After choosing to be a copywriter, Cao Zhiqiang suddenly discovered that he still didn’t know much about the cultural industry of this era, especially about the various platforms.
After all, this is not the Internet era. You can't just code a word on the Internet and then find a website to publish it.
So his method is very simple, that is, go to the post office first and look for well-known magazines with high sales volume and high reputation.
It's definitely not bad to find a publisher of a well-known magazine to submit your article.
Having established this principle, he quickly selected several magazines and recorded their submission addresses.
Next, it’s time to actually write the article.
At the beginning, he relied on his huge knowledge reserve in his previous life to honestly recall the various romance and science fiction short stories he had read in his previous life, and then wrote them down based on his memories, and then submitted them to various well-known magazines of his choice.
However, since it was impossible for him to clearly remember all the specific contents of the works he had read in his previous life, he always plagiarized the plots, ideas and characters of the novels in his previous life, and then re-created them with his own polish.
So strictly speaking, the works he submitted to major magazines in his early days cannot be regarded as plagiarism, but can only be regarded as in-depth reference.
I have to say that Cao Zhiqiang really encountered a good time. It can be said that his career as a copywriter was really at the right time.
At this time, entertainment methods were very scarce in China, and reform had just begun. After having been suppressed for more than ten years, many people's desire for literary works suddenly became strong.
Reflection literature, scar literature, and all kinds of messy obscene literature and pornographic literature are everywhere, and the writing review and publishing supervision are almost non-existent, and they are basically in name only.
Unless your work is too explicit and obscene and someone reports it, or there is an order from above to clean it up, no one will care about you.
Therefore, in the early 1980s, because the domestic cultural industry was still in the early stage of reform, there was a lack of real supervision, and various ideological trends were rampant. It was the spring of literary creation, and it was also an era of chaos and unbridled growth.
In this case, it is easy for both poisonous weeds to emerge and celebrities to become famous.
For example, the person who later won the Nobel Prize for Literature basically had his most productive period during this period.
There is also the guy who won the Nobel Prize for Literature earlier, but became a French-Chinese because he became a French citizen early. His award-winning works were also created in the early 1980s.
The reason is very simple. This is the same reason that it was easy to become famous during the Warring States Period.
When supervision is strengthened and control becomes stricter in the future, there will be fewer people like this.
In fact, at the beginning, Cao Zhiqiang flourished more, focusing on sensational and shocking short stories.
After all, there were many similar works in the previous life, which left a deep impression on me and I remember them clearly.
He has submitted articles to various famous magazines.
For example, Reader's Digest, Storytelling, Science Illustrated, Science Literature and Art, etc., he wrote many corresponding articles for submission.
Those magazines basically accepted his manuscripts and paid varying amounts of royalties.
However, he later discovered that this form of writing short stories and popular science articles for various magazines still made too little money, and if he continued like this, it would not be long before he would run out of talent.
After all, he is not a real writer, just a copywriter.
The manuscripts he submitted before were all well-known short stories that he accidentally remembered in his previous life, but they were not many in number, most of his memories were vague, and his knowledge reserve was very limited.
Then one day, when he went to the nearby Xinhua Bookstore to look for inspiration and observe market trends, he found that many people were queuing up to buy "The Legend of the Condor Heroes".
That guy, the queue is so long.
That's all. The key point is that the set of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" they rushed to buy was not cheap. It only cost 40 yuan for two volumes!
Forty yuan for two books is more expensive than his monthly salary.
But even so, everyone still had to queue up to buy it, and it was quickly sold out, so I couldn't buy it when I got there late.
This scene is no less impressive than the people who queued up to buy Apple phones in the early morning during the period when Apple phones were very popular in later generations.
Seeing this situation, he took a deep breath and finally thought of writing a martial arts novel.
Not much else, but when it comes to martial arts novels, he remembers them more. At least the plot and characters are all very impressive and he won't remember them wrongly.
Works such as martial arts novels were not yet widespread in China at this time and were in the ascendant period.
As long as the content is not political or pornographic, martial arts novels are relatively safe, and as long as they are decently written, they can be sold.
Also, martial arts novels are known as fairy tales for adults.
In an era when entertainment was still scarce, martial arts novels were very popular.
Especially young people are very enthusiastic about martial arts novels and are quite die-hard.
Authors of new-school martial arts novels like Jin Guliang are now simply popular all over the country, and everyone knows about them.
There are also many other martial arts novels written by Wo Longsheng, Zhuge Qingyun, etc., and the market is also very wide.
In other words, at this time, ordinary people loved reading these martial arts novels, which can be called the best era for martial arts novels.
Also, martial arts novels can be published as books, and publishing books depends on sales. The higher the sales, the higher your income.
What's more important is that at this time, domestic printing plants were not liberalized. They were basically state-owned and collective. They basically ate from the big pot and were not responsible for their own profits and losses.
Therefore, nowadays, except for a few shameless collective printing plants in the south, and some even more shameless township enterprise printing plants with small printing presses, most regular printing plants basically do not engage in piracy.
If later, especially in the 1990s, printing plants were responsible for their own profits and losses, then piracy would become truly rampant.
So in the early 1980s, it was really the spring for creators of literary works.
At this time, if your book becomes popular, it can be sold for 50,000, 60,000, 60,000, or even hundreds of thousands or millions, and you can become a god with one book, buy a car or a house, and earn enough money for a lifetime, it is no exaggeration.
Hey, it seems that it will be the same in later generations?
In short, after understanding this situation, he, Cao Zhiqiang, also wanted to gain some popularity.
Just when Cao Zhiqiang had not yet decided which famous novel he would plagiarize and adapt.
Early the next morning, he suddenly signed in and drew something unexpected.
"Selected Three Hundred Modern Martial Arts Novels"!
As the name suggests, it is three hundred classic martial arts novels by famous modern masters, including of course the works of Jin Guliang.
Well, since I have someone else’s complete ready-made work, there is no need to say, of course I will choose to copy it.
So he chose again and again, and finally decided to copy Huang Yi's "Shattered Void" first.
This novel only has more than 200,000 words, which is not a lot of words, but the plot is compact, majestic and very imaginative.
Especially the concept of Shattering the Void and sublimating the Tao has simply broken the ceiling of the original martial arts.
He believes that as long as everyone has read Shattered Void, they will feel like chewing wax when reading other martial arts novels.
There is no way, the boundaries of thinking have been broadened and the threshold of happiness has been raised.
After all, in this period, most martial arts novels still stuck to the routine of jumping off a cliff to get adventures, or jumping into the sea to get adventures. Opening up the Ren and Du lineage often meant that the ceiling of force was reached.
How does this compare to "Shattered Void" which is half-footed into fantasy?
It's a pity that in this era, he couldn't afford a personal computer, didn't have a keyboard to code, and he didn't have a reliable Chinese character input method, so he could only write by hand.
In addition, he had to go to work in the factory, and he had to greet and drop off his coworkers. There was so much nonsense going on that he couldn't write fast at all.
Generally speaking, at the beginning, he could only write more than 3,000 words a day. Later, the speed increased, and he updated 5,000 words a day. On average, he updated more than 4,000 words a day.
Any more will not work and your hands will get sore.
This made him miss the days of typing on the computer keyboard.
If he only typed on the keyboard, he could produce an average of 40,000 words a day, and he could finish copying "Shattered Void" in less than a week.
How can it be like now, when I only write an average of more than 4,000 words a day, and my writing hands are extremely sore.
Alas, what year and month will it take for the tentacle monster to resume its life?
Keyboard, I miss you!
In short, after nearly two months of painstaking handwriting and ballpoint pen copying, I finally finished copying the more than 200,000-word "Shattered Void".
Then he discovered that he had finished copying the book, but he didn't know how to publish it.
In other words, I don’t know which platform is best for publishing.