Chapter 45: Chapter 42: Astonishing Pay Rate i
Translator: 549690339
At the end of the month, Silver Blue Books officially announced the five winners of this year’s Supernova Awards. Lin Yuan received the news from YangFeng, and saw “King of the Net” listed as the last winner.
“The book will be published tomorrow.”
YangFeng gave Lin Yuan a heads up: “But you shouldn’t be too concerned about the sales of the novel. After all, sports competition is a niche genre. Sales is not the only way to prove the quality of a work. Anyway, congratulations on officially becoming a novelist.”
Lin Yuan replied: “Thank you.”
YangFeng laughed: “I will hang up then. The company still has a publication meeting to attend. After the official publication of the novel tomorrow, we will send you several copies free of charge. Besides, you can also go to major bookstores to check it out. It will be officially on the shelves in all major bookstores in Qin Continent tomorrow.”
“Okay, goodbye.”
After hanging up, YangFeng put away his phone and entered the meeting room. At the moment, the editors in the room were discussing the Supernova results in a whisper: “1 wonder how the sales of this year’s Supernova would be. 1 have high expectations for the first one ‘Demon King of Another World’. The setting where the protagonist becomes a universally despised demon king after crossing into another world is quite unique and certainly interesting.”
“I am more optimistic about the second one.”
“The second place author Big Dragon is an old hand. He has been a novelist for a long time. He is just wearing a pseudonym to take the place of new authors. But his novel this time is indeed interesting, with the hero being summoned to another world by a princess.”
Everyone is having a lively discussion.
Some people are optimistic about the first, some are optimistic about the second, and others believe that the third and fourth are also good. The discussion about “King of the Net” is the least, because all the editors of Silver Blue Books know that the fifth place is forcibly included by the editor-in-chief in order to diversify the market’s subjects.
Everyone can understand this.
The homogenization of novel subjects on the market is indeed a bit severe, which is not conducive to the overall development of the novel circle. Therefore, starting this year, major publishing companies, including Silver Blue Books, have made efforts to promote new subjects in an attempt to subtly guide the market to diversify its creative directions.
After the Supernova award results were announced.
There was information about the winning works and surveys on reader expectations on the official website. Many invited old readers filled up the questionnaire. The result of the questionnaire showed that the highest reader expectations were for the top three winners of the Supernova Awards!
This was not surprising.
Because the top three were all about another world.
The “King of the Net” ranked last in terms of expectations. Readers seemed to be inherently uninterested in tennis. Even if the official website keeps emphasizing that this is a sports competition novel that can be understood even if you don’t know about tennis, it still couldn’t change the outcome of this questionnaire survey.
There were even people protesting on the official website!
This is a holding event every year after the Supernova results are announced. Some authors who think highly of themselves but were brutally rejected feel that the Supernova award judging is unfair. Especially this year, the inclusion of “King of the Net” has touched the nerves of many rejects.
“Why on earth?”
“There has never been a precedent for a hit in the sports competition genre in Qin Continent, let alone a novel about tennis. For Silver Blue Books to forcibly put such a work in fifth place to prevent the subjects from being monotonous is a real disappointment.”
The top four are all popular genres.
Naturally, the fifth one became the target.
But Silver Blue Books will not respond to these protests. In the eyes of the editorial department, even though “King of the Net” may be a bit niche in subject, the quality of the novel itself is absolutely not as unbearable as the outside world judges it to be.
“It’s a pity for He Mingxuan.”
An editor suddenly shook his head and said.
He Mingxuan is an established novelist. He submitted his work to the Supernova competition under a pseudonym this time. His work received good reviews. Many editors, after reading his work, proposed to make He Mingxuan’s work the fifth in this Supernova submission.
Unfortunately, he encountered “King of the Net”.
The chief editor’s reasoning convinced everyone: “Firstly, the market needs diversified guidance. Secondly, after all, He Mingxuan is an old man. Although every year there will be old people entering the competition under pseudonyms, 1 don’t think this is a good phenomenon. We should give more opportunities to new authors.”
Consequently, He Mingxuan was excluded.
An editor who was on good terms with He Mingxuan specifically comforted He Mingxuan: “If it wasn’t for diversifying market subjects, you should have ranked fifth this time. So, you weren’t eliminated because of incompetence. You were just a bit unlucky.”
Although He Mingxuan was the so-called sixth place in Supernova, he did not participate in some reject’s protests against “King of the Net”. Because when he first stepped into this industry, his works also faced similar protests. Therefore, he clearly understood what it felt like to be protested against by those who were eliminated, and he would never become the kind of person he used to despise.
The editor was right.
He also felt that he was a bit unlucky this time. After all, he encountered special circumstances. Moreover, he was not any new author. It was not honorable to snatch opportunities from new authors under a pseudonym. It was naturally inoffensive to eventually step aside for new authors.
“Maybe I’m not meant to write books.”
He Mingxuan was somewhat self-doubting. He debuted as a novelist five years ago. His novel sales even won a quarterly championship, but after that book ended, several of his books had flopped, to the point where there were only a few publishing houses willing to publish his works now.
This depressed He Mingxuan.
If it wasn’t for this, he wouldn’t have the nerve to participate in the Supernova, a prize for new authors. For every novelist, competing with new authors for opportunities is proof of their failure.
He Mingxuan had a restless sleep that night.
The next morning, He Mingxuan groggily walked into the nearest bookstore and unconsciously looked at the first row of bookshelves.
His works used to fill this shelf too.
But today, it was filled with works from the top five Supernova winners.
He, the sixth place, had no medal or honor.
There were many people inside the bookstore, mostly young readers, and they all came for this shelf—
As in previous years, readers were full of expectations for the winning works of Supernova.
However, making them pay for the books was not an easy task.
There were very few people who would buy a book directly. Most of them would pick up the book and flip through it first, find a quiet corner, and read a few tens of thousands of words first.
Only when they were sure that they liked the story, would the readers honestly pay for the book.
Watching this scene.”
He Mingxuan was reminded of a silly thing he did when he looked back.
When his novel was just published, he sat in a corner of the bookstore all day, not doing anything else, just observing the readers who were buying books.
Every time someone bought his, He Mingxuan’s, book, he would quietly feel a thrill of excitement and joy.
Today.
Entering the bookstore.
He Mingxuan subconsciously observed the scene again.
As expected, the first books everyone picked up were the bookstore’s heavy recommendation, which is the top three works that won the Supernova.
But to He Mingxuan’s surprise, the payment rate today was not high. Many people picked up the books and looked at them for a while before putting them back. It seemed that this year’s Supernova didn’t perform as well as previous years.
What surprised He Mingxuan was one book’s payment rate.
That book was none other than the sports novel “King of the Net” that made He Mingxuan the sixth place.
Indeed, very few readers picked up “King of the Net” to look through it. Compared to the top four, people who were interested in this novel were pitifully few.
But what contrasted sharply with this pitiful situation was—
Readers who picked up “King of the Net” for viewing basically all bought the book in the end!
For this reason, He Mingxuan deliberately counted.
Since entering the bookstore, the number of readers willing to pick up “King of the Net” to read was only eighteen people.
But to his surprise:
Those who read “King of the Net” and were willing to buy it were as many as fifteen people!
“This….”
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