Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 479 published on both platforms?
in the afternoon.

As usual, Cao Sheng was writing "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" until dinner time. When Wang Jing came over to eat with him and returned his phone, he learned that Zhu William had called him that morning.

When Wang Jing returned the phone to him, she said, "Several calls came in today, one of which was from General Manager Zhu. I didn't answer it for you. He later sent a message saying he hopes you can call him back when you have time, as he needs to talk to you about something."

"General Manager Zhu? Which General Manager Zhu?"

Cao Sheng didn't think of Zhu Weilian for a moment.

Wang Jing: "It's Mr. Zhu from Rongshu Village!"

Cao Sheng glanced at her, took the phone, turned on the screen, and pulled up the call log. Sure enough, he saw a missed call from General Manager Zhu.

Wang Jing: "Why don't you call him back quickly? He's probably been waiting for your call all day."

Cao Sheng smiled and immediately dialed Zhu Weilian's number.

The call was connected quickly.

William Zhu: "President Cao? You didn't just see that I called you today, did you?"

Cao Sheng: "Sorry! My phone has been with my assistant during the day recently. She went out to work today and just came back and returned my phone to me."

William Zhu: "..."

After a moment of silence, Zhu Weilian said, "Oh, I see. I understand! But don't you have a second phone? Are all the calls going to this one? What if your family wants to find you and can't reach you? Hehe, if you have another number, could you give it to me?"

Cao Sheng smiled silently. "No! I don't have a second number. If my parents need to contact me about something important, my assistant will report to me immediately."

The main reason is that he only recently handed his phone over to Wang Jing to manage.

He used to always have his phone on him.

William Zhu: "I see. Okay! Let's get down to business! Mr. Cao, I'd like to discuss something with you, and I hope you'll agree."

Cao Sheng's curiosity was piqued. "Oh? What is it? Please tell me!"

William Zhu: "Heh, it's not a big deal, really. We just hope you can come back to our website. After all, you're a shareholder of our website, right? It's just not right that you're not publishing your work on our own website but on Qidian."

Cao Sheng: "..."

Cao Sheng hadn't expected that Zhu Weilian had contacted him today to discuss this matter.

Cao Sheng: "President Zhu, I've already signed a contract with Qidian for my new book, so I'm afraid I won't be able to come back for the time being."

William Zhu: "Hmm, I understand. But I think you could write a new book and upload it to our website. That's definitely possible, right? As long as you come back, we can also try paid reading and make your new book one of the first works available on our website. That would benefit you too! Once our website becomes profitable, you'll get a share of the profits, right?"

Cao Sheng: Dividends? I've been a shareholder in your website for several years, where are the dividends?

Cao Sheng had guessed why Zhu Weilian suddenly wanted to try paid reading.

It's probably because he proactively revealed that he received over 11 yuan in royalties from Qidian last month.

He wasn't usually this flamboyant.

However, in order to cooperate with Qidian's promotion and attract more authors to publish their books on Qidian, he agreed to Qidian's promotion plan and revealed his electronic royalties from last month.

The effect seems to be quite good.

Two days ago, Bao Jianfeng reported to him on the phone that since he exposed the electronic royalties last month, the number of new books published on Qidian every day has increased three or four times.

This is a positive effect.

There are also side effects.

It was William Zhu who made this call.

Now that Rongshuxiao is also considering paid reading, Cao Sheng estimates that other original novel websites will likely follow suit in the near future.

The speed at which they followed the trend far surpassed that of the websites in the original timeline.

In the original timeline, Qidian, facing a crisis of impending financial collapse, adopted the mentality of "If we perish now, we will die; if we launch a major undertaking, we will also die. Since we are going to die anyway, why not die for our country?" After taking the lead in implementing paid reading, other original novel websites did not follow suit for a long time, but only observed the effects of Qidian's paid reading.

result?

As we waited, we saw that Qidian's paid reading service was a complete success.

Not only are the subscription numbers for published works increasing, but authors' royalties are also rising. Most importantly, attracted by the royalties, authors from other websites are flocking to Qidian in large numbers to publish new books.

Even the Third Young Master wasn't originally an author on Qidian.

Long after Qidian implemented paid reading, San Shao, who had already become a popular author, finally went to Qidian with his new book.

Then, relying on his unparalleled hand speed, he quickly gained a foothold on Qidian and soon became one of Qidian's top-tier authors.

At its peak, it became a flagship representative of the starting point.

He even became a representative writer of online novels.

He appeared very calm.

Let's calmly observe Qidian's self-destructive behavior. Yes, when Qidian first launched paid reading, many websites saw it as pure suicidal behavior.

In an internet rife with piracy, how can you offer paid reading?
Do you really think our readers are idiots?

Many websites are waiting for a large influx of readers from Qidian to their own sites.

They also hoped that once most of the readers on Qidian had left, the authors would also depart from the website. But what actually happened?

As time went by, reality tolled their death knell.

Qidian is not dead, but getting better and better. On the contrary, it is losing its own authors. As authors leave, there are fewer and fewer high-quality new books on its own website. The works on the new book list, flower list and other lists are gradually becoming stagnant, with old books hanging for a long time. Readers can't see high-quality new books, so they gradually go to Qidian.

Only then did these websites belatedly realize that "death" was imminent.

They quickly launched paid reading services.

But it was too late.

Qidian already has far more authors and readers than these other websites.

Unwilling to accept this situation, these novel websites quickly followed the example of the alliances formed during the Warring States period. Multiple websites formed an alliance, and VIP readers of any website could use their VIP account to subscribe to all the works available on the alliance websites.

only……

Still not working!

Qidian, the first platform to implement paid reading, has already attracted more than 80% of the industry's best authors. The remaining authors are scattered across several websites, and even if these websites form an alliance, it will be difficult to compete with Qidian's dominance.

This one step behind quickly established Qidian's dominant position in the industry, and since then, no other paid online novel platform has been able to shake Qidian's dominance.

Regarding these past events.

Cao Sheng sometimes felt that those websites died somewhat unjustly. They hadn't done anything wrong. Before Qidian tried paid reading, these websites were probably doing better than Qidian, because when Qidian's cash flow couldn't hold up, those websites' cash flow wasn't in trouble.

Who could have imagined that the company, on the verge of collapse, would be brought back to life by a desperate gamble? And how could it have so quickly risen to become the industry leader, leaving other websites unable to catch up?
At the dining table.

Cao Sheng thought for a moment and said, "President Zhu, you may have heard about my recent investment in Tencent..."

William Zhu: "Yes, that's right! I've heard about it."

Cao Sheng: "One of my conditions for investing in Tencent was that I write a book soon using QQ as the primary communication tool. The CEO of Tencent has been urging me to publish the new book as soon as possible, so..."

William Zhu quickly chimed in, "That's perfect! Why don't you just publish your new book on our website? Haha..."

Cao Sheng: "Uh, no way! I've already signed this new book with Qidian."

William Zhu: "What? This? So fast?"

Cao Sheng: "Hmm."

Zhu Weilian remained silent for a while before speaking again: "You... won't be able to start a new book anytime soon?"

Cao Sheng hummed in agreement again.

After thinking for a moment, I explained, "Mr. Zhu, writing two books at the same time is already my limit. I really can't serialize three books at the same time. I hope you can understand."

William Zhu: "..."

After a while, William Zhu sighed, "Okay! I understand. Then I won't bother you any longer. Goodbye."

Cao Sheng hesitated for a moment, then said, "Mr. Zhu, how about this? I'll try to communicate with Qidian and have this new book published and available for sale on both of your websites simultaneously. What do you think?"

He hasn't signed a contract with Qidian yet for his new book, "Cultivation Chat Group".

However, his stake in Qidian far exceeds his stake in Rongshu, so he would definitely prefer to publish this new book on Qidian.

But as Zhu Weilian just said, Cao Sheng is also a shareholder of Rongshuqian.

He certainly hopes that Banyan Tree will develop and make money.

So, he suddenly had a thought: Could his new book, "Cultivation Chat Group," be published simultaneously on these two websites, and then made available for sale at the same time?
Neither the starting point nor the banyan tree is the most perfect.

But for him, Cao Sheng is definitely the most perfect.

Could there be another website to sell his new book?
A similar operation was done by Potato, a top author in the original timeline, who simultaneously launched and sold his new book on multiple websites, claiming to be released across all platforms.

For a time, they were the talk of the town.

"Oh? This... would Qidian agree to this?"

Just as Zhu Weilian was about to hang up the phone, he was surprised by Cao Sheng's suggestion.

Wang Jing, who was eating next to Cao Sheng, also looked up at Cao Sheng in surprise.

Cao Sheng smiled, "They should be able to agree! I'll try to communicate with them, and I'll contact you again once I have a result."

William Zhu: "Hmm, sure! I definitely have no problem with that. As long as Qidian agrees to have your new book published on our website at the same time, I would certainly welcome it."

Cao Sheng: "Alright! It's settled then, goodbye!"

"goodbye!"

call ended.

Cao Sheng had just put down his phone when Wang Jing chuckled, "Boss! You have shares in both of these websites, so you really should give this a try! It seems like you're the only author on the entire internet qualified to do this, haha."

Cao Sheng smiled.

(End of this chapter)