1980 My Literary Era.

Chapter 177

In Yanjing in June, the weather is getting hotter and hotter.

Lin Weimin received a letter from Lu Yao, in which he talked about his recent move to a new home.

In the past few years, he has been living in the small bungalow provided by the Cultural Association for his family of three.Until recently, because of his achievements in writing, to be precise, because of the popularity of "Life" nationwide, the Association of Arts and Culture assigned him a 50-square-meter apartment with two bedrooms and one living room.

In this era, the houses allocated by the unit do not have any public area. The area of ​​80 or [-] square meters is real, which is equivalent to a residence of more than [-] square meters in the high-rise buildings of later generations. It is not a problem to live in Lu Yao’s family. Later generations are so hypocritical.

In the letter, Lu Yao mentioned that the biggest advantage of having a new house with two bedrooms and one living room is that he finally has a study room of his own.

He set up a single bed in the study, and he rested in the study when he was late reading or writing at night.

Seeing this, Lin Weimin nodded frequently. Comrade Lu Yao has made progress, and he is also happy for the improvement of Lu Yao's living conditions.

In addition, Lu Yao also mentioned that the director Wu Tianming, who invited him and Lin Weimin to dinner in Yanjing, recently found him, hoping to adapt "Life".

Wu Tianming represented Xiying Film Studio, and the two were fellow villagers, so Lu Yao was a little moved.

But what confuses him is that Shanghai Film Studio has also been in close contact with him recently, and the offer is very high. He will personally lead the adaptation of the movie script, and the manuscript fee is extremely generous.

After understanding Lu Yao's entanglement in the letter, Lin Weimin took up a pen and wrote back to him.

In his impression, the film "Life" was invested and filmed by Xiying Film Studio. The director was Wu Tianming, and the screenwriter was Lu Yao himself. The two cooperated closely and became excellent friends.

The film quality of "Life" is also very high. Together with "Garland under the Mountain", which was released that year, it won the Best Feature Film of the Hundred Flowers Award, and Wu Tianming, who was originally unknown, became famous for it.

Lin Weimin remembered that he saw an interview before time travel. When Wu Tianming was filming "Life", a person in charge of the provincial etiquette department asked Wu Tianming if he would like to become the deputy director of an art factory?
Wu Tianming jokingly said that the deputy should not work, but the top leader if he wants to do it.

As a result, when the filming of "Life" was about to end, an order came down from above, and Wu Tianming directly became the director of Xiying Film Studio.

It is precisely because of Wu Tianming, the director of Xiying Film Factory, that in the next few years, it has successively cultivated many famous talents for the domestic film industry, such as Zhang Yimou of Yanying's 78th grade.

Knowing this information in advance, Lin Weimin naturally wanted to persuade Lu Yao not to focus on immediate interests, and hand over the right to adapt "Life" to Shanghai Film Studio.

He knew that Lu Yao was a person who regarded money like dung in his bones, and he only valued the manuscript fee to make a living.

After replying the letter to Lu Yao, Lin Weimin continued to work.

When he got off work, Lin Weimin left the unit with a pack of letters from readers.

When he got home, he sorted out the letters from readers and put them on the bookshelf, when Lin Weimin heard movement in the yard.

He came out and saw that it was Qu Xiaowei and his wife.

The two of them were empty-handed, and it looked like they were here to eat.

"I said you two can't be friends? All day long, the east and the west are friends, Zheng Guo is not as good as you."

Qu Xiaowei and Liu Haiyan have been married for a month. They first spent a few days in Yanjing with their natal relatives, then traveled to Shanghai for a week, and then returned to Jinling for a week. They just returned to Yanjing these two days.

If this is put into later generations, it is basically equivalent to taking a trip to Xinmatai.

"Soon, soon, everything will be ready soon." Qu Xiaowei said.

Lin Weimin was too lazy to listen to his nonsense, and shouted into the room: "Zhuang Zhuang, let's cook!"

"Here we come, uncle!"

Han Zhuangzhuang came out of the room with a book in his hands, with a serious face.

Qu Xiaowei teased: "Hey, my nephew is getting more and more serious now!"

Han Zhuangzhuang put down his book and smiled silly at Qu Xiaowei.

Lin Weimin sneered: "You look like everyone? You don't know anything all day long."

Qu Xiaowei was not angry either, and grabbed Lin Weimin while Han Zhuangzhuang was cooking in the kitchen.

"For the people, get me some tickets for the premiere of "Farewell My Concubine"!"

"Want to prostitute again?"

"This time I won't go whoring for nothing. For the money, you can get me a few tickets to "Farewell My Concubine"."

Lin Weimin broke free from Qu Xiaowei's hand, "This is really impossible."

Renyi's "Farewell My Concubine" has been in preparation for nearly a year, and has already been scheduled for a performance later this month.

As soon as the performance information of this play was released, it immediately aroused widespread attention and heated discussions among Yanjing media, critics and drama lovers.

Since "Farewell My Concubine" appeared in "People's Literature" in April last year, and it was published in September as a booklet, the cumulative sales volume of the publication has reached nearly 300 million copies, and the impact it has had on readers across the country is unprecedented. .

The only thing that can be compared with it is "Life", which has sprung up in the second half of the year.

Now "Farewell My Concubine" is going to be a drama version, and all readers who have watched "Farewell My Concubine" are naturally full of interest in it.

It is a pity that the information is blocked these days, and the influence of the drama is very limited. This kind of attention and hot discussion is now limited to the surrounding areas of Yanjing.

But even the impact only in Yanjing is enough to make "Farewell My Concubine" reach the level of live before acting.

For the tickets for the first performance, there were hardly many ordinary audiences. A slew of cultural celebrities and media reporters, as long as the famous cultural people in Yanjing City, became the audience of the premiere of "Farewell My Concubine" .

Under such circumstances, being the premiere audience of "Farewell My Concubine" seems to be a status symbol.

We are in the same work unit, chatting, people can be invited to watch "Farewell My Concubine", but you can only stay at home that night, it would be embarrassing to talk about it, this industry's status is not good!
Even if you really didn't receive an invitation, you still have to get a ticket!
This directly made it difficult to find tickets for the premiere of "Farewell My Concubine", and even the dean Yu Zhi dared not casually agree to give away tickets now.

"Don't mind. I promised Haiyan, you can't let me break my word, right?" Qu Xiaowei begged.

Lin Weimin glanced at Liu Haiyan who was standing next to him, and said helplessly, "I really can't get the premiere, let's get you another show."

Having said all this, Qu Xiaowei knew that Lin Weimin probably couldn't get the tickets for the premiere, so he could only agree to settle for the next best thing.

"Okay then, I'll trouble you this time."

"Stop saying things like that."

The next day, when Lin Weimin was at work, he was called to Yan Wenjing's office.

"After we finished talking that day, I fully communicated with the comrades in the WS department and Random House.

What they meant was that the reason why the price was set lower was entirely because it was a Chinese novel, and it was a risky attempt for them to publish it in the United States, and Random House took the risk.

After our arguments, Random House agreed to increase the manuscript fee to 1.5 yuan and print [-] copies for the first time.

I got to know the comrades in the WS department. The book pricing mechanism in the United States is similar to ours. The only difference is probably the labor cost paid to the author.

Our country is now implementing a remuneration system, which is basic remuneration + remuneration for printing.Publishing houses in the United States pay royalties directly to authors, and royalties for famous authors can basically account for 10% to 15% of sales revenue.

But this means that for writers who have become famous and have families, they can even lower the minimum royalties for newcomers to 3%. Normally, this amount is in the range of 5% to 10%.

We calculated that a book in the United States is about 10 meters, and the total sales revenue of the first printing of 30 copies is 1.5 meters, and 5 meters is exactly equivalent to paying you [-]% of the royalties.

The price is relatively reasonable. "

As soon as Lin Weimin entered the door and sat down, Yan Wenjing said a lot of things like a machine gun. It is estimated that he has been breaking this matter for Random House in the past few days.

The manuscript fee jumped directly from 5000 meters to 1.5 meters. Lin Weimin was quite satisfied with this price, and he also understood that Random House's consideration was reasonable.

A writer whose name no one has ever heard of, and who comes from far Eastern China, writes a novel whose local readers are not familiar with the background of the times. The first printing of [-] copies is an adventure, and it is very likely to lose all money.

He is not well-known in the United States, and he doesn't expect to be treated as a famous person as soon as he comes up.

What he is after is respect. Although he doesn't want to admit it, sometimes the price represents respect.

"I have no problem with this price..."

Yan Wenjing was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he got Lin Weimin's answer, when he heard him say again: "However, if there is another printing in the future, has the price been negotiated?"

Yan Wenjing looked at Lin Weimin with a wry smile, "You, you, you really don't suffer at any time."

He continued: "We have also discussed this issue. Random House's opinion is that if you want to reprint later, they are willing to give you an additional 20% increase on the current manuscript fee."

Lin Weimin murmured: "These old rices are ghosts and ghosts, and they don't suffer at all."

If it really needs to be printed in the future, it proves that "Farewell My Concubine" has made money for Lao Mi. Naturally, they don't want to use royalties to share the money with him. A symbolic increase in the price of the manuscript fee is considered an expression of sincerity.

But what he said was ambiguous, and he needed to ask clearly.

"What does this 20% increase mean? Is the increase based on the manuscript fee for each word, or is it only based on the manuscript fee this time?"

Yan Wenjing said angrily: "Of course the increase is based on the manuscript fee for each word. Do you think I'm a fool? If he prints 100 million copies, he will increase your manuscript fee by 3000 meters?"

Lin Weimin never thought that "Farewell My Concubine" would show its power in the book market in the United States and jump onto the bestseller list. He asked this just in case.

According to the 20% increase in the manuscript fee per word, which is equivalent to a 6% royalty price, it is still a bit sincere.

He smiled apologetically, "Leader, don't be angry, I'm just asking casually. I knew you were there, so there must be nothing wrong with this matter. It has to be you!"

As he spoke, he still did not forget to give Yan Wenjing a thumbs up, with a flattering expression on his face.

Yan Wenjing lost his temper completely by his playful smile.

This monkey grandson!
　Day six.Tomorrow, we will continue daily, ask for a subscription, ask for a monthly pass!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)