In the conference room.
Chinese and foreign personnel sat on both sides of the conference table.
Several members of Chu Heng's side who had the home field advantage all looked bright and full of energy.
Looking at the people opposite, none of them were in good condition. Because they were still jet-lagged, most of them had a look of tiredness on their faces.
Especially Chrissy, because of her hangover yesterday, her face was as pale as if she had just finished her first birthday, and she was still sweating on her forehead.
At this moment, he pretended not to care and glanced at the boxes of manuscripts on the table, with a flash of surprise in his eyes.
Chrissie thought it would be good to have forty or fifty books, but he didn't expect there to be so many.
Although he didn't believe Chu Heng's lies about top literary workers at all.
As the saying goes, quantitative changes produce qualitative changes.
There are more than a hundred books, so why should there be a few best-sellers?
"not bad."
Chrissy quickly looked away calmly, endured the stench that assaulted his nostrils, smiled noncommittally, and said, "Then, let's talk about the price, my best friend."
"Do you have any suggestions? My dear friend." Chu Heng looked at him calmly.
"Do you think this is good? I will package and buy these more than a hundred books directly for a thousand dollars each." Chrissy tentatively said, although he did not think Chu Heng would agree so stupidly, but in case Woolen cloth?
Besides, isn’t negotiation just for testing each other’s bottom lines?
"Crunch!"
As soon as he finished speaking, one of Chu Heng's translators couldn't help shaking his legs, pushing the chair under his buttocks and making a harsh friction sound on the ground.
One hundred copies, one thousand dollars each, this, this, this... more than one hundred thousand dollars!
Are these books so valuable?
The young translator, who had never seen any big money, couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.
After hearing the movement, several people around Chrissy glanced at the old man, with a smile of understanding in their eyes.
Before they came, they all knew that China was very poor and backward. One hundred thousand US dollars was indeed a huge amount of money for these people, and it was normal to be a bit rude.
At the same time, they became more confident in this negotiation and felt that they should be able to get these books from those country bumpkins at a very low price.
Of course, Chrissy didn't have this idea. He had a lot of contact with Chu Heng and knew that this grandson was not easy to get along with.
"Are you kidding me? Chrissy!"
Sure enough, when Chu Heng heard the price he offered, a sneer appeared on his face: "You want these books for 100,000 yuan? If you can jump off the Empire State Building without borrowing any tools, I can accept it. If No, please don’t say such nonsense! It will make you look even stupider! You dirty bastard!"
It’s begun, it’s begun!
He took action...well, spoke!
Several people around Chu Heng looked at him with bright eyes, wanting to see if this fierce man who could make Mao Zi vomit blood at the negotiation table can create another legend.
"Sir, please pay attention to your words and be polite." An editor on the other side looked at him with a displeased look, and then complained in a low voice to his companions: "What a barbaric race, I really I’m very doubtful, can they write good books?”
"boom!"
But Chu Heng heard his words clearly, and immediately slammed the table, pointed at him, glared and cursed, hoping to anger them: "You fucker, who are you calling barbaric? You built a country by burning, killing and looting. How dare you call others barbaric? Did your face rub off when you licked the pig’s butt again? You shamelessly said such a thing!"
The editor's face suddenly turned ugly, "Wang Defa..."
Just when he was about to scold him back, Chrissy raised his hand expressionlessly, stopped the editor, and said to Chu Heng in a calm tone: "Chu, I advise you not to play these little tricks, you can't anger me. You also know Yes, no emotion can influence me when it comes to money."
"Okay, let's continue."
Chu Heng was not embarrassed after his plan was discovered. The anger on his face disappeared instantly, and he smiled again. He gracefully stretched out his hand and made a gesture of invitation: "But I also hope you can say something useful and stop doing those things. Stupid temptation.”
"Very good, let's start the formal negotiations now." Chrissy, who was still not used to the smell of stinky tofu, covered his nose like everyone else and said nonstop: "Since you are unwilling to accept the package acquisition, then we will Let’s use the previous method of paying royalties, but the volume of these books is too large, and it would be too time-consuming to review the manuscript for each one.”
"I think it's better to pay a 6% royalty, what do you think? You know, most new writers' royalties are in the range of 4% to 8%, which is already a lot."
"Of course, if you don't want to accept it, we can also review it slowly, but it will take a lot of time, so we don't care. We just don't know if you can wait."
"It's better not to bother with that." Chu Heng took a sip of tea with a smile and said calmly: "I think it's better to use tiered royalties to pay royalties. This is the fairest and let the market do it. Decide."
"ladder."
Chrissy was silent after hearing this.
The tiered royalty rate is to continuously adjust the royalty rate based on sales volume. For example, if more than 5,000 copies are sold, it is 5%, if more than 10,000 copies are sold, it is 6%, and so on in the future, which is a bit of a betting interest.
Such a payment method is fair to the author and reduces risks for the publisher, which is a double benefit.
But this also put an end to his idea of picking up the missing pieces.
After all, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
So, Chrissy weighed the pros and cons, and thought about the dilemma of Blue Oak Publishing House, and felt that it would be better to be more stable, so he nodded and agreed with Chu Heng's proposal: "Then please tell me your Think about it.”
"I have prepared a plan, please take a look." Chu Heng signaled to Li Jiangqi, who immediately took out a document bag from the table, pulled out a few papers, stood up and put it in front of Chrissy.
Chrissie picked it up and looked at it for a few times. Seeing that the plan was in several copies, he distributed the others and kept one copy for himself to read carefully.
Not long passed.
An editor suddenly said: "This is very unreasonable, Mr. Chu. The starting point of the seven percent ladder is a bit high. It is already close to the maximum royalties for newcomers, and the sales volume is also a bit low."
"I think it's very reasonable."
"No, no, no, we think four percent is more appropriate."
"That's impossible, it's at least 6.8%."
"It's still too much and we can't accept it."
…
Next, the two sides began to have fierce discussions over the percentage of royalties and each level of the ladder.
It can be said that they must fight for every inch of land, and they will not give in to each other. Even if it is just for a fraction of a percent of the share, they will fight for a long time.
After all, this is a transaction that is likely to reach hundreds or tens of millions, and every decimal point may be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. Who would be willing to give away money like this for no reason?
In this way, as the time line gradually lengthened, the mood of the personnel on Chrissy's side, whose mental and physical conditions were not very good, and who still endured the stench, began to change, and they seemed a little tired and impatient.
On the other hand, Chu Heng and the others were all orderly and unhurried, and their thoughts remained clear.
Seeing this, Chu Heng squinted his eyes and showed a sly smile.
The real negotiations have finally begun!
(End of chapter)
