "Shen Shengyi" series is also Huang Ying's most famous series. The series with the most content among all of Eagle's works is almost worth more than one-third of the word count of all his works.

After completing these two series, the editing and review progress of Huang Ying's works has almost reached half.

Books must be published and distributed in a rhythm. Tongwenshe cannot wait for all the works of the two writers to be edited and reviewed before publishing them together. The "Shen Shengyi" series and the "Celestial Silkworm Transformation" series have thirty-four volumes, with a word count of about 700. Five hundred thousand words will be published in October.

With "Heroes of Kyushu" as its own brother that has sold millions of copies, one is a martial arts novel and the other is a martial arts novel publication. It would be a pity not to launch a wave of marketing advertising.

"Xue Gang, what do you think is the appropriate first printing quantity of Huang Ying's series of works?"

The novel was still more than half a month away from publication, and the subscription work had 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 the works, "The Transformation of the Silkworm" is the only one. Because the TV series adaptation has a certain audience in the mainland, I think the first printing of 30,000 copies will be enough. Of course, this is still You have to look at the subscription volume over time. If the subscription volume is high, you can adjust your expectations a little higher."

"Well, this number should be about the same."

"Teacher Lin!" Li Xuegang suddenly called Lin Weimin.

"What's wrong?"

"This issue of Xiao Zhuanfeng's "No. 1 in the World" has 150,000 words, which is enough to be published as a single volume. Look..."

Lin Weimin was a little surprised by Li Xuegang's subjective initiative. He thought for a while and said, "Slow down for a while. There is no rush in this matter. The influence of "The Best in the World" 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 from Xiangjiang.

At the end of last year, the Chinese Literature Society introduced three of her works. The publicity was huge at that time. In more than half a year since the novel was published, the total sales of the three novels have exceeded 500,000 copies, with reviews of 160,000 to 70,000 copies for each novel. , this number is quite outstanding among the books published by the Chinese Literature Society every year.

Therefore, a few months ago, Guowenshe introduced two more works by Liang Fengyi. They have been on the market for more than two months and the sales are still good.

Although Lin Weimin's novels can easily sell millions of copies in the mainland, except for the sales peak period of one or two years after the publication of his works, most of his works sell hundreds of thousands of copies every year. This is still a top-notch novel by him. Charming writer.

If the author's appeal is average, but his works are well-received, the normal sales volume of 200,000 copies a year will be blocked.

Even the published works of many famous writers may not be able to sell more than six figures. The sales volume of a considerable number of writers' works basically ranges from 10,000 to 50,000 copies.

In addition, there are a large number of unknown works that sell in the range of several thousand copies. It cannot be said that publishers lose money when publishing these works, but it is also difficult to make money.

Therefore, it is extremely difficult for Liang Fengyi's works to reach a sales volume of 160,000 to 70,000 copies in just over half a year.

With several works selling well in the mainland, the name of Liang Fengyi, a Hong Kong writer, is very famous in the mainland literary circles.

She called Lin Weimin today and first reported the good news.

In the past two years, her works have been popular not only in the mainland, but also in Hong Kong.

Liang Fengyi is a very business-minded person. She is not willing to work for a publishing house, so she just established a publishing house of her own recently called "Qin+Yuan". The name represents her attitude towards life and work.

Liang Fengyi's approach is not uncommon in the Hong Kong literary world, and many business-minded writers will do this.

For example, Jin Yong found that his martial arts novels could attract readers and founded Ming Pao. Huang Yulang built a comic empire in Xiangjiang with his comics. Huang Yi also established a publishing house to publish his own works.

Guowenshe is the number one publishing house in the mainland literary world. If you establish a good relationship with them, they may be able to provide her with many conveniences. That's why Liang Fengyi made a special call to Lin Weimin after the publishing house was established.

After some congratulations, Liang Fengyi got down to business again, which was also the main purpose of her call this time.

Since this year, she has created a series of works such as "Flower Flag" and "Last Night's Wind", which have just been published by Xiangjiang Publishing Company. This time she called Lin Weimin to proactively recommend her works.

After listening to Liang Fengyi's words, Lin Weimin couldn't help laughing.

"Ms. Liang, our publishing house was supposed to find you, but I didn't expect you to come here first. It was a mistake on my part. Of course there is no problem with the introduction of your works. I will arrange for someone to contact you immediately. Let’s try to get it listed and issued as soon as possible.”

In the Mainland, writers as a group have played the role of spiritual mentors for the people for a long time.

But this is not the case in Xiangjiang. There is no respect for "scholars" and "scholars" as has been the case in the mainland since ancient times, so the status of writers as a group has always been low.

Therefore, there are very few Xiangjiang writers who create out of their love for literature.

Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that the colonial government in Hong Kong did not support the construction of Chinese literature in the early years.

Therefore, if you want to make a living by writing in Xiangjiang, the first thing you have to think about is not how ideological or literary your works should be, but what ordinary people like to read.

In such an atmosphere and influence, even those very few writers with literary ideals find it difficult to persevere.

During the Anti-Japanese War, Xu Xu became famous with the novel "Ghost Love", with a beautiful and moving creative style. Later, he published "Wind Xiao Xiao", which became very popular. When "Wind Xiao Xiao" was published, it was hailed as "The Year of Xu Xu" by the domestic publishing industry.

However, after moving to Xiangjiang, Xu Xu wasted several years and only wrote one "Journey to Jianghu" which was considered vulgar to readers.

In the 1960s, he completed the novel "Four Sisters", which simply became a popular novel.

There are many writers like Xu Xu whose styles have been changed by the commercial city of Xiangjiang. There is only one reason for these people to make changes.

Forced by livelihood!

Compared with these writers, Liang Fengyi, who had a clear positioning from the beginning, is undoubtedly the winner. Coupled with her creative efficiency and business acumen, it is difficult not to make a fortune.

Liang Fengyi's works are among the best-selling works in the Mainland, and she has previous cooperation. Coupled with the relevant departments behind her, the Chinese Literature Society naturally had no reason to reject Liang Fengyi.

The Chinese Literature Society is more willing to promote Liang Fengyi, a female writer from Hong Kong. This is not only due to the reasons of the relevant departments, but also because Liang Fengyi’s popularity in the mainland can only benefit the Chinese Literature Society and has no harm.

Nowadays, there are only a few publishing houses qualified to publish literary works from Xiangjiang and Wandao. To promote Liang Fengyi as a celebrity is equivalent to setting an example for many writers from Xiangjiang and Wandao who have the potential for cooperation.

In recent years, literary exchanges between the three places across the Taiwan Strait have become increasingly close. The addition of authors and work resources from Hong Kong and Bay Island is also a great benefit to the Chinese Literature Society.

After talking about continuing to publish a book, Lin Weimin said: "Ms. Liang, you also know that your works have been welcomed by quite a few readers in the mainland in the past six months and have made a great contribution to the readers' understanding of the customs and customs of Xiangjiang. . Everyone is very curious about you, a female writer from Xiangjiang. If you have time, it would be convenient for you to come to our mainland to hold a few book signing events. In addition, our Chinese Literature Society would also like to hold a seminar on your works."

Liang Fengyi was overjoyed when she heard this. Whether it is a book signing event or a seminar on her works, the purpose is to expand her popularity and influence in the mainland.

This kind of thing is a win-win cooperation for herself, the publisher and the publisher, 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, then it's settled." Lin Weimin said.