Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

As he was thinking about this, a knock on his door rang out. Pei Qian looked up and saw that it was Ma Yiqun.

Ever since they began preparing to create Zhongdian Chinese Network, Ma Yiqun had been very busy. Although arrangements for the administrative, finance, and legal staff had been made and the company's framework was complete; Ma Yiqun still had to decide how the website would be run.

Ma Yiqun had already bought a website template and authors' platform on the website for resources according to Pei Qian's requirements. They bought the domain name 'www.zhongdian.com' for three hundred thousand yuan as well.

Since Qidian had not yet been created in this world, the person who created the domain name 'zhongdian' could not sell the domain for too high of a price. What's more, it was 2010. Domain names had not become expensive. One could say they got quite a good deal.

Apart from this, they had hired staff to maintain the website and bought a cloud server. They had also applied for authorization from the relevant authorities.

After doing all these things and spending hundreds of thousands of yuan, the initial preparations were more or less complete.

After that, it was time for Ma Yiqun to get busy.

First, he had to gather all his employees, in order to assign tasks to each of them. All of these people were seniors whom Zhang Wei recommended to Pei Qian. All of them graduated with majors in humanities. That meant they had a passable grasp on language.

Ma Yiqun's first impression of them was that they all seemed a bit autistic. Most of them also looked like nerds. This was expected; none of them could find jobs until now. If all of them had the gift of the gab, they would not remain unemployed after graduation until now.

Fortunately, they had good attitudes. Ma Yiqun was not that fussy.

He knew very well that it was not meaningful to discuss whether someone was suited to be in the online literature industry. It also did not matter whether one did well in school or not. Anyone who entered this industry had to start from scratch.

This was a good thing and a bad thing.

At least, to Ma Yiqun, these people met the fundamental requirements.

After this, Ma Yiqun assigned tasks to each of them. Once the website was set up, the first thing to do was to fill the library up. A website for web novels had to have content. Otherwise, it would be an empty shell. Thus, they had to hire a batch of authors as soon as possible.

Especially wealthy web novel sites would surely hire famous authors. They might even hire them by the batch. Doing this could cost them millions of yuan.

However, this was not the path Pei Qian chose.

Although this would allow him to spend more money, the chances of the website failing would decrease greatly. These authors were novel gods after all. If Pei Qian hired them, the website would draw people's attention very quickly.

He could either spend money to buy novel gods over or attract failures. After some consideration, Pei Qian decided that the latter would allow him to lose more money.

After all, most novel gods who had become famous were genuine talents. To make gods out of failures, on the other hand, would be extremely difficult.

Any author with aspirations would choose to chase their dreams on an established website like Infinite Chinese Network even if they were failing currently. All of them hope for their novels to rise to fame one day.

They would not write for a small website with a dim future for the sake of earning a few hundred yuan more.

Thus, after pondering over this for a while, Pei Qian decided not to pull novel gods over but work on attracting failing authors instead. This would probably be the more reliable way to incur losses.

Ma Yiqun's job in these early stages was to train his staff and filter manuscripts. These people knew little about online literature. Even those who had read online literature had never read in depth about it.

Ma Yiqun still had to teach them the basic principles such as writing satisfying plots, finding rhythm, and developing the theme. These people could only become editors after Ma Yiqun was more or less done. Then, they could help Ma Yiqun with choosing manuscripts, guiding authors, and the like.

Now, Ma Yiqun was probably here to report their progress to Boss Pei.

"Boss Pei, this is the current situation…"

He briefly explained what they had achieved so far before changing the topic. "We have two main problems at the moment.

"First, our current editors are below standard. Their understanding of online literature is not quite there. They choose manuscripts based on authors' writing styles. Most manuscripts they chose are not suited to be online literature. I think it'll be quite difficult to change this habit of theirs in the short-term. I need more time to teach them.

"Second, most manuscripts we receive are low-quality. I'm not even talking about premium work. Infinite Chinese Network might not so much as try these manuscripts out, much less put them up on its shelves.

"A few of the manuscripts are very good, but even if you submitted them to Infinite Chinese Network, they would get five hundred subscriptions at the most. Of course, I'm not looking down on that number of subscriptions. I'm objectively assessing the facts…"

Ma Yiqun was beginning to feel guilty. After all, he had written web novels before. As an author with only thirty subscriptions, he did not feel like he had the right to look down on others if they could get five hundred.

Yet, he had to be logical. If the best author on a web novel site could only get five hundred subscriptions, the entire website was basically a failure.

After all, authors like that would be able to get five hundred subscriptions on Infinite Chinese Network because many readers visited that site. That number would probably shrink by ten times if the book were published on Zhongdian Chinese Network.

Ma Yiqun's problems were not contradictory. All in all, the authors sucked at writing, and the editors sucked at vetting manuscripts. There was no way that the manuscripts they accepted would be readable.

The website had not started officially. Ma Yiqun was still browsing various forums and contacting failed authors. Once he had accepted sufficient manuscripts to fill the website up, he would officially open it.

Even after listening to Ma Yiqun's description, Pei Qian's expression remained calm. It seemed to say 'everything is under control'.

"Do you have a manuscript? Let me see it."

Ma Yiqun retrieved a thumb drive from his pocket and handed it to Pei Qian. It contained all the manuscripts he accepted. He had contracted some authors but not others. Pei Qian randomly opened several manuscripts and read them.

Once he finished, he had only one feeling: disgust!

For most of them, he did not want to read on after roughly scanning through the first chapter.

Satisfactory plots and rhythm aside, many people seemed to be having difficulty with forming basic sentences. They were using the wrong words, the wrong punctuations, and the wrong sentence structures. The logic of the first three chapters was a mess, and the theme was unclear.

All in all, there were problems everywhere.

Pei Qian briefly looked through the manuscripts. Looking through those written by authors whom Ma Yiqun had contracted, Pei Qian felt like they were choosing generals from among shorties. If these were published on other websites, they would fail miserably.

Although Ma Yiqun only had thirty subscriptions initially, he had a good understanding of how online literature worked.

This was within Pei Qian's expectations. Although Ma Yiqun did not have many subscriptions, the novels that he had released to the public were quite good. He even had a loyal following.

Ma Yiqun observed Pei Qian's expression as the latter scanned through the manuscripts. He could not help but feel moved.

Boss Pei is so patient. I can't believe he can stand to read these.

After randomly reading a few manuscripts, Pei Qian felt completely relieved. If all the manuscripts they accepted were of this standard, it would be a surprise if the web novel site could succeed!

Not bad, keep up the good work!

Calmly, Pei Qian plucked out the thumb drive and handed it back to Ma Yiqun.

"It's not a big problem. As for the two things you mentioned…

"It's alright if our editors are below standard. Ease the review criteria. In any case, our aim is to fill up our libraries for now. These people are just writing to fulfill the contract and earn money. There's no need for us to be so strict."

Ma Yiqun hesitated. "But… Boss Pei, back then, the remuneration you offered to full-timers was a thousand yuan. Infinite Chinese Network only offers five hundred yuan to their full-time authors. Other small sites offer a thousand yuan, but that's only if authors produce ten thousand words a day.

"We're offering them a thousand yuan for three thousand words a day. If we ease the criteria, we would be giving out money for free. That's like burning all that money every single month."

Pei Qian shook his head. "That's alright. If we have five hundred authors, it would only cost us five hundred thousand yuan a month. That's not a lot of money.

"Our website is new. If we don't pay our full-time authors more, why would people want to write for us? What's more, for newbies, three thousand words a day is not an easy target to hit.

"Don't worry. Accept more manuscripts. An outstanding author will appear one day."

Ma Yiqun pondered for a while and decided that there was logic to what Boss Pei was saying. However, the chances of this happening were low.

After thinking for a moment, Ma Yiqun spoke again. "Boss Pei, there is another problem. Most of our employees have little to do.

"Since few authors are submitting manuscripts, there is not a lot of reviewing to be done. Even if our editors make time to guide the authors in their writing, they will still have time to idle."

Pei Qian waved his hand. "That's even less of a problem. If they have nothing to do, ask them to work on their hobbies. Take you for example. If you find that you have nothing to do, write a novel or two to entertain yourself. Isn't that good?"

Pei Qian stood up and patted Ma Yiqun on the shoulder.

"Yiqun, don't stress yourself out too much.

"Tengda's mantra has always been to be happy at work. If you have work to do, get busy. If you don't, work on your interests and hobbies. If you have too much work to do, hire more people. How difficult is that?

"Don't try to devour too much at one go. Take it slow."

Ma Yiqun nodded and replied, "Yes, Boss Pei! I understand!"

At first, he felt anxious and panicked. Boss Pei had given him such an important task, and yet he had made no progress. Instead, he was spending more money by the day. It felt like he just could not catch his breath.

However, seeing that Boss Pei had everything under control, Ma Yiqun immediately felt relieved. Indeed, following a good leader could make one feel secure!