Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 468: Attacking 2000 Million Copies
Even though Chen Huaikai was in charge, Tao Yushu was still worried and planned to stay in Yunnan for a few days to put some pressure on Chen Kaige.

There are still five months to go before the West Berlin Film Festival. If it were those directors from Hong Kong, she would not be worried at all.

But Chen Kaige and his group of people come from academic backgrounds, and if you don't put some pressure on them, they will really delay your work for half a year or a year.

Tao Yushu went to Xishuangbanna, and the child was mainly taken care of by Zhang Guiqin and A Di.

After adapting to life with a nanny at home, Zhang Guiqin no longer complains much. It does make things a lot easier to have someone to share these things with.

Especially since Dongdong is almost four years old now and jumps around like a monkey every day, it looks very tiring.

Another advantage of having A-Di around is that Lin Erchun now goes out early and comes back late, so she is usually alone at home and has to go to the alley if she wants to find someone to talk to.

With A Di, Zhang Guiqin also has someone to talk to.

That day, Lin Chaoyang was finishing his new novel. Li Tuo and Chen Jiangong came to his house and gathered a few people living in the west courtyard, begging Lin Chaoyang to cook for everyone to satisfy their cravings.

"You've been gone for two months, and the brothers are running out of gas."

Chen Jiangong spoke in a pitiful way, and if you didn't know, you would think that they couldn't even have food to eat without Lin Chaoyang.

While eating, everyone chatted about some major events in the Yanjing literary world in the past few months.

When the news spread, the literary world was shocked.

In the past few months, whenever there is a literary gathering, this matter will inevitably become the focus of discussion.

Li Tuo said with great regret, "I should have clung to Lao Wang more in the past two years. Why bother hanging out with Lao Lin? If I had clung to Lao Wang, I would have been a department-level cadre by now, right?"

"Stop! Stop!" Lin Chaoyang stopped the two from fantasizing.

Their fantasies were basically Jingye's nonsense, mostly jokes, not serious at all.

Zhu Wei also talked about the current situation of "People's Literature". After Wang Meng left, "People's Literature" did not appoint an editor-in-chief, but transferred Liu Xinwu to the magazine as executive deputy editor-in-chief.

From being a popular writer to becoming the head of the country's top literary magazine, everyone is full of envy for Liu Xinwu.

Only Lin Chaoyang himself knew that Liu Xinwu, the executive deputy editor-in-chief, would not last more than a few months.

As they were chatting, Li Tuo suddenly became concerned about when "The Truman Show" would be released in the country.

"You'll have to ask the Central Film Academy about this. By the way, why do you care about this?"

"After all, this is a movie that won a big prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Can't we just show some concern for it?"

Chen Jiangong smiled and said: "He is not concerned about the movie, but about the reaction of these people in China after the movie is released."

After its publication last year, "The Truman Show" caused quite a bit of controversy in China, and the controversy lasted for quite some time.

A few months ago, "The Truman Show" made a big splash at the Cannes Film Festival. When the news spread back to China, the controversy over the novel immediately became jaw-dropping.

Foreign monks can chant sutras, not only in Hong Kong, but even more so in the mainland.

The movie "The Truman Show" was able to win an award at an internationally renowned film festival. How high must its level be? Is there anything to question?

During that period, the voices that originally opposed and criticized the novel were suppressed and had no power to resist.

But when it comes to quarrels, as long as one party refuses to admit defeat, it is basically impossible to win.

As time passed, the influence that the award brought to "The Truman Show" gradually weakened, and the voices of opposition and criticism became active again.

This made Li Tuo, a "Lin fan" who has always supported "The Truman Show", very unhappy. He now urgently needs the movie to be released so that he can teach those opponents a lesson.

“These people are now talking nonsense because the movie hasn’t been released in China. I just want to see what their faces will be after the movie is released.” Li Tuo said indignantly.

"What kind of expression can you have? Just shut up and pretend nothing happened. Have you forgotten when the news of your winning the award came back?

These people, as long as it does not meet their aesthetic standards, it is unforgivable. Do you still expect this group of people to turn around and praise "The Truman Show"? "

Chen Jiangong and Li Tuo were chatting happily. Zhang Yimou, who was standing beside them, was eager to listen to them and couldn't help asking Lin Chaoyang about some details of the film shooting and exhibition.

For a filmmaker like him who graduated from an academic school, winning an award at a top international film festival like the Cannes Film Festival is a dream come true.

Lin Chaoyang’s focus is different from theirs. The movie has won the awards and the box office results are out, so the rest has little to do with him.

The only connection is that the influence of the movie can feed back to the original novel.

After winning the award, the original novel of "The Truman Show" became popular not only in Hong Kong, but also in China.

After all, winning a big prize abroad at this time would definitely bring glory to the country!

Not only literature lovers, but ordinary people also want to know what this novel is about and why it can win major awards abroad.

At this time, the movie was delayed in being released in China, which in turn boosted the sales of the novel "The Truman Show".

Since June, sales of "The Truman Show" in mainland China have remained high.

Unlike Hong Kong, where the market is too small and sales suddenly exploded but then began to decline, sales in the mainland maintained a steady downward trend after a significant increase.

5月份销量还只有13万册，6月份突然便飙升至51万册，7月份45万册，8月份39万册……这个销量跌幅可以说是异常的健康。

Also because of the strong rebound after winning this award, the sales of "The Truman Show" easily exceeded the 300 million copy mark one year after its publication in mainland China, with a cumulative total sales of 320 million copies.

According to this trend, sales are expected to exceed 500 million copies by the first half of next year.

Successful film and television adaptations often bring huge reader feedback to the original novel, and Lin Chaoyang has benefited from this more than once.

In addition to "The Truman Show" this year, the value of "The Chess Master" is also increasing.

After the first China-Japan Go Challenge Tournament ended, the sales of this novel did not decline. Instead, it became more and more popular due to the start of the second China-Japan Go Challenge Tournament.

The Go competition between China and Japan has prompted more and more people to become interested in this originally unpopular chess sport.

Over the past year or so, Chinese people's interest in and enthusiasm for learning Go has been growing stronger and stronger.

In this craze, "The Go Master" has become a must-read for almost every Go enthusiast and follower.

As of the end of July this year, the cumulative sales of "The Chess Master" has successfully exceeded 7 million copies, becoming another super bestseller among Lin Chaoyang's works with sales exceeding 1000 million copies.

It took nearly five years for "The Chess Master" to go from 0 to 1000 million copies, but it must have taken less than five years to go from 1000 to 2000 million copies.

Because in August, "The Chess Master" sold another 8 copies.

For a novel to still achieve such dazzling sales five years after its publication has broken the usual rules of the book market and it makes no sense at all, but the facts are there.

Seeing that "The Chess Master" was making an even faster and more ferocious attack on the sales target of 2000 million copies, people could only sigh that Lin Chaoyang was so unlucky.

I wrote a novel about Go, and it just so happened that the Go competition between China and Japan was creating a wave of popularity among the people.

Higher sales also means a surge in revenue.

Although Lin Chaoyang re-signed a royalty contract with Yenching Publishing House only the year before last, the explosive sales of "The Chess Master" were mostly concentrated in the past two years.

This means that he still received most of the royalties calculated based on sales.

To date, the royalties and fees generated by "The Chess Master" for Lin Chaoyang have totaled more than 200 million yuan.

In 1986, he earned over 200 million RMB from royalties from his novels, which was the highest in the Chinese literary world, and this record will continue to be broken.

When friends get together, Lin Chaoyang's income issue is often mentioned, which is difficult to avoid.

The conversation is inseparable from the work, and when we talk about the work, we will talk about sales, and naturally we will talk about income.

Lin Chaoyang is different from others. His works have always been best-sellers, and he is the first writer in China who dares to ask for royalties from a publishing house.

In the past three years, the royalty payment system has not become widely popular in the domestic publishing industry.

The reason is very simple. Royalties payment is not something that any writer will agree to just by asking the publishing house.

Without fame, ability, or best-sellers of previous works, which writer would have the courage to make such a request to a publishing house?

What's more, the royalty payment system also poses risks to writers.

If the sales of their works are not good, the income they receive may not even be as much as the remuneration per thousand words. In fact, this is also the biggest headache for many writers.

Despite the literary boom in the 1980s, the sales of most less famous writers' works after publication were not much higher than those in later generations.

Speaking of this, we have to mention that year when Li Tuo and Feng Jicai edited a collection of short stories together for Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House.

They claim to "compile the most representative short stories in recent years," and they actually did so, and they compiled it very carefully.

Unfortunately, after the collection of novels was published, it sold less than 20,000 copies even after one year.

This is certainly not a loss, but the publishing house didn’t make much money either; it’s basically just trying to gain publicity.

The reason for this situation is that, in addition to the fact that these works themselves have already had a considerable degree of exposure and popularity, and many readers have already read them, making it difficult for them to arouse the desire to purchase the novel collections, the fundamental reason is that there has been a deviation in the development of domestic literary products since the new era.

When talking about the literature of the 1980s, what do many readers and literature lovers of this period think of?
"People's Literature", "Harvest", "October", "Contemporary", "Yenching Literature"...

What must come to people’s minds are the names of these well-known literary magazines, because the literary boom in the 1980s was largely supported by these literary magazines.

The reasons are not complicated. The humanitarian flood brought serious disaster to the Chinese literary world. During that period, Chinese literary creation fell into stagnation and even regressed.

There was a lack of young writers, the quality of literary works was worrying, there was a shortage of printing paper, and the policy direction was unclear... The problems that the Chinese literary world had to deal with in the mid-to-late 1970s were complex.

But at this time, a carrier that can perfectly deal with these difficult problems emerged: literary magazines.

With the support of a large publishing house, there is no need to worry about the risks of printing paper and policies. It was well-known throughout the country before the humanitarian flood and has a reputation that attracts many contributors. Its outstanding editing ability can efficiently screen and cultivate potential authors.

The rise of literary magazines seems natural, but while these magazines have given rise to a literary boom, they have also restricted the dissemination of works to a certain extent.

Because most literary works in the 1980s were published in literary magazines before being published. This would certainly increase the popularity and influence of the works and writers, but it would also weaken readers' desire to purchase the works after they were published.

You have to know that the price of publications in this era is not cheap relative to people's wages, and can even be said to be expensive. Since you can see the new works of most excellent and well-known writers in literary magazines, there is no need to spend money to buy the published copies, unless you like the work very much, then you may spend more money.

Therefore, we can see an interesting phenomenon in the literary world in the 1980s.

Many well-known literary magazines sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies per issue, but when the works published in them are published independently, it is often difficult to reach this level.

You can say that readers may buy the magazine because of its fame, but the problem is that the magazine's fame and sales are also brought about by the works.

This phenomenon is not an isolated case, but a common phenomenon.

Lin Chaoyang is one of the few writers who can break this phenomenon. In the past few years, his nickname "Lin Baiwan" has been circulating among major domestic literary magazines.

The so-called "million" does not refer to royalties. Lin Chaoyang had not received royalties of the million level back then. Rather, it means that if a magazine can publish his new work, the sales of the current issue can easily exceed one million copies.

At first, some people did not believe this fact, but as more and more magazines cooperated with Lin Chaoyang, this fact was constantly verified.

In particular, the publication of "Crossing the Boat" in 1983 and "Crossing the Guandong" in "Huacheng" in 1984 brought a huge shock to major literary magazines in China.

Among them, "Chuang Guandong" was particularly popular, with a single issue selling over 300 million copies, setting a mythical sales record in the Chinese literary magazine industry, and also driving an overall increase in the sales and influence of "Huacheng" magazine.

That year, the status of Huacheng among readers was comparable to that of People's Literature and Harvest.

Unfortunately, after "Crossing the Guandong", Lin Chaoyang decided not to publish his works first in magazines.

The strong development momentum of "Huacheng" was no longer maintained, and its sales have been declining in the past two years.

Fortunately, no matter how much it falls, it is still much better than before Lin Chaoyang's works were published.

During the National Day holiday, Tao Yushu had just returned to Yanjing from Yunnan when he heard the news that "The Truman Show" would be released in China.

The film was released in most parts of the world, but it was only screened in China late. The people who were most dissatisfied about this were not Lin Chaoyang and his wife, but Lin Chaoyang's loyal fans.

The person who brought this news was Wang Meng. Since becoming the Minister of Culture, Comrade Wang has been very busy.

I finally got a few days of rest during the National Day holiday, and I went to Lin Chaoyang's house as a guest. I called it a visit, but in fact it was to seek credit.

According to him, the reason why the introduction of "The Truman Show" into China was so slow was because it was stuck in the review process.

A comrade in charge of review at the Film Bureau believed that this work, like "1984", had political allegory.

“I was chatting with Comrade Tat-Ming the other day, and when we talked about this incident, I learned that your film was stuck at the Film Bureau.

After all, this is a film that won major awards abroad and brought glory to our country. It would be a shame if it couldn't be screened in China.

These guys are just messing around!
Then I consulted Comrade Fang Yu about the situation, and it wasn’t a big deal.

"1984" is now available in bookstores, and the novel of "The Truman Show" is also on sale. Why can't the movie be released?

Thanks to Comrade Daming for speaking up now. If it were a little later, I might not be in a position to take charge of this matter."

The "Daming" mentioned by Wang Meng is Ding Daming, the general manager of China Film Corporation, and "Fang Yu" is Shi Fangyu, the director of the Film Bureau.

And there is a reason why he said, "If it is too late, I will not be in charge."

Before this year, the Film Bureau was under the Ministry of Culture. In January this year, the Film Bureau was merged into the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television.

However, at this stage the merger between the Film Bureau and the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television is not complete, and distribution-related work is still under the management of the Ministry of Culture.

This is also the reason why Ding Daming reports his work to Wang Meng.

After listening to Wang Meng's talk about "The Truman Show", Lin Chaoyang thanked her and asked jokingly, "You are such a big leader, why did you come to our house just to show off?"

If someone simply wanted to take credit, no one would go to someone else's house and talk about this.

Wang Meng's eyes narrowed as she smiled, making her look cunning.

"I heard that you and Yushu opened a film company in Hong Kong, and you are one of the producers of The Truman Show."

Lin Chaoyang asked: "Isn't the movie business no longer your responsibility? Why are you still concerned about it?"

"It's not me who's worried, it's Comrade Fang Yu. He didn't know about you two before, and it was only through The Truman Show that he learned that you're now making a movie."

In addition to explaining her purpose, Wang Meng's words were also an explanation for Shi Fangyu, proving that he was indeed unaware of the delay in "The Truman Show" before.

Lin Chaoyang didn't feel anything about this. Later, even though "Farewell My Concubine" won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it still couldn't be released in the country.

"What's the matter? How can the leader use us?" Lin Chaoyang asked.

"I don't know the details. If you don't have any ideas, I'll ask him to come over tomorrow so you can meet and talk."

It turned out that Wang Meng came here to paved the way. Shi Fangyu, a bureau-level cadre, came here specifically to meet with Lin Chaoyang and have a chat. He could roughly guess what they were going to talk about.

The next day, Lin Chaoyang met Shi Fangyu. This was not the first time the two had met. They had met before when "The Garland under the Mountain" was reviewed.

Shi Fangyu was very warm when he met Lin Chaoyang. He first mentioned the omissions in the introduction of "The Truman Show" and apologized to Lin Chaoyang, and then took the opportunity to mention the production of this movie.

Lin Chaoyang introduced him to some information about film investment and production. Shi Fangyu said with emotion: "I really didn't expect that The Truman Show was originally a work of our mainland, but it was made into a movie by a film company in Hong Kong."

At this point, Shi Fangyu's purpose has become clear.

"It's our job that we didn't do! Not only The Truman Show, I just found out from my recent attention that you guys are already cooperating with our production studio on a movie?"

"Yes, we just collaborated with Xi'an Film Studio on a movie directed by Chen Kaige, which was adapted from Ah Cheng's "The King of Children."

Shi Fangyu nodded. In fact, he understood the situation.

"So this movie... is it headed for the film festival?"

This sentence is the main point of Shi Fangyu's visit today.

Officials, who doesn’t need to make achievements? Officials from the Film Bureau are no exception.

Over the years, the Film Bureau has been supporting domestic films to go abroad and participate in foreign film festivals. What is the purpose?
Apart from the meagre political and cultural influence, what matters more is the results.

When a film wins an award overseas, it is an achievement for filmmakers, and naturally a political achievement for officials in the film industry.

So when Shi Fangyu heard that the introduction of "The Truman Show" was blocked by his subordinates, one can imagine how furious he was.

The novel written by a mainland writer was not filmed in the mainland, but won a major award as a foreign film, which made him, the director of the Film Bureau, very embarrassed.

Now the introduction can still be stuck, which is really going against the will of heaven!

As a civil servant, you have to be political, but you can't just talk about politics.

"The Truman Show" shined at the Cannes Film Festival. Even if there were some minor problems, the merits outweighed the flaws. After all, it was a glory for the country.

"Yes, I want to see if I can participate in the West Berlin Film Festival next year."

Shi Fangyu asked: "Why not participate in the Cannes Film Festival?"

After he finished speaking, he was afraid that Lin Chaoyang would misunderstand him, so he explained: "I just think that you have accumulated some experience at the Cannes Film Festival after all."

Lin Chaoyang said: "The story style of "The King of Children" is more suitable for the West Berlin Film Festival."

Lin Chaoyang's words were very brief. Officials were all shrewd people, so there was no way Shi Fangyu would not understand what he meant.

Good to win the award!

"Are you sure?" Shi Fangyu asked expectantly.

"It's hard to say for sure. But Kego is pretty good, so it shouldn't be a problem for him to be nominated. At a film festival, anyone who's nominated has a chance to win an award."

In Lin Chaoyang's memory, Hadern, the current artistic director of the West Berlin Film Festival, really appreciated "The King of Children", but there was certainly no need for him to say such things.

Shi Fangyu saw that Lin Chaoyang looked very confident, and thinking of the brilliant results achieved by "The Truman Show" at the Cannes Film Festival, he couldn't help but have more trust in Chen Kaige.

"So, you guys want to sign up for this movie..."

"The King of Children" is a co-production, and all producers are eligible to register for the competition.

But Lin's Pictures is the dominant party. If they register from Hong Kong in the name of the company, then even if the film wins an award, it will have little to do with the Film Bureau.

Lin Chaoyang knew the purpose of Shi Fangyu's visit today, and thought it would be okay to do him a favor.

"I'm afraid the Film Bureau will have to help with participating in the film festival."

Shi Fangyu smiled when he heard this, "Of course, of course. Such an excellent film like "The King of Children" should bring fame to our country overseas."

"Then I'm sorry to trouble you!" Lin Chaoyang said politely.

“Well, The King of Children is a domestic film, isn’t this what we should do?

It just so happened that there was a guy named Yu from the China Film Institute who had studied in the German Democratic Republic and had a good relationship with the West Berlin Film Festival.”

After talking about the registration of "The King of Children" for the exhibition, Shi Fangyu was in a good mood and chatted with Lin Chaoyang about the situation of the Hong Kong film market.

He listened to Lin Chaoyang for a long time and said with emotion: "Hong Kong's film industry is indeed much better than our mainland. You have great potential in running this film company!"

Lin Chaoyang waved his hand, "It's not that easy!"

Shi Fangyu was puzzled when he heard this. He had just described the situation as being very good, so why did he say it was not going well now?
As our cooperation with domestic enterprises deepens, these conflicts will inevitably arise.”

The crying child gets the milk. Although the Film Bureau may not be able to help, it won’t hurt to let the leaders know about the situation.

Perhaps feeling that his response was not very kind, Shi Fangyu added: "I will communicate with Silver City. You are both in Hong Kong, so you can take care of each other."

Lin Chaoyang also knew that the help he could provide given Shi Fangyu's status was actually very limited, so he smiled and thanked Shi Fangyu.

Two days later, Lin Chaoyang finished his new work, and he called Li Shifei immediately.

(End of this chapter)