Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 346: Murderous! (Seeking votes at the end of the month)
"Please give us the US copyright of your new novel!" In front of Zhang Chao was Evelyn from Amazon. She changed her previous attitude and showed her sincerity.

Zhang Chao smiled and asked, "My new novel...hasn't your editor read it yet?"

Evelin immediately said, "No need to read it. As long as you are willing to give it to us and use it as the first bundled novel of K1, we are willing to pay you 80% of the royalties. And your basic sales volume and distribution range are all negotiable..."

Zhang Chao stared into Evelin's eyes and slowly asked the key question: "How many K1 readers did you prepare in the first batch?"

Evelin awkwardly avoided Zhang Chao's gaze. Of course, company secrets could not be disclosed casually, but her posture already explained a lot of problems.

After a long while, Evelyn finally told her the bottom line given by the senior management: "If your new novel can be bundled with K1 for the first release, then in addition to 80% of the royalties, you can also get a one-time guaranteed compensation of 200 million US dollars..."

Zhang Chao spread his hands and said helplessly: "We all know why you are so anxious - but this is a paradox in itself... This novel is valued by you because of its high attention, and signing it to you cannot guarantee that all potential readers will see it in the first place.

This will only damage my credibility—and yours, of course.”

Evelyn was silent. The paradox Zhang Chao mentioned did exist.

There are huge differences of opinion within Amazon over the Kindle reader. Many executives believe that the machine has too many shortcomings and is too expensive, and that readers will not easily switch from paper books to e-readers.

Another factor that particularly limits production capacity is the terrible yield rate of early e-paper screens. Even in the most optimistic estimates, sales of the first batch of Kindle machines did not exceed 5 units.

Bundling popular novels to increase readers' desire to buy is certainly useful, but producing tens of thousands more units is the limit.

Even 10 units is a drop in the bucket for the expected sales of Zhang Chao's new novel - it is said that "Random House" is preparing to give Zhang Chao a first print run of 60 copies, and another publisher "Simon & Schuster" may give more.

For writers, royalties or writing fees are important, but it is equally important for their works to spread quickly and have a greater impact - especially for writers like Zhang Chao who don't care much about making tens or hundreds of millions more or less.

Now, American readers have been stimulated by the international literary debate and are more excited than ever about Zhang Chao's novels. The Chinese community in particular is looking forward to seeing how this young writer from the mainland of China will narrate the stories of Chinese immigrants.

If they knew that if they wanted to read this new novel, they could only buy a weird e-reader for $499, and there were only tens of thousands of these e-readers in stock...

It was hard for Evelin to imagine how she would be scolded at that time, and her eyes dimmed.

Seeing that he had almost persuaded the senior business representative of Amazon, Zhang Chao said, "The English copyright of my book should still be given to Random House or Simon & Schuster, but you can negotiate with them for the electronic copyright.

The new novel will be available for sale as early as late October, and your reader will be launched in November, as I recall? The timing is just right, and if the first batch of K10 machines is not large, the impact on physical books will not be significant. "

Evelyn said helplessly, “The relationship between traditional publishers and us…is not that friendly, and it may be even more difficult to negotiate success with electronic copyright.”

Although Amazon's book business is still mainly based on online sales of physical books, its frequent discounts and cross-regional characteristics have seriously impacted the sales of publishers that rely on traditional channels, so there are constant lawsuits between the two.

Traditional publishers will not tolerate e-books becoming the mainstream choice for reading.

So Evelyn had no confidence that she could make such a deal.

However, Zhang Chao said: "Everything depends on human effort... What if I can convince them to allow the novel to be sold on K1 through authorization?"

Evelin's eyes lit up again...

After seeing her off, Zhang Chao said to Shuang Xuetao who had been taking notes beside him, "Do you know how to talk to Random House and Simon & Schuster? By the way, how is the software development going?"

Shuang Xuetao said: "The Symbian system will be available for internal testing next month. But the Apple system is closed..."

Zhang Chao fiddled with the K1 prototype in his hand - which Amazon specially gave him to try out as a token of sincerity - and handed it to Shuang Xuetao.

Shuang Xuetao imitated Zhang Chao's operation, turned on the screen, and tried to flip through a few pages of the book. He shook his head and said, "I'll take this back to Li Wandong. I can't understand it anyway."

Zhang Chao said: "Don't worry, no matter how closed Apple is, hackers will successfully jailbreak the iPhone within this year at the latest, and then the potential of the iPhone will be truly developed.

Now you guys are pinching and zooming, unlocking, sliding, and turning pages all day long, and you get so excited when you listen to a song... you look like you have never seen the world!" You look like you are disappointed with your friend.

Shuang Xuetao's face turned red. Ever since Huang Jiefu distributed iPhones to everyone in the company, everyone has been fascinated by the feeling of letting go and playing with the huge 3.5-inch screen for a long time.

Zhang Chao was the only one who not only refused to accept his own iPhone, but also pointed out a bunch of problems with the iPhone, such as no copy and paste function, no 3G network, and short battery life...

What I can't stand the most is that Zhang Chao actually complained that the 3.5-inch screen was too small! You know, the flagship phone of Nokia, the mobile phone overlord, only has a 2.8-inch screen.

However, Shuang Xuetao didn't know how to refute Zhang Chao. He just thought that he was just pretending to be cool. He muttered to himself and left with his notebook.

Zhang Chao knew Shuang Xuetao was not convinced, so he laughed in his heart and said silently, "Wait a few years and you will know whether a 3.5-inch screen is big or small..."

However, this also reminded Zhang Chao that jailbreaking the iPhone gave birth to a huge underground APP market, but it also allowed Apple to see the business opportunities and later launched the official AppStore.

App stores took smartphones to new heights, and in the first few years, just developing a hit game could create a public company.

Many images flashed through Zhang Chao's mind - Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, Temple Run, Plants vs. Zombies...

3.5-inch screen, ten-finger touch operation, gyroscope... these new mechanisms have completely overturned the rules of mobile game development and entered another dimension. Countless small companies and even individuals have sprung up like mushrooms after rain...

Thinking of this, Zhang Chao started drooling. Compared with developing early IOS games, writing books was really pure hard-earned money.

However, Zhang Chao, who is already a "veteran", also realized that with the emergence of the iPhone, the logic and scenarios of daily life, work, and entertainment in China and even the world are undergoing drastic changes, and are even being completely reshaped.

However, apart from Zhang Chao, who was reborn, there is probably no one else in this world who truly understands this - even if there is, they would not think that such change and reshaping would come so quickly.

Just like Shuang Xuetao couldn't understand why Zhang Chao disliked the 3.5-inch screen being too small, everything that seemed so new, advanced, and fashionable in 2007, such as lifestyles and technological creations, almost looked like products of the Stone Age within ten years. Time has been accelerated to an unprecedented degree, so that any writer who wants to record the progress of this era will have no time to put pen to paper before the world in his mind is outdated.

Literature has also ushered in an unprecedented "good" era - but this "good" is not quite as the stubborn "royalists" think. Literature will once again occupy the main part of people's spiritual life.

But at the same time, they are not marginalized - instead, like stars in the sky, they are scattered into every corner that needs creativity.

Literature has never been so neglected; nor has literature ever been so needed.

Zhang Chao suddenly realized that even if he became a "great writer" at such an early age, he would inevitably become a different person in the next ten or twenty years.

Just like his teacher Yu Hua was rediscovered in the era of short videos, countless 15-second slices deconstructed him. He became a "sloppy puppy" who only wrote one book, "To Live", always leaving sadness to readers and happiness to himself, and did not treat Shi Tiesheng as a disabled person or a human being...

Many young people fell in love with Yu Hua because of these slices. Yu Hua is no longer the avant-garde writer with messy hair and a stern expression in the black and white photos, but is closely associated with the word "cute".

But at the same time, almost no one cares about what Yu Hua writes or what he thinks.

What about me? When the TikTok era and the live streaming boom arrive, how will I be deconstructed?
More importantly, what kind of works should he leave for this era? Even if he knew what would happen, Zhang Chao still felt it was difficult to record and express it.

"Literature is really a curse..." Zhang Chao shook his head, trying hard to drive all these nonsense out of his mind.

This afternoon, he also has to go to the Writers Association. The "Young Writers Visiting Japan Delegation" has been officially selected. Although he is not a member of the delegation, he still has a lot of advice on the itinerary arrangements.

Who made him part of the itinerary?

In addition to Zhang Chao's new book, there was another big event these two days - Ma Yueran, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Humanities and Literature and one of the lifetime judges of the Nobel Prize in Literature, finally started his visit to East Asia. The first stop is of course China, Yenching.

It is now late September and the final round of voting for this year's Nobel Prize in Literature has been completed, which means that the prize has been determined and will only be announced to the world in two weeks.

So at this juncture, the most common problem Ma Yueran faces is all kinds of "spying" on who will win the award -

"Hello, Academician Ma Yueran, is the Nobel Prize always awarded in the order of 'one man and one woman'?"

"Last year, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Türkiye's Orhan Pamuk. Will this year's winner be an Asian?"

“I heard that this year, Chinese writer Can Xue was shortlisted for the award for the first time. Is that true?”

“Does the Nobel Prize in Literature favor novelists?”

“Will there be any Chinese writers winning the award this year?”

"If you were asked to recommend a Chinese writer, who would you choose? Mo Yan, Liu Zhenyun, or Yan Lianke?"

……

Ma Yueran is an old hand in the world, and has seen a lot of ups and downs. He is naturally very careful in dealing with things, and his words are also very vague, making people confused.

"Gender is probably not the main point of our choice. Besides, in the world of literature, gender is inherently difficult to predict."

“Is Pamuk an Asian writer? In terms of literary ancestry, he is more of a European writer, although he writes in Turkish.”

“China’s outstanding writers are no less than those of any other country in the world; they just lack good translators.”

“Poetry is the jewel in the crown of literature – don’t you think prose writers are actually neglected?”

"Canxue is certainly a good writer, and it's no surprise that she's on any list."

"They are all my favorite writers, but I think the important thing about recommending them is the timing..."

The second focus surrounding Ma Yueran is, of course, the "storm" between him and Zhang Chao - although it has gradually subsided now, the aftermath is still lingering, and everyone wants to know how Ma Yueran will express his attitude after coming to China.

"Mr. Ma Yueran, Zhang Chao's rejection of your call has sparked a lot of discussion. Even in China, there are many critics. An old writer who serves as the chairman of the provincial writers' association said, 'It was not easy for us to open the country's doors back then, and young people don't know how to cherish it.' What do you think?
Is Zhang Chao's rejection of you a regret for him?"

Ma Yueran had obviously made sufficient preparations for this. He sat in the auditorium of Yenching University. Leaders, scholars, writers, critics... surrounded him like stars surrounding the moon, as if they were ordinary students listening to his teachings.

Ma Yueran said in fluent Chinese with a slight accent: "I have actually made it very clear in my statement. I am surprised why you are still asking this. Then I will answer it again from another angle -

I am 83 years old and Zhang Chao is only 23. From the perspective of age, it is my regret not to have met him, not his.

At the same time, I was even more surprised by the harsh criticism of Zhang Chao by some people in China - I don't know what their mentality is, I just know that this is unfair to any young person.

Why do we praise Sartre or others for refusing the Nobel Prize as a chic gesture, but regard the young Zhang Chao's refusal of me as arrogance?
Although Zhang Chao is not Sartre, I am not equal to the Nobel Prize in Literature!

I think some people in the Chinese literary world are sick, and very sick! When I read the accusations against Zhang Chao, it was as if I was back in 1966, when the Swedish Academy was besieged by radical students for refusing to comment on the Vietnam War, and they shouted "Literature must choose sides."

Half a century has passed, and some critics are still trapped in the either-or mindset. Today, I would like to respond to these absurd accusations in my triple identity as a sinologist, literary critic, and witness of cross-civilizational dialogue:

......"

Somehow, the other people at the scene heard a murderous tone in Ma Yueran's words, and they couldn't help but look forward to his next words in fear.

(End of this chapter)