I became famous for writing ridiculous stories in ancient times

Chapter 17



I haven't been here for a month, and the city has changed a little.

Perhaps because Fu Wenyu was wearing a new scholar's robe made by Zhou today, and looked like a scholar, he met a bookseller as soon as he got off the ox cart.

The man was carrying a book box and said to Fu Wenyu with a smile on his face.

"This guy must be a scholar!"

"I have the best pens, ink, paper and inkstones here. If you buy more, I will give them away. Would you like to buy some?" Seeing that Fu Wenyu was not interested, he said, "You don't need pens and ink, but what about books?"

"I have..."

He said a few common book titles, and seeing that Fu Wenyu was still not interested and even wanted to leave, he quickly reached out and pulled him, "Hey, hey, don't go."

"I have good stuff!"

"Do you want the Liuzhou tabloid? This thing is really rare now..."

"Liuzhou tabloid?" Fu Wenyu stopped. This tabloid was indeed one of the reasons for his entry into the city, so he said with interest, "Then show it to me."

Because Fujia Village is a bit far from Liuzhou City, it takes more than an hour to go back and forth, so Zhang Er did not continue to deliver him the tabloid after delivering the first one, and Fu Wenyu was also very curious about its current situation.

The bookseller saw that he was interested and immediately took out a few copies.

"Look at your expression, you must have heard of this new thing, right? I tell you, I have a complete set here, from the one that started with the storybook to yesterday's, all are available."

"How many copies do you want, brother?"

"Just give me the latest one." Fu Wenyu just wanted to see what stage the tabloid had reached after more than a month, so he was not interested in the old ones and only wanted to see the latest ones.

The bookseller's newspaper was also ten cents, Fu Wenyu exchanged it for a copy and then flipped through it.

In general, the latest one was not much different from the first one.

The names of the shops advertising on it changed several times, and there were shops in other counties outside the prefecture. But what surprised him most was that the latest newspaper only had his storybook and Mr. Sanliu's "The Woodcutter", while Sun Xiucai's "The Story of the East Chamber" disappeared, replaced by another storybook he had not read. But in his memory, "The Story of the East Chamber" was longer than "The Woodcutter".

With this doubt, Fu Wenyu came to Kaiyuan Bookstore.

Shopkeeper Zhang smiled bitterly and said, "Hey, Mr. Sun doesn't want to print the storybook on it."

Then he briefly explained that Mr. Sun was a real scholar. Although he failed the exam for a long time, he felt that he would be able to pass the exam one day. So he has always been a little arrogant. After the revision of "Liuzhou Tabloid", it was very cheap and novel, which caused a lot of discussion.

Under the promotion of Mr. Tang, many people were willing to pay for a copy regardless of whether they were interested or not, or just took the first copy and talked about it with their friends.

In this way, Liuzhou Tabloid was widely circulated, and even peddlers could say a few words about the content above.

Among them, the three stories above caused the most topics.

Mr. Sanliu's "The Woodcutter" was well written and had been sold for a long time. Many people have read it, so although many people praised it, it was not widely discussed.

The most widely discussed work is Fu Wenyu's "The Dove Occupies the Magpie's Nest: It's Hard to Distinguish Between the Real and Fake Young Masters". Although his book title and pen name are both strange, it is really popular.

One of the reasons is of course that his storybooks are not pedantic and do not use book bags randomly. Anyone who can read can understand it, regardless of gender, age, wealth, or status.

Another important reason is that the storybooks are in the serialization period, and readers do not know the subsequent content. It is precisely because they do not know that they will discuss, argue, and speculate. In this way, the topic is high. Since the plot of Zhang Gousheng and Zhang's father entering the city was published, basically every teahouse has someone mentioning this storybook.

The most criticized is Sun Xiucai's "East Chamber".

"Sun Xiucai's storybooks have always been regarded as the standard by those who like them, and those who hate them want to get rid of them as soon as possible." Shopkeeper Zhang shook his head and said, "This time is the case."

"People who like it really like it, and people who hate it really hate it."

"Some time ago, someone criticized "East Chamber" in a teahouse, saying that Sun Xiucai must be like the people in the book, a hypocrite who only seeks fame and reputation and only lets his wife earn money for him to spend. These words probably reached Sun Xiucai's ears, so he came to the door."

Shopkeeper Zhang meant that Sun Xiucai felt that publishing the storybook in Liuzhou tabloids lowered the style of his storybooks, so he did not allow Liuzhou tabloids to print his "East Chamber" again, and said that those inferior people were not worthy of reading it.

So the people in the bookstore had to change a book.

Fu Wenyu: "..."

He didn't expect that there were people who didn't like traffic. Didn't this Sun Xiucai know that this method could quickly expand his fame and bring more benefits to the author of the storybook?

The more people know about it, the more people will buy it.

As for being criticized, there is no author who is not criticized. Even if there is no conflict, there will be people who criticize it for being bland.

When the subsequent plot of "The True and False Young Master" comes out, Fu Wenyu can't guarantee that he will not be criticized. However, it's good that "The Story of the East Chamber" is withdrawn. The plot is not something that normal people should read. In this way, when he takes the newspaper back in the future, he doesn't have to specifically tell his sister not to read Sun Xiucai's article. Even if she reads it, she won't believe it.

Fu Wenyu sighed for a while, and then put it aside.

He took out his saved manuscripts.

"Uncle Zhang, this is the rest of my storybook. Take a look." What he brought over this time was all the remaining manuscripts. There were more than 90,000 words in total. There was a thick stack on the table. .

"My dear nephew, have you finished writing everything?"

Shopkeeper Zhang looked through it in surprise. As a bookstore shopkeeper, his reading speed goes without saying. After just a quick look, he found that the quality of the part that Fu Wenyu brought over was even better than the previous 40,000 words. And some of the characters, some plots, and some words contain profound meanings.

And the ending was handled very well and there was nothing wrong with it.

"Okay, great!"

He reluctantly put it down and said to Fu Wenyu: "In this way, my dear nephew, you have finished writing this storybook. I will arrange for it to be printed tomorrow."

"As for how many copies to print, we should print a thousand copies as we agreed before. It should be more than two months after all the printing is completed." Shopkeeper Zhang looked at Fu Wenyu happily and said: "Wen Yu, you're out This is a really good idea. Since the Liuzhou tabloid published the story, people here have already asked me about it. "

"Not only did they buy all of Mr. Sanliu's "The Woodcutter", but some people also asked when your storybook will be sold. Hahaha, Wen Yu, you are a great contributor."

"I have a feeling that I won't let you down in the end."

Fu Wenyu also laughed.

He cupped his hands and said, "I accept your kind words."

Next, Fu Wenyu discussed printing books with shopkeeper Zhang.

Although he has sold the storybook to Kaiyuan Bookstore, he can still express some opinions on how to print it. For example, Fu Wenyu suggested that the paper does not need to be very good, just ordinary, and the main thing is to add punctuation marks.

Punctuation marks were also called "sentence reading" in ancient times. After being circulated for a long time, many versions appeared. Although the one provided by Fu Wenyu was not the same, shopkeeper Zhang thought about it for a while and agreed.

Then Fu Wenyu suggested adding illustrations.

First find someone to draw the illustrations, then print them on blank paper, and finally bind them together with other text pages into a book. As for what to draw, he had already thought about it. The first one was of course the scene of changing babies, in which two babies were exchanged in the dark. The other one is the famous scene where Zhang’s father kowtows to Wang Fugui. This must be painted.

The third is Zhang Gou Sheng’s difficult childhood life.

The fourth is the first meeting between Wang Yuanwai and Zhang Gou Sheng.

fifth……

Fu Wenyu came up with nearly ten famous scenes in the storybooks in a row. Because illustrations appeared in other storybooks, and Sun Xiucai's storybooks often drew pictures of beauties, shopkeeper Zhang agreed to his request without thinking. .

"Don't worry, my dear nephew, these printing houses are all well-trained."

"We hired a scholar over there who is good at painting. He can paint all the paintings you mentioned."

Fu Wenyu immediately asked: "Is it the gentleman who drew the illustrations for "The Woodcutter"?"

"The Woodcutter" by Mr. Sanliu was the first storybook that Fu Wenyu read after coming to ancient times, and it was also the one he found most interesting. The plot of this story is compact and the content is exciting. The lifelike illustrations in it also left a deep impression on him, so now when shopkeeper Zhang mentioned a scholar who was good at painting, he thought of that one.

Unexpectedly, shopkeeper Zhang shook his head.

"The painting above "The Woodcutter" was painted by Mr. Murong Bai."

"We all know that Mr. Murong's paintings are good, but he is not interested in fame and wealth. He only paints when he is destined. For example, the paintings in the storybook, he must see the storybook, and the content of the storybook must be something he likes before he can draw it. Otherwise, even if there are mountains of gold and silver in front of him, he will remain unmoved."

"Since you like Mr. Murong's paintings, I can ask you about your script, but it's hard to say whether the other party will answer or not. It depends on whether he likes it or not."

Fu Wenyu clicked his tongue, this is such a unique painter. Maybe this is the characteristic of the artist.

After a pause, Shopkeeper Zhang added, "But don't worry, my dear nephew, the scholar in the printing room is also good at painting. If you are not satisfied, just let him change it."

Fu Wenyu nodded regretfully.

But there was nothing he could do about it. He was not good at painting in his past life, especially in ancient times. Because it was difficult to become an apprentice and paint was expensive, the Fu family could not provide him with the conditions for painting.

So Fu Wenyu put aside his thoughts and suggested that shopkeeper Zhang should not dismantle the book boards arranged by Zhang, but could produce some hardcover editions.

What is a ‘hardcover edition’?

Of course, I use good paper and good ink, and the illustrations are manually colored. I also add some simple illustrations, character pictures, famous scene pictures, and his autograph as the author. Everything is of the best quality.

Don’t worry about not selling, because you can use the pre-order mode.

Print as many as you sell.

"Uncle Zhang, there are always people in the world who are not short of money." Fu Wenyu said.

He feels that human nature always has something in common in ancient and modern times, at home and abroad, such as 'stamp collecting', 'showing off', and 'lemon'. For some people who like "The True and False Young Master" and have money, this hardcover book Not only can they satisfy their collection mentality, but they can also show off to people around them, making them enviable.

A mere few taels of silver would not be taken seriously by them at all.

Fu Wenyu raised a finger, "These are better, we can order a set of ten taels of silver," he quickly calculated the cost price of the simple book in his mind, and then said: "For one tael of silver, you can print a set Is it a hardcover version?”

"My storybook, a set of three books, is thirty taels of silver. If you sell ten taels, you will make a net profit of seventy taels. As long as ten people buy it, you will make a net profit of seventy taels!"

"One hundred people, that's seven hundred taels!"

"There is a total of one prefecture city, twelve county towns, and several villages in the whole of Liuzhou. Not to mention that there are other places besides Liuzhou. When the Liuzhou tabloid spreads, there will definitely be more than ten people interested."

"And if you buy three sets, you can also get a rare color map!" At that time, he will definitely guide the painter to paint in person, and make sure to paint a painting that people can't take their eyes off.

Now, Zhang, the shopkeeper, looked at Fu Wenyu with surprise.

"Your idea, um..."

He said sincerely: "My dear nephew, if I didn't know your father, I would have thought that your family used to run a bookstore. Not bad, not bad, there are such rich people in the city."

In Zhang's mind, several "rich guests" in the city suddenly came to mind, such as Master Liu and Master Sun. They were all rich people who liked storybooks and liked to call friends.

"I'll tell the boss and give it a try."

If this method works, then the other scripts in the store can be operated in the same way. It won't take long before you can double or even multiply your money. Thinking of this, Zhang looked at Fu Wenyu with a gentler look.

This is really his lucky star.


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