Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 368 VIP subscription enabled ahead of schedule
That night.

Cao Sheng stayed alone in his rented teacher's dormitory and sent the last two chapters of "The Legend of the Primordial Era" to Chang Qingshu, the editor in charge of receiving manuscripts in Xinchang.

After sending out the manuscript, with nothing else to do, he began browsing the new webpage on Qidian.

Yes, Qidian recently updated its website.

The page looks better now, with more recommended sections and some new rankings.

The upgraded Qidian website is now just as beautiful as any other website in the industry.

At the beginning of this month, Bao Jianfeng, the person in charge of Qidian, sent over Qidian's electronic performance report for the third quarter of this year. Cao Sheng was very moved after reading it.

Because of Qidian's daily page views, it has reached the third highest level in the industry, second only to Rongshu and Moujian.

Previously, Longkong, formed by the alliance of several websites, was once incredibly popular, but now it has been surpassed by Qidian.

Banyan Tree and a certain sword also surpassed Dragon Sky.

Because every time a book becomes popular on Longkong, it is recommended to a publishing house for publication. Then, at the publisher's request, the serialization on Longkong is suspended. If readers want to read the subsequent content, they have to pay to buy physical books.

The reason Longkong does this is mainly because the publishers it collaborates with are mostly from mainland China, and their simplified Chinese books are readily available for purchase by mainland readers at bookstores.

Longkong attracted a group of talented authors through this method, and by pausing serialization on Longkong after the works were published, it made mainland publishers willing to cooperate with Longkong.

It can be described as a win-win-win situation.

The only ones who get hurt are the readers on Longkong Reading.

Whichever book readers like, whichever book they make popular, that book will be published, and then its serialization on Longkong will stop.

Over time, many readers started looking for books on other websites.

As a result, Longkong has established a focus on high-quality works, striving to discover and support outstanding pieces.

But unintentionally, they embarked on a niche path.

This drove countless readers to other websites.

In this context, Rongshuxia and Moujian successively surpassed Longkong in daily active user traffic.

In August of this year, Qidian also surpassed Longkong.

Furthermore, its traffic is already comparable to that of a certain other app, showing a strong upward trend.

Cao Sheng, who is about to complete his contract with Rongshuxiao, is already considering whether to serialize his new book on Qidian.
In fact, he has already completed the word count stipulated in his contract with Rongshuxia. However, because the progress of his work serialization on Rongshuxia is far behind the progress of his physical book publication, there are still about 40 words left to be completed under his contract with Rongshuxia.

At the time, he signed an agreement with Rongshuxia, in which Rongshuxia gave him 15% of the shares on the condition that Cao Sheng serialize 800 million words of his work on Rongshuxia for free.

Time flies, and he has already serialized several works on Rongshuxia, each book containing at least a million words. Once he sends another 40 words of his "Chronicles of the Primordial Era" to Rongshuxia, his agreement with Rongshuxia will be completed.

To be honest, in recent years, under his influence, Rongshuxia has lost much of its literary and artistic flair. Short stories, poems, diaries, and so on have gradually lost their presence, and it has become a website for online novels.

Later, influenced by Cao Sheng's works, new authors were constantly drawn to Rongshu Village.

The themes and styles of many works were deeply influenced by Cao Sheng's works.

Therefore, the current Banyan Tree is much stronger than the Banyan Tree in 2001 in the original timeline, and it is still the industry leader.

but……

The growth rate of the banyan tree is clearly not strong enough, and it is far behind its starting point.

First it was surpassed by Longkong, then by a certain sword, and only recently has it reached the top of the industry again. Meanwhile, Qidian, which appeared a few years later, has already risen to the third position in the industry in a short period of time.

Of course, one very important reason why Cao Sheng wanted to serialize his new book on Qidian was that he was the largest shareholder of Qidian, holding a significant number of shares.

He only owns 15% of the shares in Banyan Tree.

Therefore, he naturally wanted to publish his new book on Qidian.

When he was preparing to publish "The Legend of the Primordial Era", he hesitated and considered changing his pen name and publishing it on Qidian.

However, he later gave up the idea of ​​wearing a disguise.

Now that his contract with Rongshu is about to expire, he can not only publish a new book on Qidian, but also continue to use the pen name "Zhongyuan Yidianhui".

The original timeline began with the VIP subscription system launched in 2003.

It was already the end of October 2001, and 2002 was fast approaching. Cao Sheng felt there was no need to wait until 2003; Qidian could try out the VIP subscription system in 2002.

His new book, "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts," could very well be among the first works to be included in Qidian's VIP subscription system.

He vividly recalled that in the original timeline, for many years after the successful trial of the Qidian VIP subscription system, there was a saying circulating in the industry: it was Toad's pen that saved Qidian and made the Qidian VIP subscription system a success.

The specific reason seems to be that among the first batch of works released for sale on Qidian, only Hama's works were updated in large quantities every day. Other authors still couldn't get rid of their old habits from the free serialization period—updating according to their mood. Those who could update one chapter every day were already considered diligent.

However, when Qidian first tried the VIP subscription system, the subscription data for each chapter of the first batch of works was not high, with only a few hundred subscribers per chapter.

In this situation, if the number of words updated each day is not high enough, the monthly royalties will not be much, which will not be attractive to established authors on other websites.

At that time, only Hama updated a lot of words every day. With a large number of updates and the support of Qidian's recommendation slots, Hama's monthly royalties were quite good. This gave the Qidian company team a lot of confidence and attracted many talented authors from other sites to publish their works on Qidian. As a result, Qidian was able to have a batch of high-quality works available for sale every week, which put the VIP subscription system on a virtuous cycle.

This story has been touted by Toad for many years.

This also ensured that Hama always had a lot of face in front of the founding team members of Qidian.

Now, Cao Sheng wants to use his new book, "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts," to launch the VIP system on Qidian. At this point, Qidian may not have a pen to save the toad of Qidian.

But it features his major shareholder – Zhongyuan Yidianhui's latest masterpiece.

However, he hasn't told anyone about this idea yet.

He hasn't communicated with Baojianfeng about the VIP subscription system yet.

He didn't even mention that his novel "The Legend of the Primordial Era" was finished and that a new book was about to be released.

He didn't even mention that his new book would be published on Qidian.

He knew that if he talked about these things, he probably wouldn't have any peace and quiet for the next few days, and his wish to get a good rest would become a luxury.

He didn't feel the need to tell anyone these things in advance.

As the largest shareholder of Qidian, such matters should be reported to him by others, not the other way around.

……

The next morning.

Chang Qingshu arrived at the office as usual, made tea, turned on the computer, logged into his email, and checked if any work emails had been sent from headquarters.

And check if any new submissions have been sent to his email address.

As he was looking through the manuscript, he suddenly noticed the one sent by Cao Sheng.

This surprised him a little.

Cao Sheng had already submitted two episodes of the manuscript at the beginning of this month. Logically, the next submission should have been at the beginning of next month, but now he submitted it several days early.

What's happening here?
Is it because he has something to do and needs to go out at the beginning of next month? Or is there some other reason?
With suspicion in his heart, Chang Qingshu opened the email sent by Cao Sheng.

The email body contained the following sentence: "These are the manuscripts for the last two volumes of this book. Since they are already finished, I am submitting them ahead of schedule."

Evergreen was stunned.

Although he was used to Cao Sheng ending each book whenever he wanted, without caring whether the book was still selling well in Taiwan.

But he was still quite surprised to receive the manuscript for the final two volumes of "The Legend of the Primordial Era" today. Because the book had set a new sales record for traditional Chinese physical books last month, under such circumstances, even if other authors had finished writing the outline, they would still add hundreds of thousands, or even one or two million words as a sequel.

But what about Cao Sheng?

Before finishing the book, I didn't even ask how well it sold.

Without a word, it just snapped...and ended.

She's incredibly willful.

Chang Qingshu stared blankly at the email attachment he had just opened; the attachment contained the manuscripts for the last two episodes of "The Legend of the Primordial Era".

He wanted to persuade Cao Sheng to write for a few more months.

But deep down, I knew it was no use; I couldn't persuade them at all.

When Cao Sheng finished his previous works, he would try to persuade Cao Sheng to write for a few more months, but Cao Sheng always politely declined.

He figured he wouldn't be able to persuade them this time either.

He was too lazy to try to persuade him anymore.

He quickly scanned the attached draft, then closed the document, logged onto QQ, and wanted to send a message to Cao Sheng to ask about his new book.

As Xinchang's star author, now that his old book is finished, Evergreen's primary task is to sign Cao Sheng's new book as soon as possible.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to explain it to headquarters.

But after logging onto QQ, he suddenly remembered that today was not a day off, and at this time, Cao Sheng should not be in front of the computer; he was most likely in class.

He thought for a moment, picked up his phone, and sent a message to Cao Sheng.

"Ah Hui, the old book is finished, how's the new one coming along? I'd love to get a sneak peek, could you show me the opening of the new book as soon as possible?"

There are many ways to expedite a manuscript submission.

He chose the most tactful approach.

Unfortunately, it was useless. Cao Sheng, who was in class, felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He took out his phone, glanced at the message sent by Chang Qingshu, did not reply at all, put his phone back, and continued listening to the class.

……

After school at noon.

Cao Sheng called Huang Qingya; he and she had arranged to go out for lunch together today.

only……

He made the call, but before he could even speak, he heard Huang Qingya apologize.

"Ah Sheng, I'm so sorry, we have guests at home today. My older brothers aren't home, my dad isn't home either, and my mom is cooking in the kitchen, so I'm the only one who can keep the guests company. I really can't come out right now. How about we get together tonight?"

Cao Sheng: "..."

He had originally planned to have dinner with her last night, but in order not to disrupt her habit of writing every night, he postponed the date until noon today.

However, she postponed it until tonight.

Although Cao Sheng could understand her reasons, he still felt quite disappointed.

He finished writing a book and only planned to rest for a few days.

I was planning to spend more time with her during these few days of rest, but I can hardly see her at all.

"Oh, I see! It's alright, you go ahead with your work, see you tonight."

He maintained his composure.

"You're not angry, are you? I'm so sorry! I didn't expect to have guests at home today. It's one of my aunts. My sister-in-law is home, but she and my sister-in-law aren't very close and don't have much in common. I really couldn't leave..."

Before she could finish speaking, Cao Sheng said, "It's okay! I understand. You're right, it's really not suitable for you to go out right now. Stay home and keep your aunt company! We can meet again tomorrow, because you still have to write tonight, right?"

Huang Qingya: "Really? We can meet tomorrow at noon? You're not angry, are you?"

Cao Sheng: "Yes, of course you can. What's there to be angry about? No!"

Huang Qingya: "Thank you! Thank you for understanding!"

……

After ending his call with Huang Qingya, Cao Sheng walked towards the school cafeteria, feeling somewhat dejected.

They stopped after taking a few steps.

He was a little annoyed that he had to eat in the cafeteria every day after finally getting a few days off.

It's not like I can only afford cafeteria food.

I usually eat at the cafeteria mainly for convenience, to save time so I can get back to my dorm to write.

This doesn't mean he doesn't want the fine food at restaurants.

He usually spends more than a year writing a book. During the writing process, although he can go out and relax at any time, his habits as a professional writer mean that he can never completely relax, both mentally and physically, before finishing each book.

Only in the few days after each book was finished did he feel completely relaxed.

So why are we going to eat at the cafeteria for lunch today?
He stopped and called Sun Liang, asking him to come drive him out to dinner.

While waiting for Sun Liang to arrive.

As Cao Sheng walked towards his car, he wondered if he should find a woman to eat with him.

For example, Jiang Xiaoshuang, or Tan Yu?
Going to a restaurant alone is like drowning one's sorrows in alcohol.

Going to a restaurant with Sun Liang was like two bachelors huddling together for warmth.

Only when you bring a beautiful woman along does it seem like a normal consumer activity.

With that thought in mind, he walked toward the parking space while dialing Jiang Xiaoshuang's number.

The call connected, and Cao Sheng asked, "Have you had lunch yet?"

In the lobby of a small restaurant in Huizhou, Jiang Xiaoshuang, who had just entered and ordered a claypot rice, immediately guessed the purpose of his question upon hearing this.

So she smiled and said, "No! I was just about to go eat! What? You want to treat me to a meal?"

Cao Sheng: "Um, do you have time? Are you coming?"

Jiang Xiaoshuang got up and walked towards the bar. "Come on! Of course I'm here! Where is it? Tell me quickly!"

Cao Sheng: "Let's go to the first floor of the old street!"

Jiang Xiaoshuang: "Okay! See you in a bit?"

Cao Sheng: "Okay, see you in a bit!"

After ending the call, Jiang Xiaoshuang said to the proprietress behind the counter, "Excuse me, proprietress, I don't want the claypot rice I just ordered anymore, sorry!"

The proprietress grew anxious, "But it's almost ready..."

Jiang Xiaoshuang frowned slightly, then smiled and said, "Can I pay half? I have something urgent to attend to and really don't have time to eat."

(End of this chapter)