The cost of relying solely on wood is still relatively high, especially in the late Ming Dynasty when it was cold in Northern Zhili, and a large number of trees would be cut down and burned to carbon, so wood resources in plain areas are not cheap.
There is a lot of wood in the Laiyuan area in the Taihang Mountains to the west, but this is the only raw material supply channel, which is not very reliable after all.
This requires the largest and useless wheat straw in the area.
Winter wheat is basically grown locally, and in early summer every year there is a large amount of wheat straw that needs to be processed immediately before millet can be planted quickly.
Of course, these wheat straws will be burned directly.
After all, winter wheat is harvested in summer, not winter, so there is no space or cost to store it as fuel.
Wheat straw can produce relatively rough straw paper. If there is a chemical industry, it can also be directly turned into pulp as a raw material for printing books.
With stamping machinery, tables, stools and other furniture with low hardness requirements can be made.
These can all be prepared later.
Wang Hongyu's eyes suddenly lit up and he thought of a good idea.
That is to subtly monitor the Baoding troops and produce some books and promotional materials.
Wang Hongyu discussed with Han Jun to directly open a bookstore branch in Manxian County. Although the scale was relatively small, the cost was relatively limited.
This is equivalent to tapping the market from the demand side. The target customers are not only landlords and citizens of Baoding and nearby towns, but also soldiers and horses of Baoding.
Through the bookstore, we have established long-term contacts with the Baoding soldiers and horses, and started targeted basic education and publicity work for the soldiers, so that we can do some military transportation work in the future.
After all aspects were discussed, Han Jun finally raised some of his doubts: "Baoding is not as good as the capital city, and it is much worse than Jiangnan. There are not so many officials' families and literati, so the bookstore must be mentally prepared not to make much money."
This is a very practical statement.
Wang Hongyu did not hide much. The waterway to Tianjin is very smooth, and the waterway to the capital is very convenient. If it is only in one place, of course it will not make much money, so we have to prepare for distribution."
"What Master Han said is true, so my bookshop not only sells books available elsewhere, but also sells some unique publications, such as weapons science."
Just like the weapons magazines of later generations, it is rich in pictures and texts, introducing various weapons from around the world, accompanied by various true and false analysis and comments.
Baoding Prefecture is an important military town.
The civil and military officials here will manage weapons and armaments. If there is a magazine that records various types of weapons such as red barbarian cannons, general cannons, turtle-dove-foot blunderbuss, lightning blunderbuss, and thunder blunderbuss, and also comments on many ancient and modern war processes, there must be a market.
.
Later generations of weapons magazines and military history newspapers and magazines have always had a stable market. Before the Internet became highly popular, many old people and young people liked this in the past.
No one is doing it now. If you do it yourself, of course you can become a blockbuster.
He also introduced it to Han Jun, explaining that the mobile library of the Capital Academy currently has a collection of tens of thousands of books, including not only classics and best-sellers, but also some Western titles.
For example, "Elements of Geometry" and "Don Quixote" are now ready.
It is the only good book in the country. Even if many people may not buy it, it can at least explore a market.
Han Jun was convinced that Baoding alone might not be able to make money, but that also included many prefectures and counties in Tianjin and Beizhili.
In fact, Wang Hongyu has deeply considered the consumption target, made a detailed analysis of the market, customized special books and periodicals for different audiences, and conducted long-term science popularization, publicity and guidance for the target groups.
Literary landlords, who were mainly scholars, well-established and wealthy households, were the main consumers of books before the late Ming Dynasty.
Individuals in this class have strong consumption power, and are particularly enthusiastic about consumption of reading materials related to fame such as the Four Books and Five Classics, poems and songs, classic historical books, ancient and modern annotations, and works by famous people.
Just like the textbooks and teaching aids of later generations, the industry is huge.
After 200 years of market competition, a fixed industry has already been formed. It is not the best idea for Wang Hongyu to intervene now.
This group also has the same consumption points as ordinary people, that is, they like this type of books and reading materials. Compared with all kinds of interesting stories, strange stories, and ancient and modern love affairs, they especially like those with strong literary nature.
This is not Wang Hongyu’s focus either.
Among them, a small number of people are also interested in scientific philosophy, technological creation, travel notes from all over the world, landscape biology and other works.
This is a part of the market with limited development, and it is also an area that Wang Hongyu must focus on, promote science popularization, and provide long-term publicity and guidance.
Targeting the scholar group, pursue this direction.
You can't make much money just by doing this.
There is also a broader consumer group.
That was the rapidly developing citizen class in the late Ming Dynasty.
The citizen class in the Ming Dynasty was large in number and involved all walks of life in society. They included middle- and lower-class merchants, handicraft workshop owners, handicraft workers, lower-class literati, prostitutes, entertainers, vagrant servants, and traffickers and lackeys, all of whom belonged to the citizen class.
These groups are relatively less willing to pursue fame and less competitive, and their willingness to consume "ancient teaching aids" is not that high.
The purchasing tendency for popular books, interesting stories and practical books for daily life is more obvious.
Wang Hongyu took away thousands of books from his uncle Liu Ruoyu, but there were almost no such books.
When visiting major study rooms in the capital, most of these books are placed in corners, but most of them have been read and touched by others.
We sent people to observe for a few more days and found that ordinary people from the market often came to the study and looked at these books but did not buy them.
Customers browse these books several times more frequently than classic books, but the sales situation in bookstores is exactly the opposite, with the sales volume being much lower than that of classic books.
What does this mean?
Poor.
Most ordinary people work for a year and earn about ten taels of silver. Many people are reluctant to spend tens of taels of silver to buy these books.
Even if you really want to watch it.
Even if the literacy rate increased significantly, much higher than that of the Qing Dynasty, the requirements for culture and entertainment also increased accordingly.
The purchasing power of a single entity is still too low.
As a large group, hundreds of times the size of the scholars, the consumption of books was just over a little.
In addition to purchasing power, most people also have relatively little leisure time.
Therefore, bookstores or the book industry in this era will not focus on them.
In Wang Hongyu's view, this is "giving up eating because of choking" and lacks modern business strategies.
If you can’t afford it, you can rent books~
In addition to the single method of renting books, you can also borrow books by paying a deposit~
There are also libraries that can also be used~
Selling books, reading books, listening to books, dramas, drinking tea, catering, teaching literacy, teaching music, teaching geography, teaching painting, and a one-stop cultural entertainment industry.
My mobile library of the Capital Academy integrates the above functions.
Although it is less than one-tenth that can be achieved now ~
The next day, the mobile library in the middle of the queue arrived.
As the librarian, Wang Hongyu immediately immersed himself in the sea of books. With his limited Latin proficiency, he specially selected four books for translation by Jinnige, Wang Zheng and others.