Chapter 781: Increase revenue and reduce expenditure
Unexpectedly, the person who picked up the station was Dai Jiali.
Wearing a black lady's suit and black-rimmed glasses, she looks very smart.
"Jiali, do you, the vice president of the company, still need to pick you up personally?" Fang Minghua asked.
"There is nothing important in the company these two days, so I will just make a quick trip." Dai Jiali said, "Teacher Minghua, I will take you to the hotel first."
"Okay."
This time, Fang Minghua booked the Pudong Shangri-La Hotel, which is located in the Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone, adjacent to the Pujiang River and relatively close to Shengshi Building. Fang Minghua stood on the balcony of the room and said You can see the building not far away.
"Jiali, you haven't had breakfast either, right? Come on, let's go have breakfast together?" Fang Minghua simply washed up and greeted Dai Jiali.
"Okay."
The two of them went downstairs to the cafeteria on the second floor. The breakfast here is quite rich, including Western dim sum and Chinese mackerel dumplings. They each ordered some. Snacks are eaten at the dining table.
Fang Minghua knew that Dai Jiali had gone to the train station to pick him up early and must have wanted to talk to him about the website, so he took the initiative to ask about it while eating.
"Teacher Minghua, since the establishment of the Banyan Tree website, "Jinyong Inn", "Xici Hutong", "Tianya Community", "Xilu" BBS" and "Golden Bookstore" have appeared on the Internet. A large number of literary websites have greatly promoted and prospered online literature. "
Dai Jiali said.
"But from another perspective, although under the banyan tree is the largest and has the highest number of visits, competition between them has begun, especially" The "Golden Bookstore" website has developed rapidly and has already posed a threat to Banyan Tree. "
Fang Minghua has logged into the "Golden Bookstore" online, and most of the books in it are OCR books (physical scans).
Although from the perspective of future generations, this approach is very low. Scanning physical books and then putting them online will turn out to be pirated copies.
But in this era, original works are still very rare, but this form is the mainstream of literary websites.
The "Golden Bookstore" scanned "Star Wars Heroes", "Missing Stars" and other physical books in Xiangjiang, Taiwan. The most popular book is the classic novel "Story of Grace" written by Taiwanese writer Rosen 》!
It can be said that this book is the originator of fantasy novels in the Internet literary world, and the "Golden Bookstore" has also become famous.
Now listening to what Dai Jiali said, Fang Minghua took a sip of milk and asked: "How much investment has been made from the construction of the website under the banyan tree to now?"
"It's about 3 million yuan, mainly for the purchase of hardware, software, payment of network fees and personnel salaries."
Dai Jiali said, taking out a piece of information from his bag and handing it to Fang Minghua: "This is the financial list, take a look."
Fang Minghua put down the milk glass and looked carefully.
Three million would not be much to build a website in future generations, but now in the late 1990s, the cost is a bit staggering.
The company bought six IBM Netfinity5500M10 servers, spending a total of 1 million yuan.
There are also internet fees!
Internet fees cost so much? !
Up to 500,000 a year!
Of course this is not the dial-up Internet access method used by ordinary families today, but the latest fiber optic broadband.
There are also software purchases and staff salaries.
Fang Minghua discovered that the company's salary for website technicians was high enough. Chen Wanning's monthly salary was as high as 10,000 yuan!
As expected, he is engaged in computer networks, and he is popular in all eras.
Fang Minghua watched for a while and then said: "Leave this here for now. I'll look back and look carefully. How about I go to the company to talk to Mr. Shu after I go to work in the afternoon?"
"Okay. Yes, I will pick you up in the afternoon." Dai Jiali replied.
"No, it's just a few steps away. I can just walk there. I wonder if Mr. Shu has any activities planned for the afternoon?" Fang Minghua said.
"No, we, Mr. Shu, have a meeting in the morning and don't have any plans in the afternoon." "Okay, it's settled!"
After eating, Dai Jiali drove to work, and Fang Minghua returned to the room to stay for a while. , nothing happened and I walked around the neighborhood again.
In the summer vacation of 1996, he took his three children to Shanghai. Less than two years later, Lujiazui had changed so much, and many high-rise buildings were rising from the ground. The city’s Changes are happening rapidly.
Walking around in a big circle to see that it was almost lunch time, Fang Minghua returned to his room and was about to go to the restaurant for dinner. Suddenly he heard a knock on the door. He went over to open it and saw a middle-aged man standing at the door. .
Shu Bin.
"Hello Minghua."
The two smiled and shook hands.
"Lao Shu, I also said that I would come to the company to find you after work in the afternoon. It would be better for you to come by yourself." Fang Minghua said.
"Jia Li drove to the train station early in the morning to pick you up. If I don't come here earlier, don't let you laugh at my arrogance."
"How could it be? You two bosses? "Fang Minghua shook his head: "Since we are here, let's go to the restaurant to eat together?"
"Okay, I heard that the food in this hotel is pretty good." Shu Bin readily agreed.
The two came to the Guihualou Chinese Restaurant on the first floor, ordered some Sichuan dishes, and chatted while eating.
"Jia Li came this morning and must have reported the website situation to you. I won't say more. I will report to you the entire Shengshi Books business last year." Shu Bin said.
"Okay, you say." Fang Minghua nodded.
"I guess Director Song also told you that Shengshi Books was not very satisfied with its management last year, and the profit rate has slowed down. The operating income was 280 million yuan, and the profit was about 80 million yuan, which was slightly higher than that in 1997. Revenue.”
"It's not bad."
"It's not bad, but everyone knows that the period of rapid development of books in the prosperous age has passed. I think it will become difficult in the future. The same is true for the general environment. Literature, especially pure literature, has passed. Literature is becoming less and less popular."
"I heard that important magazines such as "Kunlun", "Lijiang" and "Novel" will cease publication," Fang Minghua added.
"Yes, especially "Kunlun", a long-established magazine founded in 1936, cannot match the market economy." Shu Bin sighed with emotion.
“There may be more magazines that will cease publication in the future.”
"So, for Shengshi Books, we must take precautions and adjust the direction of publishing. We must not only insist on publishing pure literary books, build the Buhu Series brand, but also expand the publishing house's best-selling books in science and literature."
< br>"The other thing is to reduce expenditure and cut off some unnecessary expenditure items so as not to affect the performance of Shengshi Books."
Shu Bin finally said.
"The website under the banyan tree is one of them?" Fang Minghua asked rhetorically.
"Yes, frankly speaking, the investment cost under the banyan tree is secondary. The most important thing is that I can't see when it will make a profit and how it will make a profit? There is another more important question."
"What's the problem?"
"What Jiali is doing now is that the author will not be paid for articles published on the website! Unless it is finally published as a physical book. I have read these published on the website If we use the standards of physical books, most of them are unqualified and cannot be published at all.”
“No remuneration is given, it all depends on personal interests and hobbies. For a person and an industry, it is completely fine at the beginning, but It will definitely not work if it takes a long time. If the author is paid, it is an astronomical figure. How can the website make a profit?"
When Shu Bin finished speaking, Fang Minghua took a bite of the dish and tasted it. Next, I casually said: "What if we use advertising revenue or reading fees?"
(End of this chapter)