Chapter 149 Detective Conan
President Zou certainly agreed, so Liu Hongmin recommended Wang Xiaoping, Chen Jiangong, Liu Zhenyun and others, all of whom were his good friends.
Through Ma Weidu, he notified several people about this matter and sent the selection criteria. Chen Jiangong was particularly cunning and directly recommended two novels by Liu Zhenyun. Liu Zhenyun's writing style is humorous and witty. Although he writes serious literature, it is not lacking in entertainment. Therefore, Sanlian Publishing House directly approved it.
Liu Zhenyun was actually happy to see this happen. With his personality, he really couldn't recommend his own novel. But when Chen Jiangong recommended it, he felt relieved. If he could get the royalties, his income would double, which was great news for him as he had just married and had children.
Chen Jiangong was also very happy. Two thousand Hong Kong dollars was equivalent to six or seven hundred RMB, which was equal to more than half a year's salary for him.
Wang Xiaoping and others also gained something. Each of them recommended one or two books and made some extra money.
Moreover, this is a long-term job. Every year, hundreds or even thousands of new novels are published, and there are always some that are suitable for the Hong Kong market. They can get hundreds of yuan every year, which is already a considerable income for the mainland now.
They were all very grateful to Liu Hongmin. Before, they were shy and only ate for free at Liu Hongmin's place, and never asked for money from him. Liu Hongmin also knew that they were embarrassed, so he never asked for money. Now that he had this opportunity, he recommended them immediately.
Sanlian Publishing House also made a lot of profit from this and obtained a number of good book sources before the publication of "Face Changing".
Liu Zhenyun's two novels were well received when they first appeared in the Hong Kong market. Thirty thousand copies were sold in half a month, the highest sales among these books. Although not as good as Liu Hongmin's novels, the results were not bad. The contract with Sanlian gave him 10% of the royalties, and he had already earned Hong Kong dollars.
During this period, Sanlian Publishing House was making a lot of money. It signed contracts with more than ten novels from the mainland, and so far, a total of 300,000 copies have been sold. Moreover, the royalties of these books are not very high. In addition, the typesetting cost a lot of money, but compared with the profit, it is nothing.
The performance of "Infiltration" and "Kite" is also very good. Thanks to Liu Hongmin's fame, the sales volume exceeded 50,000 copies in half a month. However, the evaluation is not very high. Most of the readers are the audience of suspense novels, and they are not very fond of spy wars.
More importantly, these two novels contain too many political elements, which makes Hong Kong readers a little confused and not very interested.
The most profitable one is of course "Detective Conan". Although the foreign language copyrights of "Conan" such as Korean, Japanese, and English have been handed over to Random House for operation, the Chinese copyright is still in the hands of Sanlian.
After its release, "Detective Conan" immediately became popular in Hong Kong and sold 50,000 copies in just ten days.
Sanlian Publishing House immediately launched a plan to enter overseas markets and sold the traditional Chinese version to Southeast Asia.
In the Chinese market in Southeast Asia, the sales of "Detective Conan" are also very good. In more than ten countries, 20,000 to 30,000 copies are sold every day, and 200,000 copies are sold in ten days.
But the real money-making market is still the Japanese market.
After Random House put "Detective Conan" on the shelves, it immediately caused a sales frenzy in Japan.
In order to prevent the Japanese from knowing that this was a comic he led, Liu Hongmin directly wrote the author of "Detective Conan" as Tengu Comics Studio. Tengu is a mythical beast that eats the moon and causes lunar eclipses in China, but it is a monster in the Japanese. Therefore, if no one reported it, the Japanese would never know that it was Liu Hongmin who made it. In order to make money, Random House would not tell the Japanese the truth. So under this circumstance, "Detective Conan" sold more than 100,000 copies on the first day it was put on the shelves, and sold more than a million copies in five days.
The Japanese love comics very much. Adults and children alike are all the audience of comics.
The Japanese economy is still growing rapidly, and the average salary is more than 3 million yen. Spending 1,000 yen on a comic book is not a big deal.
After watching Detective Conan, many people immediately fell in love with this high-energy detective comic. Everyone recommended it to each other, and more people knew about it. In the following days, the sales of Detective Conan surged, from more than 200,000 copies a day to 500,000 or 600,000 copies, and even reached millions of copies during holidays.
"Detective Conan" has become a phenomenal comic and has set off a detective craze in Japan.
Random House immediately launched the same glasses and watches as Conan, which were also snapped up by the Japanese. Such huge profits made Random House pay more attention to Liu Hongmin, and the representative of Random House even found Liu Hongmin directly, wanting to invite him to sign a contract with Random House.
On the one hand, they wanted to get rid of the profits made by Sanlian Publishing House in the middle, and on the other hand, they wanted to tie Liu Hongmin to Random House and make Liu Hongmin a cash cow for Random House.
Liu Hongmin neither refused nor agreed.
He would not sign a contract with Random House. If he did, there would be many constraints. At that time, without the right to create independently, he would only become a tool to make money.
For example, Random House would definitely not agree to his current work "Face Off", but wanted Liu Hongmin to devote all his energy to the "Detective Conan" project. If a comic book is published every month, it can generate hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in profit for Random House every year. For a work like "Face Off", at least 100 copies are needed to generate such a huge profit.
However, Liu Hongmin did not say anything definite, he still needed the help of Random House.
The American toy giant Hasbro has already taken notice of Transformers and sent people to acquire the Hong Kong Transformers toy factory, offering a whopping price of $100 million.
Unfortunately, in Liu Hongmin's mind, the copyright of Transformers is worth at least 10 billion US dollars.
You should know that the current market for Transformers is mainly in East Asia and Southeast Asia, which has earned Liu Hongmin tens of millions of dollars in net profit. It is nothing but a pipe dream to want to take away Transformers with a purchase price of $100 million.
However, Hasbro is a global toy giant. If we have a falling out with Hasbro, we will definitely be suppressed by Hasbro.
Liu Hongmin wanted a win-win situation. He wanted to use Hasbro's channels to sell Transformers to the world. But Hasbro was too greedy, so the two sides failed to reach an agreement. Therefore, Liu Hongmin wanted to bring in Random House to force Hasbro to compromise.
When it comes to dealing with the American giants, of course, it is another American giant that has the greatest chance of success. This is called using foreigners to control foreigners.
(End of this chapter)
