The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 6 The Book Engraving Boss
Jianyang, Fujian Province connects Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Jiangxi by land. The terrain is mountainous and the economy was relatively poor in the agricultural era.

Since Zhu Xi came here to give lectures in the Southern Song Dynasty, people in Jianyang began to engage in the printing industry by engraving Zhu Xi's lecture notes, relying on cost advantages to gradually take over the overflow printing demand in Jiangnan and Jiangxi.

At that time, it was said that "the bookshelf is full of copies and inscriptions, and popular books are everywhere in the school."

Jianyang books and Masha engraved books were representatives of cheap books in the eyes of scholars at this time. The local printing industry chain had been formed, and there were many book printing families.

In fact, the operation of Jianyang Bookstore has been facing great competition in recent years, and its competitors are newly emerging booksellers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

The printing industry has boomed since Jiajing. Although booksellers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang have higher labor costs, because there are more scholars in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, they print and sell them locally, saving transportation costs, so slightly higher-priced books have a cost advantage.

Under such circumstances, the bookstore owners in Jianyang could only start to change their business methods in order to save themselves.

Yu Xiangdou, the owner of Santai Pavilion, is one of them.

Yu Xiangdou's father and uncle were all famous bookshop owners. He was also a scholar and passed the examination as a scholar.

Yu Xiangdou's father passed away six years ago. He gave up the imperial examination to inherit the family's book engraving business. In addition to taking over his father's Shuangfeng Hall, he also founded his own Santaiguan Bookstore.

Then this guy started to do something sexy.

After Yu Xiangdou established Santaiguan Bookstore, he first continued to print imperial examination reference books.

In the past, Shuangfengtang's imperial examination books were poorly written, and the names of the scholars were quite vulgar and did not sell well.

Yu Xiangdou was well versed in marketing. After he took over the bookstore, he directly invited members of the department and top scholars to compile the book through financial connections.

He named his imperial examination reference books the "Pincui" series to enhance his style, and boasted on the title page of the book that he "employed many gentlemen from the Jin gentry" to attract customers.

Bookstores these days do not provide readers with the convenience of reading the book in advance. After turning two pages, if they do not buy the book, the store will evict them.

After a series of operations, Yu Xiangdou's Pincui series is specifically designed to deceive customers who buy just because of the cover and printing quality.

Customers often don't know the content and only realize they have been deceived after purchasing.

Yu Xiangdou relied on this business to stabilize the bookshop and ruin the reputation of "Pincui". Later, Yu Xiangdou launched the "Authentic" series, using the same routine under another name to continue making money.

After accumulating capital, Yu Xiangdou began to enter novel printing.

People love to read novels these days, but the number of novel writers is not enough.

Yu Xiangdou found that many people in this era like to buy koan novels, but the number of koan novel writers is scarce and the content is scarce.

So Yu Xiangdou bribed the masters in the yamen to collect real case files, directly compiled these cases and published a book "The Cases of the Lian Ming Qi Judgment of the Emperors and Ming Dynasties", which was promoted as a public case on current affairs of the dynasty and sold on the market.

Readers bought it as a novel and took a closer look, only to realize that the book was full of complex court cases.

But there are mistakes. This type of judgment book has a different flavor than public case novels. Instead, it has won praise from some readers who are tired of public case romance novels.

Then Yu Xiangdou used a similar method to collect stories from gods and ancients and compiled them into a series of novels.

Most of the contents of these books are excerpted from other books, often with deletions, similar to the condensed versions of novels of later generations.

If this kind of book is sold in future generations, it will definitely be criticized as a cheat.

But for ordinary people at this time, buying a book can get many stories, but it is very worthwhile, and it is a success again.

Then Yu Xiangdou discovered that the novels reviewed by some famous writers on the market were widely circulated, so he published the reviewed works.

Unable to find a famous artist to cooperate with him, Yu Xiangdou went on to comment on "Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" by himself. Many of his comments were not very clever, but the success was due to their large quantity.

After Yu Xiangdou added a lot of comments to the book, "Three Kingdoms", which originally had only 25 volumes, was suddenly expanded to 35 volumes, so he openly sold it at half the price.This guy is also the first person among bookstore owners to promote his image through his own image.

In his books, a special page will be engraved with his own portrait, and marked as "Picture of a person standing still in Santai Mountain". The purpose is just to leave his own image in the minds of book buyers.

Relying on this series of tricks, less than ten years after Yu Xiangdou took over the family bookstore, he managed both Santaiguan and Shuangfengtang into the first-class bookstores in Jianyang. They engraved more than a dozen books every year and supported a large number of authors, editors and editors. artisan.

Three days later, Wang Wenlong came to Shuangfengtang Bookshop.

Walking into Yu Xiangdou's study, Wang Wenlong looked around.

Although Yu Xiangdou was a bookseller, he imitated the tastes of celebrities. Scholars came and went outside the study. Couplets hung on the pillars on both sides of the study, "A red sun spreads by the side, and thousands of miles of blue clouds point to the room." Although the couplets are not neat, But he is so heroic.

There is a large plaque hanging in the middle of the study, with the words "Santai Pavilion" written on it in bold strokes.

After Deng Zhimo introduced both parties, Yu Xiangdou said in surprise: "I didn't expect Wang Xiaoyou to be so young."

Wang Wenlong was 25 years old before he time traveled. As a descendant, the living conditions and maintenance environment are much better than those of people of this era. He originally looked younger than his peers at this time. After time traveling, Wang Wenlong also noticed his body He is stronger than in his previous life, and seems to be several years younger.

Wang Wenlong didn't know if this was the benefit of time travel. In short, his current appearance, in Yu Xiangdou's eyes, was just that of a boy under twenty.

Yu Xiangdou originally thought that the author who could write "The Scholars" was probably an old scholar who had gone through ups and downs. Seeing that Wang Wenlong was so young, his eyes lit up.

"Hello, Mr. Yu," Wang Wenlong and Yu Xiangdou took out a thick stack of books from their bags after greeting each other. "This is the follow-up content I have written in the past few days. Please take a look at it, Mr. Yu."

"Okay, please wait a moment, both of you."

Yu Xiangdou asked his servant to show them tea, then he took the manuscript and sat at the desk to read it carefully, while Wang Wenlong and Deng Zhimo waited quietly.

Four chapters later, the story of the Scholars novel fully unfolded. Yan Jiansheng, Master Lou, and Mr. Ma Er were all ironic characters that made Yu Xiangdou's eyes light up.

After reading the first twenty chapters of the manuscript, Yu Xiangdou nodded and said with a smile: "Sir, you are really talented. "The Scholars" writes about people in the market and satirizes them, which is far better than other novels at this time."

Wang Wenlong nodded and said, "I dare not bear such praise."

Yu Xiangdou talked about the manuscript fees collected by the bookstore at this time, and then asked Wang Wenlong how many chapters there were in this book.

Hearing that "The Scholars" only had 56 chapters, Yu Xiangdou was a little dissatisfied and asked Wang Wenlong: "Can some content be added?"

Novels in this era usually have 120, 56, or [-] chapters for good. [-] chapters is indeed too few.

Wang Wenlong shook his head and said: "I have already decided on the outline, and if you, sir, want to print this book, I have one request, that is, you are not allowed to delete or add at will."

Wang Wenlong knew Yu Xiangdou's book-editing style. If he hadn't told this condition, he would have added 56 chapters to "The Scholars" and found a few writers to make it into [-] chapters for publication.

Yu Xiangdou thought about it and asked, "If I publish a review version or add some contemporary content at the back of the book, will Sir agree?"

Thinking that publishing a review version would not damage the content of the original text, Wang Wenlong nodded and said, "As long as the main text of the novel is not changed, there will be no problem."

Only then was Yu Xiangdou satisfied, and he took the initiative to raise the price: "I will give you a price of twelve taels per manuscript, and I will buy it as soon as you finish the manuscript."

Wang Wenlong had already learned from Deng Zhimo about the author's income level at this time. At this time, the original manuscript could be sold for ten taels of silver, which was already a very good price.

So Wang Wenlong nodded and said: "That's very good."

The money can only be received after he finishes the book. At this time, people who buy novels are not in the habit of reading serials, so they must buy the whole book.

But for Wang Wenlong, this is just another ten days of busy work, and he can earn more than 500 taels in less than a month.

(End of this chapter)