Back to 17, My Brother is the Cult Leader

The contract was very simple, and I finished reading it quickly.

The group looked at each other, unsure of what to say.

Yan Danchen broke the silence: "Fang Yuan, what about you?"

"My contract is similar to yours, except I'm not an artist."

He looked at several people but still didn't say anything.

Fang Yuan smiled, knowing what they were thinking.

Then Xiaomei brought over a few more contracts.

"My other option is that you can become original shareholders of a company at the same time, which does not conflict with the other two options."

"This is the shareholder agreement for my original studio, with each person holding 3%, including Sister Hua."

If we sign, we'll essentially be one family, and Sister Hua will be in charge of all five of our agency contracts.

From another perspective, all six of us are shareholders of the studio, and Sister Hua is our general manager.

Of course, according to the shareholding, I am the chairman.

"After you graduate and are able to take control of your own careers, you can then set up your own studios."

Sister Hua continued, "I'll take care of your management affairs. You'll be the first to get resources from Fang Yuan in the future."

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately became happy.

"Haha, so now I'm a boss too?" Huang Xiaoming laughed.

He knew Fang Yuan would never harm him, so he was least worried.

Unexpectedly, Li Xinyu was the first to sign.

After everyone had signed, Xiaomei took the shareholding agreement and went to the business registration office to complete the change procedures.

Now, Fang Yuan's studio has six shareholders, with him holding 85% of the shares for the time being.

Everyone was very happy.

Then Sister Hua took over all the urgent matters that the group was facing.

Huang Xiaoming and Yan Danchen are preparing for "First Love" and "Back to 20".

Zeng Li and Li Xinyu need to prepare for the final drama performance assessment.

Later, Sister Hua will arrange some auditions for Li Xinyu.

The preparation of Zeng Li's album is now Fang Yuan's responsibility.

Before we knew it, it was the end of December.

Fang Yuan received a call from Ellie in his dormitory.

"Ellie?"

"It's me, Fang."

"It must be getting late over there, so I'll get straight to the point. The latest sales figures for 'Edge of Tomorrow' are out, and I think it's necessary for you to know."

"you say."

"It was released in October and sold more than 4,300 copies in the first month."

Ellie paused for a moment, "This isn't a great start, but what I'm about to say is the key point—18,000 copies in November."

In December, 23,000 copies were sold. By the end of last week, the total had exceeded 50,000 copies.

Fang Yuan paused for a few seconds, then said, "So the sales volume in the last two months was more than five times that of the first month."

"Yes." Ellie paused.

"I want to talk to you about what happened in the past three months, and what the future holds for this book."

Are you available?

"That's convenient. Go ahead and tell me."

"Let me address the first question: Why did this growth curve occur?"

Ellie said, "The publishing house has also done a review, but I want to hear your opinion, after all, you wrote the book."

Fang Yuan pondered for a moment.

"I think there are two main reasons. The first is the characteristics of the book itself."

The time loop setting—the protagonist repeatedly experiencing the same day—has a strong sense of replayability.

After reading a book once, readers often go back to the earlier chapters because many details can only be appreciated when the whole picture is known. And once readers feel the urge to reread, they are likely to engage in the behavior of "keeping a copy for themselves and buying another copy to give away."

That's how word of mouth spreads.

"That makes sense," Ellie said.

"Many of the letters we receive from readers say things like 'I've read it a second time' or 'I bought three copies, one for myself and two to give to friends.' This is indeed quite unusual in the publishing industry."

"The second reason," Fang Yuan continued.

"It's on an emotional level. The protagonist fails, dies, and starts over in an endless loop. This process isn't successful because the protagonist suddenly becomes smarter, but because he lasts one minute longer each time than the last."

This idea of ​​"doing it again" transcends age and gender.

Readers are not just reading about a science fiction concept, but also a feeling of being told a story.

Ellie hummed in agreement on the other end of the phone.

"You're absolutely right about that."

We initially thought the book's main readers would be male science fiction fans aged 20 to 35, but the actual sales figures were completely different—high school and college students made up nearly half of the readers, and the male-to-female ratio was almost one to one.

Many female readers wrote in saying that they weren't originally interested in science fiction, but their friends forced them to read a book, and they ended up crying on their third reading.

Fang Yuan chuckled. "Then why do you think it is?"

"I think it's the protagonist's sense of loneliness," Ellie said.

"The protagonist is trapped in the same day, and the people around him will never know what happened. He can only carry all the failures and pain forward alone."

This feeling of "only I know what happened" is something many young people understand.

Putting it in a science fiction framework actually makes it more impactful than writing it directly as a young adult novel.

"Besides the text itself," Ellie changed her tone.

"I'd also like to talk to you about the transmission path and timing."

This situation was rather unique; it relied almost entirely on word-of-mouth recommendations from readers, without any support from GG or media reviews.

"How exactly was it transmitted?" Fang Yuan asked.

"Mainly the campus," Ellie said.

"The feedback we received from bookstores is that many orders come from bookstores near universities and community bookstores near middle schools. A student reads it, recommends it to a classmate, the classmate recommends it to a roommate, and so on, expanding outwards layer by layer."

November and December coincide with the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, giving students plenty of time to stay home and read. After finishing their reading, they share their experiences via email or by posting on BBS.

Although there is no social media, this hybrid offline-online approach to communication is quite fast.

"In other words, without this wave of positive word-of-mouth, the first month's four thousand copies might have been the end."

"Absolutely right," Ellie said.

"The publisher didn't actually invest much in marketing resources in the first month because they didn't have high expectations at the beginning."

Later, when they saw that the data for November had increased, they temporarily added another round of bookstore displays and shelves.

But to be honest, the reader themselves are the one who makes the decision.

Whether a book becomes a hit or not, the publisher can give it a push, but they can't push it to this level.

"We've finished discussing the grades and the reasons," Ellie turned a page.

"Let's talk about the potential and future direction."

Fang Yuan, your royalty income in the United States is now quite stable.

With 50,000 copies sold, it's not considered top-selling on the bestseller list, but for a science fiction debut novel, this achievement is quite satisfactory for Random House.

Their attitude towards me was that they were willing to provide even greater support for my next book.

"Let's talk about what else can be done after Edge of Tomorrow."

"Okay," Ellie said.

"I have outlined three directions."

The first issue is overseas rights. Currently, all 50,000 copies sold are in the US; they haven't officially hit English-speaking countries like the UK, Australia, and Canada yet.

The non-English speaking market is also completely untapped.

Two German publishers and one Japanese publisher have already inquired about pricing, and if the licensing deal goes through, overseas sales are likely to surpass those in the United States.

This requires no extra work from you; you only need to authorize and sign.