Chapter 38 Night Talk (Second Update!)

  "It's Old He, still insisting on working so late." Li Wen Hua said with a smile.

  "It's almost time for breakfast anyway, so I'm too lazy to sleep. How about you?"

  "I'm doing great, a bit excited, want to hear about my work report?"

  "It's just as well to listen since we're idle anyway." He Mu knew that Li Wen Hua loved talking about this the most, although he didn't quite understand it himself. But Li could derive great satisfaction from it, and that was enough; it was far better than him recalling those sad memories of his father.

  Li Wenhua opened the work record he had made, saying slowly and clearly: "The sales of our book in Beijing and Tianjin have been fed back, and it's very ideal, even exceeding my expectations. Among them, 1,500 copies were sold out in just five days after being put on sale at Xidan Bookstore, and other sales points are similar. Distributors are now urging us to continue shipping. As for more distant areas, the reaction mechanism is slower, and the situation has not been fully understood, but it's estimated that it won't be bad. This radio drama has a wide spread in the north, with a solid mass base, and as long as we open up a little publicity, we can attract many people. From the sales situation in Beijing and Tianjin, it can be inferred that the North China market can absorb at least 50,000 copies, so we don't have to worry about selling out the first print of 20,000 copies. Now I use the remaining money to add another 10,000 copies, and after the initial funds are recovered, we can increase the print run again and try to promote other areas. The total sales should be at least twice that of North China."

  When it comes to his own debut work, Li Wenhua is always full of confidence and makes perfect sense, but He Mu feels a bit dizzy listening to him.

  "I don't quite understand what you're saying, but it sounds pretty good," He Mu smiled and asked a very common question, "So how much can our company make from this deal?"

  Li's enigmatic smile: "Conservative estimate, two hundred thousand."

  "Two hundred thousand!" This amount of money is not small, but it's also not a lot. After all, He Mu has also seen one million before, but the two numbers are different. One million was just a number on a set of bank cards that He Mu got in exchange for selling his freedom for five years, whereas two hundred thousand was achieved by Li Wen Hua through his own knowledge, hard work and dedication, racking his brains day and night to get results. It can be said that the value of this two hundred thousand far exceeds that one million. Most importantly, Li Wen Hua found a place where he could realize his own worth and abilities. He is no longer the rich kid who liked to use words to flirt with girls, but has evolved into a cultural businessman who can use words to improve lives and destinies.

  This is a welcome change.

  "And that's just the profit from physical book sales, don't forget that the author has already sold us the adaptation rights for this book. Although there is a minimum limit of 1 million, as long as we can sell it at this price, we can get a 10% commission, which is another million or so," Li Wenhua said excitedly on the phone, "And recently, a director from Shanghai has been in contact with me, saying that he wants to adapt it into a play. I haven't agreed yet, waiting for the book sales to reach a certain level before discussing further, and then we can negotiate a good price."

  "Fatty, you're too awesome!" He Mu praised, "Maybe the most correct decision I've made in my life is to partner with you to start a company. Fatty, when can we distribute dividends? Brother, I'm so poor that I can't even afford to cook."

  "I didn't expect Li to say seriously, 'I don't plan to distribute dividends within three years. After all, our company is too small and weak, so we must use every penny to expand ourselves. Hedonism can't be considered for the time being. Next, I plan to rent a warehouse in the suburbs of Beijing to store books, instead of always borrowing the printing factory's warehouse and spending a lot on rental fees. When the company grows stronger, who knows, maybe we'll even buy a few printing factories."

  Three years! He Miao has nothing to say, might as well just focus on filming or take on two commercials to make a living, anyway Li Jun and Tian Di Xuan Huang are hopeless.

  He Mu then asked about the company's next publication plan, He Mu knew that Li Jun definitely had a plan, so he asked this question to give him an opportunity to show off.

  "It's like this, I've thought about it carefully. Domestically, there are many book companies similar to ours, some of which reign supreme in certain regions, while others have a nationwide influence. In terms of strength, our Tian Di Xuan Huang can only be considered lower-tier, and in terms of connections, I'm just relying on my dad's relationships with some business channels. So, if we want to stand out in the book market, we need to focus on content as king and create bestsellers with super strong influence."

  He Mu paused for a moment before continuing, "The book market is divided into three types: mass-market books, educational books, and professional books. Each type will have some super bestsellers with sales of over a million copies. However, the education and professional book markets are clearly defined and not easily accessible to small companies like ours. Moreover, this is not my area of expertise. So I positioned Tian Di Xuan Huang as a cultural company specializing in planning and publishing mass-market books, mainly focusing on essay collections and other popular reading materials. But here's another problem: most well-known bestselling authors in China have their own dedicated publishers and publishing companies. For example, Han Han, Guo Ni, and Anni Baobei have always collaborated with Lu Jinbo, while Guo Jingming's books are published by Chunfeng Literature and Yangtze River Literature. We simply don't have the clout to disrupt their cooperative relationships."

  Here is the translation:

  "So we can only take a different approach, walking a unique path in publishing. The book 'Air Stewardess' made me see the influence of the internet. Since **Cai's 'First Intimate Contact', every year there are many online works emerging, and many literature enthusiasts write their own stories on the web, among which some excellent works can be found. However, media coverage for them is extremely rare, just like 'Air Stewardess' which basically relied on word of mouth to achieve its current online influence, yet still not being valued by traditional publishers."

  Li Wenhua paused for a moment, then continued: "I've seen many online works, to be honest, some of them are not much worse than 'Air Stewardess', but they lack promotion and no one is willing to push them forward, resulting in being silently forgotten in a corner of the internet. After all, it's still that people don't pay enough attention to online literature, causing these works to only spread within a small range on the internet. I think maybe this will be our company's future work focus - packaging and promoting excellent online literary works, ultimately taking them onto the path of physical publication, fulfilling those writers' dreams of becoming authors, and also creating a new business opportunity for ourselves!"

  Actually, some insightful publishers in China have already noticed the field of online literature. For example, Lu Jinbo, Han Han's publisher, was originally an online writer and one of the first generation of online writers in China. Under the pen name "Li Xunhuan", he was also a famous figure on the internet, along with Ning Caishen, the screenwriter of the popular sitcom "The Legend of Chu Liu Xiang". After retiring from writing, Lu Jinbo started working in the publishing industry and published works such as Mu Yongxuecun's "Chengdu, Please Forget Me Tonight" (serialized on Tianya) and He Haowei's "If Stars Fall from the Sky", all of which became bestsellers. The film and TV adaptation rights for "Chengdu" have also been sold, which is actually a major success for online literature in the physical book market.

  In addition, there is also a publisher who was once a poet, Shen Haobo, who is also a pioneer in the field of online literature publishing. The physical book publication of "Zhuxian" that swept the internet a few years ago was planned by him. Another example is Sun Rui's "Cao Yang Nian Hua", which was discovered from a post on the internet and became one of the best-selling books of 2004 after packaging and promotion, with sales exceeding 10 million copies. At that time, Sun Rui was considered one of the few young writers who could reach this level of sales, along with Han Han and Guo Jingming, two big star writers, and his name was on everyone's lips for a while.

  Both of them have made a name and fortune in online literature, and Shen Haobo's "Grassland Youth" was even considered his lifesaver for Maitian Culture. The experiences of these two publishing veterans are an inspiration to Li Wen, who has already dabbled extensively in online literature and seems to see endless business opportunities in it, and has also determined the direction of the company's development for the next few years.

  "It sounds good anyway, I'll support you." He Mu said firmly.

  "I haven't finished yet," Li Wenhua interrupted He Mu, continuing, "I've thought about it, there are countless online novels, and I definitely can't read them all myself. So after the work on 'Stewardess' is completed, I'll recruit some new people for the company and set up a 'Topic Selection Department'. They won't do anything else, just browse books online, and if they think something is good, they can send it to me for review. Then I or more professional personnel will determine whether it has commercial value worth publishing."

  "Isn't this just like a talent scout in our film industry?" He Mu couldn't help but think.

  "That's right, this is 'book exploration'. I still have some immature ideas. Our company isn't called Tiandi Xuanhuang for nothing. Later on, I'll divide these book explorers into four groups, each specializing in a type of book or website. Then we'll use codes like Tianzi No. 1, Tianzi No. 2, Dizi No. 1 and so on to identify them. Whoever performs well and discovers books with high sales will be able to advance their ranking within the code!" Li Wen's brain quickly turned over ideas, soon laying the foundation for Tiandi Xuanhuang's book exploration mechanism. These ideas were all just sparks of inspiration that flashed through his mind in an instant.

  "It feels like that TV series 'The Number One in the World'! " He Mu sighed, "But this idea is really great, let me be a book explorer too, who knows, I might help you find a super bestseller!"

  Li Wenhua smiled and said: "One still has to rely on oneself, I just found a book with great potential for bestseller, now I've already started contacting the author..."

  Look down on the power department, no electricity all day, had to run to town to cousin's house to code and send messages! And it's raining too, what a tragedy for Old Buddha! This is the second update, because there was no draft saved, Old Buddha wrote and sent simultaneously. Today is Monday, Old Buddha has worked hard, just hoping for everyone's recommendation, click, collection, if can enter the top ten list, Old Buddha will stay up all night to code out four chapters! Please help!