"viscosity!"

After seeing Wang Mingke frowning and spitting out two words, Shi Yiwen explained.

"To increase the stickiness of newspapers and make them want to read them after reading them, this is not just about the fun of the news," he said.

"How do the boss thinks it increases this stickiness?"

Faced with Wang Mingke's sincere request, Shi Yiwen answered directly.

"Maybe it can be serialized!"

"Yes, it's a serial novel. Set up a section in the newspaper to serialize novels and publish two or three thousand words a day. As long as they read it, they will naturally take the initiative to buy our newspaper."

In fact, since he initially decided to build a bookstore, especially after he decided to run a newspaper, Shi Yiwen had almost made up his mind to increase the "sticky" of the newspaper by serializing novels.

This way of serializing novels was a way for newspapers to increase sales in the late Qing Dynasty, especially before the liberation. Later, in Hong Kong, Jin Yong even started a newspaper by serializing his own novels.

"Boss, what do you mean is that we will print other people's novels into our newspaper?"

Wang Mingke's eyes lit up after the boss's words, and he even said loudly with excitement.

"Oh, oh, look at my brain, why didn't I expect that this time I didn't dare to print too much in the newspaper. It's because the characters are big and our newspapers are small, so there is a sea of ​​things that can be printed!"

Looking at Wang Mingke's excited appearance, Shi Yiwen smiled slightly. Today's books are all big-character books. The books of this era are mostly ten lines per page, twenty-two lines, and a maximum of more than two hundred characters per page. Large-character books are the fundamental reason for the high price of books. The root cause of this problem is that hand-engraved small characters are too expensive, and small characters are easy to lose. However, in front of lithographed plates, this is not a problem at all.

"Our, the stone-printed book we tried to print is 20 lines per page, 46 characters. Even if it is 40 lines per page, 80 characters, the characters can be printed very clearly. We will print the novel directly in the newspaper. It doesn't matter if the characters are smaller. Anyway, just lead them to buy it, the boss..."

After a pause, Wang Mingke said.

"Or we will print the most popular "The Romance of the Gods" (1) in the newspaper? That book is twenty volumes, but it is sold for two taels of silver (2). Our newspaper prints two thousand words a day, and after printing it in a hundred days, it will cost at most one tael of silver..."

When Wang Mingke mentioned "The Romance of the Gods", Shi Yiwen was slightly stunned and said in surprise.

"Is "The Romance of the Gods" coming out?"

"Yes, the new book that just passed down from Nanzhili after the New Year was about King Wu's attack on King Zhou, but the content was fresh. The book that sells the most in the capital now."

Although I was surprised that "The Romance of the Gods" seemed to have been released a few years ago, it also made Shi Yiwen's eyes lit up.

In fact, he had never considered printing other books in the newspaper at all, because there are too few good books now, and if newspapers want to make a splash, they must use good books to increase sales.

The Ming Dynasty was one of the most developed periods in Chinese history, especially novels were the best. There has always been a saying in the publishing industry that "selling ancient books is worse than selling time texts, and printing time texts is worse than printing novels". The huge market demand promoted the prosperity of the publishing industry. As early as the Jiajing period, the shortage of manuscripts and the desire for new books had reached its peak. Book merchants from all over the country racked their brains and thought of creating fresh novels. But this matter was not that easy. People in the Shilin often regarded novels as paths. Those who were of high standards were unwilling to write, and those who were willing to write were often limited in their level and could not write good books that were truly attractive.

It is a common phenomenon nowadays. Famous books like "Jin Ping Mei" and "Journey to the West" have not been written yet. After all, the peak of the Ming Dynasty novels will take decades. However, for Shi Yiwen, this is not a problem. After all, standing on the shoulders of giants, he has too many novels for "plagiarism", and even in the library, there are many Ming and Qing novels and novels from various periods. As long as he is willing, he can print out thousands or even tens of thousands of them at any time.

Speaking of which, although the novel industry in this era is prosperous, the types of novels are very limited, so Shi Yiwen has considered a lot and thought a lot about this blank market. In addition to novels from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, he even considered martial arts and science fiction novels.

If you want to gain fame from a novel, you must choose a suitable work. It is difficult to choose this work. Now, Wang Mingke's words are helping Shi Yiwen solve the problem. He was originally thinking about what book to "write" and immediately made a decision.

"If someone else's best-selling is best-selling, if we print "The Romance of the Gods" in the newspaper, how can other people's books be sold? The colleagues are enemies, and they offend people as soon as they come up. In the end, we suffer the loss. So, they published "The Romance of the Gods", so I will write a book "Journey to the West".

"The Romance of the Gods" can be regarded as an enlightenment book for Chinese novels of gods and demons. As a novel, it laid the foundation for the myth system of China. The gods in "Journey to the West" are extremely vague. Although the focus of the novel is Tang Monk and Sun Wukong, gods and ghosts are also important supporting roles. When they write it rashly, they look confused and may not be able to understand...

If you want to understand the relationship between gods and immortals in "Journey to the West", you must also refer to "The Romance of the Gods". "The Romance of the Gods" is like a mythological dictionary. If you do not refer to "The Romance of the Gods", you will not be able to understand the relationship between the mythical characters in "Journey to the West", or even this "system".

Now that "The Romance of the Gods" has been released and it is selling very well, it just happens to sell "Journey to the West" while the iron is hot.

"Journey to the West"?"

Wang Mingke looked at his boss in confusion.

"Yes, it's a bit related to "The Romance of the Gods", but it's still a brand new story."

Looking at Wang Mingke's confusion, Shi Yiwen smiled.

"In fact, this "Journey to the West" is to tell another story through the shell of the gods in "The Romance of the Gods".

While talking and laughing, Shi Yiwen gave a brief summary of the story of "Journey to the West". Although he just said it casually, he still stunned Wang Mingke. In the end, he seemed to be the only monkey left in his mind, and even asked repeatedly.

"What happened later? What happened later?"

"later……"

Looking at Wang Mingke's impatient appearance, Shi Yiwen smiled.

"Of course, I want to listen to what happened next, so I will explain it next time!"

(1) "The Romance of the Gods" is a novel written by Xu Zhonglin in the Ming Dynasty (controversial) and was written in Longqing and Wanli periods, so I took the number... the sixth year of Wanli.
Chapter completed!