1980 My Literary Era.

Chapter 792 Feedback from the United States
Among the many American current affairs magazines that want to interview Lin Weimin, the most famous is Newsweek.

"Newsweek" is a long-established current affairs magazine in the United States. It has won many media honors for its outstanding news reports and commentary articles. It is also known as the three major news weeklies in the United States along with "Times" and "American News and World Report".

The sales volume in Taiwan alone is as high as 300 million copies per issue. It also publishes multiple language versions around the world, with global sales of more than 400 million copies.

In the United States, its sales volume and influence are second only to "Times" among current political magazines, but this is not due to strength, but because "Times" is more comprehensive.

It can be seen from the advertising fees that for many years, the advertising revenue of "Newsweek" has exceeded that of "Time Magazine" most of the time.

In terms of style, Newsweek's views are generally more liberal than those of Time.

The political ecology of the United States has always had no room for centrists to survive, and this also applies to the American media industry.

Looking around, there are almost no members of the American media who take the middle path, either to the left or to the right.

In the traditional American media world, "Newsweek" has always been known as "L". It charged into many negative news such as the Watergate incident and the Zipperton incident, causing successive governments to lose face. Later, the publication also suffered a lot for this.

If the style of "God Bless the United States" is compared to the United States, of course it cannot be more L, and it has completely touched the hearts of senior intellectuals.

"Newsweek" is a representative publication of American liberalism. When they saw "God Bless America", they were like sharks that smelled blood and couldn't control themselves at all.

Lin Weimin communicated with Roger Strauss for more than ten minutes. He was in China and busy with work, and could not spare much time for an interview. He only agreed to be interviewed by Newsweek, the most influential publication.

It was impossible for him to go abroad, so reporters from Newsweek had to travel halfway around the world to conduct interviews in China.

After setting up the interview, Roger Strauss excitedly introduced the sales volume of "God Bless the United States" to Lin Weimin.

The novel was released on October 10. In a little more than a month now, the sales volume has easily exceeded 7 copies, and it is firmly at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. The sales momentum of the novel this month continues unabated.

In the first month after its release, the sales of "God Bless America" ​​exploded, thanks to the strong promotion of major bookstore chains.

Over the years, Lin Weimin's works have been popular books in many large chain bookstores. In addition, Roger Strauss previously bundled the names of Lin Weimin and Richard Yates for publicity, allowing both of them to gain huge profits. reputation.

The American public was deeply impressed by the upsurge of public opinion. At this time, Lin Weimin's new novel was released again, and it also wrote about American political themes. Booksellers have been exposed to Lin Weimin's works for many years and know that this writer has a profound insight into American society. Try After reading it, I was even more amazed by the content of the novel.

The biggest difference between "God Bless America" ​​and traditional political satirical novels is that the scale is larger, and the operations of political figures in it have completely broken through the imagination of traditional political satirical novels.

It is also because of the various behaviors that break the rules that the novel is filled with laughter. At the same time, Lin Weimin's rhythm and boundaries are very good, allowing readers to easily believe that the content in the novel may actually happen.

Overall, the novel maintains a strong sense of satire and absurd black humor while also being in line with the public's reading tastes. It just barely has the words "bestseller" written on the cover.

After the novel was released, it lived up to the expectations of booksellers, with sales exceeding 70 copies in the first month. This is already the best result in the history of Lin Weimin's works being introduced to the United States.

In the second month, the sales of the novel still maintained a rapid growth trend, and did not show signs of decline after the initial publicity and readers' freshness passed like many best-selling books.

On the contrary, in November, many publications published review articles about the novel "God Bless the United States".

"The Paris Review", "The New York Review of Books", "The Atlantic Monthly", "Book Pages"...

Commentary articles in numerous front-line literary publications and literary review publications have already represented Lin Weimin’s current influence in the American literary world.

For most literary publications, it is crucial for them to promote their positioning as "intellectual books".

When placed in the United States, "God Bless America" ​​is full of mockery of authority, contempt for rights and disdain for politicians. It is obviously a product of the liberal style and is completely in line with the atmosphere of the American cultural and intellectual circles in this era.

This style is not only pleasing to the eye, but also easy to sell. They can't wait to make Lin Weimin and his novel known to everyone.

"Looking at the Gains and Losses of American Political Politics from "God Bless America"" "A Brief Analysis of the Political Figures in "God Bless America"" "Has Western Political Politics Come to an End? 》……

In just one month, more than 10 commentaries from well-known American critics were published, affecting millions of American readers.

These critics' high praise for "God Bless America" ​​has made many readers full of interest in this novel. This is reflected in reality. There is an endless stream of readers coming to buy "God Bless America" ​​in bookstores all over the country, and the sales of the novel have increased rapidly. Climb up.

Roger Strauss has been in the publishing industry for more than 40 years, deeply involved in the field of literature, and has never had many hot-selling works.

But since he collaborated with Lin Weimin, hit books have come in like a tidal wave, making him feel unprecedented happiness.

Such generous rewards made Roger Strauss feel lucky more than once that he had licked... and actively promoted cooperation with Lin Weimin.

"Lin, I bet. In two years, in just two years, your novel will definitely exceed 1000 million copies in sales." Roger Strauss said excitedly on the phone.

Lin Weimin said calmly, "I hope so."

Roger Strauss's excited attitude was extinguished by this sentence. He couldn't help but said: "Damn it! I almost forgot that you already have a work in hand that has sold more than [-] million copies. ...No, if you include other countries, there may be more than four or five."

He said with a somewhat annoyed tone: "Oh, it would be great if I also had the publishing rights of "Farewell My Concubine"! Its sales volume should reach the threshold of 2000 million copies in a few years. ”

"Roger, don't be so greedy. Random House is also my partner! Isn't the sales volume of "Spirited Away" also very good? Counting "God Bless the United States", it can almost equal "Farewell My Concubine" ”

"I understand, you can't put all your eggs in the same basket. You are such a clever guy!" Roger Strauss joked.Then, he said in a cheerful tone: "I think the combined power of these two works is greater than "Farewell My Concubine". Therefore, Random House still doesn't make as much money as me!"

"Random House may be very profitable, but you will never lose money!" Lin Weimin joked.

"That's right!"

After ending the phone call with Roger Strauss, Lin Weimin thought for a while, got up and went to Lao Zhou's office to report to him.

The interview with "Newsweek" is scheduled for next Monday. As the most important current affairs magazine in the United States, if a cadre of Lin Weimin's level wants to be interviewed by them, he must report it.

Lao Zhou was bored. When he saw Lin Weimin coming, he chatted with him for a while before letting him go.

Seeing that it was time for dinner, Lin Weimin went to the cafeteria to have a meal first. After returning to the office, he was about to rest for a while when there was a knock on the door.

He said "come in", and it was Feng Xiaogang who walked in.

"Why are you free here?"

Feng Xiaogang's front teeth stuck out before he could speak, "I'm here to report to you on my work."

Lin Weimin was speechless, "Don't say it's useless. What work do you report to me? Talk about something if you have something to say!"

After being scolded by him, Feng Xiaogang still had a smile on his face and said: "The post-production of "Party A and Party B" is ready. I want to see when you have time to take a look. I contacted Mr. Yu in the morning and he said to contact If I don’t want to be with you, I’ll just take a trip!”

"I haven't been in the office for a while this morning." Lin Weimin explained and asked, "Now that the movie is finished, how would you rate yourself?"

Hearing this, Feng Xiaogang's smile faded a bit, "I am just a primary school student in the film industry. If you asked me to rate myself, I think I should get a 6."

"So unsure of yourself?" Lin Weimin joked.

"Hey! I don't dare to say anything in front of you. But to be honest, I think this movie was well directed." As he said that, Feng Xiaogang showed a somewhat proud smile on his face.

Lin Weimin nodded and said, "Okay, since you are so confident, let's go over and have a look in the afternoon."

As he said this, he picked up the phone and called Wenhua Film and Television and asked Yu Dong to take everyone over to take a look.

Feng Xiaogang was a little uneasy when he saw this battle, "There's no need to call so many people."

"What? Scared?"

"Hehe!" Feng Xiaogang smiled and his mood was self-evident.

After chatting for a few more words with Feng Xiaogang, the two drove to Yanying Factory together.

When the two arrived at Yanying Factory, Yu Dong had already arrived with Tong Zhonggui and Mo Yan, and borrowed a small screening room from the factory.

After a while, Wang Shuo and Peng Xiaolin brought the video.

"Party A and Party B" invested 200 million, and Yan Film Factory was also one of the producers, but it did not contribute any money. To put it bluntly, it was just a distribution qualification.

Han Shanping learned that Lin Weimin was coming and ran over specially.

Before the movie was shown, the lights in the screening room were dimmed and everyone chatted in low voices.

Lin Weimin was flanked by Yu Dong and Han Shanping on the left and right respectively. Lin Weimin chatted with Han Shanping for a few words. Yu Dong on the side took advantage of the fact that neither of them spoke and whispered to Lin Weimin: "Teacher Lin, I am planning to Let’s also get a screening room for Wenhua, so that we don’t have to travel around to watch movies later and borrow other people’s rooms.”

Lin Weimin nodded slightly, "This should be done. You are the general manager, just follow the arrangements."

Everyone was talking and pictures appeared on the big screen.

With a red background and white fonts, the first screen is the film release license issued by the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television. The producers are Yanjing Wenhua Film and Television Co., Ltd. and Yanjing Film Studio.

Immediately afterwards, a cartoon mouse appeared on the screen one stroke at a time, and then a line of font appeared: I wish the people of the whole country good luck in the Year of the Rat.

Yu Dong said to Lin Weimin: "You mentioned the concepts of 'Lunar New Year films' and 'Lunar New Year stalls' before. We are currently studying publicity strategies, mainly to exaggerate the atmosphere. We have also prepared a lot of materials and found some media. Publicity, and the other thing is to connect with TV stations. Mr. Hai helped us contact CCTV’s "Zhengda Variety Show"..."

Yu Dong whispered a few words about Wenhua Film and Television's recent promotional preparations for the release of "Party A and Party B". When the protagonist Yao Yuan's narration appeared, he stopped talking.

"My name is Yao Yuan, I am 38 years old and unmarried. I have a good personality, six strengths and four weaknesses. I am an actor who has no acting role. In the summer of [-], I was idle at home with the assistant director Zhou Beiyan, the prop Liang Zi, and the screenwriter Qian. Kang Partnership has filled a gap in the service industry, called: Good Dream One-Day Tour."

"Good Dream Day Trip" was the earliest project planned by Good Dream Company. Unfortunately, Feng Xiaogang was too immature two years ago. After struggling for more than half a year, he only had a name but failed to make a movie.

After the training of his directorial debut "Forever Lost My Love", Feng Xiaogang was finally able to take the leading role alone. When planning the movie "Party A and Party B", he was thinking about "A Day Trip", the first failed film in his directorial career. The title "One Day Tour" was embedded into the movie.

(End of this chapter)