Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 142: Prepare outline and sign contract

In classrooms.

The teacher was giving a lecture at the podium, and Cao Sheng, who was sitting in the back row, had his head down and was daydreaming again.

To be more precise, I'm thinking about the outline of the next book.

The outline of "God's Tomb" was prepared early, and both the outline and the detailed outline were complete enough, which allowed him to write the main text smoothly recently, without any feeling of writer's block.

He tasted the sweetness and has recently been thinking about the outline of a book. Anyway, he has free time during class time.

According to his previous plan, his next book was going to be about the ancient times.

Be a pioneer again and develop this new subject matter in advance.

When writing about Honghuang, the first thing that came to his mind was Shen Ji's "The Buddha Is the Tao". In his memory, after the book "Original Time and Space" appeared, it had been on the major rankings of Qidian for a long time, and it should be regarded as Shen Ji's masterpiece.

Qidian.com once commented on this book: It alone carries the banner of fantasy novels in 06.

This shows how popular this book was back then.

He recently tried to remember the main plot of the book, but no matter how hard he tried, he could only remember fragments.

It's really been too much time.

And he has read and written too many novels.

When he was reading books, he read them in a hurry and he couldn't remember how many books he had read, but he had read almost all popular works.

Regardless of subject matter or author.

The more books you read, the shallower your memory of each book will be.

He has written quite a few works.

I have been in the industry for more than ten years and have written more than a dozen books, totaling tens of millions of words.

After writing for a long time, he gradually developed a habit - every time he finished writing a book, before starting the next one, he would take the initiative to forget what he had written, let his brain empty little by little, and not think about what plots or characters were written in the previous book or the book before that.

This habit has both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage is that when you start a new book, you can start with a light load and your thinking will not be disturbed by the previous work.

The downside is that sometimes the plot he writes in his new book will suddenly be accused by readers of having written a similar story in one of his previous books.

Faced with such accusations from readers, sometimes he could vaguely remember that he had indeed written a similar plot before, but sometimes he could not remember it at all.

What should I do if I can’t remember the main storyline of “The Buddha is the Tao”?
What else can be done?

Cold!

He could only try to construct a completely new outline on his own.

Just like when he wrote "Living with a Flight Attendant", "I Want to Become an Immortal", and "God's Tomb" before, he could only write his own outline because he couldn't remember the original plot.

Sometimes he envied the protagonists in those plagiarized articles he had read before. They were like computers and could copy any book they wanted.

For some of them, you don’t even need to copy them, you can just draw the original work through a lottery in the system.

Who is as miserable as him? He has to think and write everything by himself.

By the way, he has also read some works about primitive times.

He remembered that the male protagonists of many books, after arriving in the prehistoric world, caught up with the Taoist Hongjun who was preaching, and also received the innate treasures distributed by Hongjun.

Afterwards, these male protagonists will compete for the opportunity to achieve sainthood in the prehistoric world.

As Cao Sheng recalled, he wrote down the names of the innate treasures on the manuscript paper in front of him: Tai Chi Diagram, Pangu Banner, Four Swords of Zhuxian (Zhuxian Sword, Luxian Sword, Juexian Sword, Xianxian Sword), Purple Gold Red Gourd, Twelve-Level Lotus Platform...

As he was recalling and listing the various treasures of the ancient world bit by bit, the bell for the end of get out of class suddenly rang. The originally quiet classroom suddenly became restless. The sounds of textbooks being put away, the sounds of tables and chairs being moved... and so on, immediately brought Cao Sheng's thoughts back to reality.

The teacher at the podium smiled and announced the end of get out of class.

Everyone got up and left.

Cao Sheng also packed up his things, walked out of the classroom and went downstairs.

As soon as he came out of the teaching building, he saw the counselor Lu Xiangwei waving at him at the flower bed in front.

Next to Lu Xiangwei, there were a few middle-aged men in their forties, who looked like leaders and employees of a company from the way they were dressed.

Cao Sheng was a little confused and wondered who was looking for me again?

He suddenly realized that since some time ago, people who came to look for him outside seemed to like waiting for him at the entrance of this teaching building.

He smiled, quickened his pace and trotted over.

When the middle-aged men next to Lu Xiangwei saw Cao Sheng jogging over, they immediately hurried to greet him.

The leader, Shang Zhengming, stretched out his hands from a distance and said with a smile on his face: "Mr. Cao! Excuse me for disturbing you. I am Shang Zhengming from Changjiang Literature and Art. This time I was sent by our General Manager Yan to come to see you. Nice to meet you!"

Cao Sheng understood.

"Nice to meet you! Hello, Mr. Shang, welcome to Huizhou. When did you come? Why didn't you tell me before you came? I could have picked you up in advance!"

Cao Sheng is also good at saying polite words that don't require money.

After a round of greetings, both parties agreed to find a place to eat and chat while eating.

Shang Zhengming also called Lu Xiangwei and another teacher.

It turned out that the teacher was Shang Zhengming's old classmate. Today, when Shang Zhengming came to Huizhou Teachers College, the first person he looked for was this classmate.

This old classmate found Lu Xiangwei, and then Lu Xiangwei brought them here to wait for Cao Sheng to finish class.

The group chatted and laughed as they got into Shang Zhengming's business car and headed for the hotel.

In the car. Lu Xiangwei said: "Cao Sheng, I was going to go to the classroom and call you out, but Mr. Shang insisted that we should not disturb your class and insisted on waiting outside. We have been waiting for at least half an hour."

Before Cao Sheng could reply, Shang Zhengming, with a smile on his face, waved his hand and said, "It's only half an hour! It's my duty, it's my duty! We came here suddenly this time and it's disturbing enough. How can we affect Mr. Cao's class? Right?"

……

When we arrived at the hotel, Shang Zhengming treated everyone to a seafood dinner.

Lobster, abalone, everything.

During the meal, Shang Zhengming seemed to be possessed by the best waiter. He didn't eat much himself and mainly served Cao Sheng, Lu Xiangwei and his old classmate.

When others were talking, he smiled, listened attentively, occasionally made a compliment or asked a question, and did not talk too much.

It left a good impression on Cao Sheng.

When the dinner was almost over, he said to Cao Sheng, "Mr. Cao, we came here with a mission. We hope to cooperate with you again and do our best to help publish your new book "God's Tomb" in simplified Chinese. I wonder if you still have the simplified Chinese publishing rights for this new book? Are we not too late?"

He seemed a little nervous when asking this question.

This is what worries him the most.

If the simplified Chinese copyright of this book has been signed out, then nothing he says will be of any use.

Cao Sheng smiled and said, "Still, you are the first mainland publishing house to come to me. No one came earlier than you!"

Upon hearing this, Shang Zhengming, the secretary, and the copyright lawyer all breathed a sigh of relief.

Shang Zhengming laughed, "That's good! That's good! The early bird catches the worm! It seems we still have a chance?"

Cao Sheng nodded. "Just because you came to see me in person, Mr. Shang, I will definitely give you priority. However, we all drank a lot of wine just now. Let's talk about the specific contract after we sober up."

Shang Zhengming readily agreed: "Of course! We should wait until you sober up before we talk again!"

……

Cao Sheng was sent back to his residence in Shang Zhengming's business car.

When he left the hotel, he had already asked Lu Xiangwei for leave in the afternoon.

I drank a little too much this afternoon.

He couldn't attend the afternoon class.

After returning to his residence and making a cup of Maofeng tea, Cao Sheng sat back on the sofa in the living room, massaging his temples while thinking about something.

——Is he thinking about setting up a personal studio or company to help him with reception, contract negotiation and investment?
Otherwise, every time someone came to see him, he would have to receive them personally and accompany them to drink, which would not only harm his health but also waste his time.

It’s okay to drink at noon. Just take a day off in the afternoon and take a nap.

If I go out drinking with someone in the evening, will I still be able to write my manuscript after the drink?

Also, if reporters come to your house in the future, there will be someone to help you block them or speak on your behalf in front of the media.

By the way, you can also protect your property.

After being reborn more than 20 years later, he has heard and witnessed too many examples of divorces involving splitting the marriage in half.

Especially those who divorce after one or two months of marriage, in which case the couple divides the property, car and savings in half.

Not to mention the distant past, as far as he knew, there were several great writers in the online literature circle who lost half of their property when they divorced, which seriously damaged their vitality.

Having seen so many precedents like this, he felt he needed to set up a company.

A company that serves him personally.

It's not easy for him to earn money, he types it out word by word.

If one day in the future, someone suddenly took half of it away from you, wouldn't you be heartbroken?
If you set up a company, you can turn your personal income into company income.

It is relatively safer.

Moreover, if he has his own company, he won’t have to go to the site in person to see things like buying a house or a car. He can just make a decision and someone will execute it.

It seems that if you buy a house or a car in the name of a company, you can also deduct taxes?

Besides, he admitted that he was not an expert at negotiating contracts.

If you have your own company, you can leave contract negotiations with publishing houses like today to professionals.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt the need to set up a personal company.

The benefits are simply too numerous to count.

There seems to be only one disadvantage: when preparing for a company, you need to spend some time and energy on your own, and the most important thing is to find a suitable person in charge to manage the company for you.

You don't need a business elite. The most important thing is that you have to trust this person.

How about letting Huang Qingya take charge temporarily?
She should be willing to help with this.

With these thoughts running through his mind, Cao Sheng fell asleep on the sofa without realizing it.

When I woke up, it was already past 3pm.

He got up, got a change of clothes, took a shower, then took out his cell phone and called Shang Zhengming of Changjiang Literature and Art.

Invite him to a nearby teahouse to discuss the contract.

The contract was finalized after only about an hour of discussion.

As for the specific terms, compared with the previous contract they had, the remuneration is still a tiered royalty sharing, but the specific sharing ratio has been increased by one point compared with the previous contract.

(End of this chapter)