Chapter 229 Between your eyes and mine
There is a poem written by Adonis like this:
"When I sink my eyes into your eyes, I glimpse the deep dawn... I feel The universe is flowing, between your eyes and mine. "
Whether it is the poet who is pretending to be shocking, or whether a woman's eyes really have such a high energy level, he can verify it now just by raising his head and making eye contact with An Younan. But he didn't dare.
A thirty-year-old man who can be called an uncle does not dare to look at a twenty-year-old girl. It sounds a bit useless, but it is indeed dangerous. He is afraid of seeing signs of heat death in her eyes.
He lowered his eyebrows and pretended not to see An Younan, and said to Duan Xiaosang:
"The publishing houses you just mentioned seem to be quite difficult, right? Are there any others?"
Duan Xiaosang also pretended not to see it tacitly, tapped the notebook with the tip of his pen, and continued following the topic:
"The emerging private publishing houses are the first to recommend Zhongxing and Kuimai. Zhongxing has strong packaging capabilities and is good at creating best-sellers. Shen Qingfeng is the author they launch. Kuimai has been gaining momentum recently and is very good at marketing, especially I like to catch hot spots..."
Being ignored, An Younan suddenly stretched out Bai Shengsheng's hand and raked it on the table willfully, messing up the notebook and manuscript paper.
Duan Xiaosang held his forehead and sighed: "Miss, what do you want?"
"It's so boring to hear."
An Younan yawned and sat down between the two of them, with her slender white legs stretched out from the hem of her nightgown, straight.
Duan Xiaosang said: "It's not time for you to come on stage yet, how about you wait for me to finish speaking first?"
"It's too slow, I can't wait. And when I think that after you finished speaking, he found that he had no choice but to ask me to help him turn over, I was so excited that I wanted to laugh!" An Younan's eyes flashed with excitement.
“If you say that in front of this stubborn guy, won’t he die without begging you?”
“You don’t understand, here’s the fun part.”
Who is the stubborn one? So... fun? Where is the fun?
Wang Zixu was shocked.
Duan Xiaosang said: "He is a writer after all, and he has a strong self-esteem. You have to worry about his face, right?"
An Younan Said: "I hate this kind of people who have little ability but want to save face. I am not implying anything, I am just stating an objective fact. I hate men who have little ability but want to save face."
This sentence is a bit familiar.
Duan Xiaosang said: "Small means small, but small is also very cute, so you can't laugh at it."
"Hee hee, just laugh, miscellaneous fish~carp~mackerel~east star spot~"
Wang Zixu felt that he had seen how pornographic he could be in private in situations where only girls existed, even though there was still him here. Apparently they didn't take him for a man.
But Eastern Star Spot is quite expensive. So he wasn't angry either.
He reminded them politely and vaguely: "I'm still sitting here."
An Younan pounded the table: "Hurry up and show your cards to him. If you want to make a comeback with sales, you can only ask me this way!"
"How about you tell him yourself?"
An Younan was silent for a moment and said: "You better say it."
Duan Xiaosang showed a particularly disgusted look: "This child has learned to be shy."
An Younan punched her.
Since Zizixu was completely ignorant of the publishing industry, Duan Xiaosang spent another hour laying out various basic knowledge for Zixu.
Such terms as “ladder royalties”, “printing cycles”, “opening data”, “book number management”, “bookstore goods”, “channel purchase”, “book number management”... each term carries a large number of data frameworks and endogenous mechanisms, and in practice there are still a large number of hidden rules.
After listening to this, Wang Zixu felt groggy for a while, and finally tried to summarize:
"So, if you want "Fire in the Stone" to become a hit, it needs to reach at least the top 50 in the sales list, and the top 10 or even the top 5 in the category list?"
"Yes."
"If you want sales to increase, you need channel recommendations and bookstores to have eye-catching booths."
"That's right."
"If you want to be recommended by channels and bookstores, you need sales to be high enough to be on the list."
"That's right."
Wang Zixu thought for a while and said: "So what you are saying is that if you want to sell well, you must sell well? Isn't this back again?"
Duan Xiaosang said: "Shi Things in the world are like this. The more money you have, the richer you are. The poorer you are, the less money you can make. "The Matthew effect." After hearing this, Wang Zixu was speechless and felt deeply sad.
She drew a horizontal line in the air and said:
"There is a golden line in book sales. If it exceeds that line, a virtuous circle will be formed, and the book will become more and more popular; on the contrary, a vicious circle will be formed. The less popular the book will be, the less it will sell the book and eventually disappear from the market."
Wang Zixu pondered for a moment and said: "I believe "Fire in the Stone" will exceed that line."
"What a fart!" Duan Xiaosang rubbed his eyebrows, "It is difficult for your book to be a best-seller from the ground up!"
Wang Zixu raised his eyebrows and expressed doubt.
He previously published a book called "Love Poems of the Little Prince" as a little prince, which is still in the bestseller section of bookstores.
He didn’t care much about the fate of the book. He just felt that it easily became a bestseller. So he subconsciously felt that this was not a difficult thing.
Duan Xiaosang explained: "Your book is indeed very well written, but it is too long! For a serious novel of this length, it will take a long time for word-of-mouth to ferment, and the publicity period has passed.
"Even if you want to rely on the long tail effect to become popular, without a tipping point of public opinion, readers will only read it silently, and will not help you spread the word. Nowadays, the book market is booming. If your book doesn’t win awards, you will hardly get the chance to be reprinted.
“Think about it, if you don’t print it, your book will only be in stock on the market, and no one else can buy it. If the publishing house doesn’t promote it, it will naturally fall off the list, and in the end, it will disappear like water droplets in the vast sea of books.”
Duan Xiaosang shook his arms and made a wave shape. An Younan was very impressed and started to applaud: "Well said!"
The prince opened his mouth and subconsciously wanted to give a counterexample to "The Three-Body Problem".
But if you think about it carefully, the two periods of explosive sales growth of "The Three-Body Problem" were that it was recommended by celebrities such as Zuckerberg and Lei Jun, and that it won the Hugo Award.
Without these two public opinion hot spots, this book would not have been so popular that it would have topped the list for 137 consecutive weeks. In other words, if you want to sell it to this level, it will take long enough for everyone to get old.
Wang Zixu asked: "But my book is already so long. It is already an established fact and cannot be changed even if I want to."
Duan Xiaosang said: "Silly, what I mean is that the most important thing about selling books is marketing. Relying on the breaking event, you will have a sales surge period and get on the rankings! If your book wants to make a comeback, you must go this way!" r>
An Younan bit her thumb gently and said, "Doesn't it mean that the corners of the book cover are rolled up after using it at the end?"
Duan Xiaosang said: "It's rolled up. It’s just a waste of time. Even the top students in my class didn’t do it. I found it troublesome in high school, but I haven’t done it since I was a kid.”
An Younan sneered and moved his thumb out of his lips: "Don't you think he is a god?"
Duan Xiaosang was stunned and nodded: "Indeed."
"Can we be more focused in our chat and not spread out randomly?"
Duan Xiaosang Humbly accepted Wang Zixu's proposal, and then said:
"You don't need to package it yourself, you need the publishing house to package you, or in other words, only they can package it. However, this requires them to be willing to spend money."
Did An Younan tell her that he was a little prince?
He glanced at the two of them respectively, and found that their expressions were as usual, and tentatively said: "My relationship with the Cultural Association is so bad, they should not be willing to take this risk, right?"
Duan Xiaosang smiled laughed: "That's not necessarily the case. You are so popular online now. As long as you manage your character well, the publishing house will definitely be willing to take the risk. The question is just how you show your character."
Wang Zixu wondered, this is also a knowledge blind spot.
Although he has the image of a "little prince" in an unknown place, it was a mistake and was not done deliberately.
He is not good at hypocrisy. He can build an image in order to do his job well, but if he is asked to stick to his personality, he will not be able to do it well.
“What is a business personality?” He asked, “In other words, what kind of personality can I have?”
“Don’t you have a ready-made personality?” Duan Xiao Sang said, "The knight of literature. Or, the Don Quixote of literature. Of course, the latter is more of a clown, which is not good for you. You can consider using the character behind to redeem yourself after failure."
The prince is hypocritical and insensitive.
"I know you are having a hard time mentally, but all writers have a personality. Even if they are unwilling, the outside world and readers will give them a personality." An Younan said.
She continued: "For example, Gu Zao, his persona is that of a wild and unruly young writer. All kinds of packaging and promotions highlight this trait. In fact, he is a bit neurotic;
"Another example is Xiao Mengyin, you have seen her before, but her persona in the outside world is that of a cold and sharp beauty writer! ”
Wang Zixu covered his mouth and thought for a moment, and it seemed true. But Xiao Mengyin’s character design was also a bit too outrageous, and the contrast was too great.
Suddenly his heart skipped a beat, and he asked subconsciously: "Does Chen Qingluo also have a character?"
Duan Xiaosang said: "Chen Qingluo's character is that of a genius literary girl, and she is still a genius literary girl after many years."
An Younan continued: "It's true, she has always been promoted as a girl. But she looks pretty good, otherwise we would be embarrassed to print her photo."
Wang Zixu pursed his lips and remained silent, secretly apologizing to Chen Qingluo.
“How old is she? Is she almost 30?” Duan Xiaosang asked.
“29 years old.” Wang Zixu replied, “One year younger than me.”
An Younan asked keenly: "How do you know so clearly?"
I have sat at the same table and wished you a happy birthday, how could you not be clear?
Wang Zixu replied: "She is the editor-in-chief of my magazine."
"Oh." An Younan nodded.
An Younan looked at his embarrassment and asked: "Do you think she wants you to go to the publishing house to promote yourself and actively submit your resume?"
Wang Zixu didn't think so, but the nature of the behavior he conceived was not far different.
"There is no need for that," An Younan said, "Literati are literati after all, and they must follow the rules of the elegant circle and not be too explicit. What is the idiom? How do you sell yourself?"
Duan Xiaosang: "Where is there such an idiom?"
Wang Zixu said: "Sell for a price."
“Yes, wait for the price,” An Younan said, “You must act like you are ready for the price, appear arrogant, arrogant, and confident, and let publishers discover you, so that you can get a good contract.”
Wang Zixu asked: “So, on which occasion can I make my appearance to get publishers to pay attention to me?”
An Younan stretched out a slender finger and pointed it in the air: "You have asked the key. It is very easy to find that kind of occasion, please beg me."
"Please."
"As long as you can ask me...how can you agree so easily!?"
Wang Zixu said seriously: "I don't want "Fire in the Stone" to fail."
This is the only reason.
He doesn’t want anyone to watch “Fire in the Stone”. No writer would like the result of his hard work to be left unread.
Talking about "hidden famous mountains" and "leaving them to future generations" are just beautiful words to comfort yourself.
The life of novels lies in their dissemination and living in people’s memories. The author gives part of his life to the story, and the story is the continuation of his life.
After Duan Xiaosang’s words, he realized that the sentence “a writer’s responsibility ends when he finishes writing the novel” was a bit empty after all.
Because of himself, Shi Tonghe made trouble for his book. In order to make Shi Tonghe look good and suppress him himself, people from the Literary and Art Association made a lot of nonsense about his book.
Where others are, people are books, and books are people.
How can he separate himself?
If because of this kind of thing, no one cares about "Fire in the Stone", it is his fault.
“I hope many people will read this book. For this, I am willing to do anything.” Wang Zixu said.
Because it was too easy, An Younan lost the fun of playing with the mouse. Instead, he became less interested and snorted: "Okay.
"What you have to do is also very simple. Just make a date with me. ”
…
The so-called entertainment refers to a group of men and women exchanging life debris and emotional garbage in a non-public, non-work, non-family situation, drinking wine, and integrating resources and connections.
Many people hate socializing. But socializing is a necessity. Even if he was as secluded as Wang Zixu, he was forced to participate in many social activities during his first years at work.
Or to change it to a more popular name, "bureau".
There are big and small bureaus, up and down. The big one is a president meeting, the small one is a beggar meeting; the top one is wearing a mask and wearing a suit, dancing in a group at a cocktail party, and the bottom one is KTV private room, touching and singing.
Depending on the identity of the participants, the format of the game is also different.
An Younan did not ask the prince to sell himself to accompany her on a date, but asked him to participate in a game.
Compared with 20 years ago, the book industry’s relative status has been declining, but its absolute GDP has been expanding. The competition in the industry is becoming more and more fierce. Apart from the "central-level" publishing houses, private enterprises are also competing more and more fiercely.
Authors need to know publishers, and publishers need to know channel vendors. Driven by demand, in addition to public events such as BIBF Expo, major book fairs, and book festivals, there are also some closed-door activities.
What An Younan asked Wang Zixu to attend was the "Guxuan Reading Salon" that was little known to the outside world and unknown to everyone in the industry.
Gu Xuan is a well-known entrepreneur. He has been deeply involved in the book market since the last century. He is the first person in the book industry and has huge appeal in the industry. Therefore, the salon bearing his name also has a huge influence in the industry.
This salon is opened every year, and there is a working team of 200 people from event planning to execution. The salon implements an invitation system and adheres to the principle of "prefer not to overdo it". Only 100 places are invited every year, and there will never be one more.
Although the number is not large, the people invited every year must be the best and elite in the industry. Anyone who is qualified to participate in this party is worth showing off and is enough to make people in the industry salivate.
This event is so prominent.
Of course, Wang Zixu is not eligible to receive the invitation.
Although he won the first prize of the Xihe Literary Society, appeared in "Get", and became popular on the Internet, according to An Younan, he is still not qualified. He must at least win a national award to be among them.
But who is An Younan? She is the leading distributor in the country. Therefore, if she invites him, she will naturally qualify Wang Zixu.