"Sticky!"

Seeing that Wang Mingke frowned and was silent, and after spit out two words, Shi Yiwen explained.

"To increase the stickiness of the newspaper and make them want to read it, this is not just by the interest of the news."

"So how do you think the owner can increase this stickiness?"

In the face of Wang Mingke's sincere inquiry, Shi Yiwen replied directly.

"Maybe a serialized novel!"

"Yes, it's a serialized novel. Set up a section in the newspaper to serialize novels, and send out two or three thousand words a day, as long as they read it, they will naturally take the initiative to buy our newspaper. ”

In fact, from the initial decision to build a bookstore, especially after deciding to start a newspaper, Shi Yiwen has almost made up his mind in his heart, that is, to increase the "stickiness" of the newspaper by serializing novels.

And this way of serializing novels was precisely a means to increase the sales of newspapers in the late Qing Dynasty, especially before the liberation, and later in Hong Kong, Jin Yong relied on serializing his own novels to start a newspaper.

"Boss, do you mean that we print other people's novels in our newspaper?"

The owner's words made Wang Mingke's eyes light up, and he even said loudly with excitement uncontrollably.

"Oops, hey, look at my brain, why didn't I expect this, people don't dare to print more in the newspaper, because the words are big, our newspaper is small, and the things that can be printed are gone!"

Looking at Wang Mingke's excited appearance, Shi Yiwen smiled slightly, the current books are all big-character books, and most of the books in this era are ten lines per page, twenty-two words, and a page of more than 200 words at most, and big-character books are the fundamental reason for the high price of books. The root cause of this problem is that the cost of hand-engraved small characters is too high, and small characters are easy to wear. However, in the face of lithographs, this is not a problem at all.

"The owner, the lithograph we tried to print, a page of twenty lines, forty-six words, even if it is a page of forty lines, eight crosses, the words can be printed very clearly, let's print the novel directly in the newspaper, it doesn't matter if the words are small, anyway, as long as they are led to buy, the owner ......"

After a pause, Wang Mingke said.

"Otherwise, let's print the most fashionable "Romance of the Gods" (1) in the newspaper? That book has 20 volumes, but it sells for 2 taels of silver (2), and our newspaper prints 2,000 words a day, and it takes 100 days to print it, at most it costs 1 tael of silver......"

When Wang Mingke mentioned "Romance of the Gods", Shi Yiwen was slightly stunned and surprised.

""The Romance of the Gods" is out?"

"Yes, the new book that just came from Nanzhili after the New Year is written about King Wu's war, but the content is fresh, and now the most sold book in the capital is this book."

Although I was surprised that "Romance of the Gods" seemed to come out a few years earlier, it also made Shi Yiwen's eyes shine.

In fact, he didn't even think about printing other books in the newspaper, because there are too few good books at the moment, and the newspaper must use good books to open sales if it wants to be a blockbuster.

The Ming Dynasty was one of the most developed periods of the publishing industry in Chinese history, especially the novels, in the publishing industry there has always been a saying that "selling ancient books is not as good as selling Shiwen, and printing Shiwen is not as good as printing novels", the huge demand of the market has promoted the prosperity of the publishing industry, and as early as the Jiajing period, the shortage of manuscripts and the thirst for new books have reached their peak. Booksellers everywhere are racking their brains to come up with fresh novels. But this matter is not so easy, people in Shilin often regard novels as a small way, and those who have a level are unwilling to write, and those who are willing to write are often limited in level, and they cannot write really fascinating and good books.

Good books are hard to read, which is a common phenomenon at the moment. Famous books like "Golden Vase Plum" and "Journey to the West" have not yet been written. After all, the pinnacle of Ming Dynasty fiction is still a few decades away. However, for Shi Yiwen, this is not a problem, after all, standing on the shoulders of giants, he has too many novels to "plagiarize", and even in the library, there are many Ming and Qing novels and novels of various periods, as long as you want, you can print out thousands or even tens of thousands at any time.

Speaking of which, although the novel industry in this era is prosperous, the types and content of novels are very limited, so Shi Yiwen has thought a lot about this blank market, and has thought a lot, in addition to the novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties, he has even considered martial arts and even science fiction.

If you want to rely on a novel to make a newspaper famous, you must choose a suitable work, and it is a little difficult to choose this work, but now Wang Mingke's words are to help Shi Yiwen solve the problem, he was still thinking about what book to "write", and he immediately made a decision.

"If we print "Romance of the Gods" in the newspaper, how can other people's books be sold? Peers are enemies, they offend people as soon as they come up, and it is us who suffer in the end, so to speak, they came out with "Romance of the Gods", then I will write a book "Journey to the West". ”

"The Romance of the Gods" can be called the enlightenment reading of Chinese gods and demons novels. As a novel, it laid the foundation of the Chinese mythological system. The gods in "Journey to the West" are extremely vague, although the focus of the novel is Tang Seng Sun Wukong, but the gods and ghosts are also important supporting roles. If you write it out rashly, you will be confused when you look at it, and you may not be able to understand it......

If you want to understand the relationship between the gods in "Journey to the West", you must refer to "Romance of the Gods". "Romance of the Gods" is like a dictionary of mythology, if you don't refer to "Romance of the Gods", you can't figure out the relationship between the mythical characters in "Journey to the West", and you can't even figure out this "system".

Now that "Romance of the Gods" has come out, and it is selling very well, it is time to sell "Journey to the West" while the iron is hot.

"Journey to the West?"

Wang Ming looked at the owner suspiciously.

"Yes, it's a bit related to "Romance of the Gods", but it's still a brand new story."

Looking at Wang Mingke's puzzled appearance, Shi Yiwen smiled.

"Actually, this "Journey to the West" is also using the shell of the gods in "Romance of the Gods" to tell another story."

Laughing, Shi Yiwen told the synopsis of the story of "Journey to the West", although he just said it casually, but he still dumbfounded Wang Mingke, and in the end, it seemed that only the monkey was left in his mind, and even asked again and again.

"And then? And then? ”

"Later ......"

Looking at Wang Mingke's impatient appearance, Shi Yiwen smiled.

"Later, naturally, I wanted to hear what happened next, and I listened to the next breakdown!"

(1) "The Romance of the Gods" is a novel written by Xu Zhonglin (controversial) in the Ming Dynasty, which was written in the Longqing and Wanli periods, so it is a medium number...... Wanli six years.

(2) The price test of books in the Ming Dynasty - the second price test of books in the Chinese dynasties: the Ming Wanli engraved this book in front of the imprint of "each price pattern silver two taels".