Reborn Tycoon Rise

On the fifth day of submission, Xu Zhi received a call from the newspaper, inviting Xu Zhi to come and discuss some details.

After arriving at the newspaper office, Lin Wenzhou took Xu Zhi directly to the innermost office.

"Xu Sheng, let me introduce, this is Fang Qiang, the boss of our newspaper!" Lin Wenzhou introduced his boss.

The fat man at the desk saw Lin Wenzhou coming in with someone. Before he could finish speaking, he stood up and said with a smile, "This must be Xu Sheng! I happened to be traveling last time and didn't see him. Come on, please." sit!"

"Hello, Fang Sheng." Xu Zhi smiled and shook hands with Mr. Fang.

All three of them sat down, and the secretary brought three cups of coffee from outside.

After chatting casually for a while, Lin Wenzhou took out a newspaper and said to Xu Zhi: "Xu Sheng, this is the first edition of the newspaper we are going to publish. Can you see if there are any problems?"

Xu Zhi took it and read it for a while. The first paragraph of the main page of the novel was printed with the four characters "Iron-Blooded Genius". Below is an introduction to the theme of some subsequent news pages.

Open the first page and you will see the content of the novel on both sides. The page size of a newspaper is actually a fixed value, usually the area of ​​A3 paper. If it is a normal font, one page can usually cover 2,000 words. However, for commercial interests, there is no middle page. There are few places covered by advertisements, and this is the first part of a new novel, with a starting length of 5,000 words, which simply covers 4 pages.

Xu Zhi read the article carefully and found that in addition to some irregular punctuation marks, there were also some changes, but basically they were all problematic areas. Because the novel in Xu Zhi's mind was in simplified Chinese and he had to write it in traditional Chinese, there would be some errors in the process.

After reading it, Xu Zhidao said: "Okay, I basically have no objections."

Lin Wenzhou nodded and said, "Okay, but I have a question. Has Xu Sheng's novel been modified by others?"

"What do you mean?" Xu Zhi was confused.

Lin Wenzhou said: "In the novels of ordinary writers, unless they are people like Jin Yong and Ni Kuang who have been writing for decades, many writers will have some problems after writing their articles, such as word usage, sentence format, etc., but yours has some There are almost no problems with basic mistakes in usage, and it is generally difficult for writers without many years of experience to do this.”

Xu Zhi thought for a while and said: "No, I just revised it twice after writing it!"

"Oh." Lin Wenzhou did not dwell on this issue. Fang Qiang, who was drinking coffee next to him, laughed and said: "Xu Sheng is so humble. Not only can he write good articles, he doesn't even ask my staff to revise them. It's amazing! "

Lin Wenzhou smiled and said: "Yes, my colleagues in the editorial department and I looked at it for two days and couldn't find anything that needed major changes. I really can't believe that it was written by a young man at this level."

Xu Zhi was stunned by the two men. He didn't know what they wanted to do.

Fang Qiang continued: "I heard that Xu Sheng is still at home. I wonder if he is interested in working in our newspaper?"

Xu Zhi glanced at Fang Qiang and said with a smile: "I'm not going to work for the time being."

"Then Xu Sheng is writing another novel, or a sequel to Iron-Blooded Heroes?" Fang Qiang asked: "It doesn't matter if you don't come to work, we just hope to have long-term cooperation with Xu Sheng."

After saying that, he took out a copy of the ticket from his jacket pocket and said, "As long as Xu Sheng agrees, this is just a deposit for the next novel."

Xu Zhi smiled. It seemed that the president in front of him was willing to invest. He took the check, opened it and saw that it was 10,000 Hong Kong dollars.

Xu Zhi put the check on the table and said with a smile: "If I don't write the next book well, Mr. Fang's money will be wasted."

Seeing Xu Zhi confiscating the check, Fang Qiang was not angry and said with a smile: "This investment is still worth it. If Xu Sheng has any conditions, you can put them forward!"

Xu Zhi thought for a while and asked: "I don't know your newspaper very well. If you want me to cooperate with you, you have to let me know something."

Lin Wenzhou smiled and said, "I wonder what Xu Sheng wants to know."

Xu Zhidao: "How many newspapers can your newspaper sell in a day? What areas does it basically cover?..."

Lin Wenzhou also answered all questions.

Xu Zhi also had some basic understanding of Huixing.

The Fang Qiang in front of me founded this newspaper in 1970. Before that, he was just a bookstore owner. Later, the bookstore business was not good, so he started to enter the printing industry, bought some second-hand equipment, and received some orders from some second-rate newspapers.

In Xiangjiang, first- and second-tier newspapers all have their own publishing houses. Other small newspapers adopt a light-asset model and outsource printing to concentrate on content production. In addition to receiving orders from newspapers, printing plants also receive orders from advertisers, books, and promotional posters. , both benefit.

After working as a printer for two years, Fang Qiang found that the hard-earned money was not as good as the few months' profit of some sideline newspapers, so he opened a newspaper by himself and printed it himself. The business has been very good.

But in 1975, that is, the year before last, the Hong Kong government began to control the newspaper industry and dealt with newspapers that were borderline severely. Hong Kong's small newspapers ushered in their darkest moment.

Fang Qiang hurriedly abandoned the previous model, hired Lin Wenzhou from Ming Pao, and concentrated on starting a regular newspaper. However, it was full of difficulties. Fortunately, Lin Wenzhou was still somewhat capable. In two years, he was asked to turn a flamboyant newspaper into a It became a newspaper with a daily sales of 6,000, covering the entire Kowloon. This is already a good level among third-tier newspapers.

"It turns out that Editor-in-Chief Lin is from Ming Pao." Xu Zhi smiled and told him about his submission to Ming Pao.

"Hahaha, this is Mingpao's loss, but there is nothing we can do about it." Lin Wenzhou laughed after hearing this: "Xu Sheng may not know that in Mingpao, the editor's task is very busy. Especially for long novels, most of them Editors need to review novels that are about to be submitted. Ming Pao is a major newspaper, and the newspaper has very strict requirements for novels. Basically, every word, usage and even punctuation must be correct. Once it appears, you will probably lose your job."

"So strict? Not a single word is allowed to be wrong?" Xu Zhi asked curiously. Some Internet reports in later generations often contain various typos. Although netizens continue to complain, as long as the mistakes do not affect the meaning, everyone will take it seriously. thing.

"Yes, that's it. One word may not mean anything, but the important thing is the rules and the attitude. If a small mistake has no consequences, then hundreds of such mistakes will follow. In fact, not only the newspaper industry, but also large companies It’s for this reason that we care a lot about small issues.”

He took another sip of coffee and sighed: "When I was in Ming Pao, my job was very depressing. There were more than a dozen different newspapers under Ming Pao, with a lot of serialized content and a lot of submissions. The editorial department spent most of their time checking. For novels, if you are a newcomer, let’s take this novel as an example. You don’t just throw it away if the novel is not good. If you think it has potential, you must also contact the writer, communicate with each other, and improve the writer’s level. After all, there are so many newspapers in Ming Pao. New blood is always needed. But people’s time is always limited. If you don’t have certain literary skills, even if you tell the story well, but you don’t have the ability to organize the writing, it’s useless. Even if you can organize it well, you can’t write a novel. It’s easy at the beginning, but it becomes more and more difficult to write at the end. So not only Guangming Daily, but also big newspapers have restrictions in this regard.”

After a pause, he smiled and said: "Of course, it was also because of this that I missed Xu Sheng, but Mingpao's approach is also right. There is no perfect solution to anything in this world. And if it hadn't been for Xu Sheng, In front of me, I couldn’t believe that this novel was written by a teenager.”

Xu Zhi nodded and said that he actually understood all this. If he was the owner of a newspaper and a junior high school student came and said that he had written a novel and wanted to submit it, he might take a look at the content. If there were several people coming every day, each one would At first glance, they are all poorly written stories. After a long time, I'm afraid I won't read them again.

Fang Qiang listened quietly and said with a smile: "If it weren't for this rule, I'm afraid we wouldn't have this chance to cooperate!"

Xu Zhi asked: "Huixing only sells 6,000 copies a day. Although it is a lot, the coverage area may not be enough. Even if you want to open the market with novels, I am afraid it will be too late, right?"

Hearing this, Fang Qiang said: "So I hope Xu Sheng can change the ending and continue writing. After all, no matter how you control the words, it will be over in two months. In this time, I am afraid that the newspaper will also It’s difficult to completely open the market!”

Xu Zhi smiled. In fact, if the publicity is in place in two months, the novel should be famous, but the newspaper cannot make the maximum profit. After all, sales are everything. If the novel ends soon, the newspaper's largest advertising fee will not be available at all. Assure.

"Actually, I have a way to quickly increase sales!" Xu Zhi said with a smile.

Fang Qiang asked: "What method?"

Xu Zhidao: "Raise the price!"

Lin Wenzhou was stunned, and so was Fang Qiang.

"But all excess profits will be given to the newsstand!" Xu Zhi said with a smile.