At this rate, the consequences would be dire!
At the moment, while Zhongdian Chinese Network’s market share was not as big as Infinite Chinese Network, a huge website, it was ranked in the top three in the authors’ hearts because of its high share percentage and good benefits.
Once the website expanded, it would definitely continue to develop steadily. As long as the person-in-charge was not mentally challenged and did not create some retarded operations, it would be very difficult for the website to decline.
Pei Qian scrutinized Ma Yiqun closely, thinking that he was definitely not mentally challenged.
Since that was the case, Zhongdian Chinese Network’s development in the future would definitely be a high probability event.
He could not let this continue. He had to do something!
Pei Qian was also a reader of web novels and knew a thing or two about online literature.
He pondered for a moment and quickly found a good entry point.
“At the moment, our website is mostly using royalty contracts, right?”
Ma Yiqun did not know why Boss Pei was asking about this. He nodded. “That’s right, Boss Pei. Ever since our website was established, you have been emphasizing that we should prioritize royalty contracts over fixed-rate contracts.”
Pei Qian realized that he had indeed decided on this previously after some thought.
That was because the entire website did not have much traffic when Zhongdian Chinese Network was first established.
Pei Qian was worried that Ma Yiqun would use the fixed-rate contracts to poach famous authors from other stations at high prices to bring popularity and traffic to Zhongdian Chinese Network. Thus, he repeatedly reiterated prioritizing royalty contracts over fixed-rate contracts.
Authors would not get much money in royalty contracts when there were not many readers. The authors would not join if they did not earn money from writing books here.
However, times had changed.
Once Zhongdian Chinese Network had a firm footing, royalty contracts had definitely become a form of incentive for the authors. That was because the better the novel was written, the more subscriptions they received, and the more royalty they would earn. Thus, the authors would work hard to polish the plot and contribute better works to the readers.
Pei Qian took a sip of his tea and said, “We have to change this principle. In the future, we will have both royalty contracts and fixed-rate contracts. However, we will only pay fixed-rates for our own authors’ works!”
Ma Yiqun was stunned. “Only pay fixed-rates for the works of our own authors?”
Logically speaking, since they were going for fixed-rate contracts, a very important use would be to poach people from other websites.
That was because the outstanding authors were not sure if they could maintain their current income by going to other websites. They were worried that they would not be able to adapt to the environment and would be cautious when they were poached.
Therefore, it was relatively easier to poach people using fixed-rate contracts.
As for their own author’s works, there was really no point in giving them fixed rates.
That was because there was no limit in the fixed-rates. The website had to ensure that it would not incur losses.
The website would estimate the royalties that authors could receive from writing subscriptions. Then, they would give a fixed-rate contract that was slightly higher than the royalties.
If the content written by the author was lower than the value of the subscriptions, the website would lose money. If the content written by the author was higher than the value of the subscriptions, the author would lose money.
However, for the authors at this website, if they were to write subscriptions that earned a lot and felt that they could improve further, they would definitely not sign the fixed-rate contract because it would destroy their fighting spirit. On the other hand, some authors who did not earn much from subscriptions and did not have good abilities. Signing the fixed-rate contract would not motivate them to work harder. Instead, it would objectively encourage them to wait for death.
Thus, it was easier to use fixed-rate contracts when poaching people. However, if they were to use it on their own people, the website and the author might lose out.
That was why Ma Yiqun was so confused by Boss Pei’s strategy.
Pei Qian looked at Ma Yiqun’s confused expression and smiled without saying anything.
Confused?
That’s right!
I am trying to wear down the morale of the authors!
Many authors knew that it would be very easy for people to become useless if they were on fixed-rate contracts.
That was because fixed-rate contracts were usually based on word count. The quality of the works would not affect the authors’ income. The website would pay according to word count no matter what rubbish the authors wrote, as long as it was not in violation of the contract.
To the authors, if they wrote well and exceeded the purchase price, the money they earned would not change. It would be equivalent to losing money. Thus, they would lack the motivation to write well.
Of course, in order to avoid these problems, many websites added many supplementary terms to the fixed-rate contracts. For example, when the situation was not good, the editor had the right to request the author to make amendments or finish the book in advance. When the book’s popularity reached a certain height, the author could make requests to the website to change from fixed-rate contract to royalty contract. Or he could just sign a “Minimum Guarantee”. That was to go with a fixed-rate contract when the earnings did not exceed a certain value. If it was exceeded they would convert to a royalty contract.
However, Pei Qian obviously did not intend to use this method.
Chapter 872 - Web Novelists’ Inspiration Class
Pei Qian took a sip of his tea and continued, “We will only offer fixed-rate contracts for the top writers on our website.”
“That’s because the terms of this contract are better. It’s equivalent to giving a benefit to the authors of our website. We will not provide such benefits until other authors prove their strength.”
“The total word count should be between 10,000 to 500,000 words for a fixed-rate contract. They cannot exceed 500,000 words.”
“The fixed-rate contract will be calculated based on triple the revenue that the author earned from his previous books. For example, the original royalty contract of the author’s previous book was about 1,000 yuan per 1,000 words. Then, the royalties for this book would be 3,000 words per 1,000 words.”
“There is no minimum requirement to update. They can write as much as they want. Slow work will produce fine work.”
“What’s more, we don’t accept complete originality, we can only write custom-made novels. We provide IPs for the authors.”
Pei Qian could not help but be impressed by his own intelligence after he finished speaking.
Fixed-rate Contracts and customizing. Wouldn’t he be able to wipe out all the famous authors on Zhongdian Chinese Network and cripple them?
Those who read online literature often knew that fixed-rate contracts and customizing was the easiest way to produce rubbish works.
That was because the first prerequisite for creating good works was freedom.
Authors could only write outstanding works if they were free to write about topics that they were good at and had strong drive in.
If an author who was good at writing sci-fi novels had to write romance novels, the things he wrote would definitely be horrible.
On the other hand, custom-made works were often works that the client had a certain need for commercial publicity. At that time, the author’s creative thinking would definitely be restricted by the client.
The client would definitely suggest some changes or interfere with the author’s outline in order for the works to meet their requirements. On the other hand, the author would not be able to c
reate the works according to his own ideas. His attitude would be different and would not be able to produce 120% of the works.
That was because the first target of custom-made text was the client, not the reader. Thus, there was a high chance that it would not be liked by the reader.
On top of the restrictions on custom-made novels, the fixed-rate contract would further dampen the author’s creativity.
That was because fixed-rate contracts meant that there would be a steady income. The cost of the custom-made text was also very high. The author only had to use a little bit of brainpower to bring the works to about 60 points to complete the client’s requirements. There was no need to work hard to write 80 or even 100 points.
He would not be able to do it because his creative freedom was not high enough and the theme was not good enough even if he wanted to write to 100 marks.
Thus, Pei Qian had released this trump card of customization and the fixed-rate contract to “bribe” all the top writers of Zhongdian Chinese Network.
It was all about earning money for these authors irregardless of whether they were on royalties or fixed-rate contracts. How they chose would depend on which one earned more money.
It would be easier to write custom-made designs. The amount of royalties calculated by word count would almost double. He could earn as much money as he used to after writing casually every day. Why not?
If the royalties previously were 1,000 yuan per 1,000 words, he could earn 300,000 yuan per month by writing 300,000 words. According to the purchase order, the royalties would be tripled. He could earn the same amount of money by writing 100,000 words each month.
However, the workload was greatly reduced!
While the fixed-rate contract system was voluntary and not mandatory, Pei Qian felt that no one would reject such a good offer, right?
Who would go against money?
That way, the authors’ income would not be affected and Pei Qian’s purpose would be achieved if the website incurred losses.
Ma Yiqun obviously knew this very well. That was why he looked shocked. He did not know what Boss Pei was up to.
While it was up to the authors to decide whether they wanted to sell their book or not, only a few of the head writers would reject it based on the current price.
Of course, it was a good thing for the authors, but it seemed to be very risky for the website. If they were not careful, it would cause huge losses.
Ma Yiqun pondered for a moment and asked, “Boss Pei, are there any other restrictions on this fixed-rate contract? What if no one reads the novel written by the author? Can you ask him to finish the novel in advance or force him to edit it?”
Pei Qian shook his head. “There are no other restrictions. However, there is a requirement for the word count. Each book has to be written at ten to five hundred thousand words. If it exceeds five hundred thousand words, they will not be paid. They will have to start another book.”
The reason why he set the word count requirement was mainly to create difficulties for the authors who were used to writing long chapters.
At the moment, the standard word count for online novels was two to three million words. No matter how long it was, there were many people who could write five million words or more.
Therefore, when the authors first set the story outline, they were used to setting the entire text above two million words. If the great authors could write something famous, they would definitely be more familiar with it.
However, now they had to compress the story to a hundred to five hundred thousand words and write a short story. That would be using a creative way that they were not good at.
On the other hand, most readers of online novels liked to read long works and were not interested in short stories.
That way, the possibility of making money from novels would be further reduced.
Ma Yiqun asked again, “We can terminate the purchase agreement if the authors write a few rubbish novels, right?”
Pei Qian wanted to say no, but he felt that it did not make any sense. An author had been producing rubbish, but the website was still buying out his work at extremely high royalties from him. It did not make sense and was too unreasonable.
Thus, after some consideration, he decided to adopt a relatively neutral plan. “If the results of two consecutive books are very bad, let the author revert back to a royalty contract. He can continue with the fixed-rate contract when he’s doing well again.”
That way, authors who wanted to slack off would be able to continue writing with a fixed-rate contract and cheat money after writing a novel with royalty contracts. The rules of the website were basically ‘come and cheat me of my money’ and ‘this fool has a lot of money’ written on it.
Ma Yiqun asked again, “What type of custom-made novels should there be?”
“Can we take on some custom-made novels from other companies?”
Pei Qian immediately shook his head. “No! We can only write with the IP that Tengda has.”
Ma Yiqun: “…”
He might still be able to make a profit if he could accept custom-made novels from other companies.
For example, if some popular online games needed to be promoted, Ma Yiqun could recommend his outstanding authors to the company, ask the company to fork out money, and ask the authors to write them. That way, Zhongdian Chinese Network could earn a sum of advertising fees.
However, Boss Pei rejected that possibility on the spot!
According to Boss Pei, the restrictions on custom-made novels were really strange.
It could not be purely original nor could it be custom-made by other companies. It could only be Tengda’s IP.
What was Tengda’s IP?
Ma Yiqun gave it some thought. This included the various games that Tengda had developed, such as Repent and be Saved, Ocean Stronghold, Struggle, and so on.
This included the short videos and films that Fei Huang Workspace had already shot, such as Tomorrow is Beautiful and the current filming of Mission and Choice;
That included the various IP images bought from GOG, as well as original hero characters like Modest and Ruan;
Including the various superhero characters in the works of Hurricane Comics;
Other than that, some of the popular novels on Zhongdian Chinese Network and other miscellaneous things were considered Tengda’s IP.
It did look like a lot, but what was the point of customizing these things?
The only use was to fill up the entire “Tengda Universe” ‘s story storage. However, many of the IPs did not need to be filled up at all: The content of the original work had already been expressed very clearly and thoroughly. Why did it still have to continue?
Would these authors be able to write stories that were comparable to the original works if they wrote them seriously? Ma Yiqun did not think so at all. That was because many of the original works were personally written by Boss Pei. These authors would not be able to catch up even if they tried.
What’s more, it was still a loss compared to the money spent on buying these works.
That was because the purchase strategy this time was not only targeted at one author, but all of Zhongdian Chinese Network’s top authors. If these authors were determined to deceive and cheat money, Zhongdian Chinese Network would spend a lot of money on rubbish. It would be very difficult to guarantee the website’s interests.
Ma Yiqun pondered for a long time, but he was still very confused by Boss Pei’s decision.
However, Ma Yiqun did not say much seeing Boss Pei’s confident expression.
Boss Pei’s actions were always so unpredictable after all. No matter how ridiculous and strange Boss Pei’s decisions looked at the beginning, they were proven to have deeper meaning and were extremely successful.
Thus, Ma Yiqun nodded. “Alright, Boss Pei. I’ll make the arrangements soon.”
Pei Qian was very satisfied with his attitude. “Yes, very good.”
“On top of that, th
ere’s another matter regarding the authors’ class.”
“This class has been running for some time. It’s time to make some improvements.”
“My idea is to create another ‘inspiration class’ based on this study class.”
“Gather all the top writers, especially those who have decided to write custom-made novels, and join this inspiration class.”
“In the inspiration class, we will prepare a large number of novels, movies, and games for them. We asked them to collect materials from them every day. Then, they would exchange their writing skills and knowledge and recommend games or movies that they think are fun.”
“For this inspiration class, there must be some initial investment. For example, the monitor must be big, the earphones must be good, the seats must be comfortable, and the various resources inside must be directly purchased from the original, ultra-high-definition blue-light discs to provide the best viewing experience for everyone.”
“In the previous class, the authors could only write and check their information. They could not do anything else. In this inspiration class, the authors could only do things related to collecting inspiration. They could only write for two hours every day for eight hours.”
Ma Yiqun was stunned again. “Huh? This…”
How was this an inspiration class? It was obviously a pleasure class and a slacker class!
One of the most important reasons why the study class had been successful before was that the 'small dark room” could allow authors with poor self-control to concentrate on writing in this environment. That was how many outstanding works were born.
However, now, everyone could watch movies if they wanted to. They could play games if they wanted to. Not only were they not locked up in the dark room, but they were also restricted to writing for two hours a day.
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