A grand feast for the Chinese entertainment industry

Chapter 9 Going to Taiwan

"Boss, do you have 'Cold-Blooded to the End'?"

"Yes, ten yuan."

As they were talking, the shop owner pointed to the small blackboard that had just been hung up at the entrance.

The two girls who entered the music store then noticed a blackboard with the words "Cold to the End" written on it. It was now in stock and priced at ten yuan!

Both girls were a little conflicted.

Ten yuan for just one cassette tape was not cheap in those days, especially for students. For some girls with small appetites and a frugal lifestyle, ten yuan was almost enough for a week's worth of food!
However, this album is just so good!
Everyone says it sounds great, and many classmates have bought it. It's fine to borrow it occasionally to listen to, but you can't borrow it all the time. Everyone loves it and emphasizes that it's an authentic copy, only ten yuan, and they cherish it!
The music video they were talking about—the girl from the countryside didn't have a TV at home, so she didn't see it, but she did see the cassette tape cover. The singer, Lin Jianlu, was really handsome!
Her voice is beautiful, her singing is excellent, the song is wonderful, and the melody and lyrics are perfect.

Everywhere is wonderful!

"Let's buy it, boss, we want a box!" one of the girls declared.

But suddenly, the other girl seemed to have made a major decision and said, "How about we do what you said and buy two cassettes? I really love this cassette, let's each buy one... I want one!"

The cassette tape playing in the store was, of course, the one called "Cold to the End." At that moment, it was playing "Ten Years," and it was this song that seemed to suddenly give the girl some kind of strength, making her finally decide to take out several days' worth of food money to buy her first original cassette tape.

In fact, she likes the songs "Ten Years" and "Twilight" even more than the title track of her recent hit album, "Cold to the End".

The boss efficiently took the goods and received the money.

Poker face.

For him, whether he sells pirated or genuine products, there's really no difference in profit. Even though genuine products sell for ten yuan, he only makes a dollar or so per box. Pirated products sell for five or four yuan, and he still makes a little over a dollar. So it doesn't really matter to him; he's neither happy nor worried.

There's nothing we can do now. We don't know what happened, but these cassette tapes suddenly became popular, and suddenly they were flooded with stock through various channels. Before pirated copies could even be produced, students suddenly showed a huge enthusiasm for buying them. So what can we do? We have to sell the genuine copies too!

And this is actually the general situation of countless audio-visual stores and Xinhua bookstores of all sizes in China at the beginning of March – people are coming to buy them, how can you not sell them?
Privately owned shops aside, even Xinhua Bookstore needs to make a profit!

This situation is unprecedented in the domestic audio-visual product sales market, but in this era where "everything is about making money," everyone reacted quickly.

Buy goods, sell them!

The Lunar New Year had just passed, and children had the most pocket money at that time. College students, on the other hand, had plenty of food and pocket money in their pockets—this cassette tape became popular at the perfect time!

Logically, this should be the time when compilation tapes of Spring Festival Gala songs become popular. The songs from the Spring Festival Gala are mostly legitimate. Pirates would record them on New Year's Eve, and before the Lantern Festival, they would be available through various channels. Just after the Lantern Festival, schools of all sizes would start, making it a good time to sell the goods.

As a result, this year, the new album by this artist, titled "Cold to the End," completely stole the spotlight!
A compilation of Spring Festival Gala songs, which sells for only 4 yuan a box, still can't outsell "Cold to the End," which sells for as much as 10 yuan a box!
On March 1st, the music video for this song suddenly started airing on many provincial and municipal TV stations, and it became an instant hit. The visuals were exquisite, the singer was handsome, the rhythm was fashionable and dynamic, and the singing was excellent, so it immediately attracted huge sales!
In the first few days, only Xinhua Bookstore had the product in stock, which really made Xinhua Bookstore very profitable.

This was mainly to prevent other retail channels from releasing the product ahead of time or allowing it to fall into the hands of pirates. As it turns out, it worked. Pirates have a very keen sense of smell. Once they find that the cassette tape is popular, they will definitely rush to Xinhua Bookstore to buy it and rip it. However, they received the goods on March 1st or March 3rd and started copying and producing pirated copies. This is completely different from receiving the goods through retail channels on February 25th!

For legitimate cassette tape sales these days, even a three- to five-day time difference is worth the effort. For ordinary singers and albums, it doesn't mean much; that's how it is these days. Once the tape is released and sales begin, singers and record companies don't have many effective promotional channels. It's just the same old tricks: charting on music radio, appearing on shows, and singers touring the country for performances. Once the album has sold a certain number of copies and the record company has made money, they'll make a music video for the singer, do another round of promotion, and then sales are almost over. After that, except for a few large cities and groups of people obsessed with legitimate copies, there's basically no more sales. In fact, for these albums, by the time they start selling well, pirated copies are already everywhere—everyone needs time to become famous, right? While you're gaining popularity, pirated tapes are already flooding the market nationwide!
One sells for four or five yuan, the other for ten yuan. Which one would you buy?
With your lousy little tape recorder, you can't tell much difference at all!

But "Cold-Blooded to the End" is clearly not going to use this approach!
During the album recording process, Lin Jianlu had many in-depth conversations with Xue Zhongding and Zhang Peiren, and eventually influenced and persuaded them to try Lin Jianlu's idea of ​​selling products.

First, we shouldn't send out loose stock or let the tapes circulate too early. Even if we're sure, it's too easy for them to get the goods in advance through loose stock channels, so there's no need to even think about targeting Xinhua Bookstore.

Then we need to visit key provincial TV stations and negotiate a unified broadcast of the music video on March 1st. The broadcast of the music video will directly stimulate sales, instead of waiting for it to slowly ferment.

Finally, in Lin Jianlu's view, another important point is that they should just forget about the so-called domestic distribution channels of Moyan Records. Since they would have to get the publishing license from an audio-visual publisher anyway, they might as well choose a large audio-visual publisher to cooperate with and let them be responsible for opening up the Xinhua Bookstore channel.

No joke, and don't be fooled by the way Moyan Records, which pioneered rock music in mainland China in the early 1990s and is now seen as incredibly successful online. In reality, at least in today's world, none of the private record companies in China can compete in terms of distribution capabilities!
When it comes to selling albums, everyone knows to contact Xinhua Bookstore. Moyan Records used to do that too. But when you do it, it's not the same as doing it with a Shanghai audio-visual publishing house.
Therefore, the release of "Cold to the End" is ostensibly divided into two main parts.

The copyright belongs to Rock Records in Taiwan. In addition to mainland China, Rock Records is also responsible for distribution in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other places. However, in mainland China, Rock Records has authorized the distribution rights to its subsidiary, Moyan Records, which is responsible for distribution in mainland China - and this has been the case for the past few years.

However, this time in mainland China, Moyan Records contacted Shanghai Audio-Visual Publishing House again, willing to give up a little more profit, and took the initiative to transfer a considerable portion of the distribution rights to its long-term publishing partner, Shanghai Audio-Visual Publishing House, which will be specifically responsible for the distribution to Xinhua bookstores nationwide.

Moyan Records itself only retains the distribution rights through retail channels.

Very successful!
While the exact number of copies sold is currently unknown, Lin Jianlu is aware of the supply volume. The first batch of stock, which consisted entirely of copies distributed by Shanghai Audio-Visual Publishing House to Xinhua Bookstore, amounted to 1.2 million copies, enough to sell an entire album throughout its sales period under normal circumstances. Moyan Records also prepared an additional 300,000 copies, which began to be distributed through its own distribution channels on March 3.

As a result, just four days after its release, on March 4th, Xinhua Bookstore issued a stock order. It is said that in just three days, more than half of the 1.2 million cassette tapes prepared had been sold. This excited not only Rolling Stone Records and Moyan Records, but also Shanghai Audio-Visual Publishing House and Xinhua Bookstore.

One million cassette tapes—that's tens of millions in sales!
These days, although the domestic publishing market is booming, piracy is just as rampant. Only genuine products with sales exceeding ten million yuan are truly rare gems!

The second batch of goods, 150 million boxes, and the third batch, another 120 million boxes, arrived!

In fact, the main market for genuine literary and artistic works is not very large. Small county towns are almost out of reach. It mainly consists of large cities in coastal provinces and some provincial capitals and major cities in inland areas. However, even so, this group of people, who are arguably the wealthiest in this era, plus the college students gathered in these places, still number over 100 million. In fact, even ten years from now, this will still be the largest market for genuine literary and artistic works!

The results proved that, even without the impact of piracy, if the promotion was done well, these people, even in 1996, had considerable purchasing power and a strong desire to consume works of art!
However... there are only 13 good days in total!
On the morning of March 14th, when Lin Jianlu braved the cold wind and light snow to ride his old bicycle around town again, he saw that the music store on the street had put up a blackboard that read "Cold to the End, 5 yuan a box!" He knew that the good days were over—and all he could do was sigh!

That's the situation, that's the era, and all he managed to do was secure a total of 13 days of prime sales time.

That's fine, because for album sales in China right now, there's basically not even a single day of prime sales period—13 days is enough.

Moreover, the very next day, March 15th, he officially received his Taiwan Entry Permit!
Rock Records in Taiwan specially sent someone to the capital to pick up the documents, then took the documents to Hong Kong to get the only entry permit to Taiwan, and then flew back to the capital to personally deliver them to Lin Chien-lu!

Because... sales of "Cold-blooded to the end" exploded in Hong Kong and Taiwan!

Rock Records desperately needed Lin Chien-lu to go and promote the album, to strike while the iron was hot and boost sales—it's said that the album's sales might break records!

(End of this chapter)