They’re all reborn, what’s wrong with being a little more almighty?

Chapter 69 Already has , who is writing a book!

The predecessor of 21st Century Publishing House was a children's publishing house specializing in children's books. At that time, their main business was publishing comic books.

Different from other state-owned publishing houses, as early as the late 1980s, 21st Century Publishing House began to conduct independent accounting and take responsibility for its own profits and losses. Therefore, it began to try the commercial model relatively early. In the past ten years, it has always been for profit. .

When dealing with such a for-profit publishing house, you can negotiate money directly, which is much easier than those publishing houses that are public institutions.

In addition to the commercial nature, what Zhang Wei values ​​​​more is the publicity and channels of 21st Century Publishing House.

From 2000 to 2002, the best-selling book champion in the country was Han Han. Except for "Three Gates" in 2000, the best-selling champion "One Degree Below Zero" in 2001 and the best-selling champion "Like a Boy" in 2002 were both Published by Century Press.

Han Han's reputation is certainly important to win the annual best-selling title, but the publicity and channels of 21st Century Publishing are also additional factors.

If it were replaced by a publishing house with average publicity and distribution channels, even with Han Han's reputation, he might not be able to win the number one bestseller in the country.

Don’t underestimate children’s publications. In the era of paper media, the publicity and distribution channels of children’s publications far exceed those of other types of books.

Were martial arts novels popular enough in the 1980s? Heroes like Jin Yong and Gu Long can't compete with the picture books of Calabash Baby and Black Cat Sheriff.

Romance novels were popular enough in the 1990s, right? Grandma Qiong Yao can't do all her sensational things, but she can't do anything to her big-headed son, little-headed father.

As for the works of great writers such as Mo Yan and Yu Hua, they are basically published by specialized literary and art publishing houses and are specially prepared for young literary and artistic people.

Anything that involves the word "literary and artistic" is usually relatively niche. In the early days of reform and opening up, everyone was busy making money. Who would engage in literature and art if they were not idle and aching for real hypocrites?
So in that era, children’s books were the real gods in the publishing industry!

……

Zhang Wei found the phone number of 21st Century Publishing House and consulted first. He found that publishing a book could not be explained over the phone at all, so it had to be done in person.

The next day, Zhang Wei bought a plane ticket and flew directly to Hongcheng City, where 21st Century Publishing is located.

There were quite a lot of people in the reception room of the publishing house, all of them holding manuscripts and looking for submissions to the publishing house.

The people who submitted the articles were also all kinds of people, and they seemed to come from all walks of life.

Some people wear glasses and are neatly dressed and look like intellectuals;

Some people look sloppy and decadent, and you can tell at a glance that they are homebodies who live at home all day long;

Some people have dark and rough skin, and calluses can still be faintly seen on their hands. They are probably engaged in manual labor, but they have a dream of being a writer;
There are also young people about the same age as Zhang Wei, with a confident expression, as if they feel that they have written a masterpiece, very much like those later generations of writers who are thinking about becoming a god before they have written tens of thousands of words.

Zhang Wei also saw a child younger than himself, about fifteen or sixteen years old, standing nervously in the corner.

"This child is probably influenced by George Han!" Zhang Wei thought to himself.

The myth created by Han Han dropping out of school to write novels did influence a generation at that time. Many middle school and high school students of that age tried to imitate Han Han in writing novels, hoping that they could become famous overnight.

Although everyone came to submit articles, Zhang Wei could feel that there was a certain amount of hostility and disdain in the eyes of these contributors. They looked around with critical eyes.

Literary men look down upon each other! Everyone who writes novels has the same moral character. I think you are all scum, and I am the only one who writes the best.

The receptionist came in with a business card box and handed out business cards to everyone. At the same time, he continued: "If you want to submit an article, you don't have to come in person. I will give you an address and mail it directly. If our editor thinks it is appropriate, we will contact you." related."

"We are all here and have brought the manuscript, why are we being asked to mail it again!" one of them said dissatisfied.

The receptionist explained: "It's for your own good to let you mail it. And you must choose China Post for mailing. The postmark on the envelope can be used as evidence, and it can also avoid copyright disputes in the future."

As the receptionist spoke, he walked up to Zhang Wei and handed over a business card.

Zhang Wei did not accept it, but said: "I am different from others."

"Aren't you here to submit an article?"

"I wrote a novel and plan to publish it at my own expense." Zhang Wei answered.

Zhang Wei now has money in his hands. Even though the quality of "Dead Ghost Blows Out the Lamp: The Ancient City" is definitely good, Zhang Wei has no intention of following the publishing house's normal submission process.

Why waste time and energy when you can throw money at it.

When I heard that Zhang Wei was going to publish at his own expense, everyone around him looked at me with envy, and of course there was jealousy and hatred!
"Do you want to self-publish?" The receptionist looked Zhang Wei up and down. He felt that Zhang Wei was talkative and weak in his work, so he asked directly: "Do you know how much it costs to self-publish?"

"Is two hundred thousand enough?" Zhang Wei asked. "You have 200,000?" The receptionist showed a surprised expression, as if to say, what can you do with 200,000? Why write a novel!
Zhang Wei continued: "If it's not enough, you can add more."

"Looking at this tone, you are a rich second generation!" The receptionist immediately put on a smile and continued: "If you really plan to self-publish, please wait a moment. I will finish handing out the business cards. Come with me. I’ll take you to see the editor!”

The receptionist continued to hand out business cards, and a middle-aged brother next to him came up and said with a smile: "Little brother, I also write novels. My novel is about a young couple who experienced a vigorous love, but... A story about discovering that they are half-sisters, and they both died in love in the end.

The plot is exciting, definitely comparable to "Thunderstorm"! Do you want to take a look? If you think it's appropriate, we can cooperate. You pay, I publish the novel, and we publish it together. How about we split the publishing money 50-50? "

"Do you think people nowadays will watch "Thunderstorm"?" Zhang Wei curled his lips.

Another spirited girl with hair dyed in three colors also came over and said coquettishly: "You're right, no one is watching "Thunderstorm" now! What's popular now are urban love stories, like mine This kind of writing, brother, you should read my novel!"

The spirited girl handed the manuscript to Zhang Wei. Zhang Wei lowered his head and read the title: "Red Love of Life and Death"!
"Uh, how does the name sound like a revolutionary story? Those who didn't know better thought it was a sequel to "The Red Detachment of Detachments"!"

"Brother is really good at joking. My name is a parody of "Blue Life and Death Love". Do you know "Blue Life and Death Love"? Korean TV series are very popular!"

"So, is there a car accident in your novel?"

"Car accident? What car accident?" The spirited girl looked confused.

"What about cancer? Can't it be cured? Isn't it possible that none of these things exist?"

The spirit girl looked ignorant and obviously had no idea about this.

"Auntie, there are no car accidents, cancer, or incurable diseases, and you still imitate Korean dramas!" Zhang Wei said.

At this time, the staff member also finished handing out business cards. Under the envious and jealous gazes of everyone around him, Zhang Wei followed the receptionist and walked to the editorial department.

……

In the editorial department, Zhang Wei met an editor named Wang.

"Young man, have you published any books before?" Editor Wang asked.

"No, this is the first time."

Editor Wang nodded: "Then let me first introduce to you the process of self-publishing. First, you need to pay a book number fee. This is used to buy a book number. Without a book number, you cannot publish.

The ISBN fee of our publishing house is relatively expensive. For novels, the ISBN fee is 20,000 yuan. This is mainly because our publishing house is relatively large. Some small publishing houses are not so expensive. You can get a book number for 10,000 yuan. "

"No problem!" Zhang Wei agreed happily.

“The second fee is the proofreading fee. This is based on the number of words. Our publishing house’s proofreading fee is five yuan per thousand words.

The third expense is the cover design fee. The difference in this fee is relatively large. If the cover is a single color with pure text, the cover fee is almost negligible. If the requirements are higher and the cover needs to be designed separately, it will cost from a few hundred yuan. Prices range from several thousand yuan to several thousand yuan.

The fourth expense is the typesetting fee. This is not much, usually one thousand yuan is enough. Finally, there is the printing and binding fee. It depends on how many copies you plan to print. The more copies you print, the cheaper the unit price will be. The minimum printing is 1000 copies.

Another point I have to explain separately is that if the book is published by our publisher at our own expense, it must be printed by our printing house. We need to charge an additional service fee. The specific amount is calculated based on your printing volume. "

"I plan to print 10,000 copies first!" Zhang Wei said.

"Ten thousand copies? The young man is very confident!" Editor Wang said this, but the sarcasm in his eyes flashed away.

A rookie writing a novel for the first time should be celebrating with champagne if he sells 100 copies, but he dares to print copies! Do you really think you are George Han?

Unexpectedly, this young man is not very old, but he is a good gifter of money!
Zhang Wei then asked: "Editor Wang, if you publish at your own expense, how are the royalties calculated?"

"Royalty? You're a newbie. You may not even be able to sell a few copies of your book, but you still want royalties?"

Editor Wang despised Zhang Wei in his heart, but he still patiently explained: "In self-publishing, our publishing house is only responsible for distribution, and the author is responsible for other costs. In this case, the royalty rate is often relatively High. We can give you a 50% royalty rate.”

"It's really shameful to only give 50% for self-published publications!" Zhang Wei thought to himself.

But after thinking about it again, these 10,000 copies were just a test of the waters anyway. If the sales were good, the contract could be renegotiated for subsequent reprints, and Zhang Wei was relieved.

"Okay, just follow what you said!" Zhang Wei said, handing over "The Dead Ghost Blows Out the Lamp: The Ancient City".

　This chapter has more than 2010 words. I won’t say whether it’s well written or not. At least I’ll have to measure it first! As for the price of self-publishing mentioned in this chapter, I don’t know what the price was at that time, so I wrote it based on the price when the physical book was published in . Don’t mind if it’s not accurate. On the last day of the month, if you have extra monthly passes that are about to expire, you might as well give them to pass and add some fan points to me, thank you!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)