Wenhao: This child has been smart since he was young

Chapter 138: The little prince still needs to calm down?

"President Jian is really willing to lose face in order to promote The Little Prince," said Yu Xinyao, filled with emotion.

"Because the current book market is like this, if the author and the work do not have enough hype, it is easy to be drowned in the sea of ​​books," said President Jian.

"Then President Jian, do you think the market will get better in the future?" Yu Xinyao asked casually.

"With the advent of the Internet, things will only become more and more distorted," said President Jian. "Last year, I paid great attention to a book..."

"The Savage?" Yu Xinyao continued.

President Jian nodded silently. "The Wilderness" tells the story of several children stranded on a desert island and trying to survive.

"If you can give a good book a chance by losing face, why not do it?" President Jian changed the subject and said, "Old Yu, do you know why I invited you to have tea this time?"

The unprepossessing man in front of President Jian is a famous book reviewer and literary researcher.

Many people feel that the job of a literary critic is to find fault and that it has no effect on literature at all.

If it is not good, then it is true, but if it is good, it is different. On a larger scale, it can promote the development of literature; on a smaller scale, it can give a book a new look.

For example, why do many later writers think that Wu Song is the best hero in Water Margin? Because Jin Shengtan commented that Wu Song is a man of heaven, with the generosity of Lu Da, the viciousness of Lin Chong, and the righteousness of Yang Zhi...

The key is that Jin Shengtan's comments are both literary and humorous. In some places, readers will even feel as if they are reading a barrage of comments. Therefore, reading Water Margin and reading Jin Shengtan's annotated version of Water Margin are two completely different books.

Yu Xinyao's level is not as exaggerated as Jin Shengtan, but he is indeed a leader among domestic contemporary literary critics.

As long as he starts writing, his articles can basically be published in the core literary journal "Literary Review". Especially in the research of Tao Yuanming's poetry and Auerbach's theory of imitation, he is in a unique position.

"Old Jian, you should know that most of the time when I write literary reviews, they are critical." Yu Xinyao's address changed, which was also a confession.

"As for The Wild Man, which you were optimistic about earlier, in my opinion, it is a despicable imitation of the Nobel Prize-winning Lord of the Flies. Some plot units and character emotional changes are almost the same, but Golding's profound connotations are completely discarded and replaced with childish and unreal elements," Yu Xinyao's final words were, "a second-rate work."

"Second-rate? I thought you would say third-rate. It seems you still gave me some face." President Jian said, his tone became serious. "Old Yu, I know the power of your mouth and pen, but for The Little Prince, these are exactly what we need."

When Yu Xinyao heard this, it was as if a car suddenly rear-ended him on the highway. His originally calm facial features seemed to be out of control. So confident?
He has a good idea of ​​his influence. Perhaps most readers don't know "Yu Xinyao". Think carefully about passers-by, readers, and netizens. How many people would pay attention to a literary critic? It's unrealistic.

But...many media and portals will quote it.

To put it more intuitively, Yu Xinyao's evaluation was written for secondary disseminators. If he gave a bad review, it would definitely cause a devastating blow to the newly grown saplings.

"Since you said so, Old Jane, I won't be polite."

"Of course, I am also looking forward to your evaluation. Although I posted three comments in a row to help promote the novel, this evaluation of the best fairy tale novel in recent years is from my heart."

Yu Xinyao's eyes rolled around, there was no doubt that he was interested.

But... no matter how interested you are, you still have to drink tea, even if Yu Xinyao's mind is no longer on tea.

"Since President Jian said so, then it can at least not be worse than "The Wilder People"... " Yu Xinyao thought, sipping tea.

Something was wrong. Yu Xinyao looked up and saw that President Jian was also frowning. He immediately understood that it was not an illusion. The quality of this tea house's winter tea had deteriorated this year.

After looking at each other for a moment, Yu Xinyao and President Jian decided not to come here next time.

Is it true that you can only tell the quality of a good thing if you drink it too much? Anyway, what Gu Lu felt about the drink at the moment was - a sweet aftertaste?
Where is the aftertaste that Director Hu mentioned? Gu Lu noticed from the corner of his eye that Director Hu's eyes were narrowed into a line.

"How is Gu Lu's thinking?" Director Hu asked.

"My becoming a contracted writer for Youth Digest and my publishing of The Little Prince are two different things. The school's support for the publication is one thing!" Gu Lu entered bargaining mode.

Putting down the teacup, Director Hu said, "The publication club is a newly established club, and there are only two members so far. The school has approved the budget for the first-level club. It is reasonable to exchange two things, right?"

“But if ‘Eight Kinds’ produced by the publishing house becomes the top high school magazine in Fog City, it will also be a good promotion for the image of the school itself.” Gu Lu began to paint a big picture.

Unfortunately, he was facing the small-eyed warrior, the official language superman, and the privilege exchange NPC - Director Hu.

"In fact, Principal Chang doesn't quite agree with the establishment of the publication club, but because you, Gu Lu, as a student writer, can bring greater publicity to the school's literary education." Director Hu said, "And running a club requires energy and time, and many students' grades drop because of clubs. The consensus we gave to the instructors of each club is that if a member's grades fall far behind, he will be advised to temporarily put aside the club's affairs." There is something else behind his words, in summary, "Gu Lu, you are different from others, don't waste your time on studying and running clubs."

Director Hu himself did not believe that Gu Lu and another student, what was their name? It was not important! He also did not believe that the two of them could really publish a school magazine with influence beyond the campus.

Why? There are more than 20 clubs in No. 8 Middle School, and the Shuren Literature Club, the National Flag Guard of Honor, and the Volleyball Club are all famous in the whole Wudu. The first two are strongly supported by the school (last year, the media that reported on the Literature Club was invited by the principal), while the Volleyball Club was established through competitions. Wudu Middle School Volleyball Competition ranked first and also represented Wudu in the National Middle School Games.

In summary, the publication company cannot compete, and has no support from the school in terms of publicity, so the chance of rising is zero. However, thinking this way, Director Hu did not pour cold water on Gu Lu.

Feeling that he couldn't win the argument with Director Hu on the big principles, Gu Lu fell into thought. Forget about the evening self-study, but Gu Lu really wanted to exempt the morning reading! Students should all understand that it is uncomfortable to go to school in the dark in the winter morning before dawn.

"Student Gu Lu, let's do this!" Director Hu seemed to have made up his mind, "Do you know that there is a small warehouse next to our school library?"

No. 8 Middle School has more than 10,000 books and more than 40 kinds of periodicals, which require a large space to store them... Also, because the No. 8 Middle School in Sha District is an old campus, a library was not considered during its construction, so the school connected four classrooms in a row.

But the fourth room was a little too big, so the last room was divided into two rooms of about 30 square meters.

"We can give the 30-square-meter room to your publication office as a place for club activities." Director Hu said, "This is a special treatment."

It is indeed special. As mentioned earlier, the club model of No. 8 Middle School is that all students leave the classroom to participate in activities during the first and second classes on Wednesday afternoons, and then use the classroom as the activity point. This includes the Time Radio Station, Model United Nations, and the National Flag Guard, and none of them have separate activity points.

"Is it already the most special one before we even start recruiting new members?" Gu Lu pondered for a while and looked at Director Hu, "Okay, I'll change it!"

Anyway, after "The Little Prince", "Mr. Holmes" and a collection of short stories will also be scheduled on a daily basis, so at worst we can just wait a little longer.

"Okay, okay, no problem. The budget of the publishing house will be at the same level as that of the Shu Ren Literary Society." Director Hu said.

There are more than 20 clubs, and the volleyball club has the highest budget, no doubt about it, after all, they have to play in competitions and achieve good results. The literature club and basketball club have first-class budgets, which are not bad.

"It will be distributed once at the beginning of each semester and once at the middle of the semester. Gu Lu, give me your account number and I will transfer the money directly to you." Director Hu saw Gu Lu's confusion and explained, "The club's funds are all distributed to the instructor, but our school has absolute confidence in you, Gu Lu, so I will be the nominal instructor directly."

"I will transfer part of the activity funds to you directly after we get them. You just need to give me the bills every month for how to spend them," Director Hu said. In fact, the school did not take it seriously and did not want to hire a mentor. Director Hu was also busy and wanted to be a hands-off boss.

"Ok, no problem."

Thus, a unique club in No. 8 Middle School was born, with its own activity room, no instructor (on the surface there is one), and extremely high funding!
If I don’t really achieve any results this time, I’ll be letting down this lineup, Gu Lu thought.

"Oh, right, this book." Director Hu held The Little Prince in his hand, "How many sales are there?"

"It's only been put on sale nationwide today. If you want data, you'll have it tomorrow," said Gu Lu.

"Oh, I'm anxious, but it doesn't matter. Our No. 100 Middle School will order copies." Director Hu said, indicating that the school has not forgotten the promise made during enrollment.

One hundred books are indeed a lot for the library, but the school has to reward three good students every semester. In the past, we bought books from the required reading subjects for high school students, but now we just give away "The Little Prince". There is no difference anyway.

A hundred more copies would be a lot of sales!
The name "Gu Lu" may be somewhat famous in the reasoning circle, but it has not spread to the field of fairy tale novels. Therefore, the popularity of the beginning of "The Little Prince" was really given by President Jian.

The next day, Gu Lu learned that the first-day sales were 5019 copies. Compared to the shocking sales in Europe as soon as the book was published on Earth, the gap was too big, but Gu Lu thought it was normal.

Why did The Little Prince become so popular as soon as it was released in the previous life? Because Saint-Exupéry was already a well-known writer at that time, and had published three works: Wind, Sand and Stars, Mail from the South, and Night Flight.

"Five thousand copies is also a victory. I remember that the sales of Mao Sanning's "The Missing Element" were only a few thousand copies on the first day? And then it sold 80,000 in the first month." Gu Lu can afford to wait. He is only a freshman in high school now. Even if "The Little Prince" needs three or four years to ferment before it can burst out with energy, he will not have graduated from college by then.

Just as he was thinking this, President Jian called.

President Jian comforted him as soon as he opened his mouth, "Don't be discouraged, give The Little Prince some time to settle down, at most a week, and you will see different results."

Gu Lu had no problem with the first sentence, and he was ready to settle it, but what did the second sentence mean? Gu Lu asked, but President Jian was a riddle man, "You will know when the time comes, there is no point in saying it now."

The sedimentation that President Jian mentioned refers first to the first batch of readers who bought his books because he strongly recommended them. Most of them are from the publishing circle and writers. The feedback from this group of people is quite important.

Secondly, Yu Xinyao’s feedback is very important.

At this moment, Yu Xinyao has already got The Little Prince...

(End of this chapter)