Chapter 32

To increase reader stickiness, Wu Feng also signaled the newspaper office to specifically leave an entire page behind the *Zhu Jia* novel as a comment section.

He knows the power of comment sections too well; sometimes the comments in the section are even more exciting than the novel's plot.

Facing the confusion and questioning of the newspaper editors, he had no intention of explaining at all; facts speak louder than words.

To promote the comment section, the newspaper even spent several days specifically advertising it after the novel.

The effect was immediate; in the following days, the newspaper received letters from readers like snowflakes.

To organize these reader letters and pick out the interesting comments, the newspaper had to urgently recruit a batch of employees specifically to do this work.

Once enough interesting book reviews were gathered and published after the novel chapters, it immediately ignited the readers' enthusiasm, and even the newspaper's sales increased quite a bit.

Especially the highlighted comments resonated with countless readers: "Zhu Jia is a true civilian knight, more simple and unadorned than Guo Jing, making people yearn for him; he might very well be right beside us!"

Societies run rampant in Hong Kong; to say that the bottom-tier citizens haven't been bullied is absolutely a tiny minority.

It is estimated that this is the soil for the growth of Hong Kong martial arts novels!

To be able to support the growth of numerous martial arts masters and martial arts culture with the strength of one city, one must say there are inherent reasons for it.

Sometimes, when Wu Feng is in the mood, he will directly use a secondary account to publish book reviews in the newspaper: Guo Jing is a true hero, that's correct, but unfortunately, he is too far away from ordinary people.

In fact, the only knights ordinary people can come into contact with are the Jiangnan Seven Freaks!

Zhu Jia is more admired by ordinary people than the Jiangnan Seven Freaks because he might be a neighbor or a fellow townsman who can truly step in to help the first moment something happens.

Not only is the *Zhu Jia* novel popular, but *Legend of the Northeast Hunter* also has a significant reader base.

After more than a month of explosion, the circulation of *Mong Kok News* has stabilized at around eighty thousand!

Relying on the push of the two novels, it increased sales by fifty thousand in one month, which is quite astonishing.

It's just a pity that the content of the social, economic, and entertainment sections of *Mong Kok News* is quite ordinary, which affected the further increase in the newspaper's sales.

Wu Feng does have quite a few flashy tricks to increase newspaper sales, but he hasn't had the time to apply them yet.

But even so, the advertising fees from a year of bidding reached a scale of five million.

It is naturally quite a bit behind the twenty million level of *Ming Pao*, but their authority in the social and economic sections is not just for show; Wu Feng and the newspaper staff are relatively satisfied.

Not to mention, *Zhu Jia* and *Legend of the Northeast Hunter* have already been published as books, with each copy selling for ten Hong Kong dollars.

The novel's popularity is high; one volume of *Zhu Jia* sold nearly one hundred thousand copies. After deducting various miscellaneous expenses, a single volume alone has an income of about seven hundred thousand, and *Zhu Jia* plans to release three volumes.

The sales of *Legend of the Northeast Hunter* were slightly worse; the first volume also sold fifty thousand copies, and the final profit obtained was about three hundred thousand, with a total of two volumes published.

Why else would people say that making popular novels is profitable!

Not only that, but the comics for the two novels were also produced.

Also taking advantage of the hot serialization in the newspaper, they were collected and published, with one volume also costing ten Hong Kong dollars.

Releasing one volume a week, *Zhu Jia* can sell about forty thousand copies, while *Legend of the Northeast Hunter* can also sell twenty thousand copies. After deducting various costs, the final profit can reach an astonishing 1.5 million a month.

This is still due to the high cost of printing plants in Hong Kong; if it were produced in Mainland printing plants, the cost could be reduced by at least half or more.

Wu Feng inquired with the art factory he cooperates with in the Mainland, but the result left him somewhat dumbfounded.

It's not that the printing plant under the Mainland art factory cannot produce comics, but that there is no sufficient supply of qualified paper raw materials, preferably the A4 paper standard.

In the eighties, the Mainland was short of almost everything, and naturally, it was also short of A4 paper, which is very common in later generations.

There wasn't even enough office paper, let alone paper for making comics.

It's not like he hadn't seen comic books from the eighties; they were all those small booklets the size of an adult's palm.

The quality of the paper was indeed average; it was not only rough but also somewhat yellowed.

Comics made with such paper naturally couldn't be popular in Hong Kong.

Wu Feng naturally knew what to do: isn't it just shipping paper from Hong Kong to the art printing plant in the Mainland!

It's just that shipping paper over is easy, but bringing back a large amount of finished comic books is a bit troublesome.

No need to guess, the local tyrant of the Hong Kong comic world, Yulang International, would definitely play dirty; they just went public and are at the peak of their popularity.

If he really keeps tossing like this, it's hard to say how much the cost can be lowered, but he will definitely attract a lot of trouble.

Of course, a certain Hong Kong entertainment novel he read had already pointed out a way to press costs even lower.

Isn't it just buying waste paper from developed regions and sending it to Mainland paper mills to be re-produced into brand-new A4 paper?

At that time, just buy the A4 paper produced in the Mainland as raw material.

For him at this time, wanting to achieve this is not a difficult task; money talks!

He also called to inquire with relevant companies, and the situation was not as simple as described in the novel.

Not to mention the scrap stations here in Hong Kong; they are almost all controlled by societies. Even Wu Feng himself recently obtained a license for a scrap station and opened a scrap collection station on Garden Street.

You really can't count on society scum to have much integrity, or whether they would play tricks on the waste paper to increase the weight?

The scrap stations in the United States don't have so much nonsense, but waste paper is also considered a type of foreign trash, so it is naturally controlled by local gang forces.

Whenever you do business with gang forces, you cannot let your guard down!

The key is that he doesn't have talent in this area under his command yet, and there must be a certain degree of credibility.

He's not in a rush for now; wait until he has more time and energy later to deal with the waste paper matter.

The linkage method of *Mong Kok News*—accumulating popularity through serialized novels and then publishing books, and even producing comics—opened the eyes of relevant practitioners in Hong Kong.

They hadn't thought before that a popular novel could be played with so many tricks.

But next, something that shocked them even more happened.

At the end of November, *Mong Kok News* suddenly released the news on the serialization page of *Legend of the Northeast Hunter* that the movie of the same name was about to be released on the Golden Harvest Circuit.

Damn it, this is going to heaven!

Everyone in the Hong Kong novel, comic, publishing, and film industries who saw the news was stunned; is this never-ending?

As a result, someone in *Oriental Daily News* was the first to open fire: The *Legend of the Northeast Hunter* movie is definitely going to flop; this is an unquestionable fact.

The person who opened fire is a rather famous novelist from *Oriental Daily News*, and he has a very good friend named Ni Kuang!

*Mong Kok News* immediately launched a counterattack, stating that to spray it as a flop without even watching the movie shows the low character of the person spraying; our generation is ashamed to be associated with him!

The novelist from *Oriental Daily News* immediately retorted. At this time, the right-wing newspapers realized what was happening and followed suit, joining the crusade. Suddenly, the Hong Kong newspaper world was in an uproar, giving readers a good show to watch, and at the same time, they deeply remembered the name of the movie *Legend of the Northeast Hunter*.

(End of chapter)