Chapter 9 Signing a contract with Sprout

This year's National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival are still connected, and the total holiday is seven days.

For this short holiday, Liu Zhou didn't plan to go anywhere, but stayed at home.

In his previous life, Liu Zhou's life was rather boring and slow, so whenever he had some free time he would go out to see the world and he visited almost all the famous attractions at home and abroad.

Later, when I saw my parents retire and grow older, I went out less and less, and preferred to stay at home with my family.

But now Liu Zhou's parents are not the kind old people who are retired at home in future generations, but a middle-aged couple who are still in their prime and have ambitions for careers.

So when Liu Zhou came home on the first day, his parents were very happy. They were still nice on the second day, but their attitude started to cool on the third day. In the end, Liu Zhou became someone that everyone hated.

Fortunately, Liu Zhou was still young at that time, otherwise, with the pressure of marriage and blind dates arranged, Liu Zhou would feel like he would go crazy.

After eating his mother's cooking for a week, Liu Zhou returned to school full of energy.

As soon as Liu Zhou arrived at school, someone from the message office came to inform him that there was a letter for him.

Liu Zhou guessed that it should be a reply from Shanghai's "Mengya" magazine, and took the letter back with a little expectation.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be true.

Liu Zhou couldn't help but smile happily and opened the letter.

There wasn't much content in the letter. It mainly said that Liu Zhou's work "Twinkle Twinkle Star" was well written and the magazine was going to publish it. Then he hoped that Liu Zhou could go to Shanghai to discuss the contract in detail, and he was considerate enough to reimburse the round-trip fare.

If you don't have time, I hope we can communicate over the phone.

It is impossible to go to the Magic City, as classes will start tomorrow.

Liu Zhou looked at the time and it was not yet time to get off work, so he immediately went outside the school and dialed the number on the letter.

"Hello, this is the Sprout magazine."

"Hello, are you editor Qu He? I'm Liu Zhou."

When Liu Zhou sent the manuscript, he did not write a pen name in the author column, but directly used his own name.

When the other party heard Liu Zhou's reply, his tone immediately became enthusiastic.

"Hello Liu Zhou, I have been waiting for your call for three days."

"The school is on holiday these days, so I went home."

"I see. Do you have time to come to the Magic City?"

"Maybe I don't have time. If there's anything, I think we can communicate over the phone."

"No problem. We just have a few questions to confirm with you."

"You said."

"Are you sure that this novel is 100% your original work?"

"Yes."

Liu Zhou did not feel offended by this question. He knew that this was the normal procedure at the magazine and would be included in the contract later.

"How many words do you plan to write for this novel?"

"About 180,000 words, and I still have more than 30,000 words in reserve."

After briefly discussing a few issues, we came to the topic that both parties cared about the most: the manuscript fee!

At this time, there are two main ways to pay for manuscripts. One is to charge by word count, and the other is to calculate by royalties.

In the past, royalties were paid according to the first method. We have to thank Wang Shuo for paving the way for the second method for the majority of writers.

Because Liu Zhou's novel is a long novel, the magazine will first serialize it in "Nenzha", and if the response is good, it will be published as a single volume.

Therefore, if there is an opportunity to publish a single volume, Liu Zhou can get two parts of the money.

There is nothing much to discuss about the serialized manuscript fees. For new authors, the uniform fee is 50 yuan per thousand words.

The most important thing is the royalties from the single volume.

Although the magazine is not sure whether it will publish a single volume, they will not leave such an obvious loophole, so they will also determine the payment method for the single volume in advance.

For single-volume books, Liu Zhou of course chose the royalty method.

Most authors receive a royalty rate of between 5 and 10 percent, but a few can get higher. I heard that the most famous ones can get 15 percent.

But forget about Liu Zhou, as he is not likely to bet with you on any tiered royalties agreement.

He was still an unknown newcomer, and had to rely on "Mengya" magazine for promotion, so there was not much room for negotiation on royalties.

Editor Qu He gave the figure of six percent.

The royalty rate was not high, but Liu Zhou had no objection.

After all the discussions were completed, editor Qu He said:

"If there is no problem, I will send the contract to you in the next two days. Please check it."

"Okay, but I want to ask, when will my novel start to be serialized?" "If nothing goes wrong, it will be published in the second half of this month."

When "Nenzha" magazine was first established, it was a bimonthly magazine. Later in the 1960s, due to the tight supply of paper, it was changed to a monthly magazine. Later, it was suspended for a period of time.

After the resumption of publication, it is still a monthly magazine, and it just so happens that it has started to be published as a biweekly magazine again starting this year.

Liu Zhou didn't expect that his novel would be serialized in a magazine so soon. Large magazines like theirs would usually confirm the manuscripts one or two months in advance.

But this is of course a good thing for Liu Zhou, as it shows that the other party values ​​his novel very much, and he can also get the royalties earlier.

"Then I'll have an idea of ​​how many words you guys should publish in each issue."

"Each issue is about 5,000 words, and about 10,000 words are published per month. If all the words are serialized, the novel you mentioned has 180,000 words, and it will take 18 months to serialize."

Editor Qu He's words were beyond Liu Zhou's expectations. He didn't expect the series to be serialized for so long, which somewhat disrupted his plans.

In his previous life, he was just a magazine reader and never paid attention to how long a novel would be serialized.

If this happened in an online article, the author would be criticized by readers!

You update a novel of 180,000 words in 18 months? Do you think readers will indulge you?

But later on, the author seems to have proved that readers will really spoil you!
"Does it have to be serialized for that long? Can the number of words in each issue be a little longer?"

This was the first time that the author asked for more updates, but the editor Qu He still patiently replied:
"That may not be possible for now. Many of the manuscripts have already been finalized, but magazines often don't serialize the entire book. Usually, they end the serialization after half or more of the content is published, and then release a separate volume depending on the situation."

Liu Zhou understood a little bit. If the serialization received good response, it would be published as a single volume. If the feedback was not good, it might be withdrawn.

Editor Qu He saw that Liu Zhou had fallen silent, and continued:

"From my experience, your novel is very attractive. Several of our editors think it is good and it is likely to be published."

He didn't say anything for sure, although he did think the novel was good, but no one could predict the outcome of book publishing.

Liu Zhou didn't care too much about this. He believed in the quality of his novel and the other party's professionalism. He just suddenly realized that he would have to wait for a while to get the money.

"Then I'm fine."

After hanging up the phone, Liu Zhou also breathed a sigh of relief.

Although the result was a little different from what I expected, at least the first step towards making money has been taken.

There are many things that you really have to experience yourself to understand, and it turns out there are so many industry rules.

Now I don’t have to worry too much about my novel. I just need to write a little bit every day according to the serialization speed there. I have plenty of time.

The only thing I need to worry about now is learning directing skills.

Before the holiday, Liu Zhou had already obtained the class schedule for the directing department at Beijing Film Academy, which was a bit conflicting with the class schedule of his own major courses, but there was no way. He had to escape. As long as he didn't fail the subsequent exams, the head teacher should be able to help him.

On the other side, in an editorial office of the Modou "Mengya" magazine,
Editor Qu He also breathed a sigh of relief after hanging up the phone.

He has been working at Mengya for ten years and can be considered an old editor in the magazine.

Founded in July 1956, Mengya Magazine is the first original literary magazine for young people in the mainland.

After going through many ups and downs, the magazine started again in the 1980s. Qu He watched the magazine grow gradually.

This year, as "Mengya" developed better and better, the management decided to revise the version.

Not only did he change the magazine into a bimonthly, but he also opened up multiple columns in an attempt to carve out a larger territory in the field of youth and juvenile literature.

As an old staff in the magazine, Qu He was also entrusted with the important task of selecting youth literature.

To this end, the magazine specially recruited a group of young people, and Qu He also managed a five-person editorial team.

Although the magazine has been soliciting manuscripts for "Mengya" magazine and has received some manuscripts, Qu He feels that they are just average.

In addition, few people write novels of this type, so the youth literature column has been lukewarm for more than half a year now, and is even stagnant.

This made Qu He feel very angry.

He even used his connections to ask some familiar authors to write for him, but was either rejected or they agreed verbally but never submitted their manuscripts. He knew this was also a disguised form of rejection.

It was not until Qu He read Liu Zhou's book "Twinkle Twinkle Star" that his anger subsided.

Although this novel is only 50,000 words long, one can still see the excellent writing style and great storytelling ability. In addition, it also has some science fiction elements, which makes people feel like their minds are opened.

This made him fall in love with the novel at first sight.

So he immediately wrote a reply to the author according to the address. He saw that the author was actually a literature major at the Central Academy of Drama, which gave him more confidence.

During the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, he only had two days off, namely National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival. During these days, he had been waiting for Liu Zhou's call back.

Today he finally received a call from the other party. He was worried that the novel would be snatched away by other magazines.

Fortunately, everything went smoothly.

Qu He personally prepared the contract and had someone send it to the capital, then he personally proofread the manuscript and went to the editor-in-chief's office.

(End of this chapter)