In this era, Readers and Youth Digest were relatively well-known magazines in China, but unfortunately, they did not seem to serialize full-length novels.
Therefore, when he first submitted his articles, Zhou Chen did not submit them to these two magazines that he was familiar with, but to magazine publishing houses around Yanjing.
There were four replies in total, and Zhou Chen opened them one by one. Three of them told him that his submission was successful, and if he was interested, he could sign a contract with them to publish a book. The other one replied that his novel was not in line with the current environment.
, if you revise it, you can consider publishing it.
Zhou Chen directly threw away the letter of rejection, and then looked at the remaining three companies.
He sent a total of nine letters, and only four of them have been answered so far. He still didn't know what the other five meant, so he wanted to wait a little longer.
"Congratulations, Zhou Chen, you finally got what you wanted."
When Zhao Yingnan saw that someone was willing to help Zhou Chen publish, he was also happy for Zhou Chen.
Zhou Chen: "That's not it. They just have intentions. Whether cooperation can be achieved or not remains to be seen."
He was happy that the novel was recognized, but he was more concerned about how much money he could make from this book. After all, he wrote this novel just to make money.
These three magazine publishers only have intentions. After the actual negotiations, it is hard to say whether a consensus can be reached or how much royalties he can receive.
Zhao Yingnan saw Zhou Chen's troubled look and suddenly said, "Why don't you go ask Liu Tingting."
"Liu Tingting? Why are you asking her?" Zhou Chen looked confused, what does this have to do with Liu Tingting.
Zhao Yingnan said: "Liu Tingting has a relationship with her family. I heard her say before that her father seems to know someone from the publishing house. If she is willing to help, she will definitely save you a lot of trouble."
Zhou Chen looked thoughtful, but quickly shook his head: "Forget it, there is no need to owe others favors for this kind of thing."
He knew that Liu Tingting was the second generation of rich people. In this era, she could easily go abroad. She was definitely not an ordinary second generation of rich people.
Maybe Liu Tingting's words could save him a lot of trouble, but to be honest, he didn't really want to deal with such a rich second generation, let alone owe her a favor.
Favor debts are the hardest to repay.
For someone like Zhao Yingnan, who has helped so much, just treat her to a meal and give her something, and the favor can be repaid.
But in the eyes of people like Liu Tingting, I'm afraid it's not that easy.
What's more, he only wrote novels to make some money, so that he could survive the poverty life in the first two years. When he left the military camp, he had plenty of time and methods to make money, and he did not need to rely on others at all.
When Zhao Yingnan heard Zhou Chen's answer, the smile on his face became much brighter.
Although this proposal was made by her and she sincerely wanted to help Zhou Chen find a way, she felt even happier after hearing Zhou Chen's rejection.
She is a very smart and rational girl. She knows why she is happy, and she also has better feelings for Zhou Chen.
Although Zhou Chen wants to make money, he obviously has his own bottom line and is not the kind of person who is willing to do anything for money.
Zhou Chen didn't know that Zhao Yingnan was thinking so much in that moment, so he smiled and said to her: "Zhao Yingnan, if everything goes well, I will be able to treat you to dinner in a short time. You can think about it now and decide whether you want to eat or not."
What."
"Now? Anything is okay?"
Zhou Chen said: "Of course, as long as I can afford it, I can eat whatever I want."
Zhou Chen would never be too demanding when dealing with friends. Zhao Yingnan helped him so much, let alone a meal, even if he invited him several times, it was nothing.
"Then I have to think about it carefully." Zhao Yingnan smiled.
In the next few days, Zhou Chen received three more letters. This time, two of them were rejections, and only one expressed intention to sign a contract.
Out of nine submission letters, only five accepted the manuscript and expressed interest in publishing it, but all of them required interviews.
Zhou Chen specifically went to ask for leave from the two instructors, but Dai Bingzhong refused without any hesitation. Zhou Chen also walked away without saying a word and went to find Chief of Staff Zhao.
Chief of Staff Zhao was very surprised when he heard that Zhou Chen wanted to publish a novel. Finally, he agreed to Zhou Chen's request for leave and gave Zhou Chen a week's leave.
A week's holiday seemed to be a long time, but it took a long time to get back and forth, so Zhou Chen did not dare to delay for a moment, and went to Yanjing City as quickly as possible to negotiate with several magazine publishers that he had made appointments with.
The negotiation process is the most difficult, but for Zhou Chen, who has been a business tycoon several times, this little thing cannot trouble him at all.
Not surprisingly, the prices offered by several publishing houses were not high, and the lowest one even offered a buyout price of five yuan per thousand words.
When Zhou Chen heard the price, he almost threw a glass of water at him. Damn, are you sending the beggar away?
There are only 210,000 words in Sanzhongmen. If you pay 5 yuan for 1,000 words, you can only get 1,000 yuan. Even though 1,000 yuan is not a small amount in this era, for Zhou Chen, this is basically a free gift. He looks down on our boss Han's novel.
That won’t work.
Zhou Chen's ideal price is not a buyout. What he wants is a share of royalties. Since he wants to publish, he naturally wants to maximize his profits. If it is not a share of royalties, he would rather not publish and just spend it in his hands. When he gets rich later,
Self-publish.
However, there was a good publishing house. After knowing that the novel had 210,000 words, it gave it a good price, forty per thousand words.
It seems that there are very few, and it cannot be compared with later generations, but the other party's argument is also tenable.
First of all, Zhou Chen is a newcomer and has no reputation at all. The price of forty per thousand words is not something a newcomer can get. Secondly, they really like this book and want to publish it exclusively, so they gave this price.
.
Finally, they also put forward a condition: if Zhou Chen is still willing to sign a contract with them for future novels, they can increase the price.
This is mainly because they took a fancy to Zhou Chen's potential and wanted to sign a bundle.
This was already the best family. Zhou Chen thought about it for a long time, but still refused, and then put forward his own idea.
Hearing that Zhou Chen didn't want a thousand-word buyout, but wanted a royalty share, the other party was also surprised, but he didn't refuse on the spot, but said he would discuss it further.
Zhou Chen talked with them for three days before finally reaching an agreement.
The result was not exactly what he thought, but the two parties reached a consensus that royalties were fine, but they had to be linked to the sales of the novel.
In other words, royalties will not be paid until a certain sales volume is reached. If it is not reached, it will be bought out at 50 per thousand words, and the next book must also be signed with the publishing house.
If the predetermined sales volume is reached, you can participate in the sharing, and every time you reach a certain sales volume, you can also increase the royalties, with the upper limit being 12%.
Finally, the two parties signed a contract, which made Zhou Chen relieved.
If it weren't for the fact that he couldn't get out of the military camp, he wouldn't even think about writing a novel, because it would be too time-consuming and labor-intensive.
His mission this time is to become a great doctor, not a novelist. Studying medicine is his true calling.
Before formally studying medicine, he had no idea what his medical talent was.
If his medical talent is very poor, it will take an astonishing amount of time to become a great doctor, so for him, time is very precious.
He knew all the words in the medical books Qiu Shui gave him, but although he recognized the names of the medicines and professional terms, he couldn't understand most of them.
This also made him understand that it is really too natural to want to understand medicine by reading a few medical books.
I returned to the military camp on the deadline and when I returned to the dormitory, the military training was not over yet, so Zhou Chen was coding alone in the dormitory.
He had promised the publishing house to hand over the remaining manuscripts to them within a month, so time was still very urgent and he had to speed up.
When Qiu Shui and others came back and learned that Zhou Chen's novel would be published, they were all shocked.
In fact, in their dormitory, they are not very optimistic about whether Zhou Chen's novel can be published, even Qiu Shui is no exception.
But the final result was good. While they were shocked, they immediately congratulated Zhou Chen.
Especially Qiu Shui, who was more excited than anyone else. He kept asking Zhou Chen about the negotiation process with others, and even became cruel. He started writing a novel from now on, and when his novel was finished, he asked Zhou Chen to help recommend it.
Zhou Chen dismissed Qiu Shui with just two words, but Qiu Shui didn't pay attention and continued to talk around him, telling him everything that happened during the week he left.
In fact, there is nothing much to say. Every day is just training. At most, Qiu Shui is fighting with the instructor again.