If the June heat still had a bit of the restraint of a person who had just stepped onto the stage, the July sun was like a mad donkey spinning in circles, running rampant across the world, making everyone who saw it avoid it, and one could sense its crazy threat from a long distance away.
If someone can still come out to meet someone at a time like this, it's either because their relationship is extremely good, or because there's something really important that requires them to meet.
Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi were sitting in a coffee shop next to the Guangmao Building, waiting for Xin Zixiong.
Today they are going to communicate with Xin Zixiong about the follow-up cooperation on this Mook.
Compared to the first meeting where we just discussed intentions, what we are going to discuss today is more specific and realistic.
Seeing that Lu Yanhe was a little nervous, Chen Siqi said, "Let me talk later. You and her have known each other before and have worked together. There are many issues that you are embarrassed to ask, so it would be better for me to talk about them."
When Lu Yanhe heard Chen Siqi say this, he looked at her with some gratitude.
Being thin-skinned is really a huge problem for him.
Need to change.
"But, I've actually been wanting to ask you a question."
"What's the problem?"
"From the first time I spoke with Sister Zixing, I was surprised. You didn't seem nervous or unfamiliar with negotiations at all. You always seemed so confident," Lu Yanhe asked. "How do you do that?"
"I've imitated this many times. When I was little, I often followed my dad around and saw how he negotiated business with others. I was kind of influenced by him. Then, when Liu Wei'an came, I often imagined myself inheriting my dad's company one day and slapping her in the face. I often imagined negotiating with people in various scenarios, just like in TV dramas, imagining myself as a queen." Chen Siqi smiled and said, "Actually, I just don't care about anything and don't think about speaking skills. Many people find it increasingly difficult to start a conversation the more they think about it. I just say whatever comes to mind. Maybe others think I'm too blunt and unskillful, or that my way of speaking isn't appropriate for negotiations, but I don't care. Compared to whether the way I speak is appropriate, I always believe that saying what needs to be said is much more important than just saying it out loud."
Lu Yanhe said: "Your mentality is much stronger than mine."
"Yes." Chen Siqi nodded. "If you were born in a family like mine, every day when you open your eyes, there will be an enemy ready to fight you with wits and courage. After so many years of training, you will definitely have this mentality."
Lu Yanhe was at a loss whether to laugh or cry when he heard Chen Siqi say this.
At this time, Xin Zixing came.
-
Xin Zixing has been busy these days setting up the filming team for "City Travels", and at the same time guiding Liu Yaliang step by step to work on the clothing and fashion section.
The working hours are more than 15 hours almost every day.
However, Xin Zixiong did not find it difficult at all. Instead, she was full of motivation and energy, which made people around her feel incredible, even unbelievable.
There were quite a few people in the cafe.
However, she still saw Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi at a glance.
The two of them sat in a booth by the window. Lu Yanhe wore sunglasses, probably to avoid being recognized at first glance.
Xin Zixing smiled and walked over. "Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long."
"No, we just arrived."
"It's been quite busy these past two days. I just had a video conference in the car," Xin Zixing said. "The feedback for 'City Travelogue: Corridor Culture' has been much better than I expected. I'm currently assembling a filming team, and once we're finalized, we'll officially begin filming the documentary."
"Okay." Lu Yanhe nodded.
Xin Zixing asked, "Regarding the Mook you guys wanted to make, have you made any follow-up progress?"
Lu Yanhe nodded and said, "I've already contacted everyone on the list I showed you last time. Everyone is initially willing to write and no one has refused."
Xin Zixing looked at Lu Yanhe in surprise, "So fast?"
“Yes, we also want to make it as soon as possible.”
"So what you want to talk to me about today should be the subsequent cooperation method?"
"Yes." Lu Yanhe nodded and exchanged glances with Chen Siqi. "We need to communicate clearly first about how we will meet with everyone and what kind of cooperation we will have."
Xin Zixiong nodded, not at all surprised that they would make such a request.
"That's how it should be. If you have any ideas, you can tell me directly. If I can make a decision, I will reply to you on the spot. If I can't make a decision, I will go back and communicate with my superiors." Xin Zixiong said very frankly.
Chen Siqi asked, "Regarding this Mook, if it is available on Yemai.com in the future, what can Yemai.com do to promote this book?"
"If it's exclusively available on Yemai.com, I can guarantee that the promotion will be no less powerful than the documentary 'City Travelogue: Corridor Culture,'" Xin Zixing said. "I have to repeat, we at Yemai.com really want to create our own book series. We have a dedicated e-reading section, but not our own book series. When you, Yan He, suggested starting an e-magazine, my eyes lit up. We felt it was a perfect match. Given this positioning, as long as Mook is exclusively available on Yemai.com, you can imagine we won't treat it unfairly."
“Do you expect it to make money?”
"To be honest, we might not be profitable in the first one to two years. We'll definitely be losing money to gain publicity. The current e-reading market, especially for traditional e-reading content, doesn't have a mature market or a stable and profitable industry line. We need to develop it ourselves," said Chen Siqi. "I don't even want to charge for it. It's just a product we launched to let more people know about it and read it."
Lu Yanhe said, "Then what about the production costs?"
Xin Zixing said: "Yemai.com has its own profit points. Judging from the investment and output of this book alone, it may not be profitable. However, let me put it bluntly, we want to launch a book series like this not for profit, but for brand influence and to gain a group of stable readers."
Chen Siqi nodded and said, "I understand, but if that happens, then Yemai Network will have to pay for all the costs? Including our wages? We can't work for nothing, right?"
Xin Zixing laughed. "Of course. My idea is very simple. For the first issue, I'll ask the company for 100,000 yuan as production funding. You can produce this book within this budget. The 100,000 yuan also covers your salaries. We'll see the results of the first issue first. If the results meet our expectations, we'll sign a long-term cooperation agreement. The production funding can be increased, but this increase must be determined by how many readers it can convert."
"Are you asking for all the copyrights, or just the online distribution rights?" Chen Siqi asked cautiously.
Xin Zixing said, "My opinion on this matter doesn't count now. I need to report it and confirm it."
"If they want all the copyrights for 100,000 yuan, we definitely can't accept it," Chen Siqi said bluntly. "To be honest, this price is not high."
"For an electronic Mook, this is not a low price."
"As you said, electronic Mooks don't even have a foundation right now, and the market hasn't been developed yet. Without comparison, who knows if they're high or low?" Chen Siqi shook her head. "Jiang Yuqian, Lu Yanhe, Li Zhibai, Song Linxin, Liu Jiazhen, Mingyin... if these names were added together and applied to any product, their publicity value would exceed 100,000. Not to mention the brand influence, just these few names alone would attract a lot of traffic. This traffic would definitely contribute to the advertising revenue of your Yemai Network."
Xin Zixing looked at Chen Siqi in surprise.
The same goes for Lu Yanhe.
Chen Siqi took a deep breath and said, "But, the first installment is 100,000 yuan. As long as you agree to just ask for the online broadcast rights, I think we can give it a try and see how far we can go in the first installment. We can then discuss future matters. Honestly, 100,000 yuan alone is barely enough to cover the royalties and design fees for these people."
"I know, of course I know this amount of money isn't comparable to what was invested in traditional magazines, but honestly, apart from our Yemai website, no other company would commit 100,000 yuan to try something like this that no one else is doing right now," Xin Zixing said. "As long as this Mook gets more than 50,000 subscribers, starting with the second issue, we'll increase the production budget to at least 150,000 yuan per issue."
Chen Siqi asked, "How do you calculate the number of subscriptions? Since you don't plan to sell it, how do you calculate the number of subscriptions?"
"If a user reads for more than 30 minutes, we will count it as a subscription," said Xin Zixing.
Chen Siqi estimated in his mind that if the book was put on the shelves for free, everyone could subscribe to it without spending any money, and 50,000 subscriptions would not be a lot.
The number of loyal fans that Jiang Yuqian and other celebrity artists can bring is more than this.
But there is a problem. They will read the articles of their own idols, but can they persist in reading for half an hour?
Chen Siqi was skeptical.
In fact, if a person is willing to read for more than half an hour, it means that he has almost accepted the content of the book and is really willing to read it.
With this calculation, 50,000 subscriptions is very high.
-
After meeting Xin Zixing this time, Chen Siqi and Lu Yanhe were silent for a while, thinking.
What to do, how to decide?
Lu Yanhe actually doesn’t have much idea about these things. Compared to these things, Lu Yanhe is more concerned about the content itself.
So, after thinking about it for a while, he stopped thinking about it.
Just leave it to Chen Siqi to think about it. She seems to be much more familiar with this matter than him anyway.
Chen Siqi looked up at him and asked, "What do you think?"
Lu Yanhe said, "I'll listen to you."
Chen Siqi looked at him in surprise and said, "This is the book you wanted to make."
"Well, but I've discovered I'm not very good at these things. I just want to avoid losing money. If I had to think about it, we'd probably fail right away because of my lack of thinking." Lu Yanhe exposed his shortcomings and explained sincerely, "You're much more perceptive than I am when it comes to who to cooperate with, how to cooperate, and how to distribute the benefits."
Chen Siqi: "...I can't let you be such a hands-off boss."
Lu Yanhe said: "The right person does the right thing."
Chen Siqi was silent for a moment, then said, "As long as Yemai.com doesn't ask for too much for the ownership of this book, I would be inclined to cooperate with them. The right book needs to be placed on the right platform to achieve a one plus one greater than two effects."
Lu Yanhe laughed and breathed a sigh of relief: "That's great, I was really worried that you wouldn't want to cooperate with Yemai.com."
"I'm not stupid. They were just a little stingy. They didn't achieve my expectations, but they didn't cheat us." Chen Siqi said, "Besides, 100,000 yuan is more than enough to produce this book. It's just that the two of us will probably have to pay for our ideals, so we won't make much money."
"If this book can be made into a series as Sister Zixing said and starts to make a profit, we will split the profits 50-50," said Lu Yanhe.
Chen Siqi raised the corner of her mouth, "So generous?"
This book is said to be written by two people, but in fact, what really made this book possible was Lu Yanhe's personal connections and influence. Otherwise, Jiang Yuqian and others would not have been invited to write articles, and Yemai.com would not have been so willing to cooperate with them.
Chen Siqi never thought about splitting the profits with Lu Yanhe 50-50.
Lu Yanhe said, "We did this together."
Chen Siqi nodded and said, "Okay, then I believe it."
"Yeah." Lu Yanhe nodded.
"Now we have one more thing to do."
"What's up?"
"Naming this book is also naming this series of books," said Chen Siqi.
Lu Yanhe asked: "Do you have any ideas?"
Chen Siqi: "This is not nonsense. I don't believe you don't have any ideas."
Lu Yanhe laughed.
Indeed, since I had the idea of publishing a magazine, how could I not have thought about what name to give it?
Lu Yanhe asked, "What name are you thinking of?"
Chen Siqi: "You speak first."
Lu Yanhe said: "It's actually a very common name, 'Jump Up'."
"Jump up?"
"Yeah." Lu Yanhe nodded. "When I was writing an essay before, I wrote a sentence that I remember very clearly. At that time, I wanted to change my mediocre life. I wrote that I didn't want to look at the world map and boringly imagine a future traveling around the world. I wanted to jump into the depths of the universe and visit a black hole to see if there was a new continent on the other side."
The moment Lu Yanhe finished speaking, Chen Siqi's eyes changed when she looked at him.
"I quite like what you said." Chen Siqi said.
“I liked it too, so I always remember it.”
"Let's use this sentence as the introduction for the first episode," Chen Siqi said. "Let's call it 'Jump Up,' which is pretty good."
"What name did you think of before?" Lu Yanhe asked.
Chen Siqi shook her head, "I like this one better, I won't say anymore."
She took out a pen and paper, wrote down what Lu Yanhe had just said, and then wrote "jump up" at the end.
"Lu Yanhe, I suddenly have some feelings for this name now. When I wrote it, I especially hoped that it would last a long time."
"Then let's work hard." Lu Yanhe smiled seriously.
-
In the next few days, Lu Yanhe began his frustrating journey of urging submission of manuscripts.
Chen Siqi sent him a message: It’s up to you to urge those people to submit their manuscripts. I have sent invitation letters to some authors I think are suitable, to see if they are willing to contribute.
Lu Yanhe asked: Which authors did you send invitation letters to?
Chen Siqi sent a list, and Lu Yanhe found that he didn't know anyone.
Chen Siqi said: These are all authors I saw online who wrote stories about their student days and whose posts were very popular. I would like to ask them to write about their student days in more detail and richness, and maybe I can get some good manuscripts.
Lu Yanhe thought Chen Siqi's approach was quite innovative. Many people look for manuscripts online, but few use online content to invite authors to create richer content.
What surprised Lu Yanhe was that the first person to submit his manuscript was Song Linxin.
It only took Song Linxin five days to send over the article she wrote.
Lu Yanhe didn't know why it happened so fast and was shocked.
When I opened it, I saw that Song Linxin was talking about her experience of playing in a band in high school.
Lu Yanhe immediately took Song Linxin's article to Li Zhibai and said, "She's already submitted it, and you haven't written a single word yet!"
Li Zhibai: "Yan Liang hasn't written it yet!"
"He's only halfway through!" Lu Yanhe decided to use his grinding tactics on Li Zhibai. "Can you at least write the beginning for me today? Brother Li, Brother Bai, Big Brother!"
Li Zhibai looked worried: "Okay, okay."
Lu Yanhe saw him sitting in front of the computer, unable to write a single word for a long time. He really tried hard, but it didn't work. Lu Yanhe realized that he might have to think of other ways.
He thought of a way to help Li Zhibai write it himself, but then he thought it wouldn't work. He still had to write his own article for this column, and by then the styles of the two articles would be too similar, which would be a problem.
Then change it to an interview format?
The question is, who can come to interview?
Moreover, this column uses first-person narration to make it more immersive.
Moreover, people who were not familiar with Li Zhibai would not be able to hear some real stories from him. He was just like that. If he was not close to someone, even a professional reporter, he would just give a perfunctory answer.
-
While urging the manuscript to be submitted, Lu Yanhe was also thinking about his book. The content was too little at the moment. There were enough famous figures, but not enough content.
In addition to the people invited by Chen Siqi to submit manuscripts, other manuscripts are also needed.
Lu Yanhe suddenly thought of his classmates, Lin Yu and Bai Yu.
Linyu is the "hexagonal warrior" among the students. She is also the class monitor and a top student. Maybe we can ask her to write an article?
There is also Bai Yu. She often writes novels, and Luo Zicheng even read passages of her novels in front of the whole class. In fact, everyone knows that Bai Yu has a dream of writing.
Lu Yanhe hesitated for a moment and decided to invite them to contribute.
Let’s talk about whether the manuscript is really unsuitable, but since we want to make a Mook that is truly related to student days, how can we not have real students to create it?
Lu Yanhe immediately sent messages to Linyu and Baiyu.
When sending it to Linyu, Lu Yanhe was a little worried that Linyu would refuse, because Linyu had a competition in August and she was preparing and time was very tight, but Linyu agreed immediately and asked if there was any word count requirement.
Lu Yanhe said that around two to four thousand would be appropriate.
Because it is an e-book, there are fewer layout restrictions than paper books, and the control over the number of words is not as strict.
Lin Yu agreed immediately.
Bai Yu's first reaction was: Me? Can I?
She has little confidence in herself.
Lu Yanhe didn't dare say yes at this point, "Would you mind writing it first?" "I can't promise I'll use your manuscript now. This is a formal e-Mook. Liu Jiazhen and Mingyin's short stories will also be published in the first issue, but I hope to publish your work there, and I need your support."
Bai Yu: Okay, then I’ll try.
Lu Yanhe breathed a sigh of relief.
-
Bai Yu put down his phone, feeling numb.
Ever since the college entrance examination results came out, the atmosphere in her family has become very low-pressure, because she only got into an ordinary university, which did not meet her parents' expectations at all.
Until now, her parents have never smiled at her.
She cried several times. Did she fail the test? Not necessarily. Her usual grades were just like that.
But it is true that once the college entrance examination results come out, the pressure that will determine your whole life comes.
Bai Yu himself was also depressed and kept himself in the room reading books without going out.
Suddenly, there were two knocks on the door.
"Your dad and I won't be home for dinner tonight, so you can make something for yourself," her mother said outside the door.
"Yeah." Bai Yu responded.
She heard her mother and her father go to the entrance and change their shoes.
Knowing that they were going out, Bai Yu felt relieved.
It's time to take a break from this low pressure.
At this moment, her father's voice came from outside the door: "You got that horrible score on the test, and you stay in your room all day long. You didn't study well, and your brain has become stupid."
"Okay, just say less. It's already like this, what else can we do?" Her mother said in a good tone and persuaded her father.
No more sound came from the two people.
The door opens and then closes.
She was the only one left at home.
Bai Yuku sat on the chair and was in a daze for a long time.
When she came to her senses, the sunset had already set, slanting into her room.
The room was unlit, half in darkness.
The tears on Bai Yu's face had dried.
She took a deep breath, created a new document, looked at the white document interface, and put her hands on the keyboard.
The sound of fingers tapping on the keyboard can be heard.
"She knew she hadn't done well on the test, but when the results came out, she still felt an inconsolable sadness. The atmosphere at home was terrible, and no one spoke during dinner. She felt very sorry and didn't even look up. On such a bad day, one rainy afternoon at 2 o'clock, she walked into a convenience store in shorts and a T-shirt, and she met the boy behind a row of shelves."
…
For readers, reading is like entering a dream and finding solace in the dreams of others. In fact, for authors, creation is also about dreaming, finding solace in their own dreams.
Bai Yu didn't know whether his manuscript would be accepted in the end.
But at least it's a chance.
Having failed the exam and unable to attend a good university, can her persistent writing bring her a glimmer of new hope? (End of this chapter)