"How could it be so expensive, why?"
"Yeah, our magazine's illustrators usually only charge a few hundred yuan per piece. Old Zhang, you can't just quote randomly. Illustrator prices aren't that outrageous, are they?"
"It's not like they're some famous painter.
I see students from art academies charging only eight or nine hundred yuan for a painting."
Some editors were surprised into silence, while others thought Zhang Hongyu was just being alarmist, deliberately inflating prices, and worried that the publishing house would assign them more tasks or requirements later if they didn't bear the burden.
"Heh, how dare you say that? Then why don't you look at the quality of the illustrations drawn by the illustrators signed by our publishing house, and what level are the illustrations provided by author Xiao Ding?
Can these be at the same level?
Don't lie with a clear conscience.
To put it bluntly, what kind of illustrations are those drawn by the illustrators signed by our publishing house?
At best, they are only at the level of comic strips.
And of the mid-to-low-tier comic strips."
After all, it concerned their own interests, and even the interests of the entire department, so Zhang Hongyu from the design department immediately argued logically. The two sides soon quarreled over this issue. In the end, Zhang Hongyu directly resorted to the international original artwork trading platform, showcasing illustrations that looked similar to Ding Yun's, and even slightly inferior to Ding Yun's.
What price they could fetch.
Then the other editors had nothing more to say.
"Without high-tier illustrations, and relying solely on the illustrations provided by the few signed illustrators to produce a hardcover edition, I think it's better not to do it at all."
"If we sell a hardcover edition produced with author Xiao Ding's illustrations and our own design and printing, it can even be considered as giving back to the readers. But if we sell a hardcover edition produced with our own illustrators and our own design and printing.
People will probably think we're just fleecing them.
This is what I wanted to say. The final decision rests with you, the editor-in-chief."
After Zhang Hongyu finished speaking, Editor-in-Chief He also hesitated. In the end, he only ordered an additional ten thousand copies of Ding Yun's novel in hardcover and twenty thousand copies in paperback. As for the rest, they would be put on hold for now.
They would wait and see.
This also gave her some time to consult with professionals, assess the cost risks, and then consider whether to specifically add a hardcover edition project.
...
After the Lunar New Year, with a week left before the start of school, Ding Yun received the remaining half of her royalties from two magazine publishers. She also received an advance royalty payment for the reprints. Even after deducting all taxes, her net worth had already approached four million.
It was almost equivalent to winning the lottery.
As soon as this money arrived, Ding Yun immediately spent it on renting servers and other necessary items to build a website.
She then directly retrieved an artificial intelligence from her soul space and had it build and maintain the website for her. With the help of the artificial intelligence, the "Myriad Worlds Literature Network" she envisioned was constructed in less than two hours. Now, everything was ready.
Only readers and works were missing.
Regarding attracting readers, Ding Yun's specific strategy was to have the artificial intelligence register various small accounts and promote the website on major literature forums, novel discussion boards, and similar places. For places where advertising was not allowed, she directly contacted the owners of relevant websites and paid for an advertisement slot.
However, before attracting readers.
The most important thing was to populate the website with works.
To prevent the library data of the Myriad Worlds Literature Network from looking too bad, Ding Yun first moved works whose copyrights had expired in this world and could be freely used, printed, and published by anyone into her literature website and categorized them. Then, she entered the internal bookstore of the cultural dissemination system and purchased a large number of popular novels that were once trendy and priced quite affordably.
These novels had no other advantages except being cheap, and the amount of localization required was very little, allowing the artificial intelligence to perform batch modifications directly.
Some of the shorter novels were directly uploaded in their entirety to the literature website, while the longer ones were uploaded in parts first, with the rest to be serialized later. Moreover, the content was initially completely free.
There was no other way; after all, they had to attract users first.
In addition, Ding Yun also added a registered author zone to the Myriad Worlds Literature Network, allowing users to upload their works. As for author benefits, since there were no profit channels yet, Ding Yun could only offer a basic monthly guarantee of one thousand yuan for the time being.
And a guarantee of publication for excellent works.
Of course, there were also quite a few restrictions. First, they had to sign a contract. After signing, they had to complete a fixed word count each month. As for the number of readers, since the website was just starting, Ding Yun did not set any restrictions.
These could be added gradually as the website grew and expanded.
Ding Yun continued to work on this until the start of school, and finally managed to complete the establishment of the Myriad Worlds Literature Network she founded. She then instructed the artificial intelligence to go on an advertising spree.
The advertisements were not overly stiff.
Nor did they directly promote the Myriad Worlds Literature Network.
Instead, they used the most dramatic and bizarre excerpts from melodramatic and bizarre articles as catchy titles to attract attention, entice readers to click, and curiously enter the Myriad Worlds Literature Network to read.
For example—
"Did the Princess admit her mistake?"
"Your Highness, the Princess has eloped with your cousin!"
——
"The Princess has been kneeling for three days, has she admitted her mistake?"
"The Princess had already died the day before..."
——
"Princess, His Highness has been kneeling at the door for three days."
The Princess gnawed on a chicken leg:
"So? Did he admit his mistake?"
——
Her family suffered a misfortune, her brother died unjustly. Five years later, the God of War returned, and with a single command, a hundred thousand soldiers rushed forth!
——
The God of War returned and found that his five-year-old daughter was living in a doghouse! With a single command, a hundred thousand retired soldiers rushed forth!
——
It is important to note that this was a world where even online literature had not yet developed. The general public had never seen such tactics, nor such absurd plots. Therefore, one by one, they quickly fell into the trap, clicked on the Myriad Worlds Literature Network, and then opened a new door to the world.
And whether it was to continue reading, which required registration and login, or to comment and criticize the plot's lack of logic, but only being able to comment after registering and logging in, all of these continuously added new users for Ding Yun.
Coupled with the new user acquisition and leveling-up system.
Before long, to be precise, less than a week after Ding Yun started school, her Myriad Worlds Literature Network had nearly two million registered users, as well as about twenty thousand newly registered authors, and tens of millions of comments.
It might still be a long way from becoming an online literature giant or leading the online literature industry to take off.
But at least it was a very good start.
The rest could only be done slowly.
After all, one couldn't get fat with a single bite!