The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

The novel Zhou Hexuan mentioned is of course Margaret's "Gone with the Wind".

The first draft of this book was completed six years ago. The author revised it repeatedly for several years, but never published it.

Zhou Hexuan only knew that the author's real name was Margaret Mitchell. She used to work as a reporter for a newspaper, and after getting married, she worked as a full-time housewife at home. Looking for someone in the United States based on this bit of information is tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack. Zhou Hexuan spent US$20,000 on private detectives, and it took three and a half years to finally find the person last summer.

The private detective was also smart. After searching in many directions to no avail, he realized that his target might not be using his real name. So he specifically investigated female reporters who had been hired by major newspapers, and searched for their true identities. Finally, he found a similar target - a woman named "Peggy" who once worked at the Atlanta Journal.

The funniest thing is that when the publisher contacted the author, the stay-at-home wife actually denied that she was writing a novel.

The reason is very strange, just because Zhou Hexuan's publishing house is in New York. The book "Gone with the Wind" describes the South during the Civil War. The author did not believe that northern publishers would be interested in the novel, and it took repeated explanations to dispel her doubts.

Margaret, a female writer, was still very serious. After reaching an agreement with the publisher, she spent another six months verifying the location and time of the historical events involved in the novel, and changed the name of the novel to "Gone_with_the_Wind". 》).

New York, McLaure Books.

Mike has been doing well in recent years, at least more prosperous than many of his peers. When he was so poor that he wanted to commit suicide, a gangster from China came to his door and not only bought his publishing company, but also lent him money to file for personal bankruptcy.

Mike recalled the experience of that day countless times and felt extremely lucky. It was the most important decision he made in his life.

During the Great Depression, the American book market declined rapidly, but one copy of "Titanic" was enough for McLaure Book Company to tide over the difficulties. That novel has been reprinted eight times over the past few years, with a total sales volume of 3.06 million copies, making it the best-selling literary work during the Great Depression.

Of course, given the shortcomings of the market environment, McLaure is still treading on thin ice.

Although Mike owns 5% of the company's shares, he only paid off his bank debt last year. At this time, the personal deposits in his account had not exceeded 50,000. He still has a long way to go before becoming a millionaire. His hope is the work the company is publishing - "Gone with the Wind"!

This time Mike spent a total of 30,000 US dollars to build publicity. Major newspapers in the United States have related book reviews of "Gone with the Wind". Now he only needs to wait for market feedback.

"Boss, the daily sales data for the first day have been summarized!" The marketing manager came over happily.

Mike quickly asked: "How many sales did you have on the first day?"

The marketing manager said: "3,000 copies!"

The novel "Gone with the Wind" invited many famous people to write prefaces, and the cover also printed the words "Highly recommended by the author of "Titanic"". Those who didn't know it thought it was a sequel to "Titanic".

In this way, the sales volume on the first day was only 3,000 copies, which actually seemed a bit low.

But this was during the Great Depression, and the American book market was still slowly recovering, and daily sales of 3,000 copies were already very rare.

What Mike didn't expect was that the subsequent market response was unbelievably good - daily sales were 5,000 on the second day, 9,000 on the third day, 16,000 on the fourth day... Day 22 Set an unprecedented daily sales record of 50,000.

This sales performance crushed Zhou Hexuan's "Titanic".

Today, the cumulative total sales of most novels in the United States are less than the sales of "Gone with the Wind" in one day.

The entire American book market went crazy, asking where this female writer named Margaret came from. Countless literary critics spontaneously came forward to offer their own praise for this novel. Margaret transformed from a stay-at-home wife into a well-known writer.

And the two bosses of Mike Lauer Book Company, Zhou Hexuan and Mike, just lie around and count money all day long.

Chaplin, Fairbanks and Pickford finally realized what a gift Zhou Hexuan had given them. This novel is adapted into a movie, and as long as the filming is not too bad, it will definitely be a box office hit.

In the office of the book company, Mike was wildly flattering his boss: "Zhou, you are so great, you can actually find such a novel!"

"The days of making money are still to come." Zhou Hexuan said with a smile.

Mike grinned widely: "Doing business with you is the luckiest thing in my life."

"Stop hating me," Zhou Hexuan said happily, "I came to the company this time because I want you to implement a plan."

"What's the plan?" Mike asked quickly.

Zhou Hexuan said: "Pocket book plan."

Mike was puzzled: "What is a pocket book?"

Zhou Hexuan explained in detail: "A book with a format smaller than 'Small 32' and no more than 10 printed sheets can be easily put into a pocket. This kind of book does not require traditional binding and can be bonded with glue. Printing The paper is also relatively low-quality. Make sure it’s cheap and easy to carry.”

"Will anyone buy this kind of book?" Mike asked worriedly.

In this day and age, books are still relatively noble commodities, mainly divided into hardcovers and paperbacks. The pocket books mentioned by Zhou Hexuan can be classified as "badly bound books". Only pirated books and underground publications will use this method.

It is impossible for a regular book publishing company to publish poorly bound books.

Zhou Hexuan smiled and said: "You just do it. Especially for some classics, you can ask someone to delete a lot of content, retain only the most basic storyline, and then print and publish it in the form of a pocket book."

Mike still refused to obey the order. He retorted: "Zhou, you will ruin the company's reputation."

"Believe me, if you lose money, I will give you 1 million US dollars," Zhou Hexuan said confidently, "We can establish a written agreement."

"It's not about money," Mike said anxiously. "Our company managed to survive with great difficulty, and became famous with "Titanic" and "Gone with the Wind". This is my career, and I don't want to ruin it!"

Zhou Hexuan had a headache. Unable to convince the other party, he could only forcefully issue orders, which made Mike very unconvinced.

But who makes him the boss?

The boss has the final say.

It was not until the pocket book was launched that Mike felt truly ashamed, and from then on regarded Zhou Hexuan as his idol.

Pocket books were low-priced and easy to carry. They were just right for the lower-class consumers during the Great Depression. Once they were launched, they caused a sensation in the European and American book circles. A set of low-quality pocket books can easily sell tens of millions of copies, leaving traditional book publishers dumbfounded.

Even later, some people included pocket books and Kodachrome film among the human inventions, human adventures and unusual events of the 20th century.

Of course Zhou Hexuan made a lot of money, but he also spent money quickly. He has been staying in the United States this time, waiting for Feng Yong to bring his students to the United States to form a private flying club to prepare for the future Sino-Japanese air war.