Chapter 47: Detective Drama Boom

People of this generation are not ashamed of promoting government spending, but rather take pride in it.

Although literature is flourishing in this era, there are not many people who read books and newspapers. Apart from students and teachers, there are only staff members of various departments and some workers who love literature.

This group of people accounts for less than 1 percent of the country’s total population.

It was thanks to these millions of people that the magnificent literary boom in the 1980s was created.

After graduating, college students were assigned to various departments and units, so the prestige of Zhengfu in the literary world during this period was very high. The People’s Daily spoke out for “The Great Song Dynasty Judge”, so no one dared to make trouble.

Professor Xia and his group were so angry every day when they saw the review articles of “The Great Song Dynasty Judge” in the newspaper. Every time they got angry, they hated Liu Hongmin more.

They lay dormant, waiting for Liu Hongmin’s heat to cool down before they could find an opportunity to deal with him.

Peking University Press sent Li Huanfang to find Liu Hongmin, hoping to obtain the distribution rights of “The Inspector General of the Song Dynasty”.

Liu Hongmin did not agree immediately. Even if he wanted to publish “The Inspector General of the Song Dynasty”, he had to wait until the April issue of “Capital Literature and Art” was published.

Otherwise, if the books are released first, who will buy “Beijing Literature and Art”?

When the sales of Beijing Literature and Art decline, even if Zhou Yanru does not trouble him, Zhang Dening will come to him. Liu Hongmin does not want to provoke his best friend, Cha Jianying.

Li Huanfang heard Liu Hongmin’s concerns and immediately said, “Don’t worry about that. Even if we want to publish “The Great Song Dynasty Judge” first, we can’t do it. The current printing task has been scheduled until May Day. If we jump the queue, the earliest we can distribute it is the end of May.”

The sales cycle of a magazine is generally the first three months, with the first month having the highest sales volume. The last two months are mainly used to clear inventory. The more copies sold, the less cost lost.

Hearing this, Liu Hongmin was relieved. However, he still wrote this clause in the contract.

“Brother Li, let’s be mean first and gentlemen later. Don’t blame me for being unkind.”

Li Huanfang said helplessly: “Okay, how can I lie to you?”

Liu Hongmin did not explain either. This kind of thing cannot be done after being cheated. It must be nipped in the bud.

Li Huanfang complained a few words, signed the contract with Liu Hongmin, and returned to the publishing house with the manuscript.

The manuscripts Liu Hongmin submitted to Beijing Literature and Art and Beijing University Press were all photocopied. Although the cost of photocopying was a bit expensive, Liu Hongmin didn’t mind the money.

“Beijing Literature and Art” paid 8.5 yuan per thousand words, and Beijing University Press directly paid a maximum of 10 yuan per thousand words.

The Song Dynasty Chief Justice has a total of more than 55 words, and the royalties from the two publishers add up to more than yuan. However, Liu Hongmin still feels that he is losing money, and he would rather get royalties than royalties.

Judging from the sales of “Beijing Literature and Art”, the sales of “The Inspector General of the Song Dynasty” is likely to exceed one million copies.

According to the 10% royalty rate, Liu Hongmin could earn at least or yuan for one million copies. However, according to the royalty rate, he could only get more than yuan at most, which was a huge difference.

Fortunately, Liu Hongmin did not expect to make a lot of money in China. After all, China is still in a state of disrepair, and at this stage, earning 10,000 yuan from a novel is already quite a feat.

The country is in urgent need of foreign exchange, and people with ability should go and earn money from foreigners.

Liu Hongmin has already finished writing the six parts of Shao Bao 2 and has written to inform Hong Kong. I believe it won’t be long before Ming Pao, RTV and Sanlian Publishing House will send people to discuss publishing, distribution and adaptation with Liu Hongmin.

After the April issue of Beijing Literature and Art was published, it once again caused a wave of enthusiasm. The second half of the article, “The Great Song Dynasty Chief Justice”, was even more exciting and caused even more heated discussions. The enthusiasm of March has not subsided yet, and the enthusiasm of April is coming again. All departments and units published articles as if they were swearing a vow, for fear of falling behind.

The sales of “Beijing Literature and Art” increased again, exceeding 800,000 copies.

This made Liu Hongmin very unhappy. This was not what he wanted to see, and he did not want such a good sale.

Cha Jianying knew that Liu Hongmin was unhappy, so he took him to the movies.

On May 5, a detective movie was released, triggering a wave of movie-watching.

“Murder Case 405” is adapted from a real case and is the first detective film in my country.

The two of them arrived at the cinema in the morning and bought tickets for the evening, which were even more popular than the movie “Aolei Yilan” that they watched during last year’s National Day.

Instead of waiting, the two played in a nearby park until the evening and then returned to the cinema an hour early.

This movie is perfect except for the limitation of the times. It has almost flawless plot setting and perfect suspense creation. The plot development is both unexpected and reasonable, and the control of details and rhythm is very strong.

Even Liu Hongmin, a time traveler from the new century, enjoyed watching it, let alone the people of this era.

The popularity of “405 Murder Case” has immediately attracted new attention in society. However, this attention did not reduce the popularity of “The Inspector General of the Song Dynasty”, but made it even more popular.

A detective novel and a detective movie have caused a craze, making many people call this year the year of detective.

Liu Hongmin didn’t know whether it was the Detective Year. What he knew was that many TV stations contacted him, wanting to buy the adaptation rights of “The Great Song Dynasty Judge”. Film studios set their sights on Shao Bao and wanted to shoot a series of movies.

This made Liu Hongmin laugh and cry. He originally thought that Shao Bao’s adaptation rights would be popular outside the mainland. However, after the Hong Kong drama became a hit, there was no news at all in China.

He was about to give up, but then a detective drama called “405 Murder Case” came out of nowhere and immediately sparked a craze for detective dramas.

No fewer than five TV stations wanted to buy the adaptation rights of “The Inspector General of the Song Dynasty”, and no fewer than three film studios wanted to buy the adaptation rights of Shao Bao.

Liu Hongmin thought that domestic film and television works would not follow the trend in this era. After all, it was a planned economy and TV stations and film studios only had to complete their tasks.

Now it seems that they will follow suit, but not obviously. After all, they are state-owned units, so they should have some dignity and not copy everything.

They follow the genre, and as long as a genre becomes popular, they will go back to shoot films of the same genre.

Scar literature is very popular, so they adapted a lot of it. Detective dramas are very popular now, so they want to adapt detective dramas.

But Liu Hongmin was very puzzled. There was no problem with you filming “The Inspector General of the Song Dynasty”, after all, it was in response to the call of the “People’s Name Daily”.

But Liu Hongmin couldn’t understand why he wanted to take less money. Given the current situation, is it really appropriate to take less money?

However, Liu Hongmin did not refuse money when someone offered it. There was no such thing as hoarding copyrights these days, and adaptations did not pay much.

“The Inspector General of the Song Dynasty” was sold to China Television for 3,000 yuan as an adaptation fee by Liu Hongmin, and was sold to Beijing Film Studio for 500 yuan as an adaptation fee for a smaller film.

(End of this chapter)