Chapter 10: Dear Readers

The thought of submitting to a publisher lingered in Cao Sheng's mind, but he did not immediately act on it, continuing instead to transcribe the stored manuscript on his draft paper into a document on the computer.

Mainly, he felt that the book "Days Living with an Air Hostess" was purely a love story; unless he could contact a publisher in Taiwan specializing in Ye Yanqing novels, that publisher in Taiwan would likely not be interested before the book became popular online.

But he had absolutely no understanding of the publishers in Taiwan that specialize in Ye Yanqing novels.

Even if he wanted to find such a publisher to submit to, he didn't know which one to look for.

So, he planned to wait until tonight when he was mostly done with his work, then casually search online for contact information for publishers in Taiwan.

He knew the names of some publishers in Taiwan.

For example: Adventurer, Xinchang, Crescent Moon, Gaia, Hetu, Novel Channel, Xinchuang, Nine Stars, Zichen Society, Xinran Culture, and so on.

In his memory, after domestic web literature rose, most works published in Taiwan were published by these publishers.

But when Cao Sheng knew these publishers, it was already the early 2000s, so he was unsure if these publishers were currently established?

He estimated they should already be established.

It couldn't be that these publishers were all established only after web literature rose, could it?

His greatest concern at this moment was that these publishers probably weren't accepting manuscripts in the mainland yet, and contact information for these publishers might not be found on the mainland internet.

But as long as he could contact one or two of these publishers, even if they didn't like "Days Living with an Air Hostess," he was confident he could write a work they would be interested in.

Starting a new book was no difficulty for him.

There were too many genres and stories he could write from memory.

Xuanhuan, fantasy, Xianxia, cultivation, supernatural, post-apocalyptic wasteland...

And so on.

He could write them all.

As the ancestor of web literature, he currently had no rivals; those novel genres from the original timeline, if he wrote them now, would make him the pioneer who opened a new type.

Impressing the reviewing editor of one of those publishers should be no problem.

As for why he only considered publishers in Taiwan? Why not consider publishers in the mainland?

That can only be said: those who understand, understand.

First, publishers on the mainland currently favor works by traditional authors, and generally, those must be famous traditional authors.

A newcomer like him, Cao Sheng, with no background and no fame, basically had no chance of publishing in the mainland.

Second, regarding novel publishing in the mainland, pirated versions always seize the market first, leaving very little room for legitimate versions to survive.

Night grew deeper.

Around 3 AM, Cao Sheng encountered the damn thing that often happened in internet cafes of this era—the computer froze, then suddenly displayed a blue screen.

Seeing his computer suddenly show a blue screen, Cao Sheng couldn't react for a moment, because before transmigration, he hadn't encountered a computer blue screen for a very, very long time.

After staring blankly for several seconds, he finally reacted and restarted the computer with a gloomy expression.

He knew that for internet cafe computers, once a freeze or blue screen occurred, the written manuscript would be instantly lost; it would not auto-save.

So, the more than a thousand words he hadn't saved just now were definitely gone, and he would have to re-enter them into the computer.

Maybe his luck was bad today; around 4 AM, his computer froze again, and under his speechless gaze, it blue-screened again.

"Damn!"

He couldn't help but curse.

After the computer restarted successfully, he no longer had the mood to continue uploading the manuscript to the computer.

His mindset was a bit broken.

The few hundred words that hadn't been uploaded to the email for saving were lost again.

Not wanting to continue uploading the manuscript, he simply went online to search for the contact information of those Taiwan publishers he remembered.

In no time, he actually found a few.

One of them was Xinchang Publishing House.

He had a deep impression of this publishing house.

Because he remembered that many works by web literature gods from the original timeline were published by this publishing house.

So, he had considerable trust in this publishing house's strength and reputation.

Cao Sheng looked at the landline phone number and submission email for Xinchang Publishing House that he had searched for, yet he hesitated a bit.

It wasn't because he worried the information he found was fake.

Rather, he hesitated whether he should submit "Days Living with an Air Hostess" right now?

To earn manuscript fees as quickly as possible, he really wanted to try submitting right now.

But reason told him: now was not the best time.

There were several reasons.

First, this book wasn't popular online yet; only two chapters had been published, and the number of readers who had seen it was probably less than one hundred. The current online popularity of this book was not enough to serve as his bargaining chip to impress the publisher.

Second, he remembered that for publishers in Taiwan, submissions generally required over sixty thousand words; too few words simply did not meet the submission requirements.

Although this book had already written over one hundred ten thousand words, most of it was still on draft paper and hadn't been uploaded online. Since he wanted to submit to Xinchang Publishing House and could currently only do so via email, he first had to convert the stored manuscript on paper into an electronic document.

Because of these two concerns, after hesitating for a moment, Cao Sheng abandoned the thought of submitting today.

He planned to wait a bit longer.

Wait until this book had some online popularity, then try to submit.

If this book could become popular online first, the possibility of his submission passing the review would be higher.

There would also be a chance to negotiate a higher royalty.

With a decision made in his heart, he stopped thinking about this matter.

His thoughts turned to the situation of his current book on Rongshu Tree.

Thinking about how he'd posted another chapter of saved drafts on Under the Banyan tonight, he wondered how many people had read it by now, and what the response was.

With a bit of anticipation, he logged into Under the Banyan again and found his book.

He remembered that before he updated Chapter Two tonight, this book's reader count had been 44, and the comment count seemed to be 16.

And at this moment, this book's reader count had already climbed to 72, and the comment count had also risen to 33.

He saw some newly added book reviews.

"There's really a Chapter Two? Can the author say whether this story is made up, or is it based on a real person and real events?"

"What happened to the promised cohabiting with the flight attendant? Why aren't they living together yet?"

"Is there any adult content? If there is, can you get to the main point faster?"

"I want to ask, is there a flight attendant named Ran Jing? Is that her real name?"

"Author, can you say when Chapter Three will be posted? You're not going to make us wait another few days, are you?"

……

72 people read it, and they actually posted 33 book reviews?

This ratio surprised Cao Sheng greatly, and also delighted him.

Before transmigrating, every time he posted a new book, after the first few tens of thousands of characters went out, it was like playing a single-player game — not only were reader numbers very low, book reviews were even scarcer, with barely a few new ones added each day.

Sometimes there were even more ad posts than book reviews.

And now?

These folks who had never read web novels, seeing such a story online for the first time, were surprisingly so enthusiastic about speaking up.

Cao Sheng suddenly came to understand a bit why, at the dawn of web novels' rise, there were so many authors who, even though they couldn't earn a single cent, were still willing to generate electricity out of love and keep updating.

It really was because web novel readers of this era were all too adorable — every single one of them was highly enthusiastic about interacting with the author.

With readers like these, he suddenly felt he could also generate electricity out of love.

……

However, when the overnight session ended that day and he walked out of the internet cafe at dawn, a gust of cold wind outside blew against him, and his mind quickly sobered up.

Generating electricity out of love — he still felt he shouldn't do too much of that.

He had to think of a way to earn some manuscript fees as soon as possible.

He decided to start another new book recently, just in case.

In case the book "Days of Cohabiting with a Flight Attendant" couldn't pass the publishing house's review, he'd use another work to move the publishing house's manuscript-reviewing editor.

He would strive to earn a sum of manuscript fees as soon as possible and improve his life.