Chapter 68 Buyout

At noon, Pei Qian and He An had lunch together at Director Li's Mingfu Family Banquet.

The main reason for not going to the nameless restaurant was that they couldn't get a reservation.

However, Pei Qian reserved the largest private room at the nameless restaurant every weekend for banquets, so he could invite He An for another meal then.

He An knew that President Pei was busy with work and he also wanted to go back to rest at noon, so the two agreed to have another meal at the nameless restaurant on the weekend and then said goodbye.

He An was still very curious about how "Mission and Choice" could possibly succeed, but seeing President Pei's confident and tight-lipped demeanor, he knew that he wouldn't get any answers even if he asked, so he had to suppress his curiosity and continue to wait for the game's release.

After lunch, Pei Qian looked at his watch. It wasn't even 3 o'clock yet.

It was Friday afternoon, and he still had time to arrange for one more department.

Tomorrow was the weekend, and except for a very few departments like Reversed Logistics that needed to work in shifts, the other departments would have a holiday, so the arrangements for other departments would have to wait until Monday.

"Which department should I arrange for?"

"Hmm... Qidian Chinese Website is closer, I'll arrange for it first."

Pei Qian originally wanted to go to Thriller Hostel, but Thriller Hostel was relatively far from the city center, and it was a bit of a hassle to make a trip. Pei Qian didn't want to bother, so he decided to go on Monday.

He would take care of Qidian Chinese Website first today.

Qidian Chinese Website was on the floor above Tengda Games. Although Pei Qian could usually get there by taking the elevator up two floors, he hadn't been to Qidian Chinese Website for a long time.

Because there was really nothing to see.

Although Qidian Chinese Website also made money, it didn't make as much as other industries, and it was very stable, without sudden surges in revenue.

Pei Qian always felt that the Qidian Chinese Website department was neither up nor down, a "chicken rib" state of being tasteless to eat but a pity to discard, so he had completely let it go for the past few months without asking.

But after seeing the steadily increasing revenue data of Qidian Chinese Website this morning, Pei Qian became alert again and felt that he couldn't let it go like this anymore.

Now that he had freed up his hands, he could make proper arrangements.

Pei Qian arrived at Qidian Chinese Website and first roughly scanned everyone's working status.

Well, it was okay, at least better than Tengda Games.

When he went to the Tengda Games department before, those people were all staring at the screen with full attention, either typing rapidly on the keyboard with both hands, or frowning and racking their brains, looking like they were all concentrating on their work.

But here at Qidian Chinese Website, everyone's working state was much more relaxed. Some people were reading novels on their mobile phones, some were aimlessly flipping through various data on the website, in short, a rather relaxed state.

Although there were no obvious signs of slacking, it was significantly better than the working state of the Tengda Games department, which made Pei Qian feel very gratified.

Zhu Xing'an, the editor-in-chief of the current Qidian Chinese Website, saw President Pei and hurried up to greet him: "President Pei, why are you here?"

Zhu Xing'an was a little surprised because President Pei hadn't come to Qidian Chinese Website to inspect the work for a whole year, and hadn't given any more guidance to Qidian Chinese Website.

Many colleagues thought that President Pei had forgotten about Qidian Chinese Website.

But now that President Pei was here, it meant that President Pei had not forgotten Qidian Chinese Website!

This made Zhu Xing'an quite happy.

Pei Qian smiled: "It's nothing, I just came to see it on the way. Where's Ma Yiqun?"

Zhu Xing'an said: "In the office."

Pei Qian nodded, came to Ma Yiqun's office, and knocked lightly on the door.

Ma Yiqun was also very surprised to see that President Pei had arrived: "President Pei, why are you here? Please, come in and have a seat."

Pei Qian sat down on the sofa in the office.

Ma Yiqun poured a cup of tea: "President Pei, did you make a special trip here today to arrange some work?"

Pei Qian drank tea and said leisurely: "I just remembered that I haven't been here for a while, so I just came to take a look. How is the website doing? Is that training class still going on?"

Ma Yiqun answered truthfully: "The current situation of the website is very good, the revenue is steadily increasing, especially the number of authors has been increasing."

"A batch of popular books has appeared on the website, and the subscription results of these top books have been steadily improving. In addition, we give authors a larger share than other websites, so we are becoming more and more popular with authors."

"Moreover, our website never delays or deducts royalties for no reason. All data is public and transparent, which is also one of our major advantages."

"Many authors come to our website to try out new books, and our website's reputation in the circle is getting better and better!"

"The online author training class is still going on, and the effect is remarkable. Now the list of the training class is no longer voluntary registration, because everyone has to participate, and there are not enough places at all. We can only choose from the new authors who have achieved certain results, and in principle, those who have come in the previous session cannot come again in the next session."

"But even so, the authors are still flocking to it, and the readers are clamoring every day to send the authors they are following to the training class to be locked up in a small dark room to update seriously."

"Whether it is authors who are slow at writing, lack inspiration, or lack writing skills, they have made significant progress and improvement after studying in the training class! Once such an atmosphere is formed, coupled with the old-to-new model, the training class has cultivated batches of excellent authors for the website, and the novel content of the entire website is naturally becoming richer and more exciting."

Pei Qian drank tea, listening more and more melancholy.

It sounded like the situation was very bad!

Obviously, Qidian Chinese Website has entered a virtuous circle, with authors' incomes continuing to increase, writing enthusiasm being fully stimulated, and writing skills also improving with the help of other authors. At the same time, because there are more and more good works, readers' stickiness to the website is also increasing.

If things go on like this, the consequences will be disastrous!

Although the current market share of Qidian Chinese Website is not as good as that of large websites like Infinite Chinese Website, it is already among the top three choices in the minds of authors due to its high share and good benefits.

Once the website grows, it will definitely develop steadily in the future. As long as the person in charge is not brain-dead and does not engage in some idiotic operations, it is difficult for the website to decline.

Pei Qian carefully looked at Ma Yiqun and felt that he was definitely not brain-dead.

In that case, the future development of Qidian Chinese Website will definitely be better and better, which is a high probability event.

This cannot continue, something must be done!

Pei Qian can also be considered an online novel reader, and he knows a little bit about these things in the online literature circle.

He thought for a moment and quickly found a good entry point.

"Our website is still mainly based on subscription sharing, right?"

Ma Yiqun didn't know why President Pei wanted to ask this, and nodded: "Yes, President Pei, since the establishment of our website, you have always emphasized that we should focus on subscription sharing and try not to engage in buyouts."

Pei Qian thought for a while, it seemed that he had indeed decided this.

Because at the beginning of the establishment of Qidian Chinese Website, the entire website was in a state of being ignored.

Pei Qian was worried that Ma Yiqun would use buyouts to poach some great authors from other websites at high prices to bring popularity and traffic to Qidian Chinese Website, so he repeatedly reiterated that subscription sharing should be the main focus and that buyouts should not be used.

Because there were not many readers, the subscription sharing would naturally not be much money, and authors would not come here to write books if they couldn't make money.

But now, times have changed.

After Qidian Chinese Website has developed, subscription sharing is definitely a model that can better motivate authors. Because the better the book is written, the higher the subscription, and the more money they make, so authors will work hard to polish the plot and dedicate better-looking works to readers.

Pei Qian took a sip of tea and said, "This principle has to be changed. In the future, we will do both sharing and buyouts. However, we will only buy out the works of our own authors!"

Ma Yiqun was stunned for a moment: "Only buy out the works of our own authors?"

Logically speaking, since buyouts are to be done, then a very important use is to poach people from other websites.

Because excellent authors from other websites are not sure whether they can maintain their current income by relying on subscriptions after switching websites, and they are worried that they will not be able to adapt, they will hesitate when they are poached.

Therefore, it is relatively easier to poach people in the form of buyouts.

As for the works of their own authors, signing a buyout actually doesn't make much sense.

Because buyouts don't offer unlimited high prices, websites also have to ensure that they won't lose money.

Websites will estimate the royalties that authors can get by writing subscription sharing, and then give a buyout price that is slightly higher than the subscription royalties.

If the content written by the author is lower than the value of the subscription, then the website will lose; and if the content written by the author is higher than the value of the subscription, then the author will lose.

But for the authors of this site, if they are making a lot of money by writing subscriptions and feel that they can improve even more, then they will definitely not sign a buyout, because it will wear down their fighting spirit; and if they are some authors who don't make much money from subscriptions in the first place, their ability is not good, and signing a buyout will not encourage them to write harder, but will objectively encourage them to live a life of ease.

Therefore, the buyout method is more useful when poaching people, but if it is used on their own people, it is likely to cause a lose-lose situation for the website and the author.

That's why Ma Yiqun was full of doubts about President Pei's buyout strategy.

Pei Qian looked at Ma Yiqun's confused expression and smiled without saying a word.

Confused?

That's right!

I was originally trying to wear down the authors' fighting spirit!

Many authors know that writing a buyout can easily ruin people.

Because buyouts are generally calculated by the number of words, the quality of the work actually does not affect the author's income. As long as the contract is strictly enforced, then no matter how garbage the author writes, as long as there is no obvious violation of the contract, the website must pay according to the number of words.

For authors, if they write very well and exceed the price given by the buyout, the money they earn is still the same, which is equivalent to them losing. Therefore, they will lack the motivation to write the book well.

Of course, in order to avoid these problems, many websites add a lot of supplementary clauses to the buyout contract, such as: when the data is not good, the editor has the right to ask the author to make changes or finish the book early; when the data of the book reaches a certain level, the author can make a request to the website, and the buyout can be converted into a share; or simply sign a "guaranteed share", that is, when the subscription does not exceed a certain value, the buyout is used, and after it exceeds, the share is used.

But Pei Qian obviously does not intend to use this method.