Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 781: Increasing Income and Reducing Expenditure
Unexpectedly, the person who picked me up at the station was Dai Jiali.

She was wearing a black women's suit and black-framed glasses, looking very capable.

"Jia Li, is it necessary for you, the vice president of the company, to come to the station in person to pick us up?" Fang Minghua asked.

"The company doesn't have anything important to do these two days, so I'll just go there." Dai Jiali said, "Teacher Minghua, I'll take you to the hotel first."

"Row."

This time, the hotel booked for Fang Minghua was the Pudong Shangri-La Hotel, which is located in the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone, adjacent to the Huangpu River and relatively close to the Grand Plaza. Fang Minghua could see the building not far away from the balcony of the room.

"Jia Li, you haven't had breakfast yet, right? Let's go downstairs and have breakfast together." Fang Minghua simply washed up and greeted Dai Jia Li.

"Okay."

The two went downstairs to the buffet restaurant on the second floor. The breakfast here was quite rich, with Western dim sum and Chinese Spanish mackerel dumplings. They each ordered some snacks and started eating at the table.

Fang Minghua knew that Dai Jiali had gone to the train station to pick him up early, and that he must want to talk to her about the website, so she took the initiative to ask about it while eating.

"Teacher Minghua, since the establishment of the Rongshuxia website, a large number of literature-oriented websites have appeared on the Internet, including "Jin Yong Inn", "Xici Hutong", "Tianya Community", "Xilu BBS" and "Golden Bookstore", which have greatly promoted and prospered online literature."

Dai Jiali said.

"But from another perspective, although Under the Banyan Tree is the largest and has the highest number of visitors, competition has already begun, especially with the Golden Book House website, which has developed very quickly and has become a threat to Under the Banyan Tree."

Fang Minghua has logged onto the "Golden Bookstore" online, and most of the books there are OCR books (physical scans).

Although from the perspective of later generations, this practice is very low, scanning physical books and then putting them online are all pirated.

But in this era, original works are still rare, and this form is the mainstream of literary websites.

"Golden Bookstore" scans "Star Wars Heroes", "Star Road", etc., and the most popular physical book in Hong Kong, Taiwan is the classic novel "Wind and Beauty" written by Taiwanese writer Rosen!
It can be said that this book is the originator of fantasy novels in the online literary world, and because of this, the "Golden Book House" also became famous.

After listening to Dai Jiali's words, Fang Minghua drank a sip of milk and asked, "How much has been invested since the construction of the Rongshuxia website?"

"It's about 300 million RMB, mainly for purchasing hardware, software, paying for internet fees and employee salaries."

Dai Jiali said, taking out a document from her bag and handing it to Fang Minghua: "This is the financial list, take a look."

Fang Minghua put down the milk cup and looked at it carefully.

300 million is not a lot of money for building a website in later times, but now it is the late s, and the cost is a bit shocking.

The company bought six IBM Netfinity 5500 M10 servers, spending a total of RMB 100 million.

And internet fees!

Internet fees cost so much?!

Up to 50 a year!
Of course, this is not the dial-up Internet access method used by ordinary households today, but rather the latest fiber-optic broadband.

There are also software purchases and staff salaries.
Fang Minghua discovered that the company’s salaries for the website’s technical staff were quite high. For example, Chen Wanning’s monthly salary was as high as 1 yuan!

It turns out that people who work in computer networks are popular in every era.

Fang Minghua looked at it for a while before saying, "Leave it here for now. I'll take a closer look later. How about I go to the company to talk to Mr. Shu after work this afternoon?"

"Okay, I'll pick you up in the afternoon." Dai Jiali replied.

"No need, it's just a few steps away, I can walk there. I wonder if Mr. Shu has any activities planned in the afternoon?" Fang Minghua said.

"No, our CEO Shu has a meeting in the morning and has no plans for the afternoon." "Okay, that's settled!"

After dinner, Dai Jiali drove to work. Fang Minghua returned to the room and stayed there for a while. Then, he walked around the neighborhood for nothing.

In the summer of 96, he brought his three children to Shanghai for a trip. Less than two years had passed, but Lujiazui had changed a lot. Many high-rise buildings had sprung up, and the city was changing with each passing day.

After walking around for a long time and seeing that it was almost time for lunch, Fang Minghua returned to his room and prepared to go to the restaurant for lunch. Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. He went to open it and saw a middle-aged man standing at the door.

Shu Bin.

"Minghua, hello."

The two men smiled and shook hands.

"Lao Shu, I said I would go to the company to find you after work this afternoon, but you came by yourself." Fang Minghua said.

"Jia Li drove to the train station early in the morning to pick you up. If I don't come earlier, you will laugh at me for being arrogant."

"How come? You two bosses?" Fang Minghua shook his head: "Since you are here, why don't you go to the restaurant for dinner together?"

"Okay, I heard the food in this hotel is pretty good." Shu Bin agreed readily.

The two came to the Guihualou Chinese restaurant on the first floor, ordered some Sichuan dishes, and chatted while eating.

"Jia Li came this morning and must have reported the website situation to you. I won't say more. I will report to you on the entire Shengshi Books' operating conditions last year." Shu Bin said.

"Okay, you go ahead." Fang Minghua nodded.

"I guess Mr. Song has also told you that Shengshi Books' business was not very satisfactory last year. The profit rate has slowed down. The operating income was 2.8 million yuan, and the profit was about 8000 million, slightly higher than the revenue in 97."

"Not bad."

"It's true, but everyone knows that the heyday of rapid book development has passed. I think the future will be difficult. The same is true for the overall environment. Literature, especially pure literature, is becoming less and less popular."

"I heard that some very influential magazines like Kunlun, Lijiang and Xiaoshuo are going to cease publication," Fang Minghua added.

"Yes, especially Kunlun, a long-established magazine founded in 1936, which could not withstand the market economy," Shu Bin sighed.

“Perhaps even more magazines will cease publication in the future.”

"Therefore, for Shengshi Books, we must plan ahead and adjust the publishing direction. We must insist on publishing pure literary books and do a good job of the Buhuhu series brand, while expanding the publishing house's best-selling books in other fields of science and literature."

"Also, we need to cut costs and cut some unnecessary expenditure items so as not to affect the performance of Shengshi Books."

Shu Bin said finally.

"Is Under the Banyan Tree website one of them?" Fang Minghua asked back.

"Yes, to be frank, the investment in Under the Banyan Tree is secondary. The most important thing is that I can't see when it will make a profit and how it will make a profit. There is another more important question."

"what is the problem?"

"The way Jiali is doing it now is that authors are not paid for the articles they publish on the website! Unless they are eventually published as physical books. I have seen the things published on the website. If we use the standards of physical books, most of them are not up to standard and cannot be published at all."

"Not paying any royalties, just based on personal interests and hobbies, for a person and an industry, it's completely OK at the beginning, but it will definitely not work in the long run. If you pay the author, it will be an astronomical figure, how can the website make a profit?!"

After Shu Bin finished speaking, Fang Minghua took a bite of food and put it in his mouth to taste it, then casually said, "How about using advertising revenue or charging for reading?"

(End of this chapter)