Chapter 360 Signing
The publishing process of a book is more complicated than Li Yan had imagined.

Li Yan has been involved in publishing matters since winning the Supernova International Mystery Literature Award.

It’s been a year now.

Logically speaking, since the publisher of this book had already been confirmed to be Supernova Press, it should have been published and released earlier while the awards were announced and the attention was high.

But at the beginning, the manuscript review process was stuck for three months...

First, he said that the murder case was on a large scale. After Li Yan took out other published texts with more exaggerated bloody descriptions, he started to say that Li Yan had set the final villain to be a corrupt policeman. Then Li Yan said he would not continue.

Even my enthusiasm for making covers has been worn away.

His attitude has always been that if he wants to publish the book, he won't change a single word. If there is any change, he won't publish it.

It’s not that he is too willful, but he has been restrained in his writing from the beginning.

Very, very restrained.

It does not criticize anything, it has a positive ending, the process is as non-bloody as possible, and it does not describe any anti-human scenes or content.

This has actually affected his creative excitement and freedom to some extent, and now he is asked to continue to be conservative.

Keep your mother safe?
Moreover, at almost every point, Li Yan can find more radical publication content. Even for Supernova himself, aren’t the major mystery works he has published full of murders and dark sides?

They can publish something so explicit, so why must something as restrained as Mr. Li be changed?
In fact, Li Yan knew the reason. The words that the publishing house always hesitated to say were actually very clear.

"You're not famous enough."

Li Yan had a deep understanding of this when she was writing online articles. Once you become famous, you and the platform need each other, and the platform will naturally be willing to help you take risks.

Any large-scale or shocking plot is a feature of a famous author, but would be considered suicide if it were written by an ordinary author.

This is not only the rule of the online literature circle or even the literary circle, it is actually a social rule.

Li Yan understood and knew that there was nothing to say. No one's fame came from the wind. Whether it was due to hard work or luck, as long as you have fans, you can do whatever you want.

So he just stopped talking about it and told everyone to come out or not.

He had reason to believe that most of the three months of audit time was actually wasted.

Why were you willing to push forward the progress later?
Because Li Yan won the first place in the national competition, her fame is gradually increasing.

In other words, Supernova finally made one thing clear through Li Yan's new achievements - this child has a bright future and he should be held on to well.

By this time, Li Yan had become increasingly busy and paid less attention to Supernova.

As for the later changes in typesetting versions due to the large number of words in the novel and the difficulty in binding it into one volume, Li Yan basically did not participate.

He asked someone with experience in mystery publishing to help with the matter, and this person expressed great interest and worked much more attentively than Li Yan himself.

She is the female editor Jiang Qingyue who loves reasoning and hopes to see Li Yan become a leading figure in Chinese reasoning.

Due to contract issues, the copyright of the online novel "Nangong Youth" was entirely in Li Yan's hands. In the later stages, his mailbox was almost filled with applications for publishing this book.

Then Li Yan did something that made Qiyuan laugh and cry. He asked the Kaiyuan editor to be fully responsible for the matter.

Kaiyuan readily agreed and said, "This is my job."

After I was dizzy from communicating with major publishing houses and sorted out a bunch of information and sent it to Li Yan, I suddenly realized it.

Damn, Origin doesn't have the copyright, so he's just getting it for free!
It's a shit job!

However, Kaiyuan was only grateful to Li Yan and the book "Nangong Youth". Even though he repeatedly convinced himself that the success of this book was inseparable from his key contribution, if one really had to rank the degree of contribution, it was obvious that Li Yan's help to him was far greater than his help to Li Yan.

The titles of "Gold Medal Editor" and "Origin Editor-in-Chief" really sound nice.

Kaiyuan always thought of what Li Yan said to him at the beginning, "I will let you be the new editor king", and he didn't expect it to come true.

This book must be treated as your own!

The selection of the publishing house went unexpectedly smoothly because a giant that had little experience in online publishing entered the market - Huaxin Publishing House. It immediately said that it wanted to produce three sets of editions: a collector's set, a hardcover edition, and a paperback edition, which confused Kaiyuan.

After he excitedly told Li Yan, Li Yan thought for a while and said:
"Oh, they wanted to cooperate with me before."

So it was Huaxin Publishing House that made its dream come true, right?

With Huaxin Publishing House around, and the fact that Li Yan was no longer a nobody when he decided to publish online novels, the pace of online novel publishing was incredibly fast.

All of them have been shown to everyone on the Internet, so there are naturally not many changes in the paper version - the number of words is relatively large, so Li Yan did not have any requirement of "not changing a single word".

Seeing that he had to get busy with the mobile phone launch conference, he spent another month arranging the "details" for the mystery novel. Coincidentally, the publishing work of "Nangong Youth" was also coming to an end. Li Yan suddenly had a special idea.

Have two sales conferences held at the same time.

Why? No reason, just treat it as an inexplicable willfulness.

I'm too lazy to run around, so I decided to experience it together and compare the difference between the award-winning mystery and the popular online article.

Upon learning that Li Yan's appearance was to be arranged on the same day, Huaxin Publishing House and the editorial team of "Nangong Youth" were not surprised at all, but Supernova was in a state of panic.

If these two news were reported together, they would definitely be compared. After all, domestic reasoning is a niche, and how many people would go to the Supernova self-operated bookstore in Beijing to support it?

As for the fans of "Nangong Boys", it is no exaggeration to say that they are crying out for food.

The comparison is bound to be tragic.

How tragic it is, ask Li Yan.

He went back to the company in the evening to deal with some things, and got on the plane without having dinner. He had an airplane meal on board, and slept until he arrived in Beijing.

He traveled day and night to find a hotel - he rejected accommodation offers from two publishing houses in order to have freedom of movement.

Then I successfully found a douzhi restaurant that was open until late at night in the alley next to the hotel.

"Hey, you're from another place. Why are you here to drink soy milk so late?" The boss was still quite young.

Li Yan wiped the sweat from his forehead and said with a smile, "I came from Linjiang, traveling thousands of miles just for this bite."

The boss was stunned.

Are there still people who travel all the way from the south just to have a sip of soy milk in the evening these days?

"Young man, do you like drinking so much?"

"I drank it last time and I can't forget it."

Especially the point increase this thing gave me. I'll try it again today to see if I can stimulate something else.

Li Yan regards soy milk as a breakthrough medicine.

The boss enthusiastically scooped a bowl and kept saying that he was about to close the stall, and Li Yan was making money.

Just one bite and Li Yan retched.

Then he frowned, hardened his heart and continued to work.

The boss was puzzled when he saw Li Yan walking back to the hotel with unsteady steps.

I even tried a sip myself and said, "It tastes normal. How come this guy is drunk?"

After returning to the hotel and lying on the bed, Li Yan had a deeper understanding of the saying "All medicines are poisonous to some extent".

Unfortunately, apart from realizing that the soy milk was indeed unpalatable and that his willpower was more powerful than last time, he gained nothing.

The next day, Li Yan arrived at the Supernova self-operated bookstore as scheduled, and greeted President Ma and Jiang Qingyue happily.

President Ma's expression looked a little unnatural.

The venue is relatively small - the bookstore is not very big to begin with, so it is located where reader salons are usually held.

Li Yan observed that it could probably accommodate two hundred people - it was obvious that some space had been temporarily expanded and the chairs were arranged differently.

Normally, the salon would have at most a hundred people. Perhaps President Ma originally wanted to make it more like a reader salon?

Let Li Yan talk freely on the stage, and readers will have in-depth exchanges on the mystery works below, sparking new ideas.

The so-called small but beautiful.

It is hard to say whether the current expansion was affected by Li Yan’s decision to release two products on the same day.

The sales event started at 9:30 in the morning, and now at 8:30, there are already nearly two hundred people on site.

President Ma hurriedly directed the production of a sign that said "The place is full, please stop coming", and was also struggling with whether to expand the capacity to 300 people.

Li Yan didn't care. It was the organizer's business and he didn't want to get involved.

If the contingency plan is not prepared, he, as a guest, will also be considered a victim, and he will have to issue a bad report to Supernova Publishing House.

In the end, nearly three hundred people entered the scene, resulting in a group of people having to stand.

However, there were only a few dozen people waiting outside the door, and when they saw that they couldn't get in, they just left.

Li Yan observed that some employees of Supernova were very excited, including Jiang Qingyue, who was so excited that her face turned red. Perhaps she felt that the popularity was far beyond her expectations.

President Ma's expression was very complicated and he was very conflicted.

I hope more people will come to participate, but I am also worried that these people will come just for Li Yan, and it will become a real-life star-chasing event rather than a pleasant activity for mystery enthusiasts.

It would be fine if they were pursuing Li Yan’s identity as a “mystery writer”, but if they were “seeing what the legendary Li Yan is like”, then that would go against the sales activities that President Ma wanted to see.

Judging from the fact that there was little reaction from the audience after President Ma finished talking about "The Puppet Master's Thread", but there was cheering from the audience after he introduced Li Yan... a considerable proportion of "readers" did not come for the book.

During the subsequent signing session, a group of girls who kept screaming pushed hard. They clearly only bought one book, but they still managed to get Li Yan to sign several names on them.

Such as mobile phone cases, fans, notebooks, rackets (? ), clothes, etc.

There were also other books taken out for Li Yan to sign, and then Li Yan simply stretched out her hand to indicate "please leave".

There was also a girl in a white pleated skirt who bought a book, then suddenly jumped up, turned around and raised her butt, allowing Li Yan to sign on her skirt that was lifted up by her butt.

Li Yan said no, and she even twisted her body coquettishly, making her skirt sway.

Then Li Yan simply covered the pen, and the girl left angrily.

I guess there should be a Weibo post about Li Yan's haircut.

There were only about 300 people. The person who bought the most books was a fat guy wearing glasses. He bought ten books at once. Even so, only 400 books were sold in total.

Li Yan signed more than a thousand names, turning the one-hour process into half a day.

In total, he rejected more than forty other books, six celebrity posters and a butt.

After the event was over, the group dispersed like birds and beasts. Only about forty people, including about ten girls, stayed on the scene to participate in the last part of the "reasoning discussion".

President Ma said he was heartbroken.

Li Yan was in normal condition. She shared her writing experience with them and recommended some mystery works, many of which had been published by Supernova.

President Ma waved his hand and gave the books to everyone. They all received Li Yan's autographs and messages. There were even a few who made wonderful speeches, and Li Yan even drew cartoon characters on the spot.

Li Yan was also very happy to see everyone looking so happy.

"Luckily there is this last part," President Ma looked a little tired, "otherwise I don't know what today means."

"President Ma is still very sentimental." Li Yan also sighed.

This thing called reasoning...even though it is often discussed quite a lot, in fact, everyone just likes murder cases, superficial brain-burning stories, and "suspense". If everyone is really asked to participate in mental labor and logical reasoning, the purchasing power will be just that.

He doesn't go for the imaginative and bizarre genre, so I'm afraid that's the nature of detective novels.

Picture one for fun.

Being the leading figure in Chinese reasoning may be easier than one might imagine, since he has never become a leader in the field.

"Thank you for your hard work. You have been so busy all of a sudden..." President Ma said to Li Yan.

"It's okay. It can be considered as a way to gain some experience for the autograph session in the afternoon." Li Yan said with a smile.

President Ma pursed his lips, not knowing what to say.

Due to time constraints, Li Yan refused to stay in Supernova for dinner and instead chose a Shangjing Luzhu restaurant for a simple lunch.

First it was soy milk and then luzhu, today Lao Yan is going to compete with Beijing cuisine!
But maybe he was just very receptive to going into the water, or maybe his willpower of 61 points was already very strong, so the braised pork could only be considered a lunch with a special taste.

He had to buy some mouthwash before entering the Shangjing Library.

Huaxin Publishing House is indeed a big name. There is a row of signing and promotional materials for "Nangong Youth" at the entrance of the Shangjing Library.

There is no photo of Li Yan above because he didn’t reply when Kaiyuan asked him for it.

Later, Kaiyuan did not continue to look for her until the signing event was about to start. Kaiyuan could not help but ask Li Yan if she did not want to be too exposed to the public, or if she had any taboos about photo development.

Li Yan said, "I was busy and forgot about it, and you didn't even remind me."

……

The sales event was scheduled for 2:30 p.m., and a large crowd of people showed up at 1:30 p.m.

There were probably about six or seven hundred of them, making the library extremely noisy.

However, this is the case with the Shangjing Library. Various celebrity forums and book signings are held in the lobby all year round. For people who read in the library, hearing a large group of people making a lot of noise downstairs has become commonplace.

Fortunately, the venue was large enough, and the people on the second, third, and fourth floors, as well as those in the study rooms, were not greatly affected by the soundproof glass.

Moreover, local students say that studying at the Beijing Library is just pretending to work hard.

Huaxin's on-site person in charge warmly received Li Yan. After a brief exchange of greetings, Li Yan asked:
"Mr. Zhou, how many people are you going to let on stage during today's book signing?"

"The venue can accommodate a thousand people. If they are willing to buy a whole set of books on the spot, we can all sign them. How about that?"

Li Yan let out a long "oh" and suddenly realized something: "Can this library be open all night?"

Mr. Zhou didn't react immediately, "No, the lobby is open until nine in the evening at most, and the upstairs closes at six."

Li Yan smiled and said, "So we have to sign in at 9pm?"

Mr. Zhou finally came to his senses. "The great writer Li is really humorous. It's okay. Even though there are many people here, there are only a few who would buy a whole set of books at once. Besides, you only sign your name for a set of books, and it takes at most two hours. Sorry for the hard work."

Li Yan did not comment.

"Don't worry, I have experience. I have held many book signing events here."

At 2:30 in the afternoon, Mr. Zhou, who had contacted the library security to prohibit more people from entering the venue, had sweat on his forehead.

The venue, which usually accommodates a maximum of one thousand people, now has at least one thousand five hundred people, with three layers of onlookers inside and outside, which has greatly affected the flow of people in the library and caused dissatisfaction among some readers who were not interested in the signing.

When it came to the autograph session, Mr. Zhou, who already had a bad feeling, looked at the eager eyes in the audience and was even a little afraid to announce the start of the event.

"We have prepared a total of 600 sets of signed books. Readers who are interested in purchasing please raise your hands and go on stage to purchase in an orderly manner..."

A lot of hands were raised up, like a wave.

It directly upset Mr. Zhou's heart.

He looked at Li Yan who was sitting next to him with a look of shock.

Li Yan smiled and said, "Mr. Zhou, Huaxin is good at publishing nonfiction, but may not know much about the ecology of online literature. They are paying readers anyway."

The hand holding the pen started to shake.

Hand: Damn, this is a burning fate.

(End of this chapter)