Chapter Seventy-Three: He Lao Ban

  He Muxi's little nest welcomed a guest - Tang Yi.

  Today's plot development is Lele coming to find Ruan Jing, discovering that Ruan Jing and Lu Fei are cohabiting, then the two girls whispered a lot.

  After finishing the play, Shi Shi invited Tang Yi to dinner. Recently, this little girl learned a big dish - sweet and sour eggplant, especially hoping to show off in front of friends, so there was an extra person at the dinner table tonight.

  Maybe she's not very familiar with He Mu, or maybe it's because of the camera recording, she seems a bit reserved and can't let go, but usually when I see her with Shi Shi together, they're quite crazy, of course, it's also possible that she was infected by Shi Shi.

  After dinner, He Mu sent Tang Yi downstairs. Her home was local, so she stayed at home during the filming period. After Tang Yi left, He Mu commented on a sentence "The sweet and sour eggplant is a bit salty."

  Back in his bedroom, He Mu's phone rang, it was Li Kun.

  "What's going on?"

  Li Bao: "In a few days I'm going to Shanghai for a trip."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Because I'm going to take our book on a national signing tour with Mingyue this year, and it's selling like crazy!"

  Li Wen was a bit excited, but he also had reason to be excited.

  Although "Ming Dynasty Those Things" has some reputation on the internet, and their publicity work is also very sufficient, with Douban Reading Strongly Recommended, Dangdang Excellent Advertising Investment, and even inviting historical masters to comment, it can be said that Li Wen Hua made all the efforts he could for this book, expecting it to have good sales, but didn't expect it to be so well-received.

  The first print run of 200,000 copies, with an initial shipment of 50,000 in the first week, basically filled up most of the northern regions and some southern cities. Now the company's sales channels have expanded significantly, apart from the old people who followed his father to make a living, he also closely cooperated with local distributors and online bookstores, the benefits of several best-selling books bound them together tightly. This time, the release of "Ming Dynasty Those Things" was also very careful, Li Wen expected 50,000 copies to be sold out in two weeks, but in fact, this book's popularity far exceeded his expectations.

  When the weekly sales statistics and replenishment orders of channel merchants were put on Li Wen's desk, he and his colleagues were stunned. 500,000 copies, 430,000 sold in one week, most bookstores have already sold more than half, they strongly demanded to increase the supply, otherwise there will be no books to sell next week, some bookstores have even been sold out, facing a large number of readers who want to buy this book, they can only helplessly say try online.

  However, it's not easy to buy online either. Within just one week, "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty" has entered the top five monthly sales of historical books on Dangdang.com, and currently ranked first is still the academic superstar Yi Zhongtian's "Appreciating Three Kingdoms", I believe it won't take long to be replaced. Due to the explosive sales online, the current situation is that supply cannot meet demand, many online merchants have already sold out and are waiting for replenishment of goods.

  Li Wenxue quickly made three instructions: First, after dawn, immediately send out the 150,000 copies in stock and fill up online and physical stores. Second, notify the printing factory to start working overtime to print an additional 200,000 copies. This year's sales of one million yuan are definitely achievable, he believes that 400,000 copies will not be able to stop the momentum of "Ming Dynasty". However, due to funding constraints, only this many can be printed for now, which should be enough to sustain for a period of time. Third, contact the author and several major bookstores in first-tier cities across the country to plan a national signing event, adding fuel to the hot sales of "Ming Dynasty".

  The capital, Magic City, Goat City and Chengdu are must-go places, so Li Wenhua called He Mu to inform him, but actually he was showing off more.

  "It seems like I discovered this book, what's so great about you!" He Mu snorted.

  "If it weren't for my publicity and marketing, this book wouldn't have achieved such success." Li Wenhua retorted, feeling a bit guilty as he said this, because the promotional work for "Ming Dynasty" had been largely handed over to Zuo Jun, who was working part-time for him during his summer vacation. To be honest, Zuo's planning was much more meticulous than Li's own, but if there was one drawback, it was that Zuo lacked Li's rich experience, and many things were learned from textbooks, which didn't always work well in practical application.

  The two of them bickered for a while, but they were both extremely pleased in their hearts. The success of Tian Di Xuan Huang was their joint venture, but He Mu always felt that he hadn't contributed enough and had some guilt in his heart. Now that the book he discovered had achieved such great results, he also felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

  ——————

  The next day, He Mu bought a copy of "Those Things in the Ming Dynasty" and read it again. At first, he had read it online, but now that he has a physical book, he wants to re-read it. When he's not reading it, he just leaves it casually in the living room, where it can appear on TV a few times, which is like product placement, and without even paying for advertising fees.

  As filming continued, Lu Fei's cousin Lu Xiaoxiao also joined the crew. The actress who plays Xiaoxiao, Lin Yuan, is only 18 years old this year, but she has acted in many dramas and has collaborated with big-name stars like Xu Jinglei and Sun Honglei. It's said that she also has a movie coming out soon. Now she should be the youngest actor on set; originally, this honor belonged to Shi Shi, but after Lin Yuan joined the crew, Shi Shi immediately took on an elder sister's dignified and steady demeanor, while Lin Yuan was surrounded by people calling her "Shi Jie" (a term of respect for an older female colleague) left and right, making her feel delighted.

  One Ruan Jing, one Xiao Xiao, two beautiful women make ordinary man Lu Fei painful and happy at the same time, especially when shopping, with two beauties accompanying him, he has a lot of face. However, carrying big bags and small bags all over his body makes him look a bit silly. The script is written this way, in the end, only He Mu will suffer. These two days have been filled with scenes of shopping and strolling around, and Director Jiang chose fashionable and high-end locations, wherever they went, they caused multiple gatherings and commotions, He Mu was on the newspaper several times again, but his popularity has also decreased, not much large-scale reporting, even Guo Siyuan who had always been paying attention to He Mu went to Hong Kong to track down the new trends after Feng Zhi's comeback.

  Datang is right, actors still need to rely on their works, without good works, no matter how popular you are, it's all empty. People will soon forget about you. So He Mu should focus on filming more good works. Once the works are broadcast, as long as people like them, even if you don't try to attract media attention, they will still be watching you 24 hours a day, and with any slight movement, the whole nation will know about it. This is a kind of pain, but isn't it also a kind of joy?

  Three days after entering the group, Hu Ge and Yu Fei came to inspect. During filming, he asked producer Cai Jianjie about the shooting progress. In 20 days, nine episodes were filmed, which made him quite satisfied. Looking at the monitor screen, He Mu and Shi Shi Lin Yuan two little girls played happily, their performance was already very skilled.

  During the break, Xiao Fang and Director Jiang chatted about the shooting situation, and then turned around in the room. Happened to see that "Ming Dynasty Those Things" was quietly lying on the sofa, picked it up and took a look, the logo of Tian Di Xuan Huang was clearly printed on the cover. He called He Mu over, "Is this book published by Li Kun's company?"

  "Yes," He Mu explained again, "I just take a look after filming." He didn't dare mention the product placement.

  Xiao Fang called the director over and said a few words. He asked Director Jiang to let the characters in the play use this book as a prop when filming, trying to expose the cover as much as possible. This would not affect the plot, and there were often scenes where Lu Fei and Ruan Jing sat on the sofa chatting with magazines. It didn't matter if they replaced the magazine with a book. Director Jiang agreed without hesitation, but became interested in that book.

  "I didn't expect Xiao Fang to be so good at this. When it was just the two of them, He Mu spoke on behalf of Li Jun and expressed his gratitude to Xiao Fang, 'This is giving Li Jun's son a free advertisement, he must be very thankful to you.'"

  Xiao Fang smiled and said: "Don't you want to thank me, He Lao Ban?"

  "Fang Ge, what do you mean?" He Mu didn't understand why Xiao Fang suddenly called him "He Boss".

  "You little scoundrel, are you still trying to fool me? Do you think the universe's mysteries have nothing to do with you?"

  "Uh, this..."

  At the time of He Mu's hesitation, Xiao Fang said again: "I've always been curious, since you were given a signing fee of one million yuan at the beginning, how come you're still living so frugally. I thought you had handed over all the money to your parents. It wasn't until the other day when I was drinking with Li Pangzi that he told me you used this sum of money to set up this Tiandi Xuanhuang company with him."

  "It was actually Li Jun who sold me out, this little brat!" He Mu gritted his teeth and said.

  "Don't blame him, he didn't know you were hiding this from me and it just slipped out unintentionally."

  He Mu smiled wryly and said: "Fang Ge, I didn't intentionally hide it from you, I just thought there was no need to say anything."

  Xiao Fang patted He Mu's shoulder: "I understand, I didn't say anything anyway. If you can have such a successful career outside of acting, I'll be even more at ease. Even if you don't make it on the path of performing arts, you won't end up with nothing."

  "If it can go through, I still like this road, publishing industry is Li Jun's road." He Mu said firmly.

  Xiao Fang smiled with relief: "Right, next month our family's old man is having his 70th birthday, you and Li Baozi also take out a day to attend, I'll introduce you to my sister."

  Xiao Fang's older sister Xiao Mei is the deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication. Knowing her will be somewhat helpful for Tian Di Huang's business.

  "Alright, but you have to help me ask for leave." He Mu glanced at Director Jiang not far away.

  "This is natural."

  ——————

  Xiao Fang left soon after, and Lin Yuan also left. She will probably return in about a week.

  Two days later, a troublesome guest star came to the crew, and the director was in a headache, the staff were in a headache, even He Mu Shi was also very headached, but still had to smile at her...

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