"Whew-"

It took 4 hours to copy the 30,000-word manuscript of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty".

Zhang Shaojie rubbed his sour wrists, looking at the excessive use of the pen in the past few months, and a few blisters between his fingers, he couldn't help but shake his head and laughed at himself: "In these days, even copying other people's manuscripts is not an easy thing!" ”

After copying the manuscript, Zhang Shaojie closed the door.

Take a walk, just like going to work, and regularly send articles to Ming Pao Newspaper Company.

"Martial Arts and History" serializes more than 20,000 words of manuscripts every week, and it will take at least more than 4 years to complete "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" if it is to be serialized.

But every day Zhang Shaojie sends a manuscript of more than 30,000 words, he can immediately get a remuneration of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars.

With a monthly remuneration of HK$300,000, Zhang Shaojie can receive a total of more than HK$1.5 million in remuneration from Ming Pao Newspaper Company after the completion of the book in about three months.

Regarding Ming Pao's remuneration, Zhang Shaojie knows that there is no room for improvement.

This price is already roughly equivalent to the remuneration at the top of the pyramid like Jin Yong and Gu Long!

However, the first volume of the physical book "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" issued by Huang Yulang's Yulang International Publishing Company has been listed for distribution.

Huang Yulang seems to believe in "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" more than Zhang Shaojie, and the first printing of the first volume is actually as many as 50,000 copies!

Because at this time, "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" has been serialized by "Ming Pao" and "Martial Arts and History" magazines for more than two months, and has gained a wide reputation.

However, there are still some readers who are eager to read from the beginning because they missed the plot of the early serialization.

Therefore, the first episode of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" published by Yulang International Publishing Company has just come out, and it is placed on the retail shelves of major bookstores, and it has quickly been snapped up by many readers.

In the morning, Zhang Shaojie came to Yulang International Company.

I heard Qi Wenjie say to him with a smile: "Brother Zhang came just in time, Master is waiting for you in the office!"

Zhang Shaojie has been a shareholder of Yulang International for a while, and at this time, he has a close relationship with Huang Yulang, Ma Rongcheng and others.

At the same time, I also have a good understanding of some powerful painters in the company, as well as some "unspoken rules".

At the end of the day, Huang Yulang is an extremely patriarchal boss, and the company management system is extremely traditional - relying on the master-apprentice relationship and all kinds of ancient rules to maintain the company.

And Huang Yulang himself is also extremely particular about style, and even proclaimed himself "Yulang the Great".

In order to match his title of "Emperor", many painters in the company were named "Three Swordsmen, Four Great Generals, Royal Forest Army" and so on.

Qi Wenjie is Huang Yulang's eldest apprentice, ranking first in the "Three Swordsmen", and at the same time, he is also the comic director of Yulang International.

Zhang Shaojie nodded slightly and said, "Oh! I'm about to see your Master too! ”

As soon as I entered the general manager's office, I heard Huang Yulang say excitedly: "Congratulations, Shaojie!" ”

Zhang Shaojie said strangely: "Why are you happy? ”

Huang Yulang said with a smile: "The first volume of "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" has a first printing of 50,000 copies, and it has been listed! ”

"Oh, it's really worth celebrating. However, how about the sales of 50,000 copies, it won't be too much, right? Zhang Shaojie was uneasy.

After all, the market in Hong Kong is still too small, taking the standard of records as an example, the standard of platinum records in the United States is to sell 1 million copies, Taiwan's platinum records must at least meet the standard of selling 100,000 copies, and Hong Kong's 50,000 copies are considered platinum records.

Although fiction publishing is not the same industry as the record industry, the situation is similar.

There are only a handful of authors in Hong Kong who can sell more than 50,000 copies -- Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, Ni Kuang, Yishu, and Li Bihua

Among so many authors, Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng are basically not very active, and no new books have come out.

Ni Kuang and Yishu, a pair of brothers and sisters, are both writing maniacs, and because they debuted early, they are more amazingly well-known.

The works written by Li Bihua are ordinary emotional novels, but the style and taste are high, and most of the movies adapted from Li Bihua's novels can win awards.

Huang Yulang gave Zhang Shaojie the first printing of 50,000 copies of the first volume of "The Legend of the Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", obviously because he was too confident in "The Legend of the Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty"!

"Hehe, you're worrying too much! According to statistics from major bookstores, more than 10,000 copies were sold yesterday. If there are no accidents, the first 50,000 copies of the first volume of "Datang" will be sold out this week. After that, the number of copies of the second edition will be considered according to the market conditions. ”

Huang Yulang seemed more confident than Zhang Shaojie. Because, since Huang Yulang's debut, the comic publishing market he has faced has often sold more than 100,000 copies, and as few as tens of thousands of copies.

In his previous life, Zhang Shaojie saw most of the extremely depressed traditional publishing market in the future - the physical book publishing market for fiction in 2010 shrank significantly, and Hong Kong basically could not sell a few original Chinese novels. The Taiwan market can sell 3,000 copies of martial arts and fantasy serialized novels, even if they are popular works. The most popular fiction author in the mainland was able to sell more than a million books before 2000, but after 2010, the author of the novel at the top of the pyramid can only sell 300,000 copies a year in a large market of 1.3 billion people.

In later generations, those who were able to sell 50,000 books nationwide were already considered best-selling authors.

Therefore, Zhang Shaojie can't imagine that "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", which has been serialized in a famous local newspaper in Hong Kong, will continue to be able to sell 50,000 physical books in Hong Kong, a small market of 5 million citizens!

"Brother, there is no passion at such a young age. It's only 50,000 copies, and when Jin Yong was the most popular, he could sell more than 100,000 copies, or even 200,000 copies, in Hong Kong! Huang Yulang said with a smile, "My "Dragon and Tiger Gate" could only sell 7,000 copies at the beginning, but now it can also sell 100,000 copies!" What's more, your "Datang" has far surpassed "Dragon and Tiger Gate" in popularity and reputation from the very beginning!"

Zhang Shaojie couldn't help but stick out his tongue, 50,000 copies are nothing?

You must know that a volume of more than 60,000 words "The Legend of Double Dragons of the Tang Dynasty" is priced at 15 Hong Kong dollars a copy! 20% royalty is calculated, and there is 3 yuan for a manuscript.

Selling 50,000 copies is enough to divide it into 150,000 Hong Kong dollars. If you can sell 100,000 copies, the remuneration of that novel is enough to be worth the income of a million-dollar movie at this time!

Of course, this is only the number of releases in Hong Kong alone.

At this time, Taiwan's martial arts novel market is broader than Hong Kong's, and if Hong Kong can sell 50,000 copies, Taiwan will definitely not be lower than this number!

In other words, if a book is released simultaneously in Hong Kong and Taiwan, it can earn more than 300,000 manuscript fees.

And if "Datang" is all published, it will be a full 63 volumes! -- More than 20 million yuan in manuscript fees!

It's too cruel! So far, the teacher Jin Yong has been writing books since the 50s, and the total manuscript fee over the years has not exceeded 30 million!

Of course, for the time being, don't think about the mainland market!

Even a well-known figure like Jin Yong is now affected by policy factors and cannot publish his martial arts works in the mainland.

It was not until 82 that Jin Yong was invited to Yanjing and met with state leaders that Jin Yong's novels began to be officially approved for publication in the mainland market.

In November 1984, with Jin Yong's "Book of Swords and Enmity" published in the mainland for the first time by Science Popularization Press, soon after, each set of "Book of Swords and Enmity" sold more than one million copies, which set off a sales frenzy of Jin Yong's martial arts novels in the mainland. At least dozens of publishing houses across the country competed to publish Jin Yong's novels, and at that time, Jin Yong's novels had seven different editions of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" alone.

Throughout the eighties, Jin Yong's novels were conservatively estimated to have sold hundreds of millions of copies in the Chinese market!

However, Jin Yong talked about the publishing of novels in the 80s in the newspaper: "Before 1994, only Tianjin Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House was officially authorized in the mainland, and the rest were pirated. ”

Because, Tianjin Baihua Literature and Art has published "Book and Sword Enmity Record", and is the first publishing house to pay Jin Yong 100,000 yuan in royalties according to the publishing contract.

The real long-term cooperation with Jin Yong is Yanjing Sanlian Publishing House, which has a tacit understanding with Jin Yong for 20 years in the 90s. So much so that the "triptych version" of Jin Yong's novel has become the most influential version.

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ps: Thank you for your generous reward.