Rebirth of the courtyard, the start is 80s

Chapter 9 How Writers Are Made
That's right, at the beginning, Cao Zhiqiang never thought that a poem could make him popular all over the country.

This is completely outside the scope of his thinking.

He has written so many short story submissions that are also famous in later generations.

For example, "The Tower of Babylon" and "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang in the previous life.

Although the response of these two short stories was very good, neither of them had the sensational effect caused by the poem "Seeing and Not Seeing".

It's like, no one appreciates the hard-written things, but the impromptu plagiarism is extremely popular.

What a hell.

What he didn't know, however, was how powerful poetry was at the beginning of 1983.

He even doesn't know what kind of effect a later Internet celebrity poem like "Seeing and Not Seeing" can produce in this year of 1983.

A sensation, a real national sensation!
To what extent is it a sensation?

Poetry magazine, because of this poem, has been reprinted five times in a short period of time!

That's not enough, far from enough.

It is said that all parts of the country are selling like crazy, and they are all asking for reprints.

Even many people couldn't buy it, so they spread and copied this poem everywhere, which caused the capital to be expensive for a while.

Of course, it is an exaggeration to say that the paper is expensive in the capital, but it is true that it is copied everywhere.

As for real feedback in reality...

Anyway, it didn't take long before the poem "Seeing and Not Seeing" began to be sung in the streets and alleys. Even if many young people couldn't memorize it, they still knew one or two lines in it.

For example, "You see me, or you don't see me. I'm right there, neither sad nor happy."

Or "You love me, or you don't love me. The love is there, never increasing or decreasing."

Many people have memorized lines like this, and it has even become a code to distinguish whether you are an educated youth or not.

If you can recite this poem completely, you are a real cultural youth.

No, it's fake Wenqing.

If you don't know anything about it and haven't heard of this poem, you're a fool.

By the way, Qiangzi's name also became a hit, and he became a new famous modern poet in China.

What Gu Chenghaizi, at this time, is just a joke, even Bei Dao, the influence of this poem at this time is not as good as his.

There is no way, the charm of later Internet celebrity poems, in 1983, is the power of this atomic bomb explosion.

In fact, this is also normal, because the way of writing in later generations is completely different from this era.

After all, people in later generations are in an era of knowledge explosion, and the threshold is already very high. If poems that can stand out in later generations come to this moment, they will of course be at the level of nuclear bomb explosions.

In short, many people say that the poet Qiangzi is the king of the new generation of love poems after the reformation. Many people wrote to ask about Qiangzi's true identity, and there were even tens of thousands of courtship letters, including men and women.

There is no way, Qiangzi is just a pseudonym, and his identity has not been disclosed. No one knows whether he is a man or a woman.

And taking advantage of this trend, Qiang Zi resolutely came to the Poetry Magazine in person, and under the warm reception of the editor-in-chief, he gave his second Wang Zha poem - "The Farthest Distance in the World".

That's right, it's the poem in a bunch of versions in later generations, and it's a Chinese-English version.

Not bad this time, because of the great success of "Seeing and Not Seeing" before, and Qiangzi has already gained a certain reputation, Cao Zhiqiang is no longer a newcomer, but has a certain bargaining power.

In addition, this new poem is also expensive, and the artistic conception is quite good.

So after bargaining, the editor-in-chief finally made a decision and decided to win the song "The Farthest Distance in the World" with a capped price of 1000 yuan.

The price is quite high, but it is actually quite normal.

After all, "The Farthest Distance in the World" has a lot of words and lines, plus there is a follow-up short story, the overall length is not small.

The most important thing is, if it can cause the sensation of the previous "See and See" again and sell more magazines, the money will be easily recovered.

The magazine is not bad at all.

Moreover, magazines like Poetry Magazine with a circulation of over one million are not short of such a small amount of money at all.

However, the editor-in-chief of the magazine has something to say.

After all, this poem is so good, if there is a supplement, only one poem is too little.

But if you don't take advantage of the popularity of "Seeing and Not Seeing" and Qiangzi's fame is booming, you can issue a supplement immediately.

After waiting for a month, the next issue will come out. The previous heat has passed, and the superimposed effect is gone.

That's right, the editor-in-chief of this period was also quite flexible, and he also knew that popularity was directly proportional to sales.

People in this period will do the same thing about rubbing heat.

So, the editor-in-chief asked if there were any new poems.

Even if it's not as good as these two songs, just use his fame to make up the number and issue a special supplement.

At this time, Cao Zhiqiang immediately calmly took out a booklet.

In this booklet, there are fifty poems, all of which have not yet appeared, but are very classic and popular in later generations.

For example, the song "Of course" in the pamphlet is a plagiarism of a later song "Tsangyang Gyatso Saying".

This song "Cangyang Gyatso Says", mentioning the name alone may not be clear to many people in later generations, but if we talk about the verses in it, such as the beginning——

"I am all the men in the world, you are all the women in the world, I love you, of course."

Yes, if you mention the verses inside, many people may have the impression.

The author of this poem is actually the same person as the author of "Seeing and Not Seeing", and he is very talented.

But helpless, the other party lives in the Internet age. Although her literary talents are good and her poems are very popular, she herself is not very popular. This is the helplessness of later generations of poets.

Poetry is dead, something burns paper.

This is the status quo of the poetry world in later generations.

And the poets of later generations are basically unpopular, and it is difficult to make a name for themselves.

But in 1983, the twilight age of modern poetry, it was different.

Dusk is always very beautiful, it is the last crazy age.

Sure enough, the editor couldn't put it down immediately when he saw this booklet, especially the opening chapter "Of course".

Looking at the following poems again, it is even more mesmerizing.

He only read ten poems, so he simply decided not to issue a supplement, but to publish a collection of poems for Cao Zhiqiang alone.

This is a serious publication with an ISBN.

The editor-in-chief of that publishing house was also very optimistic about Cao Zhiqiang, and wanted to buy it out at a high price, or pay a high price for the manuscript.

But Cao Zhiqiang just disagreed, and he was too serious about copyright. He just didn't want the publishing house to buy out the publishing exclusively, and only wanted to publish at his own expense, or share it in proportion.

The reason is very simple. At that time, he had almost enough money to publish the book at his own expense. It might not be enough to publish a martial arts novel, but it would be no problem to produce a collection of poems with few words and pages.

In the end, after some discussion, an editor surnamed Yu made a suggestion, thinking that we should not lose the big because of small things. In order to hold Cao Zhiqiang back, don’t let him go to other places to publish books at his own expense and become popular in other publishing houses, and simply give him the edition. Forget about tax drafting remuneration.

Playing with the royalty system, at least the magazine and the publishing house can get a share of the profits. Otherwise, if Cao Zhiqiang is asked to publish books at his own expense in other small publishing houses, then no one of them will be able to make a profit.

And so it was settled.

It is said that this royalties and manuscript remuneration shared with writers is the first time in the domestic publishing industry, and it has never happened before.

In the history of Cao Zhiqiang's previous life, the first person in China to use the royalty system was a ruffian writer surnamed Wang, and that was still in the 90s.

But here, if he is really paid for royalties, he is the No.1 domestic royalty producer.

The so-called royalty remuneration.

To put it simply, the Writer's Publishing House bought out the exclusive publishing rights of the book "Qiang Zi's Poems" for five years.

During this period, this book could not be published by other magazines, and only "Qiangzi Poetry Collection" could be published by Writers Publishing House.

At that time, the Author Publishing House will pay Cao Zhiqiang the manuscript remuneration for this book in the form of royalties.

After discussing for a long time, the publishing house finally set a royalty rate for this collection of poems, or Cao Zhiqiang's share, which was [-]%.

Therefore, the manuscript fee that Cao Zhiqiang can get is the number of publications of "Qiangzi Poetry Collection" × the distribution price of a single book × the royalty rate ([-]%), and the amount of money obtained from this is the manuscript fee to Cao Zhiqiang.

And this remuneration is settled on January [-]st.

Assuming that "Qiangzi's Anthology of Poems" is priced at 2 yuan, and the number of copies published in the month is 100000, then Cao Zhiqiang's remuneration for the month is 6×1×[-]%, which is equal to [-] yuan.

Don't look at it is only 12000 yuan, but this was in 1983 when the RMB had not depreciated!
With [-], you can buy a small courtyard house or an imported motorcycle at this time.

Of course, that was just a preliminary negotiation plan, and actually publishing the book would be more profitable than he thought.

In the end, the publishing plan he finalized with the editor-in-chief was to change the name of the poetry collection to "The Farthest Distance in the World".

This looks more literary and eye-catching.

However, "Qiangzi Poetry Collection" is too rustic and not literary enough.

As for the pricing, there are [-] poems in total, priced at [-] yuan a book.

This price is relatively high in this era.

After all, less words, less paper and less cost.

What Cao Zhiqiang didn't expect was that after the publishing plan was finalized, the Poetry Magazine, or the Writer's Publishing House behind the Poetry Magazine, would be so efficient in publishing books.

He discussed the book publishing plan with the editor in the morning and signed the contract. In the afternoon, he got the ISBN, and then started typesetting overnight that night, started printing on the third day, and officially published it on the fifth day.

It took five days to complete the entire link from negotiating the contract to publishing the book. The speed of the release simply shocked Cao Zhiqiang's eyeballs.

Good guy, really good guy.

It is indeed a writer's publishing house with people on it.

As expected of [-], when literary works grew wildly.

The speed of publishing books alone is unmatched by future generations.

This is still an era without computer typing and computer printing, and everything is typesetting.

Today, this "The Farthest Distance in the World" has been officially released for half a month, but the sales volume has already exceeded 20 copies.

That is to say, the print index of the first issue of test water sales has been sold out, but Xinhua Bookstores all over the country are still urging the release of the book, saying that too many people want to buy it but can't.

It is said that because the sales of this collection of poems are so hot in various places, the printing house has started printing again, and this time the initial printing volume is 100 million copies.

In fact, the sales volume of 20 copies broke in half a month, which has already broken the record of poetry and prose publications issued by Writer Publishing House.

So up to now, this collection of poems has been a great success.

In this process, the Writer Publishing House certainly made a lot of money, but the Poetry Magazine Publishing House earned a reputation, not to mention a share, because of its signature to participate in the proofreading and typesetting.

In particular, the editor Yu who proposed to play with Cao Zhiqiang on the royalty system, and did not let Cao Zhiqiang go, was even softer when he was rewarded.

Of course, Cao Zhiqiang has gained both fame and fortune.

Not to mention anything else, even if the sales volume of this book does not increase in the future, according to the previous payment settlement method, Cao Zhiqiang can still get the 20 copies of the payment, which is 6000 yuan!

6000 yuan, what kind of concept is this in 1983?
A concept that can scare people to death!
Perhaps it was because of his excellent grades that the editor-in-chief found him today. Not only did he pay him for the manuscript in advance, but he also rewarded him with a lot of industrial coupons and other related tickets.

That's right, Cao Zhiqiang's industrial coupons for buying the tape recorder were all given to him by the publishing house. It was a special reward, not included in the manuscript remuneration.

Otherwise, with Cao Zhiqiang's current factory income, it is impossible for him to get enough industrial vouchers to buy tape recorders.

After all, industrial vouchers, or purchase vouchers, are issued linked to your salary at this time. Currently, one voucher is issued every ten yuan, and you can receive it together with your salary.

As far as Cao Zhiqiang’s current monthly salary is 30 yuan, normally there are only three industrial vouchers per month. He has only worked for less than three months, and it is impossible for him to buy a tape recorder worth more than 300 yuan.

Not only that, the editor-in-chief also invited him to participate in the upcoming "Youth Poetry Conference".

In addition to these, the editor-in-chief also said that he should be recommended to the National Writers Association and become a full member.

He also wanted to transfer Cao Zhiqiang to be the editor of the magazine.

It is said that in his situation, it is not troublesome to transfer jobs. Even if it is troublesome, Cao Zhiqiang can resign first and then go to work in the magazine.

The Poetry Magazine is a serious business unit at this time, and the official editors in it are all professional staff.

In 1983, the career establishment was already more popular than the worker establishment, and the identity of the magazine editor was more respectable.

Basically, in a situation like Cao Zhiqiang, as long as he agrees, the job transfer can be completed very quickly without any problems.

Even if the factory really doesn't let people go, Cao Zhiqiang can forcefully resign first, and then go to the magazine to apply for a job, just go through this formality.

Don't think that people are fooling people, but it's really not.

In 1983, it was relatively difficult to enter the establishment of government agencies, or the establishment of cadres.

After all, this establishment requires cadre status.

And those who can be cadres during this period are either promoted by the army, or go to school honestly, such as graduates from technical secondary schools, and college students or above.

However, the conversion between workers and occupations is relatively simple.

Basically, as long as the counterpart unit wants you and is willing to give you the relevant establishment, then everything will be fine, and the academic requirements are not so rigid.

For example, a certain poet surnamed Zhao in his previous life, the one with the pen name What Island, was a construction worker first, and then became famous for writing poems, then became an editor of a magazine, became a career editor, and then went to be a leader in a company, anyway. Come and go, the establishment can change at any time.

But no matter how he changes, he will not be able to become a civil servant, nor can he become a member of the system. Without him, his education is not enough, and his academic ability is not enough!

In fact, if he doesn't do it himself, he can live a good life, but unfortunately, he became famous too early, his thoughts are too drifting, and he is too cynical.

Having said that, the career editor is really good, but it's a pity that he doesn't have this ambition, but has his own plan.

In other words, a magazine editor with a career editor can no longer satisfy his ambition.

Therefore, Cao Zhiqiang only agreed to fill in the application to join the Writers Association, but he politely declined the job of becoming an editor at the Poetry Magazine, saying that he would think about it.

Did he tell anyone about these things?
Did he show off?

Is he proud?
Not at all!
He has always done things quietly and never told outsiders.

This proves that Cao Zhiqiang is still a very low-key person.

It's just that, because this is a contract signed by Cao Zhiqiang himself at the Writer's Publishing House in Beijing, not a letter submission, so when people pay the manuscript fee, they don't send a remittance slip through the post, but directly give a bank check.

Now, the check for 6000 yuan is held in a check folder and placed in Cao Zhiqiang's pocket.

If he took out the check for 6000 yuan, and the third uncle Yan Bugui saw it, he would faint from fright.

Not to mention, the manuscript fees for the short stories he contributed to other magazines, as well as the manuscript fees for popular science articles, are now being paid back one after another.

These manuscript fees have been added up one after another, especially with the more than 2000 that Science Pictorial just gave him, and a total of more than 6000 yuan in manuscript fees.

It all adds up to more than one hundred thousand.

In this era where ten thousand households are big money.

What is the concept of a 10 yuan household?
The concept of ten million households adding up!
Good guy, originally he set a small goal and wanted to become a millionaire first.

As a result, I accidentally crossed the 10-yuan household and directly became a [-]-yuan household.

It can only be said that the plan is not as fast as the change.

As for Cao Zhiqiang, it was also for the good of the third uncle that he didn't tell the truth before and didn't show the check to scare him.

The remuneration of more than 2000 yuan was enough to shock him for a while.

But having said that, Cao Zhiqiang really didn't expect that writing poetry these days would make so much money.

There are only fifty poems, and a book is published, which is more profitable than all the other works he published before combined.

The money he earned from writing so many works is not worth a fraction of a collection of poems!

No wonder those 80s poets are so rich.

If you become famous for writing poems these days, you are really not ordinary rich!
No, the fundamental reason is to publish a book, a popular book.

Therefore, there is no future for submitting articles to magazines, and even a thousand words and a hundred words are meaningless, and the most you can earn is some pocket money.

Publishing books to earn royalties is the kingly way!
Sure enough, in 1983, publishing books was the most reliable way to make money cleanly!

So for that "Shattered Void", I still have to find a way to publish it at my own expense.

(End of this chapter)