Chapter 39 The Chartered Woman and the Chartered Man
In early May, the third episode of "Sword Art Online" was released simultaneously with the manga.
Different from the original work, Ma Xiaolong gave a vivid description of the Aincrad chapter. Based on his lv3 writing skills, it can be understood that the original author Reki Kawahara actually failed to write "Sword Art Online".
It originally ended with the Aincrad chapter, and it would have ended perfectly with Asuna waking up right after the Fairy Dance chapter.
But maybe because of money, he added other chapters one after another, and the results became more and more unsatisfactory. The quality was far worse than the first two articles, and it was just a continuation of the story.
Of course, this is only from the perspective of the quality of the work. If you look at it from the perspective of economic interests, there is no problem with his continuation of Diao. Since there are people spending money and many people are willing to spend money, why not write more? As capital
A communist country will never let it go as long as there is still a piece of steel that can be exploited.
Knowing that there would be a continuation of the story later on, Ma Xiaolong had no intention of writing those plots from the beginning, so he dug into the potential of the opening chapter to make the story more exciting.
Moreover, the way of thinking of the characters is also based on the thinking of most Chinese people. There are not many virgins here. Some are just strong ones walking alone, weak ones working together, and evil ones... The setting is that you will die if you don't pass the level, and the evil ones want a ball.
You must be sick!
Killing because of love? Because his wife is too good, so he feels inferior, so he kills his wife? Chinese people don’t have such perverted brain circuits, delete it.
After deletions, Bruce Ma's version of "Sword Art Online" made the opening Aincrad chapter so exciting that all readers couldn't stop reading it, and various pirated peripherals were banned repeatedly.
There is nothing we can do about this. Even in 2022, piracy has not been completely eliminated. The reason is still due to the lack of punishment. Even if a few pirates are caught today and fined, it will only be a drop in the bucket. It will not hurt.
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Ma Xiaolong had already anticipated this. Since piracy could not be eradicated, he would start from the interests of genuine readers.
So Ma Xiaolong published as many signed books as possible for his genuine books, and the publishing house also tried its best to make the genuine books as exquisite as possible, and also included some small gifts such as bookmarks and keychains to increase the desire of genuine readers to buy them.
Of course, the simplest way is to lower the retail price of genuine copies so that readers can afford them and are willing to buy them, and rely on sales to maintain the bookstore's profits.
Thanks to a multi-pronged approach, the sales of the third episode of "Sword Art Online" once again broke the historical record, with 200,000 copies sold in 24 hours, one million copies sold a week later, and 2.5 million copies sold a month later.
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This is the potential of the domestic market. The country has a large population. As long as the price is right, buying genuine copies is not much more expensive than pirated copies. Most people are still willing to support genuine copies, and the greatest value of genuine copies is their collection value, which is something that pirated copies do not have.
Genuine books may be worth double or even more than ten times in ten or twenty years, but pirated books will only depreciate in value if bought, and the final fate will be to be bought by scrap collectors.
Therefore, under Ma Xiaolong's instruction, the publishing house deliberately promoted the collection value of genuine books.
Everyone wants to take advantage, and it only depends on whether you can market it. Under the collection value marketing of the publishing house, not only the third episode, but also the first and second episodes of "Sword Art Online" and even the three series of "Legend of Sword and Fairy" are all available.
A wave of sales peaks ushered in, which made publishers and bookstore owners very happy. At the same time, they also found the password to wealth - promoting the collection value of genuine books.
The situation at home is the same, but abroad is different.
Because foreign countries vigorously protect genuine copies, the total number of sales abroad is higher than that in China. Especially "Sword Art Online" has been successfully launched in Europe and the United States. European and American readers saw such exquisite, technological, and game-like manga, and were instantly captured by it and became loyal fans.
Not only do they buy them for themselves, appreciate and collect them, they even continue to share them with their friends.
Even if there is no publicity for a good work, it can shine through word-of-mouth alone. What's more, European and American booksellers discovered that the sales volume of "Sword Art Online" was amazing, so they immediately increased their publicity and printing efforts. In just one month, the sales volume ranked first in every country.
It ranks first on the country's best-selling list, and is also in the top three.
As time goes by, sales are becoming more and more explosive. The reason is very simple. No matter whether it is domestic or foreign, there is only one comic book that describes the story of online games, and there is no other semicolon.
Relying on the first-mover advantage, "Sword Art Online" crazily gained fans and triggered a sword craze, which in turn triggered reports from foreign mainstream media.
After that, some reporters in China wanted to interview Ma Xiaolong and took the initiative to find the publishing house.
At noon that day, not long after Ma Xiaolong returned home, he received a call from the editor-in-chief of the publishing house: "Teacher Xiaolong, a reporter from a famous foreign media wants to interview you. Are you interested?"
"No." Ma Xiaolong refused so simply that the editor-in-chief was completely confused.
"No, Teacher Xiaolong, this is a very well-known reporter from a large media in the world. If you are interviewed, it will definitely greatly improve your international reputation."
"Haha..." Ma Xiaolong smiled and said, "If I want to become famous, why should I wait until now?"
"..." The editor-in-chief had nothing to say.
"Please decline it for me! If the media interviews me in the future, I will reject it." He paused and said, "Don't reveal my contact information. If a reporter finds my home, our cooperation will end."
The editor-in-chief felt nervous and quickly promised: "Teacher Xiaolong, don't worry, we will definitely not leak your personal information. If there is a problem, you can ask me."
Ma Xiaolong said with a smile: "I have terminated the cooperation, what else can I ask? The editor-in-chief was joking."
The editor-in-chief became even more nervous, said a few nice words, hung up the phone, and reported to his superiors.
Soon, when foreign reporters learned that Ma Xiaolong was unwilling to be interviewed or reveal his personal identity, they were simply incomprehensible: "Why?"
"no reason!"
The brain circuits of foreigners are of course different from those of Chinese people. In short, in order to bind Ma Xiaolong as a cash cow for a long time, the editor-in-chief of the publishing house has issued a death order. No one is allowed to reveal the identity of Teacher Xiaolong in real life, otherwise you cannot afford the consequences.
Having said that, in this era of worshiping foreigners and favoring foreigners, it is not very satisfying to be able to ruthlessly refuse the request of a superior foreign master.
Humph! Foreigners are no different from us. They have the same head and mouth, but they are no more different than us. Why are you the uncle? This is China, not a place to serve the uncle.
Seeing the foreign reporter angrily leaving the publishing house, the editor-in-chief put his hands on his hips for a moment, feeling very proud of himself.
…
On Saturday, Ma Xiaolong and Zhu Sha went to the cinema to watch a movie, Xingye's "Westward Journey to the West: Moonlight Box".
Although this movie was released in Hong Kong last year, it failed miserably at the box office and even the cost was not recovered. It is said that the domestic box office was also very dismal.
Ma Xiaolong thinks it's a problem with the movie-watching community. When he was in the first grade of junior high school in his previous life, all his classmates went to see this movie. There was even a male classmate who skipped the evening self-study and skipped class to go to the cinema to watch a movie. As a result, he was discovered by the class teacher who was patrolling late at night. When he came to school the next day, he didn't attend class and went home to write an examination.
Later, after domestic college students watched it, they regarded the Westward Journey series as a classic among classics, and it became very popular in the mainland. I don’t know how many pirated CDs were sold.
It can be seen that the failure of Westward Journey at the box office was entirely due to the misconceptions of the moviegoers at the time. Instead, it was students who saved the movie.
However, in this small town, almost every venue for "Moonlight Box" was sold out, and the people who came to watch the movie were all young people, who had out-of-the-box thinking and could completely keep up with the rhythm.
In the cinema, bursts of laughter erupted every few dozen seconds, and the intensity was even higher than other comedy movies. Zhu Sha also burst out laughing. When the movie was over, Zhu Sha wiped her tears and said, "Help me, help me. I can’t stop laughing.”
Ma Xiaolong pulled her up and said with a smile: "Master Xing's movie is still good, and the part where Uncle Da dances hula is also amazing."
Thinking of that scene, Zhu Sha chuckled and couldn't stand up again.
After walking out of the cinema, the two of them walked home in a hurry.
Now Victory Street and Xinhua Street are getting more and more dilapidated, and demolition is not far away. The cinema will also be closed within a few years. For a long time from then on, residents living nearby can only watch movies with the help of VCDs, DVDs or computers at home. .
Going to the cinema to watch a movie as a form of entertainment will become a luxury in the next twenty years.
"It's pretty much what you expected." Zhusha looked at the low and dilapidated bungalows on both sides of the road and said, "It's not far from demolition here."
"Your house is coming soon, and mine will probably take another ten years or so." Ma Xiaolong warned: "Remember to ask for the house during the demolition, and don't ask for money."
Zhusha didn't ask why, and said with a smile: "I don't understand, you can help me give advice when the time comes!"
"I'll take care of it." Ma Xiaolong said with a smile: "We don't want a building, we want a two-story building with a courtyard and a few more shops. We can live in the house ourselves and rent out the shops. From now on, we can just rely on collecting rent every month." It will allow you to live a nourishing life like a housewife."
"Then you are the charterer." Zhu Sha smiled.
"I like being a charterer best."
…
I spent the day playing with Zhu Sha on Saturday, and continued typing on the keyboard on Sunday.
In school on Monday, the topics discussed by the students in the class were all about Star Wars movies.
Dai Yu's deskmate pulled up a trouser leg, revealing his shriveled calf, standing coquettishly: "It's been a long night with no intention of sleeping. I thought I was the only one who couldn't sleep, but it turns out that you, Miss Jingjing, can't sleep either!"
Dai Yu: "..."
The most embarrassing thing in life is when your deskmate makes fun of you and you don't understand it at all.
In order to ease the embarrassment, Dai Yu stood up and went to find Ma Xiaolong and Zhu Sha: "Have you seen the movie the classmates mentioned?"
"I watched it!" Zhu Sha stopped writing and said with a smile: "I went to the cinema with Xiaolong to watch it just the day before yesterday. Sister Lin hasn't seen it yet! Let me tell you, the movie is very funny. It didn't make me laugh to death..."
Originally, Dai Yu didn't care whether there were any topics of conversation with his classmates. Aren't students' top priority? Why should we discuss things that have nothing to do with learning in school?
But since having these two friends, her thoughts have changed. At least... when chatting with her friends, she hopes to be able to speak meaningfully.
After hearing about Cinnabar's movie-watching experience, she felt that she needed to go to the cinema to watch the movie.