Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

After sending Teacher Qiao off, Pei Qian returned to Shenhua View. First, he went to Zhongdian Chinese Network—a level above Tengda—to walk around.

At the moment, Zhongdian Chinese Network was quite stable. Most people were just spending time entertaining themselves.

Traffic on the website was slowly increasing, but on the whole, the website was still doing miserably. What's more, it showed no signs of improvement in the short-term.

Zhongdian Chinese Network still had a bad reputation on many online literature forums. Most authors saw the website as a scam and strongly dissuaded new writers from working full-time for it.

Only authors with zero ambition would make Zhongdian Chinese Network their first choice and consider working full-time there for the sake of that bit of remuneration.

Thus, the editors normally only had two things to do.

Either vet manuscripts or entertain themselves by writing books or playing games.

Of course, some people—including Zhu Xingan—saw writing the official plot for Repent and be Saved as a form of entertainment.

However, Repent and be Saved's official novel was placed on the homepage of the website. This caused readers to curse it non-stop. If Zhu Xingan did not have such high tolerance for pressure and a strong mindset, he might have been critically hurt a long time ago.

The readers were cursing the novel for simple reasons: its plot was complicated and messy, and nothing was satisfying about the story. Everyone felt lost after reading the uploaded chapters.

This thing was probably better off being referred to as a game plot design series as opposed to a novel. It didn't meet the expectations of most readers on the internet.

Everyone had gotten used to this. Most of them had a 'curse it if you want' approach to the matter. In any case, the plot was meant to serve the game.

Apart from managing Zhongdian Chinese Network's matters, Ma Yiqun was also managing TPDb's website. At the moment, he was beginning to see results.

When he saw Boss Pei, Ma Yiqun quickly got someone to serve drinks before personally reporting his recent progress to the former.

Five minutes later…

Although Ma Yiqun was trying his best to beautify his achievements with respect to Zhongdian Chinese Network, Pei Qian could accurately tell that the website was still a failure.

"Excellent. Zhongdian Chinese Network is showing signs of improvement, and you're doing a good job with TPDb's website, too.

"Don't be too preoccupied with results. Just maintain the status quo."

Pei Qian was very satisfied with Ma Yiqun as an employee.

Although Ma Yiqun had a very strong work ethic, Pei Qian was ensuring that he could not reach his maximum potential by allocating him to the right places. Pei Qian had to give himself credit where it was due—Ma Yiqun was one of his greatest successes.

Ever since he took over Zhongdian Chinese Network, the website had been consistently incurring losses. There were few readers and even fewer reliable authors. All of these showed Ma Yiqun's outstanding capabilities.

Pei Qian felt moved. Ma Yiqun was one of the rare talents whom he really did not need to worry about!

Noticing that Boss Pei was in quite a good mood, Ma Yiqun hesitated. He wondered if he should talk about what had been on his mind for a long time.

After some consideration, he decided to speak up.

"Boss Pei, I have a thought—or rather, suggestion—for Zhongdian Chinese Network."

"Oh? Let me hear it." Pei Qian was slightly surprised, but he did not overreact.

Ma Yiqun gravely misunderstood online novels, but he was quite an intelligent man. He had been the CEO of Zhongdian Chinese Network for a long time. Pei Qian expected him to develop his own ideas for the future of the website.

Ma Yiqun said, "Boss Pei, I've given it some thought. At the moment, Zhongdian Chinese Network's biggest problem is that we can't increase our mid-tier writers' income.

"Low-tier writers have a sense of security thanks to the basic remuneration.

"However, it's almost impossible for these low-tier writers to try to move upwards to the middle tier and hope to support their families or earn their living solely from subscriptions.

"Our website has too few readers. We can't generate enough subscriptions. Even if an author manages to produce a good book, he will be limited by the website's number of visitors. There's a low chance that his book would become popular."

Pei Qian nodded.

That's right. I thought about this problem earlier. I just had to act like I didn't know about it so that the website would continue incurring losses…

Yet, now that Ma Yiqun had mentioned it, Pei Qian could no longer act unaware. He could only nod along and express his agreement.

After all, it would seem too fake if the intelligent Boss Pei did not understand this problem.

Ma Yiqun continued, "So I thought of a way to resolve this.

"We should artificially give mid-tier writers a boost until they reach the possible income that top-tier writers could earn. If there aren't enough subscriptions, we will fork out the rest of the money to supplement their income.

"Imagine if a good book appears on our website. If its quality is as good as the elite books on Infinite Chinese Network, we can fork out money to supplement the author's subscription earnings.

"This way, low-tier writers do not have to worry about being buried in our website.

Pei Qian fell silent for a moment. "That sounds reasonable, but how do we judge whether a book has achieved top-tier standard?"

Ma Yiqun replied, "On one hand, we can depend on figures on the website, such as the ratio of the number of subscriptions to the total number of paying readers, votes, clicks, and the like. On the other hand, we can also judge the quality ourselves.

"Only I will be able to make the call on this."

Ma Yiqun had not only discovered the problem today. However, he had to develop this solution and pluck up the courage to bring it up. It was not easy.

Until now, Ma Yiqun had been apprehensive and afraid that Boss Pei would be angry.

This was because he knew the suggestion was extremely bold to make. He was essentially asking for a lot of discretionary power.

If an elite writer was to earn ten thousand yuan in terms of royalties, but Zhongdian Chinese Network only paid hundreds of yuan as basic pay, it meant that the website would have to fork out the rest of the sum.

If there were ten or twenty authors who could achieve top-tier writing, the website would have to fork out at least a hundred or two hundred thousand yuan each month.

What's more, Ma Yiqun would be able to decide who should get all the money. He still had to refer to the figures on the website, but the website only had that many readers to begin with. How difficult could it be for Ma Yiqun to play around with the numbers?

Thus, Ma Yiqun would still get to decide who the money would go to at the end of the day.

If he was a bad person, he could arrange for his own family and friends to create alternate accounts and make minor edits to unpopular books. Then, he could resort to underhanded tricks to ensure the money went into his own pockets.

Thus, while Ma Yiqun was raising an objective problem, his suggestion might not seem that appropriate.

It was an idealistic plan. As long as he harbored a single bit of self-centeredness, the entire plan could go awry and backfire. If a corruption scandal blew up and the authors heard about it, the website's reputation would go down the drain, beyond repair. It was a huge risk to take.

However, Ma Yiqun could not think of a better solution.

There were very few readers; no matter how well low-tier writers wrote, they would not be able to earn royalties. This was seriously hindering their motivation. Ma Yiqun had to think of something fast.

Thus, he had to pluck up the courage to bring it up, whether Boss Pei would ultimately agree to it or not.

Pei Qian did not reply immediately. He considered the solution in silence. Allow Ma Yiqun to take charge of this sum of money? He could think about that.

Pei Qian trusted Ma Yiqun and his eye for online literature.

Every novel that Ma Yiqun wrote failed. It revealed a huge problem with the way he vetted online literature. Since that was the case, Pei Qian believed that no book that Ma Yiqun thought was good would truly be so.

In other words, even if he selected books to fill the recommendation spots and distributed royalties at the rate that elite writers were paid, Zhongdian Chinese Network's business would not pick up.

At the same time, the website's expenses would continue to balloon!

To Pei Qian who was eager to spend as much money as possible, this would be an extremely great help!

After carefully considering the risks and benefits of the suggestion, Pei Qian nodded. "Alright, no problem. Apart from the basic pay meant for our contracted writers, I will transfer another two million yuan to you. You can spend that first."

Ma Yiqun paused and quickly said, "Boss Pei, two million yuan is too much! There aren't many capable writers working for our website now. I think I only need about two hundred thousand yuan per month."

Pei Qian waved his hand. "Don't worry!"

"It wouldn't hurt to give the top-tier writers more money. Our website could afford to buy more talents over as well. It might not be a bad idea to give the writers more money.

"Don't be too stingy as well. Since you've decided to distribute royalties to authors out of the company's pocket, just give them more money. Let them feel a greater sense of belonging to Zhongdian Chinese Network."

Pei Qian was not too worried about this.

After all, Ma Yiqun would probably select rubbish books. So what if they gave the authors more money?

If the books were lousy, readers would not visit their website. They would be making ducks and drakes of this sum of money. Pei Qian could not be more satisfied with this plan.

What's more, they were approaching settlement. Pei Qian had to spend his money as quickly as possible.

Ma Yiqun might have thought that two million yuan was a bit too much, but Pei Qian wished he could hand more money to him.

Ma Yiqun was especially touched.

Indeed, Boss Pei lived up to his name. He was as generous as ever! He put it well when he said we could afford to buy more talent over!

If they paid more royalties to the better writers, Zhongdian Chinese Network would have an edge over other small novel websites. As time went by, a virtuous cycle might be established!

What moved Ma Yiqun even more was the amount of trust Boss Pei had for him!

He essentially gave Ma Yiqun free rein over these two million yuan.

How much did he trust him?! Would ordinary leaders have this amount of courage?! Would he still be human if he didn't do his best for Boss Pei?

Ma Yiqun patted his own chest and announced, "Don't worry, Boss Pei! I will work hard to choose the most capable writers. I won't let your money go to waste!"

Pei Qian smiled but sniggered inside.

As long as you work hard, my money will be wasted. Why else would I regard you so highly as my employee?