Chapter 13 of 100

Chapter 13

16 min read3,908 words

【ps: New book promotion, four updates a day, this is the first update, don't miss it as you pass by~!~!】

After serving as the deputy manager of Wumei Bookstore for two weeks, Zhang Xiao returned Tong Yan's deposit and the last borrowed book, "In Search of the Supernatural." He mentioned that he had nagged his father for a long time, and his father finally bought him a laptop. He even accidentally revealed the model and price of the laptop.

Liu Ming and Tong Yan both envied him, never expecting that this kid's family was so wealthy. A middle school student could persuade his father to spend ten thousand yuan, indeed quite extravagant. From now on, this kid could read books online and even become a high-V paying reader.

By the third week of summer vacation, Tong Yan had already gotten used to his life at Wumei Bookstore. When Liu Ming played on the computer, Tong Yan would read the physical books on the shelves. As soon as Liu Ming's hand left the mouse, Tong Yan would take over.

During these days, Tong Yan had read a wide variety of books, and his reading speed kept increasing. The total number of words he read was nearly ten million, almost matching the total amount he had read in the previous ten years.

The novels he read included: "The Legend of a Little Soldier," "A Transcendent Journey," "Mad God," "Son of Light," "In Search of the Supernatural," "Heavenly Peng's Adventures," "Apprentice Mage," and "I Am a Rogue." He didn't finish "The Legend of a Little Soldier" because the author stopped updating it online. He also read parts of some novels serialized on Qidian.

Because Tong Yan had a strange memory of the name Tang Jia San Shao, he read two of his novels and even followed his new book "The Kind Death God" on Qidian, which he found very appealing.

One downside of reading on Qidian was that he could only read part of most books for free. To read further, he had to pay. So when he encountered this situation, he usually moved to other websites where he could read for free, which was much better.

One day, while looking for books on Qidian, Tong Yan noticed that the ranking of a book on the website could easily indicate its quality, greatly facilitating his search for good books. Especially the "VIP Works Monthly Voting" list (i.e., the monthly ticket list), the books at the top were almost all excellent. For example, "Evil Wind" by Xuehong was very good (fifth on the list), and "Profanity" (third on the list), which had been the top-ranked book for several consecutive months, was also excellent. As for "Official Field Romance," which was ranked first, Tong Yan, at his age, had little interest in books about the political arena.

In May, Qidian held a "Qidian's 3rd Anniversary—2005 Annual Favorite Qidian VIP Author Selection" event, which was essentially a monthly ticket competition. Xuehong ranked first, and Yan Yu Nan, the author of "Profanity," ranked second. The top ten authors each received a 1500 yuan LCD display and a certificate. The second prize was a 700 yuan MP3 player for 15 people, and the third prize was a 150 yuan computer webcam for 20 people. Tong Yan was very envious when he saw this.

Today, when Tong Yan returned to the homepage, he noticed a new announcement in the announcement area. He usually ignored this section, but today, he clicked on the announcement about the "Eight Major Professional Authors" out of curiosity.

On Qidian, there were many full-time online authors, including Tang Jia San Shao, Xuan Yu, the author of "The Legend of a Little Soldier," and Yan Yu Nan, the author of "Profanity," but none of them were among the eight. The authors listed as the eight major professionals were likely even stronger, at least not weaker than those he knew.

Tong Yan looked at the list. He had read works by Xuehong (note: he was previously known as ricewhu) and Liulang de Hama. The others, such as Bi Luo Huang Quan, Fei Ya, Zhou Xingwen, the Last Ranger, Yun Tiankong, and Kai Xin, were unfamiliar to him. The announcement listed their representative works, which he could read when he had time.

At the moment, Tong Yan didn't have time because he was browsing through the announcements, including some expired ones. He began to take an interest in the core aspects of the online literature industry.

In July, besides the announcement about the "Eight Major Professional Authors," there were two other announcements.

One was the "3rd Anniversary Celebration—New VIP Membership Measures, No Membership Fee!" announcement. The gist was that during this period, readers didn't need to pay a membership fee. They only needed to recharge 20 yuan to become a basic VIP member, paying 3 cents per thousand words. Recharging 50 yuan made them a senior VIP member, paying 2 cents per thousand words. Zhang Xiao had become a senior VIP member during this promotion.

After reading books on Qidian for so many days, Tong Yan had some understanding of the website's profit model. All good books required payment after a certain number of words, and the announcement specified the收费标准, which was a few cents per thousand words.

A few cents per thousand words didn't seem like much, but considering he had read nearly ten million words in the past few days, that would be a few thousand cents, or a few hundred yuan. Tong Yan immediately blocked out this announcement. Just over two hundred yuan in half a month, that would mean his entire meal allowance for a month! He couldn't afford it! At this point, Tong Yan was still a reader.

The other announcement in July mentioned that the total manuscript fees paid out in June were 1 million RMB.

This number was quite shocking to the 16-year-old Tong Yan. However, considering it was distributed among hundreds or even thousands of authors, the amount per person was likely not much. He felt it might not be as profitable as his parents' bun business.

Looking further back, an announcement in June mentioned the "Million Annual Salary" plan, which aimed to help online authors earn more, with annual incomes exceeding one million RMB. In July, a total of 1 million RMB was paid out, and in June, there was a dream of paying one million RMB to a single author. Was this possible? Was this just a big boast?

However, an announcement in April made him think it wasn't impossible. The announcement stated that by April 2005, nearly 20 authors on Qidian had monthly incomes exceeding 10,000 RMB, with an average manuscript fee of 30 yuan per thousand words, and the highest fee exceeding 180 yuan per thousand words. If the highest fee was 180 yuan per thousand words, and the author wrote enough, an annual income of one million RMB seemed feasible, even without considering physical book sales.

Even if the "nearly 20" was exaggerated and only 11 authors had monthly incomes exceeding 10,000 RMB, this was still much higher than Tong Yan had imagined, even higher than the income of most college graduates. Coupled with the dream of an annual income of one million RMB, Tong Yan suddenly had a bold idea. He flipped back to the announcement about the "Eight Major Professional Authors," pointed at the names of authors like Xuehong and Liulang de Hama, and said to his cousin Liu Ming, "I can take their place," borrowing a phrase from the Chu Overlord to exude a sense of dominance.

Liu Ming glanced at the screen and patted Tong Yan's head, "Don't talk nonsense, do you think you can write a novel just because you can write an essay?"

Pouting, Tong Yan said, "I'm serious. I think their writing is just okay. Besides, which novelist didn't start by writing essays? As the ancients said, if you write essays well, you can write novels well. Plus, I've read so many books, from the Four Great Classical Novels, Jin Yong's martial arts novels, and Qiong Yao's romance novels, to these recent online fantasy and cultivation novels. I can write a novel by imitating them. Besides, I've written novels before. In junior high, I wrote a martial arts novel, and my classmates all said it was good."

"Blowing hot air, aren't you?" Liu Ming sneered. He had always struggled with Chinese, and he had a natural admiration for those who worked with words. He thought anyone who could make money by writing was extraordinary, and his cousin, whom he had known since childhood, couldn't possibly be one of them. Neither the Tong family nor the Liu family had any writers in the past five generations, so it wasn't scientific.

Despite his cousin's lack of trust, Tong Yan was determined to start his novel-writing journey. He felt that he was destined to write, as if a voice was whispering in his ear: "Kid, you are destined to become the king of online literature!"

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