At night, in Arthur's house.

The shareholders and contributors of the magazine "British" gathered, and Disraeli carefully reviewed the manuscript in hand, one by one.

After a long time, he pressed the thick stack of manuscripts in his hand on the table with a smile on his face, and let out a long breath: "To be honest, I really can't think of a reason for the failure of this magazine. Each of these works is a masterpiece, and even if they are distributed separately, they can reach a large group of loyal readers. And now, they're actually stapled together. In my opinion, the price of eightpence per issue is still too cheap. Perhaps, we could have set the price a little higher? After all, our magazine is almost as big as three issues of The Times. ”

Disraeli was thinking about raising the price before it was released, and Arthur clearly had a different opinion on this.

Because for him, making money from the newspaper industry is secondary, and establishing a public opinion position and expanding his voice through "British" is his top priority.

And because he had just received a 2,000-pound financing from the Rothschilds, he didn't care about losing a lot of money in the early days of the magazine's business.

But in order to convince Disraeli and his partners, he obviously needs to come up with a more convincing plan to get everyone to put aside the fear of losing money.

Arthur didn't show his intentions first, but tactfully threw out a strange argument: "Newspapers and magazines don't really depend on the revenue generated by sales, and from what I felt when I was a front-line patrol officer at Scotland Yard, many newspapers with a large sales volume did not run smoothly. Sometimes, the more you sell, the more money your newspaper loses. ”

"Oh? What's going on? ”

Although Disraeli had run a newspaper before, he was a hands-off shopkeeper at that time, otherwise he would not have been deceived and lost as much as 7,000 pounds.

At this time, Arthur threw out such a novel theory, which naturally attracted the attention of this young man who was eager to prove himself.

Others were also interested in Arthur's statement.

Alexandre Dumas asked directly: "If newspapers don't make money from sales, what else can they rely on to make money?" Could it be that you can also steal and cheat newspapers? ”

When Arthur heard this, he did not answer directly, but said to Dickens, who had been a journalist for a long time.

"Charles, you've been a reporter in several newspapers, so you should know that the profit of a newspaper is usually very small after the cost of printing and distribution.

However, the larger the newspaper, the more likely it is to maintain a large group of journalists, or to pay high salaries to hire big-name professional writers. Only in this way can they get first-hand information faster than other newspapers, and get high-quality articles.

And these actions will also cause them to spend more and more on personnel and content costs, until they can no longer maintain their balance of payments and have to go bankrupt. Therefore, in order to fill this hole, large literary magazines and newspapers will introduce the concept of advertising space.

For the really big news outlets, it's nice to have the money from selling magazines to cover their expenses, and their main profits come from advertising revenue. Am I right? ”

Dickens looked at Arthur with wide eyes in surprise, and he said in surprise: "Arthur, I thought you were just a good police officer, but I didn't expect you to know so much about the ecology of the news magazine industry. ”

Arthur smiled helplessly: "Actually, it's not that I know, but Mr. Hetherington, who founded the Poor People's Guardian, knows." I just talked to him the other day, and he told me all these things. He also said that the Poor People's Guardian was determined not to accept any advertising, so even though it could sell tens of thousands of copies a day, it would not be profitable in the end. ”

"Hetherington?" Held's head peeked out of the magazine wrapped in the book jacket: "Didn't I hear he wasn't arrested last month?" How did it get released so quickly? ”

Dumas took a sip of coffee and said in a salty voice, "Elder is okay to use your brain, guess how Hetherington was arrested?" ”

Elder raised his eyebrows, pulled the corners of his mouth and laughed, "Arthur, fuck, I said how did Hetherington get arrested for no reason?" Everyone said that his usual whereabouts were very hidden. It turns out that you kid did it, and now everything makes sense. After all, you are probably the only one in the entire Scotland Yard who has this ability. ”

When Arthur heard this, he just said calmly: "Elder don't get me wrong, the LPS does not have the power to arrest targets, and it is the Taol Hamlets Police District in Scotland Yard that carries out the arrests. And, most importantly, Mr. Hetherington voluntarily accepted the arrest of Scotland Yard. ”

"Voluntarily accept arrest?" Alexandre Dumas frowned and asked, "Why?" Did Hetherington drink too much water from the Thames? Or did he suddenly get some kind of incarcerated disease? ”

"Nothing." Arthur replied, "I just had a few words with him. ”

"What did you say to him?"

"What did you say to him?"

Arthur put down his teacup: "I told him that he was charged this time because the Tories government felt threatened by public opinion from the Poor People's Guardian, and that the charges against him this time were also minor, just not paying the stamp duty normally.

In addition, the Tory Party was in turmoil at that time, and most of the citizens of London were dissatisfied with the Cabinet, so even if the case was filed, it would not necessarily be supported by the magistrate's court and jury, so it was likely that the guilty verdict would not be received.

Therefore, instead of fleeing London to convict himself of his crimes, which would lead to a trial in absentia, it is better to follow Scotland Yard to the Magistrates' Court.

Oh, by the way, I also mentioned to him that Mr. William Corbett, who founded the Poor People's Political Monthly, was sentenced to two years in prison for defamation for attacking stamp duty and satirizing government corruption. As a result, after his release from prison, the sales of "Poor People's Political Monthly" increased rather than decreased, selling more than 40,000 copies every month.

While I do not encourage Mr. Hetherington to follow Mr. Corbett's example, if he does market this as such, I cannot say that he is breaking the law. If you go in and squat for a month, it's like gilding the newspaper.

Later, when the Poor People's Guardian was published, Mr. Hetherington could also proudly add a note at the beginning of the newspaper that the founder of this newspaper had been in prison, brackets, and unfortunately the sentence was slightly shorter than that of Mr. Corbett. ”

Dickens was still worried about Hetherington's situation, but after listening to Arthur's words, he not only let go of his hanging heart, but also couldn't help but quip: "In this way, in order to increase the sales of "British", we can also consider selecting a suitable candidate to send in?" ”

Arthur blinked, and he pulled out the quick handcuffs that hung from his belt and threw them on the table.

"For work reasons, I can't go to prison for the time being, but I can help you get through the fast track. Which of you is willing to sacrifice yourself? ”

Alexandre Dumas raised his elbow and poked Held, "It's up to you." ”

Elder glared at Alexandre Dumas when he heard this: "Fuck, Alexander, don't make a mistake about the context. It is only through the prison that you can be sent to the Royal Navy, and I am now in the late stages of this stage. ”

Arthur nodded: "Alexander, Elder is right about this. And there is no need to make a slanderous charge against this kid in jail like he did against Mr. Corbett, and I have a pile of criminal records against him. ”

When Darwin heard this, he couldn't help but laugh.

Who knew that Elder saw him laughing, and couldn't help but glare: "Charles, what face do you have to laugh at me?" Your crime is worse than mine! I'm going to church to accuse you of rebellion against God. ”

When the Red Devil heard this, he just put a hand on Arthur's shoulder and sneered, "Betraying God? Oh, my dear Arthur, there must be one more of us here who has betrayed God, right? ”

Arthur didn't pay any attention to him, but said to Disraeli, who was deep in thought, "So now, Benjamin, you should understand, it's basically impossible to make a profit by selling newspapers. We have to expand sales and attract enough advertisers to invest in order to ensure the healthy development of the magazine.

And if we want to increase sales, blindly increasing the price is not feasible. Perhaps for the upper classes, it made no difference that magazines were priced at one penny more or less. But for the budget-conscious middle class, or the average worker in average economic conditions, every little increase in the price of the price will cost us a group of readers. ”

Disraeli looked a little struggling: "That is to say, but even if you don't consider the initial profitability. But you also have to take into account the vanity of the middle class, and sometimes the price of the magazine is lowered too low, which will make them think that reading our magazine is not in style.

We can't really be like the Poor People's Guardian which sells only one penny per issue, right? They don't have to pay stamp duty, so they can keep the cost down, but if we sell threepence, even if we don't count the printing costs, we have to pay two pence per copy, and the business doesn't do that! ”

Arthur thought for a moment, then suddenly smiled and asked, "So, Benjamin, have you ever thought about ladder pricing?" ”

Disraeli wondered, "What is tiered pricing?" ”

Arthur began, "It's easy to understand, that is, for the upper and middle classes, we have a normal pricing strategy. At the same time, we can delay a few weeks by placing some magazines aimed at ordinary workers in second-hand bookstores or second-hand vendors on the street, which will certainly be cheaper than the original ones.

Of course, in order to expand our popularity, perhaps we can also provide some free magazines to those who are full-time pub readers, such as ours, which will be very popular with newspaper readers. Also, I have to mention that I have a concert at the Coburg Theater this weekend.

If you can print the first issue of the magazine before the concert starts, I think you might be able to give a small gift to the guests after the concert, and I am sure that the gentlemen and ladies with strong spending power will definitely be very interested in our fashion. ”

Disraeli's eyes lit up when he heard this, his fingers tapped on the table, and he said with a smile, "That's right...... It's like an opium tincture, and I'm sure they'll want to get another bottle once they've finished the first issue. ”

(End of chapter)