That's right, at the beginning, Cao Zhiqiang never thought that a poem could make him popular all over the country.

This was completely beyond his scope of thinking.

He had written so many short stories that would become famous in later generations.

For example, "Tower of Babel" and "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang in his previous life.

Although the response of these two short stories was very good, they did not have the sensational effect caused by the poem "Seeing and Not Seeing".

It's like, no one appreciates the hard-worked stuff, but the casual plagiarism becomes extremely popular.

It's really a hell.

However, what he didn't know was how powerful the charm of poetry was in early 1983.

He didn't even know what kind of effect a later Internet celebrity poem like "Seeing and Not Seeing" could have in this year of 1983.

A sensation, a real national sensation!

How sensational is it?

Poetry magazine actually reprinted this poem five times in a short period of time because of it!

This is not enough, far from enough.

It is said that the sales are going crazy all over the country and they are asking for more copies.

Even though many people couldn't buy it, they actually circulated and copied this poem everywhere, causing the capital to become expensive.

It is of course an exaggeration to say that paper is expensive in Beijing, but it is true that it is copied everywhere.

As for real feedback in reality...

Anyway, not long after, the poem "Seeing and Not Seeing" began to be praised in the streets and alleys, and many young people knew one or two lines from it even if they couldn't memorize it.

For example, "You see me or you don't see me. I am right there, neither sad nor happy."

Or "You love me, or you don't love me. The love is there, neither increasing nor decreasing."

Many people know lines like this by heart, and they have even become a code to identify whether you are an educated youth.

If you can recite this poem completely, you are a truly educated youth.

If you can't, you are just a fake literary youth.

If you don't know anything about it and haven't heard of this poem, you are obviously a fool.

By the way, Qiangzi's name also became a hit and he became a new famous modern poet in China.

Gu Chenghaizi was only interested in music at this time. Even Bei Dao was not as influential as his poem at this time.

There is no way, the charm of later Internet celebrity poems, in 1983, was the power of an atomic bomb explosion.

In fact, this is normal, because the way of writing in later generations is completely different from this era.

After all, people in later generations are in an era of knowledge explosion, and the threshold is already very high. Poems that can stand out in later generations, if they were to be obtained now, would of course be at the level of a nuclear bomb explosion.

In short, many people say that the poet Qiangzi is the new generation king of love poetry after the reform. Many people have written letters asking about Qiangzi's true identity. There are even tens of thousands of love letters, from both men and women.

There is no way, Qiangzi is just a pen name, his identity has not been disclosed, and no one knows whether he is a boy or a girl.

Taking advantage of this trend, Qiangzi decisively came to the Poetry Magazine in person. Under the warm reception of the editor, he wrote his second Wang Zha poem - "The Farthest Distance in the World".

That's right, it's the same poem that was published in a bunch of later generations, and the one given is the Chinese and English version.

Yes, this time, because of the huge success of the previous "See and Not See" and the fact that Qiangzi has already gained a certain degree of popularity, Cao Zhiqiang is no longer a newcomer, but has certain bargaining power.

In addition, this new poem is also expensive, and the artistic conception is quite good.

So after bargaining, the editor-in-chief made the final decision and decided to win the song "The Farthest Distance in the World" with a cap price of 1,000 yuan.

This price is quite high, but it is actually quite normal.

After all, "The Farthest Distance in the World" has a lot of words and lines, plus there is a follow-up story, so the overall length is quite large.

The most important thing is that if the song "Seeing and Not Seeing" can once again create a sensation and sell more magazines, the money can be easily recovered.

The magazine did not lose money at all.

Moreover, a magazine like Poetry Magazine, whose circulation can easily exceed one million, is not short of such a small amount of money.

However, the editor-in-chief of the magazine still had some unfinished ideas.

After all, this poem is so good. If it were to be supplemented, only one poem would be too few.

But what if we don't take advantage of the popularity of "Seeing and Not Seeing" and Hadron's fame to publish a supplement immediately?

After waiting for a month, the next issue will be released. The previous heat has passed, and the superimposed effect is gone.

Yes, the editors-in-chief during this period were also quite flexible, and they also knew that popularity is directly proportional to sales.

People in this period can also take advantage of the popularity.

So, the editor asked if there were any new poems.

Even if it's not as good as these two songs, it's okay, just use his fame to make up for it and issue a special supplement.

At this time, Cao Zhiqiang immediately calmly took out a pamphlet.

In this booklet, there are fifty poems, all of which have not appeared yet, but are very classic Internet celebrity poems in later generations.

For example, the song "Of course" in the booklet is a plagiarism from a later song "Tsangyang Gyatso's theory".

This "Tsangyang Gyatso Says" may not be clear to many people in future generations if I mention the name alone, but if we talk about the verses in it, such as the beginning -

"I am all the men in the world, and you are all the women in the world. I love you, of course."

Yes, if you mention the verses in it, many people may have an impression.

The author of this poem and the author of "Seeing and Not Seeing" are actually the same person, very talented.

But helplessly, the other party lives in the Internet era. Although her literary talent is good and her poems are very popular, she herself is not very popular. This is the helplessness of later generations of poets.

Poetry is dead, and paper is burned when something happens.

This is the current situation in the poetry world in later generations.

And the poets of later generations were basically not popular, and it was difficult for them to become famous.

But in 1983, the twilight era of modern poetry, things were different.

Dusk is always particularly beautiful, it is the last crazy era.

Sure enough, when the editor saw this booklet, especially the opening chapter "Of course", he couldn't put it down immediately.

Looking at the poems that follow, I feel even more mesmerized.

After only reading ten poems, he simply decided not to publish a supplement and to publish a separate collection of poems for Cao Zhiqiang.

This is a serious published book with an ISBN.

The editor-in-chief of that publishing house was also very optimistic about Cao Zhiqiang, and wanted to buy him out at a high price, or pay a high price for the manuscript.

But Cao Zhiqiang just disagreed, and he was very strict about copyright. He just didn't want the publishing house to buy out the publication exclusively, he just wanted to publish it at his own expense or share it proportionally.

The reason is very simple. At that time, he had almost scraped together the money to publish a book at his own expense. It might not be enough to publish a martial arts novel, but it would be no problem to publish a collection of poems with very few words and pages.

After much discussion, an editor surnamed Yu came up with a suggestion. He believed that one should not lose a big deal for a small gain. In order to attract Cao Zhiqiang, instead of letting him go to other places to publish books at his own expense and gain popularity with other publishing houses, we should simply give him the publication directly.

Forget about the tax system and royalties.

By playing with the royalty system, at least the magazine and the publishing house can get a share of the profits. Otherwise, if Cao Zhiqiang is asked to publish books at other small publishing houses at his own expense, no one will be able to make a profit.

So that's how it was settled.

It is said that this sharing of royalties and royalties with writers is the first of its kind in the domestic publishing industry and has never happened before.

In the history of Cao Zhiqiang's previous life, the first person in China to play with the royalty system was a rogue writer named Wang, and that was back in the 1990s.

But here, if he is really given royalties and royalties, he will be the number one royalty producer in the country.

The so-called royalties and royalties.

To put it simply, the Writer's Publishing House bought out the exclusive publishing rights for the book "The Poems of Hadron" for five years.

During this period, the book could not be published by other magazines, and could only be published by Writers Publishing House as "Hadron Poems".

At that time, the author's publishing house will pay the royalties for this book to Cao Zhiqiang in the form of royalties.

After a long discussion, the publisher finally set a royalty rate for this poetry collection, or Cao Zhiqiang’s share, of 6%.

Therefore, the royalties that Cao Zhiqiang can get are the number of copies of "The Collected Poems of Qiangzi" × the distribution price of a single book × the royalty rate (6%). The amount of money derived from this is the royalties for Cao Zhiqiang.

Moreover, the royalties are settled on the first of every month.

Assuming that "The Poems of Qiangzi" is priced at two yuan and the monthly circulation is 100,000 copies, then the remuneration that Cao Zhiqiang can receive that month is 2 × 100,000 × 6%, which is equivalent to 12,000 yuan.

Even though it was only 12,000 yuan, this was in 1983 before the RMB depreciated!

With 12,000 yuan, you can now buy a small courtyard house or an imported motorcycle.

Of course, that was just a preliminary negotiation plan, and actually publishing the book would be more profitable than he thought.

In the end, the publishing plan he and his editor finalized was to change the name of the collection of poems to "The Farthest Distance in the World."
To be continued...