Chinese Entertainment: Starting from 1996

Chapter 531 Sales and influence of "Ghost Blowing Out the Light"

If "Painted Skin 2" is highly anticipated by movie fans, then "Ghost Blows Out the Light: Mojin: The Legend" is no less anticipated.

The former gained a large number of fans due to the high quality and reputation of "Painted Skin", but the latter has far more fans.

"Ghost Blows Out the Light" is the last novel written by Liu Zhou and also his most popular and best-selling novel.

Not to mention pirated copies, the eight genuine books sold a total of 1.1 million copies, not to mention the even larger pirated sales.

The first part of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" went on sale in 2000, and at that time Liu Zhou's directorial career began to get on track. He also knew that he would have less time to write novels in the future.

What's more, the reason he wrote novels in the first place was for the money, and he never thought of making it his main career.

Liu Zhou's goal is very clear. He has always regarded directing as his career since he entered the Central Academy of Drama. He makes money by writing novels in order to raise funds for making movies.

In fact, if the big IP of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" was not so valuable, he would not even write this novel.

So when he was writing the "Ghost Blows Out the Light" series of novels, he would sit down and write whenever he had free time, while he was not too busy.

There were eight parts in total, and it only took him two years to submit the manuscripts to "Mengya" magazine.

Liu Zhou was not very concerned about the subsequent serialization and publication, and left it to the magazine.

Starting from the publication of the first volume in 2000, "Mengya" magazine was published according to the plan of one volume per year, and all the issues were completed in 2007.

The popularity of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" is unquestionable. In addition, Liu Zhou was not a new author at the time, so he needed to serialize it online and then spread it by word of mouth among readers to make it a hit.

The Liu Zhou version of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" was promoted in "Mengya" magazine for more than a month before it was serialized, and the hype was fully mobilized.

In addition, Liu Zhou's debut film "My Sassy Girl" at that time was a big hit, which also earned him more fans.

So when he released a new book, it attracted everyone's attention.

The original time and space also proved the quality of the novel "Ghost Blows Out the Light", so Liu Zhou's version of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" became an instant hit as soon as it was serialized.

Later copies were also hard to come by. The first print run of "Sprout" was one million copies, and they were sold out in less than a day.

The sales volume only slowed down after eight million copies were reprinted, and "Mengya" magazine finally got a piece of the delicious cake before it was pirated.

Although pirated copies were put on the market in large quantities afterwards, the genuine products were still selling well. The sales were also good, but not as strong as at the beginning.

The remaining seven novels are similar. Mengya magazine has also been fighting wits and courage with piracy. In order to ensure smooth sales at the beginning, it has been strictly guarding against piracy.

Therefore, the first print sales of each of the eight novels of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" are around 7 to 8 million copies.

At that time, piracy is indeed hard to prevent, and although their printing is not so exquisite, it is cheap, which is especially attractive to students with limited funds.

So if a book is very popular, the genuine version will generally not sell as well as the pirated version.

"Ghost Blows Out the Light" is still relatively good, because "Mengya" magazine attaches great importance to it, and Liu Zhou's fans are also relatively loyal, so the sales of the first print are so good.

However, although "Ghost Blows Out the Light" has record sales, it is still far less than the sales of pirated copies.

Because according to statistics from "Mengya" magazine, as of December 2010, 1.12, the total sales of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" reached million copies.

However, the first print run of the eight novels sold as many as 60 million copies, accounting for more than half of the total sales.

After ten years of accumulation, it finally sold 50 million copies.

You should know that during this period, "Ghost Blows Out the Light", as a hit novel, has been accumulating fans. Liu Zhou's fame has also been growing in the past ten years, and he has more and more fans.

After several rounds of markups, it took ten years to achieve this result. It is conceivable that the sales of pirated products must be several times that of genuine products.

Compared with other novels, this result is undoubtedly very outstanding, and for the popular "Ghost Blows Out the Light", it is actually very good.

"Ghost Blows Out the Light" can be said to be the first novel with sales exceeding 100 million since statistics were kept. Although it has eight volumes, the total sales exceed 100 million.

Don’t think that this sales volume is exaggerated. Historically, "Ghost Blows Out the Light" was first serialized on Tianya, and after it became popular, it was serialized on Qidian and then published.

Even so, "Ghost Blows Out the Light" has sold a total of 30 to 40 million copies.

Before that, pirated copies had already been on the market, and many of them were combined editions. After Tian Xia Ba Chang was serialized, pirated copies directly sold the eight-volume combined edition.

Liu Zhou's version of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" strictly guarded against piracy from the very beginning, and took advantage of the time difference. The novel was distributed across the country at the beginning when pirated copies had not yet been released in large quantities, and as many copies as possible were sold in the first three or four days before the release.

This is also thanks to the strength of "Mengya" magazine, which has the ability to distribute products nationwide, and the unremitting promotion before the novel was released, which is why so many copies were sold.

Therefore, it is quite reasonable to say that "Ghost Blows Out the Light" sold a total of 1.12 million copies in ten years.

However, the sales of this novel have put a lot of pressure on some youth novel writers who emerged in the new century.

Liu Zhou became famous for his youth novels. His works "Twinkle Twinkle Star", "Want to See You" and "Better Days" are called the Youth Trilogy by the media and book fans.

The more influential writers who emerged after the new century are almost all youth fiction writers, with Han Han and Guo Xiaosi being the most representative.

Both of them are undoubtedly influential figures, especially Han Han. His influence is not limited to the circle of book lovers, because his eccentricity and his courage to argue with those veteran predecessors online and fight with the haters have made him very famous.

Moreover, some of the content he published on his blog was very popular among some young people, so many media called him a youth leader.

Although Guo Xiaosi's influence is slightly less, he is also a young novelist with high traffic, and is ranked in the top three on the writer income rankings.

At that time, the only traditional novelist whose income could be compared with the above two was the Taiwanese writer Yu Qiuyu who suddenly became popular.

Unlike the original time and space when fans of the two often quarreled, at that time both the media and fans compared them with Liu Zhou.

After all, before them, the popular youth novelist was Liu Zhou.

Their fans were relatively young and impulsive, and Han Han and Guo Xiaosi were also young and energetic, even though Liu Zhou had achieved considerable success in the field of directing at that time.

However, they are still somewhat dissatisfied in the field of novels, so the words of their fans are relatively aggressive.

Liu Zhou's book fans certainly couldn't tolerate being provoked for no reason, so they fought back on the spot.

For a while, the fans of the three were arguing fiercely online, but Liu Zhou's fans were not only fans of the book, but also had strong cohesion, and they were not at all inferior to Liu Zhou's fans. Even Han Han and Guo Xiaosi couldn't help but personally intervene in the fight against Liu Zhou's fans, but the situation still didn't improve much.

Because whether in terms of sales or influence, they are not as good as Liu Zhou.

Liu Zhou's three youth novels were published relatively early, and were also very popular at the time, so the accumulated sales were also very high, not inferior to those of Han Han and Guo Xiaosi.

Their fans disagree with this and think that Liu Zhou's good sales are due to the fact that it has been published for a long time and has a first-mover advantage.

But later, Liu Zhou's "Ghost Blows Out the Light" became even more popular, and its sales could be said to have crushed the novels of both of them.

None of Han Han and Guo Xiaosi’s most popular novels has sold more than 10 million copies, while the sales of any of the “Ghost Blows Out the Light” series starts at 10 million copies.

However, their fans still insist that "Ghost Blows Out the Light" is not a youth novel and there is no comparison.

Liu Zhou’s fans were speechless about this.

Faced with such a rogue face, Liu Zhou's fans will not give up. They are still very young and very aggressive, so they keep confronting the other side.

For them, Liu Zhou's novels can be regarded as their youthful memories and have a special status.

If we count by time, Han Han and Guo Xiaosi can be considered the second generation of authors, and their novels also attract school-age teenagers.

There are many people who have not read Liu Zhou’s novels, so Han Han and Guo Xiaosi’s novels also have a special place in their hearts.

As a result, they quarreled with each other for a while, and this online quarrel lasted for a year or two.

The quarrel did not stop until Liu Zhou acquired Jiahe and led Jiahe to a revival and became a local boss.

In addition, the sales and influence of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" were growing at that time, which made their anger gradually weaken.

Because they also have to admit that in terms of sales, Han Han and Guo Xiaosi's novels cannot compare, because Liu Zhou's fans have produced detailed data, when the publication time is the same, Liu Zhou's novels have higher sales.

If we say that the two eras are different, even they will think it is a quibble.

If we compare influence, Han Han and Guo Xiaosi are even worse. They are not on the same level as Liu Zhou at all and are not comparable.

Liu Zhou is not only a well-known writer, but also a famous director and a wealthy man in China.

He is a big shot in the film and television industry, and he is also a well-known investor in the Internet industry.

Even if we just look at their influence in the field of novels, the two of them are far from enough.

Liu Zhou's earlier fame has indeed accumulated more influence, and more importantly, "Ghost Blows Out the Light" has a huge bonus, which they can never compare to, not to mention the bonus of Liu Zhou's other identities.

So Liu Zhou certainly knew about the quarrel between fans at the time. After all, it caused some waves, but he didn't care at all.

To him, it was just a quarrel between children, so he ignored it and did not say anything about it.

With this time and energy, it is better to spend more on important things.

This turned out to be the case. As Liu Zhou's career got better and better, the quarrel gradually subsided.

Han Han and Guo Xiaosi are not stubborn people who don't understand the ways of the world, otherwise they wouldn't have achieved certain success in business at such a young age.

At the beginning they were somewhat competitive, but as Liu Zhou's power grew, they had to admit that they were indeed inferior to him.

Moreover, even in the field of novels, they felt inferior to the sales of "Ghost Blows Out the Light". However, the two of them were still sober and did not use the genre of the novel as an excuse.

After Liu Zhou became the richest man, there was no comparison between them. However, Liu Zhou at that time would not pay attention to them, and he even stopped paying attention to the novel industry.

But it is undeniable that "Ghost Blows Out the Light" did bring considerable benefits to Liu Zhou.

The direct royalties were not small. The "Ghost Blows Out the Light" series of novels sold a total of 1.12 million copies. At that time, his treatment was the best in the industry, and he could get a % share of the profits.

According to the pricing of the novel, Liu Zhou can get five yuan for each copy sold, so the total royalties for "Ghost Blows Out the Light" are more than 500 million yuan.

Even after deducting the gaming tax, Liu Zhou still received more than 300 million yuan, which is an average of more than 30 million yuan per year, which is not an exaggeration.

But there are probably almost no writers in China who have a stable income of more than 30 million for ten consecutive years like this.

However, for Liu Zhou, the more than 300 million yuan in royalties was nothing, and he always regarded it as pocket money.

In addition to financial income, the huge number of fans of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" will also benefit Liu Zhou's movies.

A considerable number of his fans are fans of his books, and many of them will go to support his new movies when they are released. Of course, the most important thing is that the quality of Liu Zhou's movies is not bad.

Although they support Liu Zhou's films, what they hope most is that Liu Zhou can also adapt "Ghost Blows Out the Light" into a movie.

They kept urging but Liu Zhou and Jiahe didn't respond at all.

Of course, they don't understand that adapting a novel into a movie is not that easy. Adapting "Ghost Blows Out the Light" into a movie is even more difficult. First of all, it is stuck in the review process.

It was only now that Liu Zhou's influence in the upper class became even greater that the script of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" was successfully released.

Now that Golden Harvest's special effects production level has completely caught up, Liu Zhou decided to start the film adaptation of "Ghost Blows Out the Light".

In Liu Zhou's mind, "Ghost Blows Out the Light" also has an important position. This is the first long-term big IP owned by Golden Harvest.

Liu Zhou has a lot of plans surrounding "Ghost Blows Out the Light", not only movie adaptation, but also TV series, and even theme parks.

So actually for him, the pirated version of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" is a good thing.

With the help of pirates, the influence of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" has greatly increased, allowing the novel to attract more fans.

He doesn't care how much money the novel can make, what he cares about is how many fans the novel has.

The more fans he has, the more money Liu Zhou can make from his series of business plans centered around the "Ghost Blows Out the Light" IP.

Now the movie adaptation of "Ghost Blows Out the Light" is the first step in the harvest.

(End of this chapter)