Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 253: Sky-high script fees, simplified Chinese version of the new book amazes the mainland market
This time, Cao Sheng stayed at Wang Zuxian's place for five days.

It was not because he was addicted to her gentleness, although he had a great time here these few days, which greatly shortened the distance between him and her, but the main reason why he stayed here for five days was to wait for Paramount's reply.

He also needed her to answer his phone calls and act as a translator.

During these five days, she asked for leave from the crew and stayed at home with him every day.

But Cao Sheng did not spend the whole day with her. This time when he came to Hong Kong, he brought his laptop and still wrote on time every day.

As an online writer, writing has long become his daily routine and cannot be easily interrupted. Once he stops for a few days, it will be difficult to resume his previous state and the previous plot.

What's more, he is now serializing two books at the same time, and the pressure to update is not small.

What comforted him was that Wang Zuxian didn't mind that he spent much more time staring at the computer than at her. He typed on time every day, and the look in her eyes when she looked at him was full of appreciation.

Maybe this is the difference between a career-oriented woman and a petty woman?
She is very career-oriented herself, so she admires men with similar ambitions.

On the fifth day, Paramount finally called again.

It’s the same foreign guy who called last time.

Cao Sheng handed the phone to Wang Zuxian.

She acted as an interpreter throughout the entire process, and only greeted the foreigner on the other end of the phone in simple English at the beginning and end of the call.

This time, the terms were agreed.

The script fee was US$220 million, and the script and sequel development rights were transferred to Paramount.

That afternoon, they received an electronic contract from Paramount, printed it out, signed it, and sent it to Paramount.

The two parties agreed that after Paramount received the contract, the script fee would be deposited into his account.

That night, Wang Zuxian cooked a few dishes and opened a bottle of red wine to celebrate for Cao Sheng.

"220 million US dollars for a script, I've never heard of this in all my years in the Hong Kong film industry. This is more than Andy Lau's salary for a movie. If this news gets out, you'll be on the headlines of major media on both sides of the Taiwan Straits!"

While raising her glass, Wang Zuxian said with emotion.

Cao Sheng also felt that the money he earned was exaggerated.

At this rate, he should be able to earn more than 2000 million RMB this year, which should be a safe bet.

In the online literature circle of this era, this is simply a myth.

He felt that if this news really got out, he might really need to change his pen name.

Otherwise, many readers might become envious of his income and resist his works.

Although this kind of hatred towards the rich is not obvious in the online literature circle, he believes that there will definitely be some readers who choose not to read his books for this reason.

Simply put, once such a high income is exposed, the distance between him and many readers will be too great.

But online writers are not celebrities.

The relationship between book fans should be like that of friends.

If the distance is too great, it will be difficult for readers to support his work just because they like him as an author.

But it would be a pity for him to give up the pen name "A Little Gray in the Central Plains".

Therefore, his temporary idea is: if the script fee of "Pacific Rim" is reported by the news, he will open a pseudonym in the future, and publish some works under the pseudonym "Zhongyuan Yidianhui", and publish some works under the pseudonym.

"Keep it a secret for me!"

Cao Sheng said to her.

Wang Zuxian laughed, "Such shocking news, do you think you can keep it secret? Paramount should actively promote it. This script was written by you, and they definitely hope that this movie can be released in mainland China. More publicity about your script fee should be helpful for this movie to enter the mainland film market."

Cao Sheng smiled, "If they really want to promote this, then it's up to them, but before they promote it, you help keep it a secret, okay?"

Wang Zuxian nodded with a smile.

The two of them ate and chatted, clinking glasses from time to time, and gradually the whole bottle of red wine was finished by them.

Finish the last drink.

She got up and went to the living room, turned on the record player, put on a vinyl record, and the prelude to "Your Eyes" soon floated out.

She wore a black evening gown tonight and smiled as she extended her right hand to Cao Sheng. "Can I ask you to dance with me? You're a famous screenwriter who sold a script for 220 million US dollars?"

Cao Sheng burst out laughing.

But instead of getting up, he said, "Sorry! I can't dance."

She walked forward a few steps with a smile, came close to him, and said with a smile: "It's okay! I'll teach you! It's very simple."

She had very fair skin, and the black evening dress she wore made her skin look even whiter than snow.

He felt a little jealous and hesitated for a moment before he stood up and held her hand.

To the sound of music and under her gentle guidance, I began to clumsily learn the dance steps.

This was bound to be a filthy dance.

As they danced, they kissed each other, their dance steps gradually became distorted, and their clothes gradually slipped to the ground.

Art has been tarnished by them.

But, maybe this is the value of art.

The next morning.

Cao Sheng left Hong Kong.

What surprised him was that for a period of time, as the days passed, Paramount never publicized the news that they had bought the "Pacific Rim" script from him for 220 million US dollars.

His life is very peaceful.

On the other hand, Changjiang Literature and Art has finally launched his new book "The Linglong Tower of Heaven and Earth" to the market, releasing one or two copies at a time.

For a time, many media outlets in the mainland reported this news.

Cao Sheng didn’t know how much of this news was bought by Changjiang Literature and Art, nor did he care much about the sales of this book in the mainland.

The scripts in this book have earned him nearly 20 million RMB, and the sales and reputation of the traditional Chinese version published in Taiwan have proved that the quality of this book is not bad.

Therefore, he doesn't care even if the sales of simplified Chinese publications in the mainland are a little lower.

What's more, sales in the mainland may not be bad.

However, there are many posts discussing the plot of the physical book in the book review section of Under the Banyan Tree.

The plot of the physical book, which is released in two or three volumes at a time, is much faster than the progress of the online serialization.

As soon as such posts were published, the number of views of these posts increased rapidly, and they soon firmly occupied the front row of the book review section.

Such as:
"Awesome! I finally got to see the plot of The Hunger Games. After reading the synopsis of this movie world, I finally understood why Jackie Chan liked this script. I have to say that Ah Hui's imagination is amazing! He can come up with such a story, so cool!"

"The settings of the two movie worlds, "The Hunger Games" and "Twilight", are so amazing! I suddenly feel that the most exciting part of this book is the movie worlds in the book! The creativity of "One Man's Martial Arts" and "Ong Bak" has already amazed me. I didn't expect the author to be able to create original movie worlds like "The Hunger Games" and "Twilight". This physical book is worth buying! The author's sincerity is so great!" "This should be the most worthwhile physical book in history, right? In a novel, there are so many original and exciting movie worlds. It seems that the scripts of the four movie worlds that have been serialized, except for "Twilight", have all been sold, right? I suddenly feel that it is not the author of the novel who is writing the novel, but the top screenwriter who is writing the novel for us!"

"Ah Hui! You still say you don't want to change your career and become a professional screenwriter? If you really don't want to do that, how can you create so many wonderful movie worlds? You can write these movie worlds without putting in any effort? You liar!"

"When I bought the book today, I felt that I was supporting the author. After reading these two volumes, I suddenly felt that such a book does not need my support at all. With such quality, is there any need to worry about sales?"

"Twilight? Vampires? Werewolves? The author is Chinese, but he actually wrote about vampires and werewolves that only exist in European and American movies? The problem is that the plot is quite exciting. Are you a banana person? Yellow skin and white heart?"

……

Bao Jianfeng has recently been leading the company members to work day and night to develop the webpage of Qidian Chinese Network. However, today when "The Linglong Tower of the Mysterious Heaven and Earth" was released, he still took the time to go to the bookstore and bought one or two copies.

He originally liked Cao Sheng's works.

Now that Cao Sheng is a major shareholder of Qidian Chinese Network, he has no reason not to support his work.

In fact, he has already read all the contents of this book serialized online.

But he still bought one copy of each volume.

Because he had read a lot of the content before, he simply skipped the content he had already read and finished reading both volumes of "The Linglong Tower of Heaven and Earth" in one night.

After reading it, he was in a daze for a long time.

I couldn't help but whisper to myself: "It seems that I really don't have the talent to write novels. Zhongyuan Yidianhui... this talent..."

He has also written novels before.

So, when he reads this book, he can notice many things that many readers cannot notice.

For example, the innovation in this book.

He feels that the creativity, writing style, and original film worlds in the book are all innovative.

This amazed him.

Because he asked himself, he absolutely could not write such a work.

Because he can't take into account so many innovative aspects.

It's easy to lose sight of one thing while focusing on another.

Not only do they have to come up with amazing ideas, they also have to use a completely new way of writing, and the book also has to create so many original and exciting movie worlds.

Each of these places requires a lot of energy and effort.

A slight oversight can easily make people feel that the author has wasted such a good idea.

Also, if the original movie worlds in the book, as long as there is one movie world, fail to satisfy the readers with their creativity and plot, people will feel that the book starts well but ends badly, or that the book is only amazing at the beginning and it is enough to just read the beginning.

But the plots in these two books and the four original movie worlds made him feel very exciting. The four movie worlds were all so unexpected and exciting.

"What a pity! It would be better if this book was published on our Qidian."

He couldn't help but sigh and mutter to himself.

He felt that if such a book were serialized on Qidian at the beginning of its launch, it would quickly attract a large number of readers.

It will soon attract a lot of traffic to Qidian.

What a pity! This book has been serialized in Under the Banyan Tree.

……

In fact.

Bao Jianfeng was not the only one who was amazed by the contents of these two volumes.

For most readers, this book is wonderful, full of creativity and sincerity, and the plot is very compact and not watery at all. It is worth buying these two books.

As for many authors, editors and others in the industry, they had different judgments on this book from a professional perspective when they read the serialized plot of this book under the banyan tree.

For example, the third young master.

He thinks that this book has great creativity and a cool setting. The plots of "One Man's Martial Arts" and "Ong Bak" in the book are both very exciting, and it is worthy of being the work of Zhongyuan Yidianhui.

but……

He is not optimistic about the subsequent plot of the book.

He felt that this book might be the Waterloo of Zhongyuan Yidianhui.

Because he didn't believe that every original movie world created by Zhongyuan Yidianhui in this book was so brilliant.

He didn't believe that such an awesome person existed.

How can a novelist create one wonderful movie world after another?

If you really have such ability, why write novels?
Wouldn't it be faster and easier to just write scripts and make money?
A novel can easily have hundreds of thousands or even millions of words.

And how many words are there in a script?
But a good script can earn more royalties from selling than a novel.

Even though the news had previously reported that the scripts of "A Man's Martial Arts", "Ong Bak", and "The Hunger Games" had all been sold, he still firmly believed that the quality of Zhongyuan Yidianhui's subsequent original scripts would be problematic.

but……

After he finished reading some of the Twilight Zone stories in the second volume today, he was surprised.

He didn't expect that the fourth original movie world in this book would still surprise him.

He sat at the desk for a long time.

He realized that there was a huge gap between him and Zhongyuan Yidianhui in terms of creativity and talent.

With such a huge gap, he didn't even have the confidence to catch up.

"Compared to people like this, what advantages do I have? Do I still have any advantages?"

He is arrogant at heart.

No matter what I do, I want to stand out and like to compete with the best.

Zhongyuan Yidianhui is currently recognized as the number one in the industry.

He felt that Zhongyuan Yidianhui's gifts and talents were not unique, and there must be other authors with outstanding gifts and talents.

He no longer had the confidence to compete with these people in terms of talent and ability.

He thought for a long time and only thought of one advantage: hand speed.

After he started typing, his writing speed became faster and faster, sometimes so fast that he himself couldn't believe it. Sometimes when he was communicating with other authors, he was surprised to see that other authors said they could only write two or three thousand words a day. He didn't dare to say that he could write four or five thousand words in an hour. He was afraid that other authors would think he was a freak and that they would suspect that what he wrote was garbage.

But today, he suddenly felt that his hand speed might be his greatest talent, and this talent might make him stand out among all the authors.

He decided to continue improving his hand speed in the future. He wanted to try out what Dongfang Bubai said, "All martial arts in the world are indestructible except speed." Could it work in the field of novel writing?
(End of this chapter)