Chapter 297 Can't Wait

Chapter 297 Can't Wait

Chapter 297 Can't Wait

"President Yuan, you shouldn't have let Gu Lu go." Mr. Lu from Century Publishing called Yuan Mingjie. The two were fishing buddies in private. He Qiang, Yuan Mingjie, and Lu Da are known as the Three Musketeers of Night Fishing!

Let go? Did Gu Lu change jobs to Shanghai People's Publishing House? Yuan Mingjie held back his words, listening carefully, his hands moving quickly.

“Although we do need to cut costs, Gu Lu has great potential,” said Lu. “It would be a loss for us to give it to the New Youth Publishing House.”

While on the phone, Yuan Mingjie searched on his computer and found a lot of information.

Wang Ning's Pen: [Congratulations to our big family @New Youth Publishing House for joining a writer @Gu Lu, Gu Lu is a famous science fiction writer, fairy tale writer, and essay writer. Please look forward to his new work "Flowers for Algernon".]
There were also many northern print media including Ice City Daily, New Culture Daily and Liaoshen Evening News reporting on the event, with the most prominent one being Youth Daily.

"Although the royalty rate of 18% is a bit exaggerated, it can be given to an extraordinary genius like Gu Lu. We can't lose the big picture for the small!" President Lu's last four words were a bit harsh.

It turned out that they were poached with extremely high royalty rates, perhaps with the instigation of President Jian, but Yuan Mingjie knew that he could not sue.

"Mr. Lu has thought it through." Friends are friends, but you can't bring any friendship into work, Yuan Mingjie knows it clearly.

Admit your mistake first, then Yuan Mingjie will talk about the matter, "But Mr. Lu, I have a different opinion."

"Ok?"

Yuan Mingjie said, "In the past few days since I took over the publishing house, I have coordinated the writers of the publishing house. The current royalties are controlled at 16%. Breaking the ceiling for a single writer is not conducive to our overall development."

What is overall development? To increase the net profit of the publishing house.

"Gu Lu's previous work, Flatland, was listed as a recommended extracurricular book for junior high school students, but its sales in half a year were less than one million copies," Yuan Mingjie analyzed. "Even if the new work is good enough to replicate the level of Flatland, it is not enough to disrupt our grand plan."

Indeed, Flatland can be said to be a groundbreaking work in the field of popular science. Can the new work still reach the sky?
As the CEO of the parent company, Mr. Lu wants more tangible results than producing good works.

"Since you have weighed the pros and cons, let's do as you say. Lao Yuan, I'm confident that I'll leave the Children's Literature and Art Publishing House to you." After being convinced, Mr. Lu left this sentence and hung up the phone.

Don't worry, Yuan Mingjie doesn't take this seriously at all. If he was really worried, he wouldn't have made this call.

Putting the mobile phone aside, he is using iPhone 5. In a few months, 5s and 5c will be released, and the name of kidney machine will be mentioned again.

Yuan Mingjie felt that he was not that timid, so he logged into the official Weibo account of the publishing house.

Juvenile and Children's Publishing House: [The Little Prince, Ice Cake, and Flatland are all very wonderful works. @咕噜大王_Teacher Gu Lu has worked closely with us before. I also wish Teacher Gu Lu a brilliant future in his creative career.]
Remember this reply, it will become a powerful boomerang!
Currently, neither companies nor publishing houses have positions specifically for managing Internet platforms, and many official units have not even opened one at all.

The account number and password are mostly among the leadership, so Yuan Mingjie naturally knew them after the handover.

Modern Literature, Handsome Guy: [Well, although I like Hyouka very much, isn’t it a bit inappropriate to put Hyouka between these two works?]
Starry Son: [Hyouka: Do you know? The Little Prince, Flatland, and I are killing it in the domestic book market!]
Prajna85200: [I think it is normal to change the publisher, because Gu Lu is gradually moving away from being a fairy tale writer. Look at his science fiction short stories and his works serialized in People's Literature.]
Wait for the message.

Looking at the reactions of netizens, there were no negative comments, so Yuan Mingjie didn't care anymore.

Yuan Mingjie is well aware that physical publishing is now outdated and it is no longer the era where a book can sell three or four million copies.

The publishing industry is aging, but there are always young writers, such as Gu Lu.

What was Gu Lu’s first impression of West Lake?
Willow trees and a calm lake.

The bridge is not broken and there are so many people.

Gu Lu only arrived in this city yesterday evening, so he didn't have time to visit the seniors in the writers' group that night.

The team leaders are Wang Xiacheng and Zhang Zhilu, who are respectively the directors of the Writers Association's Reportage Committee and the latter is the deputy director of the Children's Literature Committee.

"Teacher Wang, Teacher Zhang, Teacher Dong, Teacher Shan..." Gu Lu greeted them one by one.

The reason why their attitude is so good is not because these people are leaders of the Writers Association.

The main reason is that many works of this group of people constitute his childhood worldview. For example, the "Antelope Woodcarving" was a gift given to a friend, and his parents asked him to take it back. This feeling is suffocating.

I don’t know what the author of this text wanted to express, but after reading it, Gu Lu’s only reaction was “You can’t give away things that you don’t have the final say over.”

A group of people gathered on Baidi Bridge, which was not noticeable because there were many groups of tourists nearby.

The atmosphere was pretty good until the team leader started talking.

"Don't be proud of yourself just because you have achieved something," Wang Xiacheng said. "A writer can have a sense of pride, but not arrogance."

Hmm? Gu Lu was a little confused. He seemed to have a good attitude.

"Indeed, if a writer is arrogant, what he writes will not be down-to-earth." Gu Lu said, "Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Wang."

Seeing that Gu Lu's attitude was rather humble, Wang Xiacheng's stern face relaxed a little.

"You are still young, and you indeed have a lot to learn from your predecessors," said Wang Xiacheng.

Deputy team leader Zhang Zhilu next to him was not surprised. Wang Xiacheng, who was in his fifties, had this kind of personality. He was a bully and fearful person, so he was very flattering to his leaders. He would definitely teach a lesson to people who were not as good as him in status.

Zhang Zhilu looked down on this kind of people, and even wondered how such sharp reportage as "Clear River Water, Dirty Tears" and "Guan Gong at the Hospital Gate" could be written by someone like Wang Xiacheng.

Reportage is a relatively special type of fiction, which can be simply understood as "novelized news."

If we have to put it simply, visiting West Lake is all about eating, drinking, walking and stopping.

There are more than a dozen writers along the way, and they also form a small circle.

Writers who are more inclined to serious literature chat together, such as Wang Xiacheng, Alai and others. Those who are more inclined to children's literature are in a group. There is no special separation, it just formed naturally.

After all, it’s hard for a player who plays Pesticide to have a conversation with a player who starts the game Genshin Impact. It’s also hard for an official to have a conversation with a person who carries cement.

"Uncle Dong, I grew up watching your show!" Gu Lu only called him uncle after he became familiar with him.

The host Dong Hao is just older than Gu Lu remembered. "Big Windmill" and "Open Sesame" are his childhood memories.

"Hahaha, come to think of it, my granddaughter also grew up reading your novels." Dong Hao said, "She loves reading your novel The Little Prince the most."

Gu Lu asked curiously, "How old is Uncle Dong's granddaughter?"

"Four years old." Dong Hao responded.

"Then I understand, because I have a lot of pictures of "The Little Prince", right?" said Gu Lu.

"The work is well written and the pictures are good," Dong Hao said. "When my granddaughter grows up, she will call you uncle and say, 'Uncle Gu, I grew up reading your novels.'"

Who knows, there really might be such an opportunity.

Everyone was chatting happily.

When talking about elementary school textbooks, Zhang Zhilu accepted another person, "You should be familiar with the textbooks written by Teacher Shan, Xiao Gu."

This writer is one of the older writers in the team, and his name seems to be Shan Yuanfu. Gu Lu has no impression of him at all, could it be that the versions are different?

"Lao Dan is the editor of Moonlight Sonata." Zhang Zhilu said. "The editor of Moonlight Sonata? Isn't the author of Moonlight Sonata Beethoven?" Gu Lu was curious at the time.

Gu Lu was quite impressed by the text, which described how Beethoven composed the Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor.

When the teacher was teaching, he kept saying that the author was Beethoven. Gu Lu was curious at the time, because Beethoven was quite narcissistic and even wrote about the process of his own creation.

Even if I searched Baidu later, the answer given by the encyclopedia was still that the author of the text was Beethoven.

"Not really." Shan Yuanfu waved his hand. "The real translators of this article are Mr. Ye Shengtao and Mr. Feng Zikai. I just made some minor modifications to the edges."

"Translator?" Gu Lu grasped the key words.

"The original text is a collection of essays by Japanese musician Naoo Tanabe. I used to be an editor in the Chinese language editing department. At that time, the country believed that children should be exposed to music, so this article was selected from the translated works of Mr. Ye Shengtao and Mr. Feng Zikai," explained Shan Yuanfu.

It is complicated enough, no wonder the author list was given directly to Beethoven.

After all, if you want to mark the translator, you must mark the original author. Maybe the language editing department doesn't like it and simply doesn't mark it, or even omits the editor's name.

Gu Lu could only silently pick out a six.

“They are all the teachers in elementary school textbooks!” Gu Lu sighed.

"Teacher Zhang Zhilu is indeed a teacher, and I am just an editor. My main responsibility today is to record this event," said Shan Yuanfu.

Every activity of the Writers Association is accompanied by print media reporters and special internal records. After all, the funds are approved by the state, so you have to have an explanation for where the money was spent.

Walking around the West Lake, I waited until the sun reached the middle of the sky.

A group of people went to Louwailou for lunch.

Yes, “Beyond the mountains are green mountains, beyond the buildings are buildings, when will the singing and dancing in the West Lake stop?” This “fake” building was built based on this line of poetry.

Because this shop is definitely not the place that the poet Lin Sheng wanted to describe. But with the fame of the poem and the location, it is so bad that so many people line up...

We knew we had to queue up right away, and luckily we had booked seats for the Writers Association's event in advance.

I only realized how unpalatable it was afterwards.

"Let Xiao Gu go. Xiao Gu, go and pick up the bowl." Wang Xiacheng directed Gu Lu.

As the youngest person, it was okay for Gu Lu to run around. But since they could have called the waiter, they specifically called him, which made Gu Lu unhappy.

But I still got up to get it.

"Teacher Wang, you can just let the waiters take care of these things. We don't know where to put the dishes." said Zhang Zhilu.

"To achieve such great success at such a young age requires some hardship," Wang Xiacheng said. "Young people today are not as good as we were back then."

Then a table of people born in the 1960s began to share stories from the past.

From Zhang Zhilu's perspective, Wang Xiacheng clearly felt uncomfortable with Gu Lu being so successful at such a young age.

About two minutes later, Gu Lu came back with the dishes.

"There are too many guests and the waiters are a little short-handed. The kitchen is also short of food, so the food is served slowly." Gu Lu said as he sat down.

"Teacher Wang, Teacher Zhang, an elder from the publishing industry is coming tonight, so..." Gu Lu was about to say that he might miss the dinner.

But before he could finish his words, Wang Xiacheng interrupted him: "Elders in the publishing industry? They are all from the publishing industry, let's invite them to the dinner together."

"Isn't this bad?" Gu Lu felt that it was not a good idea to invite President Wang in this way.

"There's nothing wrong with it," Wang Xiacheng misunderstood and thought that what Gu Lu said was that it was not good to bring an unqualified person to make a living.

The key point is that he would rather interact with his peers in the "lower planes". Otherwise, who would he be showing off to?

It was such a happy decision.

"Xiao Gu, if it's really inconvenient, forget it." Zhang Zhilu said in a low voice.

"I have to ask to find out." Gu Lu said.

Gu Lu was helpless. He was the vice president of the New Youth Publishing House and the leader of the Heilongjiang Youth League. He didn't know what level of civil servant he was. Anyway, he didn't expect that he would be so anxious. He couldn't wait any longer and flew over to sign the contract.

It was originally agreed that the signing would take place after the West Lake Writers Tour.

There was nothing he could do. President Wang was being urged to do so by his immediate superior. Ever since he told the president that he wanted to sign Gu Lu, that guy had been calling him every few days to inquire about the progress.

Including the promotion on his Weibo account and the official Weibo account of New Youth Publishing House, they were all forced.

To be honest, President Wang didn't expect the president to be so anxious. He had never cared so much about the publishing house.

"We should write more works about current affairs or works that are helpful to society." Wang Xiacheng shared his creative philosophy.

As I listened to the sharing, the dishes were served one by one.

A table full of dishes, at least color and aroma are all there.

While eating, the topic of the conversation became more diverse, and Gu Lu asked teacher Zhang Zhilu for advice on creation.

“To see whether a writer has talent, just look at how he uses metaphors.”

Zhang Zhilu expressed this point of view.

simile?

Gu Lu concluded: "Writers always like this. They personify objects and describe people with objects."

As he finished speaking, a buzzing sound rang in his mind.

[A work with the qualities of a B-grade movie] [Readers will faint after reading it] [The most famous cult writer of the 21st century]

I didn't expect it to really trigger me. There is a difference between B-level movies and Category III movies. The former is more horror and bloody.

"Stephen King, there's no doubt about it, this wave is definitely Stephen King!"

This was Gu Lu’s first reaction when he saw the three labels.

Then there was a little hesitation. Although Stephen King's works are wonderful, can they make readers dizzy?
"There should be, but maybe I just haven't seen it. After all, who else besides Stephen King deserves this title?"

(End of this chapter)