“Whew, what a good sleep!”
Waking up, Chen Fusheng stretched, then picked up the watch on the nightstand.
It was half past four in the afternoon.
He lay back for a moment of mindless drifting, then did a kip-up and leaped out of bed.
“Still early. I can go check if my manuscript was accepted, then come back and pick up my wife from work. Mm, perfect plan decided.”
Chen Fusheng brushed his teeth, gave his face a quick splash of water, and headed out.
But no sooner had he come downstairs than he spotted River City Literature and Arts editor Xiao Xinghai sitting on a stone bench outside.
“Old Xiao, what are you doing here?” Chen Fusheng said in surprise.
The other man’s face lit up with excitement. “Teacher Chen, I’ve finally got you coming downstairs.”
“You came specifically to find me?”
“Yes.”
“When did you arrive? Why didn’t you come up and knock?”
“I got here at ten this morning. I knocked on your door but nobody answered. I figured you were resting, and didn’t want to disturb the neighbors, so I waited down here.”
“That can’t be right. I’m a light sleeper. Which unit did you knock on?”
“402.”
“Come again?” Chen Fusheng thought he’d misheard and asked for confirmation.
“402? Isn’t that right?”
“I live in 302! Who told you I lived in 402?”
“I asked the gatekeeper at your community.”
“Either you misheard, or the gatekeeper misspoke.”
Chen Fusheng continued, “Never mind. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long downstairs. Come up and sit for a bit.”
“N-next time! It’s getting late today. How about Teacher Chen, you come with me to the magazine?”
“Go to the magazine for what?”
“The novel Cowherd you submitted this morning received unanimous praise from all of our editors. So our editor-in-chief asked me to come invite you over to sign the Manuscript Acceptance Notice. Is that convenient for you?”
The so-called Manuscript Acceptance Notice was essentially a contract between the magazine and the author in this era. Formal copyright contracts wouldn’t come into practice until after China’s Copyright Law was enacted in 1991.
“It passed already?” Chen Fusheng was quite surprised. He’d expected at best to clear the first round review today. He hadn’t imagined being called in to sign the acceptance notice, which meant it had cleared the initial review, the second review, and the final review.
“Yes. Good work always gets priority.” Xiao Xinghai said.
Chen Fusheng nodded. So the Cowherd he’d written was even better than he’d thought.
“Alright then, let’s go.”
On the way to the magazine with Xiao Xinghai, the worldly Chen Fusheng naturally couldn’t resist probing about the manuscript fee.
“Teacher Chen, you must know the state’s standard rates for novel manuscripts?”
“Mm, I do. Two to seven yuan per thousand characters.”
“Right. For new authors, our magazine’s standard rate is two to four yuan. For established authors, it’s five to seven yuan. But given the high quality of your work, I think the magazine should pay you at the established author rate.”
After hearing Xiao Xinghai’s analysis, Chen Fusheng naturally set his expectations fairly high. If seven yuan per thousand characters was the ceiling, then five was his acceptable floor. Any lower, and he’d consider taking his work elsewhere.
Meanwhile, inside River City Literature and Arts, they were also debating what rate to set for Cowherd.
“By the conventional rules, a debut author receiving four yuan per thousand characters would be excellent. But given Cowherd‘s high quality, I suggest raising it to five yuan per thousand.”
“An established author’s name does add to magazine sales, but I believe quality should be the ultimate criterion. Given the quality of Cowherd, I think it deserves the seven-yuan rate.”
“I’ve taken in the previous two group leaders’ points and find them both reasonable. In that case, how about six yuan per thousand? That way we honor Cowherd‘s excellence while also letting a debut author know there’s still room to grow, keeping them motivated and not too proud.”
“I have a different view.” The last group leader spoke up.
“Old Han, go ahead.”
“Let me ask everyone a question. A debut author, writing for the first time, producing something as excellent as Cowherd. Is that luck, or skill?”
“Luck, yes, but skill too.” The group leader who had suggested seven yuan per thousand seemed to sense something and pressed, “Old Han, what are you getting at?”
“My suggestion is to ‘buy horse bones at a thousand gold pieces.’ For someone whose very first work reaches the peak of established authors, I don’t think luck alone explains it. There must be extraordinary talent here. So let me ask: for a genius like this, shouldn’t we build a good relationship while he’s still unknown? Or should we wait until he’s famous and watch another magazine snatch him away?”
At these words, the entire meeting room fell silent.
Then the editor-in-chief, who hadn’t spoken until now, made the final call: raising Cowherd‘s rate to seven yuan per thousand characters.
So when Chen Fusheng arrived at River City Literature and Arts, he was immediately hit with a wonderful surprise.
“You’re really giving me seven yuan per thousand?” Though he’d hoped for this before coming, hearing it for real was a different matter.
“Yes, Teacher Chen, you heard correctly. Seven yuan per thousand characters. Though this does deviate somewhat from industry norms… I’m not sure if you know this, but for debut authors without a name like yourself, we usually offer two to four yuan per thousand. The reason we’re pricing it so high is twofold. First, Cowherd is truly excellent, exceeding the standard of a debut author. Second, we recognize your exceptional writing talent. We’d like to consider you a friend, and we also hope that your next work, and the one after that, can be submitted to River City Literature and Arts as your first choice under equal conditions. What do you say?”
With the other party being so candid, Chen Fusheng certainly wasn’t going to play dumb. And they hadn’t asked him to sign any exploitative contract.
Why wouldn’t he agree to something that benefited both sides?
“Of course. Setting aside the profit, as a son of Jiangcheng, I naturally want to see River City Literature and Arts thrive.”
With that, Chen Fusheng signed his name on the Manuscript Acceptance Notice the editor-in-chief handed over.
He also needed to sign a pen name.
Fusheng!
After hesitating for just one second, Chen Fusheng wrote those two characters.
Next, he went to the finance office to collect his fee. When he learned he was receiving 280 yuan, he froze for a moment, because he recalled Cowherd being slightly under forty thousand characters.
But the magazine had calculated his fee based on a full forty thousand.
Their sincerity was unmistakable!
Though Chen Fusheng didn’t say it out loud, he silently noted the goodwill from River City Literature and Arts.
