Food gives me an entry, I will be invincible if I stay alive

Chapter 95 The road ahead is long, but I can look forward to it

Printing and selling books were what Chen Xu wanted.

In the room of the inn, Chen Xu signed a book sales agreement directly with the Cui family and the Ning family.

The Cui family had the most printing houses and possessed the most advanced movable type printing technology at the time.

The movable type in the workshop was soaked in secret potions, which was different from ordinary bookshops and solved many problems of movable type such as blurring, cracking, and deformation.

The printing efficiency is extremely high, far exceeding that of its peers.

But Cui Yunqi said: "Brother Chen's poems and essays must be made into woodblocks.

"Today we will print a thousand copies, tomorrow we will print ten thousand copies. Ten or a hundred sets of woodblocks will be printed at the same time, and in the future we will be able to print not only a thousand or ten thousand copies, but even a hundred thousand copies!"

This is basically regardless of cost.

Seeing Cui Yunqi's impulsive look, Ning Xing, the eldest son of the Ning family, said, "There's really no need to be like this. I don't think Brother Chen would like such extravagance.

In my opinion, making a dozen or twenty sets of woodblocks would be enough.

My Ning family owns a total of 29 bookstores throughout the seven prefectures of Tiannan. Although there are no teahouses outside Yunjiang Prefecture, there is at least one in every county.

Brother Cui, instead of wasting so much energy on carving woodblocks, why don't you open a few more bookstores?"

Okay, they are suppressing each other again.

Chen Xu was really at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

He took the initiative to participate in the discussion, cut the Gordian knot, and finally decided on a plan that the Cui family only needed to carve five sets of woodblocks.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the number of books has been cut from dozens to five in a short time. In fact, most books nowadays can only have one set of engravings at most in the same printing house.

Imagine that an ordinary book has at least a hundred pages, and each page needs to be carved into a block to complete the set. How many carved blocks would a book need?
The carved blocks are thick and heavy, and adding a few more sets would be a big problem both in carving and preservation.

Cuijia Bookstore still mainly uses movable type printing, and many books do not even have a set of woodblocks.

Chen Xu combined these two short stories into a volume called "The Knight-errant". Fortunately, the binding was not thick, with only about fifty pages in total, so it was not difficult to get a few more sets of engravings.

Finally, the three parties agreed to print 3,000 copies of the new book, priced at 200 wen per copy, and Chen Xu would receive 30% of the profits as royalties.

As for the Ning family buying and selling books from the Cui family bookstore, how to bid and how to divide the profits, this is a matter between the Ning family and the Cui family.

Chen Xu received 30% of the selling price as remuneration, which was actually due to Cui Yunqi's repeated concessions.

Because only the selling price is calculated here, and the cost of printing the book by the Cui family is not taken into account at all.

However, Chen Xu could still accept this level of goodwill.

Cui Yunqi said confidently, "Three thousand copies is just the beginning. Brother Chen, let alone other things, just because of this poem "Xia Ke Xing", this book will definitely be a hit in Yunjiang!"

He loved "The Knight-errant" so much that he was even obsessed with it. He felt that every word and sentence of the poem completely struck his soul.

After reading this poem, countless poems and essays I had written before have become like wood wool and wax ashes, and they are boring to think about.

Chen Xu smiled without saying anything. As long as it is given enough time, "The Knight-errant" will become more than just a hit in Yunjiang.

With this impetus, the two stories about animal creation should gradually spread throughout the world.

At the same time, the spread of the story of animal creation not only fulfilled Chen Xu's promise to the little ghost, but also had a clear response from the Book of Food.

[You cook the demon with raging fire, and the world calls it wonderful.]

This "demon cooking in flames" incident has a long-tail effect.

The deeds of the knight had just been circulated, discussed, and admired by the crowd. Chen Xu had received twenty or thirty likes here and there.

When the story of Zaoxu and the knight spreads more widely in the future, I believe that these likes will continue to come in an endless stream.

At this point, Chen Xu finally opened up his first path to "guaranteed likes".

However, the “guaranteed likes” are ultimately limited.

Chen Xu devoted a bit of his attention to carefully examining the Book of Food and Cauldrons, and discovered that such "guaranteed likes" first had the problem of distance.

For example, when Chen Xu is in Yunjiang Prefecture, he can only receive likes within Yunjiang Prefecture. When he is in Jichuan, he can receive likes from most of Jichuan County.

Generally speaking, with Chen Xu himself as the center, all likes within a radius of fifty miles can be received by him immediately.

As for those farther away, it’s not that he can’t receive them, but his current cultivation level is not enough and his title level is low, so he can’t receive them.

As for when the reception range can be expanded?

The Heavenly Book also gave some hints. First, Chen Xu's cultivation must reach a great realm, and second, his title level must be upgraded from a pyrotechnic apprentice to a spiritual food apprentice.

Secondly, there is a daily limit on the number of likes you can receive for the same exciting event.

With Chen Xu's current cultivation level and title, the daily maximum number of points that [Demon Cooking People with Fiery Fire] can receive is 1000.

If Chen Xu wants to quickly accumulate more likes, he must either speed up his cultivation or open up more similar [Cooking] events.

Of course, getting likes through delicious food is the basic principle and must not be abandoned.

Chen Xu also learned from the feedback of the Food Cauldron Heavenly Book that there is no shortcut for a pyrotechnic apprentice to be promoted to a spiritual food apprentice. There is only one thing: unlock and make more spiritual food.

Both the variety and quantity must be accumulated to a certain level.

At present, Chen Xu's data situation is -

【God of Cookery Recipe: 15】

[Hint: Unlock 100 kinds of God of Food recipes, accumulate 100 kinds of spiritual food, and raise your cultivation to the Condensation Pill Realm, which will increase your apprentice level.]

The road ahead is long but promising. Chen Xu is full of enterprising spirit at this moment, but he also reminds himself to keep calm and not be impetuous.

He was not in a hurry. He believed that as long as he kept moving forward, one day he would be able to cross mountains and seas and truly reach the top.

After that, Chen Xu signed a second agreement with Ning's teahouse.

The Ning family owned a total of 36 teahouses. After buying the books, the storytellers in the teahouses would tell Chen Xu two short stories about animals. The Ning family would pay Chen Xu a total of 100 taels of silver every month as a writing fee.

Let’s set the date for March first and talk about it later.

This amount was also due to the Ning family's concession, but the target was Chen Xu. If it was an ordinary down-and-out scholar who made money by writing storybooks, the amount would not be this amount.

We cannot overestimate the copyright awareness of this era.

What's more, with the current trend of loving poetry and prose, and pursuing fame and writing, vernacular stories are inevitably placed at the bottom of the contempt chain of literati.

Unless a top-notch classic is written, or the writer himself has a different identity, then there will be no difference.

Without going into details about the trivial matters, Chen Xu accepted the advance payment of 100 taels from Ning Xing that day, and the advance payment of 180 taels from Cui Yunqi for the manuscript.

All of a sudden, the amount of silver he had on him exceeded five hundred taels.

With the purchasing power of silver today, it can buy about 100 acres of medium-sized farmland.

It seems like a huge amount of money, but when it comes to spending it, there is a shortage of money everywhere.

It is obviously impossible to get rich quickly by writing short or medium-length stories in the short term.

In fact, the total value of the thank-you gifts sent to Chen Xu by various families is actually much higher.

However, noble families have their own rules for giving gifts and generally do not give silver directly.

Most of the gifts given to scholars like Chen Xu were high-quality writing instruments, ink, paper, inkstones, jade treasures, tea, fine wine, etc.

This kind of thing is very expensive to buy, but it is not easy to cash in.

Chen Xu accepted what he should accept and rejected what he shouldn't accept.

If you don't accept anything, people will owe you favors. That means you are deliberately being unkind and will make you hated.

Great kindness can turn into great hatred, this has always been the case since ancient times.

(End of this chapter)