Chapter 97: Sales Surpass One Million

Two days later.

At Huacheng Publishing House, the head of the marketing department, while answering a phone call, looked very surprised; when he put the phone down, his expression had already become very excited.

Immediately, he hurried out of the office, walking fast and breaking into a small run as he rushed toward the general manager's office.

"Knock, knock!"

He knocked on the door of the general manager's office.

Inside came the voice of General Manager Xu Zhiwen, "Come in!"

He pushed the door open and, with an agitated expression, reported to Xu Zhiwen, who was bowing his head to review documents, "General Manager Xu! Good news! Tremendous good news! I just received word that the total sales of our published book 'Living with the Flight Attendant' officially surpassed one million copies today! One million! This is a remarkable achievement; these sales, these sales are simply awesome!"

Xu Zhiwen stopped the pen in his hand, frowned, looked up, and gazed at this person in charge with an displeased expression, "Watch your wording! If it's awesome, it's awesome; don't just add words randomly! Do you still have any quality?"

Before the other party could reply, a smile appeared on Xu Zhiwen's face, "Did it really surpass one million copies?"

The head of the marketing department nodded repeatedly, "Yes! Really! It really surpassed one million copies!"

Immediately, he asked tentatively, "General Manager Xu, given such excellent sales, should we tell our familiar media outlets? Let them help us promote it?"

Xu Zhiwen's eyes became strange, "Does this even need asking? With such excellent sales, of course we must let the media report on it! It can promote our publishing house, prove our capabilities to the outside world, and also use this news to further stimulate the book's sales; it's a two birds with one stone good thing, so of course we must promote it!"

The head of the marketing department smiled, "General Manager Xu, I was thinking the same thing; it's just that Zhongyuan Yidianhui didn't agree to our commission request last time, so I was afraid you held a grudge against him and didn't want to promote his work!"

Xu Zhiwen laughed helplessly and waved his hand, "Two different matters! Do you think I'm so petty in your eyes? Besides, when our publishing house faces new writers, the initiative is in our hands, but when facing a famous writer like Zhongyuan Yidianhui, we are no different from men pursuing beauty; we need to make serious efforts and curry favor in a hundred ways, and only then, relying on our strength and sincerity, can we possibly win over their hearts!"

Now the initiative is in the other party's hands; if we throw a tantrum with him and give him the cold shoulder, that means we are completely out of the game, and there will be no possibility of cooperation in the future; do you understand?"

The head of the marketing department nodded repeatedly, "General Manager Xu's insight is high!"

Xu Zhiwen laughed helplessly, "Alright, I know about this matter; I'll immediately call Old Wang from the publicity department over; Old Wang will be responsible for the follow-up publicity, so you don't need to worry about it!"

The head of the marketing department: "Okay, General Manager Xu!"

The entire nation had just finished celebrating the New Year and the Lantern Festival and was still immersed in the lingering atmosphere of the holidays.

Dozens of domestic media outlets began to report one after another on the news that the total sales of 'Living with the Flight Attendant' had surpassed one million.

Along with them, the names "Zhongyuan Yidianhui" and "Cao Sheng" also leaped into the eyes of countless people.

Old Zhang was a security guard; the daily newspapers of his unit were always delivered to his security room first.

Gradually, he developed the habit of reading the newspapers.

Anyway, it was free; if you don't read it, you're wasting it.

As a result, for more than half a month in a row, he could almost see 'Living with the Flight Attendant' and the pen name Zhongyuan Yidianhui in different newspapers every day, and occasionally he could also see the name "Cao Sheng".

On the first day he saw this news in the newspaper, he didn't pay attention to it.

On the second day, when he saw this kind of news in several papers again, he sighed, "Newspapers these days are really going too far; a young person under 20 years old writes a novel and they blow it up like this; aren't they afraid of blowing their own cover?"

On the third day and fourth day, when he saw this news in newspapers like 'Ta Kung Pao', 'Jingcheng Daily', and 'Guangming Daily' as well, Old Zhang couldn't believe his own eyes.

Even newspapers of this level are reporting on this?

Could it be that the novel written by that young person is really that powerful?

Living with a flight attendant...

Is cohabiting not illegal anymore? Can it even be written into a book and sell like crazy? Which flight attendant is so indiscreet? How can she get married in the future?

When for more than half a month in a row he could see this report in different newspapers every day, Old Zhang became numb.

Only occasionally, when seeing this news, would he sigh, "Young people these days are really something; achieving such great accomplishments at such a young age, it's truly like their ancestral grave is emitting green smoke..."

More than half a month of continuous reporting made 'Living with the Flight Attendant' go viral across the country once again.

It also made the name Zhongyuan Yidianhui known to countless people.

Under the influence of the media's competing reports, Zhongyuan Yidianhui had virtually become the number one among young domestic writers.

The news headlines were more and more exaggerated one after another.

Such as: "The biggest surprise in the Chinese literary world at the end of the 20th century!"

"'Living with the Flight Attendant' looks down on all others!"

"Debut at the peak; the sales of his first book surpassed one million copies!"

"If you haven't read 'Living with the Flight Attendant', you're out!"

"Zhongyuan Yidianhui, the new standard-bearer of the literary world!"

"Sales surpass one million; a bright new star rising in the literary world!"

The sales of 'Living with the Flight Attendant', as Huacheng Publishing House had predicted, indeed reached new heights under the stimulation of these news reports.

For a time, publishing houses of all sizes across the country once again rushed to commission Cao Sheng. The prices offered were higher and higher one after another.

But this stimulated a batch of traditional writers and professors, who one after another spoke out in the media to criticize and condemn 'Living with the Flight Attendant' and Zhongyuan Yidianhui.

Various criticisms became rampant.

A certain traditional writer: "College students nowadays are too shameless; at such a young age, instead of studying knowledge properly in university, they actually cohabit with flight attendants; cohabiting is one thing, but writing such broken matters into a novel is simply a decline in social morals; back when we were in university, we were all single-mindedly striving to study!"

Another traditional writer: "I read this book for two glances and couldn't go on! The writing is too plain! It completely lacks the beauty of language, and moreover, the opening is about two young people in their prime not working hard and not studying seriously, but instead drinking and falling in love in a bar; this kind of life attitude is too negative, and we should criticize it!"

A certain university professor: "The social atmosphere needs us everyone to maintain it together! When talented young people write things to prove their value, they must also pay attention to whether their works will damage our social atmosphere; they must be positive, healthy, and upward! Instead of relying on having a bit of talent to write novels about cohabiting with flight attendants, this is very vulgar! It is selling vulgarity to the public with low education levels and earning dirty money!"

A certain part-time writing professor: "I am very heartbroken! Many of our old writers carefully select topics and pour their hearts and souls into creating good works, yet they need to self-fund to get published; after publication, the publishing houses don't promote them properly, so they simply can't sell, but some vulgar novels written by young people with no nutrition whatsoever can be so best-selling, the publishing houses promote them vigorously, and the media shamelessly flatters them blindly, elevating a love novel with little artistic or educational value to such a high level.

Is this a good thing?

If this continues for a long time, it will cause the phenomenon of bad money driving out good money! It will also mislead many of our young readers; regarding Cao Sheng who wrote this novel, I don't think it's a good thing either! He is so young, achieving fame and earning big money so early; can he handle it? Maybe he originally just fantasized about cohabiting with a flight attendant, but now that he has fame and money, he might actually go cohabit with a flight attendant! This will ruin him!"