Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 423's 24-hour first-time subscription data is out.
The next morning.

After arriving at the company, Zhu Weilian thought of the batch of works that Qidian had released the night before, so he picked up the phone on the table and called his secretary in.

"Do you know how well those books that Qidian listed last night are selling?" he asked.

The secretary shook her head. "It's not clear yet; Qidian hasn't announced it publicly."

Zhu Weilian looked at her, thought for a moment, and said, "Then go and find out how these works have performed after they were put on the shelves."

The secretary smiled and nodded, "Okay! I'll go and inquire right away."

She quickly left the office to inquire.

……

About the same time.

A boss at a certain online platform also asked an editor, "Do you know what's the status of those works that were released on Qidian last night? Are they selling well?"

The editor-in-chief chuckled and said, "I asked a few acquaintances who work at Qidian, but they all kept their mouths shut and no one told me the data. But even if they didn't tell me, it wouldn't matter. I had someone add the QQ numbers of the authors of these published works and asked seven or eight authors privately. Their subscription data is not ideal."

The airline boss was a little surprised, a smile appearing on his face. "Oh? What's wrong with it?"

Editor-in-Chief: "Most of them currently only have around 100 subscribers, and only one has over 200 subscribers. Do you think that's not ideal?"

The boss chuckled and sighed, "What a disaster! To actually think of paid online reading, you're a genius! Piracy is rampant, how many readers are willing to pay to read books?"

The editor-in-chief chuckled and chimed in, "That's right! Readers do have options. I did a quick online search, and the works that were released last night, including the paid chapters of 'The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts' by Zhongyuan Yidianhui, are now readily available online for free. In this situation, how many readers are willing to pay? Do you really think readers are fools?"

……

A certain Jian convened a general meeting early this morning.

At the meeting, the boss, beaming with pride, pointed out the future of the website: "Qidian made a foolish move with their paid reading scheme; it was suicidal. Now that they've crippled themselves, our opportunity has arrived. I hope everyone will seize this opportunity in the coming period to attract more readers from Qidian. Of course, we should also poach some of Qidian's authors. As the old saying goes, 'If you don't seize a gift from Heaven, you'll suffer the consequences!' Our competitors have created this opportunity for us; if we don't take advantage of it, we'll be punished later..."

……

Similar incidents occurred this morning at the headquarters of many websites in the industry.

All websites agree that Qidian's paid reading service has failed.

No matter how perfect Qidian's paid subscription system is, or how much hype it up, if readers don't buy it and don't support it with real money, it will be seen as an absolute failure.

Even the atmosphere at Qidian headquarters was very tense this morning.

No one had a smile on their face, and everyone spoke much softer than usual.

Everyone felt that this paid reading initiative was a failure.

The first batch of works released had dismal subscription numbers.

Even Zhongyuan Yidianhui's new book, "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts," has not yet reached the expected number of subscribers.

Around noon, Bao Jianfeng instructed his secretary to notify everyone to attend a meeting in the conference room.

At the meeting.

Bao Jianfeng's gaze slowly swept across everyone's faces, taking in their suppressed expressions. He tapped the table with his right hand to draw everyone's attention before slowly speaking, "It seems everyone's in a bad mood! Do you all think our paid reading service has failed? Right?"

Everyone looked at him, and for a moment no one responded.

Bao Jianfeng smiled silently. "Last night, I felt the same way as everyone else, thinking our attempt had failed. It wasn't until President Cao analyzed our current situation and shared some visions for the future that I realized I was too pessimistic. Our paid reading service still has a good chance of success. Would you like to hear what President Cao had to say to me?"

Everyone had different expressions.

What they all had in common was curiosity in their eyes.

"President Bao! What did President Cao say?"

"Mr. Bao! Please stop keeping me in suspense! Tell me already!"

"No way? The subscription numbers for the first batch of books are so dismal, do we still have any hope of success?"

……

During a meeting at the Qidian headquarters.

Huizhou Teachers College.

Cao Sheng was in class. The semester was almost over, and the counselor had come to the classroom this morning to announce the date of the final exam, which was in a few days.

Once the exams are over, his university life will be pretty much over.

As is customary, the next semester is everyone's internship period.

He doesn't need to go out for an internship; he just needs to wait six months to get his bachelor's degree.

Therefore, for him, once this final exam is over, his college life will be completely over.

It just so happens that his new book was recently released. After the exams, he will have plenty of time to write and update frequently, boosting the subscription data of his new book on Qidian.

When he got up this morning, urged by Huang Qingya, he went online to check the subscription data for "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts".

The highest subscription for a single chapter has risen to over 2500.

The morning is almost over, and the highest single-chapter subscription should now be over 3000.

By midnight, the 24-hour initial order data will be available, and he estimates it should be over 4000.

Such initial subscription numbers are quite impressive, if you disregard the number of people who added the book to their favorites when it was first released—over 108,000.

Even so, the initial subscription of over four thousand is still the highest record in his writing career.

He was not dissatisfied.

But he knew that such data would certainly disappoint many people.

Therefore, he plans to update the book intensively for a period of time after the final exams to boost the subscription data and give everyone some confidence.

In particular, it gives those people at the Qidian headquarters some confidence.

Just like when Qidian launched paid reading, when everyone thought that Qidian's paid reading had failed, Hama gave Qidian and other authors confidence with his pen.

There's a saying that's been circulating in the online literature community of the original timeline: "Toad saved Qidian with his pen."

At the current starting point, Toad isn't very famous and probably can't carry the show, so let Cao give everyone confidence.

……

At noon, Cao Sheng ate lunch and returned to his dormitory.

I turned on my computer, logged into the author backend on Qidian, and glanced at the subscription data for "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts".

The highest number of subscribers for a single chapter has reached 3364.
It was slightly more than his estimate of 3000.

He smiled, pulled up his saved drafts, and posted another chapter.

He knew that after the book was published, each additional chapter would attract more new readers to subscribe, because each update would increase the book's exposure.

……

evening.

The highest number of subscriptions for a single chapter of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" has risen to over 4100.

The increase was slightly higher than Cao Sheng had predicted.

Throughout the day, he received numerous phone calls and text messages from people.

Most of the inquiries were about his book subscription status. He handed his phone to his assistant, Cui Xinyu, asking her to reply for him.

The principle for replying is: don't give specific data, just say it's okay.

He spends his time writing.

In the evening, another chapter was posted.

Although he hasn't taken a vacation yet, he still wants to update three chapters a day, totaling more than nine thousand words, until he does.

However, he doesn't have many drafts left, so he needs to make the most of his time writing these next few days.

He wanted to set an example for other authors, showing them the benefits of updating frequently after an article is published.

Time slowly ticked down to midnight.

Cao Sheng's phone rang, and the caller ID showed Huang Qingya.

Half an hour earlier, Cao Sheng, who had already finished writing the last chapter of the night, answered the call.

"Hey? Have your new book's 24-hour subscription data come out yet? What's the number of subscribers for the chapter with the most subscribers now?"

Huang Qingya's voice came from the phone.

"Oh, wait a moment! Let me take a look."

Cao Sheng, who had just been reading book reviews, used his right hand to control the mouse, navigated to the author's backend, re-entered the data center password, and saw the latest subscription data.

To his surprise, the chapter with the highest subscription data is not the first paid chapter, but the fourth chapter.

The first paid chapter has 4933 subscribers.
The number of subscribers for the paid chapter 4 was a staggering 5229.

Furthermore, the number of subscribers gradually increased from the very first paid chapter, only to slowly decline after the fourth chapter.

He stared at the titles of these chapters for a while, then smiled.

Because he guessed the reason.

It must be the storyline from before his release that came into play.

Before his rebirth, he was a seasoned writer who had failed in his career. Before each new book was released, he would suspend the plot and write a cool and exciting plot in the first few days after the book was released. This had become his habit.

This is also a habit of many professional writers.

The purpose, of course, is to stimulate readers' desire to subscribe.

The consequence of writing like this is often what we see now—the chapter with the highest number of subscribers after it's published is often not the first paid chapter.

"More than five thousand two hundred."

Cao Sheng reported the data to Huang Qingya on the other end of the phone.

Huang Qingya: "It seems to be more than a thousand higher than you expected?"

Cao Sheng hummed in agreement.

Last night, Cao Sheng estimated that the number of subscribers in 24 hours would be around 4000.

Unexpectedly, the number of subscribers exceeded 5000 within 24 hours.
This was naturally a pleasant surprise.

Huang Qingya: "Hehe, it seems that the data for your book should rise even faster, right?"

Cao Sheng hummed in agreement again.

Huang Qingya: "So how much do you estimate the price will rise this month?"

Cao Sheng: "It's hard to say. It depends on what kind of recommendation slots Qidian will give me next."

Based on his experience, once a work is published, if the website's recommended placements are inadequate or not recommended for a long time, the work's exposure will be severely insufficient. It will be difficult for the subscription data to remain stable, let alone increase it... it's as difficult as climbing to the sky.

Conversely, if a website arranges one highly effective recommendation slot after another, subscription data could skyrocket, potentially increasing by several thousand average subscriptions per month.

Huang Qingya: "Why don't you give me an estimate? How high might it go?"

Cao Sheng: "If nothing unexpected happens... by the end of this month, the average number of subscriptions per chapter should be around seven or eight thousand!"

Huang Qingya responded with an "oh," showing no surprise. She chuckled and said, "Then I wish you all the best! Good luck!"

For her, an average order of seven or eight thousand was not surprising at all.

Because she didn't know how difficult it was for online novels to reach an average subscription rate of seven or eight thousand.

She didn't know that in the first 10 years after Qidian launched paid reading, there were only a handful of works that could get more than 3,000 subscriptions per month.

Over the course of a year, only about one hundred books can be subscribed to on average, exceeding three thousand.

Therefore, the standard for inclusion in Qidian's premium channel at that time was: more than 20 words after publication and an average of more than 3000 subscribers.
In that era, countless authors dreamed of writing a work that would reach the standard of a masterpiece.

Many people write books for years but still can't produce a single work that can reach 3000 average subscriptions.

An average of seven or eight thousand subscribers was a goal that most top-tier authors could not achieve.

Therefore, it wasn't until Huang Qingya's own works were published online that she gradually realized how difficult it was to reach an average of seven or eight thousand subscribers.

……

Mo Li is an editor-in-chief at a certain company.

This morning, the boss of a certain company asked him about the subscription situation on Qidian.

Before his boss even asked, he had, out of curiosity, instructed his editor to inquire with the editors at Qidian about the subscription data of the first batch of works published on Qidian.

After failing to get an answer, he didn't give up and instructed his editor to privately inquire about the subscription data of the authors of the first batch of works published on Qidian.

After the boss asked this question, he became even more enthusiastic. He not only instructed his editors to continue asking other authors of published works, but he also personally took action, tirelessly applying to add the QQ numbers of the authors of the first batch of published works.

Every time he successfully added an author as a friend, he would send a private message to ask the author what the current subscription data of their published works was.

Asking as a book lover.

They used a caring tone.

For example: "Dear author, I'm a fan of yours and I just subscribed to support you. I wonder how many subscribers your book has now? Could you please send me a screenshot?"

After sending such a message, he would usually also send a screenshot of his subscription to prove that he had indeed subscribed to and supported the other party's work.

For him, subscribing to a chapter of someone else's work only costs a few cents, no big deal.

But he managed to convince the other party that he was a true fan who genuinely supported the other party's book.

Most of the online writers during this period were simple-minded otaku.

There was no sense of vigilance on their part.

When fans ask about subscription data for their books, I usually just take a screenshot and send it to them.

Thus, by noon the next day, Mo Li had successfully collected most of the subscription data for the first batch of published works.

This includes subscription data for Lao Zhu's "Nine Sons".

What disappointed him was that he hadn't been able to collect the 24-hour first-order data for the most popular book, "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts".

Even so, he still decided to create a list of the first subscription data for the first batch of works released on Qidian and release it to the industry for reference.

While compiling the list, he instructed his two editors, "You two continue to contact Zhongyuan Yidianhui and try to get the subscription data for his new book. If that doesn't work, Xiao, find some pictures of beautiful women online and send them to him, saying they are your pictures and claiming to be a fan of his book. Try to get him to open up, hehe."

(End of this chapter)