Three days later, Jing's martial arts school went on winter vacation, which lasted for a month.
At the end of the year, Jing's Martial Arts School only has this long holiday. The purpose is to allow the martial arts students to go home and enjoy the New Year's Eve and Spring Festival. There is no summer vacation in the summer.
During this winter vacation, Jia Yun's main task is to find a bookseller to print and publish "The Eight Parts of the Dragon"!
The printing and publishing industry in this world is not weak, but it is definitely not developed.
At present, printing and publishing in the Qing Dynasty is mainly done by some booksellers. These booksellers all come from wealthy or scholarly families.
These booksellers usually open bookstores and not only print and publish books, but also sell books in the bookstores.
Looking at the entire Shenjing City, there are nine such booksellers.
Jia Yun had already inquired about this situation before, and even asked the teacher of Jing's Martial Arts Class A to know something about these nine booksellers in Shenjing City.
During this winter vacation, Jia Yun spent a few days to further inquire about the situation of these nine booksellers.
Then he selected two of them and came to his door, stating his intention to print and publish "The Eight Parts of the Dragon".
Of course, he did not say that he wrote this martial arts novel himself. He only said that a friend who was more than ten years older than him had written it and asked him to find a bookseller to print and publish it on his behalf.
Two booksellers expressed their unwillingness to publish the book after reading the first tens of thousands of words.
One of the booksellers said that the novel had a strange imagination and was novel and attractive, but it was too long and the investment was high, so the risk of losing money was high.
Another bookseller only read more than 10,000 words and said the novel was evil.
Jia Yun was not disappointed by this. In his previous life, it was difficult for an unknown person to publish a novel, let alone in this world.
So Jia Yun is going to find the third bookseller, this bookseller is called Cheng Huanian!
…
…
Cheng Huanian is in his thirties. His family is engaged in business and has considerable wealth, and his father is a bookseller.
Cheng Huanian once took the liberal arts examination and passed the civil service examination, but failed to pass the Jinshi examination twice. In addition, his father died of illness, so he did not want to continue taking the examination, so he inherited his father's business and started a bookseller.
Today, the bookstore opened by Cheng Huanian is called Qiwenwu. Qiwenwu has more than one store, including a flagship store and eight chain stores.
Among them, the flagship store is opened on Guozijian Street in the east city of Shenjing City. Among the other eight chain stores, one is opened in Xicheng, and the other seven are distributed in big cities such as Jinling.
Guozijian Street is located in the east city of Shenjing City, northeast of the Imperial Palace.
As the name suggests, it is called Imperial College Street because the famous Imperial College is located on this street.
This street is naturally bustling and lively, with many shops open, including several bookstores. Among these bookstores, the largest is the flagship store of Qinxue Bookshop, and the second largest is Qiwenwu
's flagship store.
Qinxue Book Store, like Qi Book Store, is a chain bookstore.
Qinxue Bookstore is larger than Qinxue Bookstore. The former has two flagship stores (one in Shenjing and one in Jinling) and more than 20 chain stores, while Qinxue Bookstore has only one flagship store and eight chain stores.
In addition, Qinxue Shusi is more "orthodox".
"Orthodox" here means that it mainly sells books such as the Four Books and Five Classics, as well as imperial examination papers, as well as private collections and poetry collections of contemporary civil servants and famous scholars...
Jia Yun has already approached two booksellers, one of whom is the owner of Qinxue Books. This person only read the more than 10,000 words of "The Eight Parts of the Dragon" and said that this novel is evil.
Qiwenwu is different. Although it also publishes "orthodox" books, it mainly makes money from "odd literature", such as novels and legends, such as Feiyan, Hede, Wu Zetian, and Yang Guifei's side stories.
These "wonderful articles" come from two sources, one is those that have been published, and the other are those that have not yet been printed and published.
…
…
This morning, bookseller Cheng Huanian came to the flagship store of Qiwenwu on Guozijian Street as usual and sat in his study (office) on the second floor.
He wears a dark-colored scholar's shirt with a cross-collar collar, a scarf on his head, and soap shoes on his feet, a common scholar's attire.
Although he has been a bookseller for many years, he has also been selected as a candidate and is still used to pretending to be a scholar. He is also proud of his status as a candidate.
At this time, he was drinking tea while looking at several handwritten books in his hand. These handwritten books were a collection of short stories in classical Chinese, titled "Lan Ruo Zhi Yi". It was not very long, about ten chapters in length.
Million words.
Cheng Huanian has a habit. He likes to go shopping and visit temple fairs, and he likes to pay attention to the sales stalls, because there are often manuscripts of books that have not yet been printed and published at the sales stalls, many of which are "wonderful texts."
The current version of "Lan Ruo Zhi Yi" was bought by Cheng Huanian at a stall while visiting a temple fair yesterday.
He just bought it home yesterday and read it twice at home.
It's already the third time he's watched it.
After reading it for the third time, Cheng Huanian sighed: "If you imitate others and paint tigers and dogs, publishing a collection like this will probably result in a loss."
In recent years, there has been a best-selling collection of classical Chinese short stories in the Qing Dynasty, "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" written by Pu Songling. The book contains nearly 500 classical Chinese short stories.
Cheng Huanian originally wanted to print and publish "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", but after careful consideration he decided not to do so.
Because although "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" is mainly about love, it also has some pages that reveal the darkness of feudal rule, criticize the corruption of the imperial examination system, and resist the constraints of feudal ethics...
The Qing Dynasty did not have the harsh literary inquisition like the previous Qing Dynasty, but there were some restrictions in this regard.
Although Qi Bookstore mainly relies on "Qiwen" to make money, as the owner, Cheng Huanian is a little cautious. He feels that books like "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" are a bit dangerous.
However, there were still two booksellers with strong backing and courage who printed and published "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and made a lot of money from this.
Not only that, these two booksellers also each published several imitation books of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and made a lot of money from this, which led to the prosperity of legendary novels in the Qing Dynasty.
Cheng Huanian was envious and helpless.
He had limited backing and limited courage, so he did not dare to print and publish a somewhat dangerous book like "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", and he could not get a good imitation book that was not dangerous or dangerous.
Therefore, yesterday when he went to the temple fair and found "Lan Ruo Zhi Yi" at a stall, he was immediately attracted by the title. However, the stall owner did not allow him to read it on the spot. He looked through it a few times and decided that it was a copycat of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and bought it.
Down.
Now that he has read it three times, he feels that this copycat book is just a copycat, depicting tigers and dogs, and it will probably make a loss on publication.
“Alas, it’s so hard to find good and wonderful writing!”
Cheng Huanian sighed again.
At this moment, a waiter appeared at the door of the study and said respectfully to Cheng Huanian: "Master, there is a young man below who wants to see you."
Cheng Huanian asked: "Young man? Do you know me?"
The waiter said: "He said he doesn't know you. He met you this time because he has a book he wants you to publish."