Back to 80: My Literary Life

I didn’t expect that it was Dai Jiali who picked me up.

She was wearing a black women’s suit and black-framed glasses, looking very capable.

“Jiali, do you, the vice president of the company, need to pick me up personally?” Fang Minghua asked.

“The company has nothing important to do these two days, so I’ll just go there.” Dai Jiali said, “Teacher Minghua, I’ll take you to the hotel first.”

“Okay.”

This time, Fang Minghua was booked at the Pudong Shangri-La Hotel, which is located in the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone, adjacent to the Huangpu River, and relatively close to the Shengshi Building. Fang Minghua stood on the balcony of the room and could still see the building not far away.

“Jiali, you haven’t had breakfast yet, right? Let’s go down for breakfast together?” Fang Minghua simply washed up and called Dai Jiali.

“Okay.”

The two went downstairs to the buffet restaurant on the second floor. The breakfast here was quite rich, with Western dim sum and Chinese Spanish mackerel dumplings. The two ordered some snacks and ate at the table.

Fang Minghua knew that Dai Jiali had gone to the train station to pick him up early, and he must want to talk to him about the website, so he took the initiative to ask about it while eating.

"Minghua, since the establishment of the Rongshuxia website, a large number of literary websites such as "Jin Yong Inn", "Xici Hutong", "Tianya Community", "Xilu BBS" and "Golden Bookstore" have appeared on the Internet, which has greatly promoted and prospered online literature."

Dai Jiali said.

"But from another perspective, although Rongshuxia is the largest and has the highest number of visits, the competition between them has begun, especially the "Golden Bookstore" website, which has developed very quickly and has become a threat to Rongshuxia. ”

Fang Minghua had logged into the "Golden Bookstore" online, and most of the books in it were OCR books (physical scans).

Although from the perspective of later generations, this practice is very low, scanning physical books and then putting them online are all pirated.

But in this era, original works are still rare, and this form is the mainstream of literary websites.

"Golden Bookstore" scans "Star Wars Heroes" and "Star Road", etc., and the most popular physical books in Hong Kong, Taiwan is the classic novel "Wind and Beauty Story" written by Taiwanese writer Rosen!

It can be said that this book is the originator of fantasy novels in the online literary world, and the "Golden Bookstore" has also become famous.

Now listening to Dai Jiali's words, Fang Minghua drank a sip of milk and asked: "How much has been invested since the construction of the Banyan Tree Website?"

"About 3 million RMB, mainly in the purchase of hardware, software, payment of Internet fees and employee salaries."

Dai Jiali said, took out a document from his bag and handed it to Fang Minghua: "This is the financial list, take a look. "

Fang Minghua put down the milk cup and looked at it carefully.

3 million yuan is not much for building a website in the future, but now it is the late 1990s, and this cost is a bit shocking.

The company bought six IBM Netfinity 5500 M10 servers, spending a total of 1 million yuan.

And the Internet fee!

The Internet fee actually costs so much?!

Up to 500,000 yuan a year!

Of course, this is not the dial-up Internet access method of ordinary families now, but the latest fiber-optic broadband.

There are also software purchases and employee salaries.

Fang Minghua found that the company paid high salaries to the technical staff of the website. For example, Chen Wanning, the monthly salary is as high as 10,000 yuan!

As expected, people who are engaged in computer networks are popular in every era.

Fang Minghua looked at it for a while before saying: "Leave this here for me first, I will take a closer look later. How about I go to the company to talk to Mr. Shu after work in the afternoon?"

"Okay, I'll pick you up in the afternoon." Dai Jiali replied.

"No need, it's just a few steps away, I can walk there. I wonder if Mr. Shu has any activities scheduled in the afternoon? "Fang Minghua said.

"No, our General Manager Shu has a meeting in the morning and has no plans in the afternoon."    "Okay, that's it!"

After dinner, Dai Jiali drove to work. Fang Minghua returned to the room and stayed for a while. He walked around the neighborhood again.

In the summer vacation of 1996, he brought his three children to Shanghai for fun. Less than two years later, Lujiazui has changed a lot. Many high-rise buildings have sprung up. The city is changing with each passing day.

After a long walk, it was almost time for lunch. Fang Minghua returned to his room and prepared to go to the restaurant for lunch. Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. He went over and opened it. A middle-aged man was standing at the door.

Shu Bin.

"Minghua, hello."

The two shook hands with a smile.

"Old Shu, I said I would go to the company to find you after work in the afternoon, but you came by yourself." Fang Minghua said.

"Jiali drove to the train station early in the morning to pick you up. If I don't come earlier, don't let you laugh at me for being arrogant."

"How could it be? You two bosses." Fang Minghua shook his head: "Since you are here, let's go to the restaurant for dinner together?"

"Okay, I heard that the food in this hotel is not bad." Shu Bin agreed very readily.

The two came to the Guihualou Chinese restaurant on the first floor and ordered some Sichuan dishes. They ate and talked.

"Jia Li came this morning and must have reported the website situation to you. I won't say more. I will report to you the business situation of Shengshi Books last year." Shu Bin said.

"Okay, you tell me." Fang Minghua nodded.

"I guess Mr. Song also told you that Shengshi Books was not very satisfied with its business last year. The profit rate has slowed down. The operating income was 280 million yuan, and the profit was about 80 million, slightly higher than the revenue in 1997."

"Not bad."

"That's true, but everyone knows that the period of rapid development of books in the heyday has passed. I think it will become difficult in the future. The same is true of the general environment. Literature, especially pure literature, is becoming less and less popular."

"I heard that important magazines such as Kunlun, Lijiang and Novel will cease publication," Fang Minghua added.

"Yes, especially "Kunlun", a long-established magazine founded in 1936, cannot match the market economy." Shu Bin sighed with emotion.

“There may be more magazines that will cease publication in the future.”

"So, for Shengshi Books, we have to take precautions and adjust the direction of publishing. We must not only insist on publishing pure literary books, build a good brand of Buhu Series, but also expand the publishing house's best-selling books in science and literature."

"The other thing is to reduce expenditure and cut off some unnecessary expenditure items so as not to affect the performance of Shengshi Books."

Shu Bin said finally.

"Is the website under the banyan tree one of them?" Fang Minghua asked rhetorically.

"Yes, frankly speaking, the investment cost under the banyan tree is secondary. The most important thing is that I can't see when it will make a profit and how it will make a profit? There is another more important question."

"What's the problem?"

"What Jiali is doing now is that the author will not be paid royalties for articles published on the website! Unless they are eventually published as a physical book. I have seen these things published on the website. If measured by the standards of physical books, they are very Some of them are unqualified and cannot be published at all.”

"No remuneration is given, it all depends on personal interests and hobbies. For one person and an industry, it is completely okay at the beginning, but it will definitely not work after a long time. If the author is paid, then this is an astronomical figure. How can the website make a profit? !”

After Shu Bin finished speaking, Fang Minghua took a piece of food, tasted it, and said casually: "How about using advertising revenue or reading fees?"