Sitting in the office was an elderly, fat man with silver hair. He was startled by Luan Walter's sudden opening of the door, and the coffee that had not reached his mouth spilled all over his shirt.

"Damn it! Lu An, look at the good things you did."

"I'm sorry." Luan Walter apologized insincerely, and then said: "Look at it!"

The fat man wiped his shirt twice and glanced up at Lin Chaoyang, smiled eagerly, stood up and walked forward.

"Mr. Lin, welcome to New York! I am Jason Epstein, editorial director of Random House."

It was him who arranged Luan Walter's business trip, and he brought an Asian face, so Lin Chaoyang's identity was naturally revealed.

Jason Epstein is a big figure in the American publishing industry. He once launched the "paperback revolution" in the American publishing industry and made great achievements for the Doubleday Publishing Company where he worked at the time.

He joined Random House in 1968 and has edited works by well-known writers such as Philip Roth, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer and E.L. Doctorow, and has written more than a hundred best-sellers in his lifetime.

At the same time, he is also the co-founder of the well-known American literary publication "The New York Review of Books".

Perhaps in order to make up for his rashness just now, Luann Walter gave Jason Epstein a lot of praise after entering the door.

"Come on, Lu An." Jason Epstein interrupted him and turned the topic to Lin Chaoyang.

Lin Chaoyang was asked about his experience attending the Neustadt Award and his feelings during the past two days.

"LuAnn told me on the phone about the welcome you received on Oklahoma's campus, which was unimaginable!

It seems like we should arrange more meet-and-greets and autograph sessions.”

After chatting for a while, Jason Epstein said again: "By the way, Lin, let me take you to meet my boss."

Before Lin Chaoyang made a statement, Luan Walter showed his fear first.

"Why bother with that difficult guy?"

Jason Epstein's performance is very consistent with the image of a kind and honest elder, "Keep your voice down, be careful not to let him hear your bad words."

Listening to the riddle-like conversation between the two, Lin Chaoyang's expression was slightly confused, and Luan Walter briefly explained a few words to him.

Random House was first founded by publisher Bennett Self. It was sold to Radio Corporation of America in 1965, and in the early 1980s it was sold to American media magnate Newhouse.

After Newhouse took over Random House, the first thing he did was to fire former president Robert Bernstein because the company's profits did not meet expectations.

Then he appointed Alberto Vitale, an Italian banker-turned-banker, whom Luan Walter called "the difficult guy."

Consistent with the abrasive style of his boss Newhouse, Alberto Vitale laid off Andre Sifrin, the president of Pantheon Books, a sub-brand of Random House, as soon as he took office.

It also demanded that Pantheon’s publishing projects be cut by two-thirds, leaving only one-third for the editor.

This unreasonable decision by Alberto Vitale caused an uproar within Random House at the time, and also triggered a rare protest in the history of American publishing.

Pantheon editors resigned en masse, and hundreds of authors terminated their contracts with Random House.

After finally stabilizing the morale of the military, Alberto Vitale began to implement the "single book accounting system" within Random House.

The so-called "single book accounting system" means that each book must have a profit and loss statement. It is clear at a glance whether a book makes money or not. Under this system, there is no need to publish books that lose money.

But the problem is that book publishing is very similar to movies. They are both industrialized production of literary and artistic works. First of all, it has artistic attributes.

Cannot be quantified.

Trying to make money for every book often ends up making no money for every book.

After Alberto Vitale took office, he worked hard and invested huge sums of money to create "blockbuster" best-sellers. As a result, in more than a year, he did not publish a blockbuster book. Instead, he lost money on many more books than before.

.

His radical moves directly caused Random House's profits to plummet to 4% in the past year from an average of 10% to 15% when Robert Bernstein was in office.

Listening to Luan Walter's narration, Lin Chaoyang thought to himself, this is another typical example of a layman guiding an expert.

"Do you know why he, a president, wants to see you?" Luan Walter asked.

Lin Chaoyang vaguely guessed the answer.

"Every best-selling book is the most important asset of the publishing house. The sales of several of your novels are amazing. They are not only best-sellers, but also have the potential to become long-selling books.

You are that guy's life-saving straw now." Luan Walter said.

The so-called long-selling book is a different concept from the best-selling book.

Bestsellers in the book market are often works that become popular in a short period of time due to marketing and publicity, but may quickly lose their popularity.

Long-selling books are books that maintain high sales volume after being sold for a long time, and usually have high market recognition and reader base.

Lin Chaoyang's "The Truman Show" and "The Death of Van Gogh" have been published in the United States for three years, and their cumulative sales have exceeded 1.6 million copies.

To date, it has generated nearly $30 million in revenue for Random House.

This figure is not large for Random House, which has an annual revenue of 800 million US dollars, but don’t forget that this is just the amount created by two books.

As a behemoth in the American publishing industry, Random House publishes thousands of books every year. In fact, the revenue generated by most books does not exceed 1 million yuan, and most of them lose money.

Even though "The Truman Show" and "The Death of Van Gogh" are now on the New York Times bestseller list, they can still guarantee stable sales of one or two thousand copies per week, making them standard long-selling books.

Not only does it sell well, but it also sells for a long time. This is the treasure of the publishing house.

This is especially valuable now that Alberto Vitale's radical strategy initially failed.

The sales of two consecutive novels have allowed Lin Chaoyang to establish a very good reputation among American readers.

In the future, his novels will continue to be published in the United States and are likely to maintain good sales.

As the sales and reputation of these works continue to accumulate, Lin Chaoyang's importance in Random House will become more and more prominent.

After chatting for a while, Jason Epstein dragged Lin Chaoyang upstairs to Alberto Vitale’s office.

Alberto Vitale studied finance and spent his career in banking. He was not interested in the publishing industry at all, but he was still very happy to see Lin Chaoyang.

A writer whose works have sold more than one million copies deserves to be greeted with a smile and treated with enthusiasm.

Lin Chaoyang is not too interested in Alberto Vitale's American hypocrisy. Of course, his indifference may be related to his first impression.

As soon as he entered the other party's office, what he saw was not bookshelves and books, but a huge yacht painting hanging on the wall.

It can be seen from this that Alberto Vitale is a pure businessman who cannot be more pure.

After chatting and laughing with Lin Chaoyang for a while, Alberto Vitale extended a lunch invitation to Lin Chaoyang to express his friendship as a landlord.

If you don't hit the smiling person, Lin Chaoyang will naturally not refuse if he invites you.

After lunch, Lin Chaoyang returned to Jason Epstein's office, and Luan Walter took the initiative to talk to Jason Epstein about the creation of his new book.

Jason Epstein was very happy to hear that Luann Walter had persuaded Lin Chaoyang to write a novel based on American literature.

He also stated that he would go all out to help Lin Chaoyang.

After staying at Random House for most of the day, Jason Epstein and Luanne Walter treated Lin Chaoyang to dinner in the evening, and then strolled to McSorley's Bar not far from the restaurant.

It is the oldest bar on Seventh Street on the Upper East Side and is said to be the oldest bar in New York City.

"Of course, this statement is still controversial. After all, New Yorkers will have disputes about everything."

Luan Walter's American humor did not earn Lin Chaoyang a knowing smile, and he expressed his disappointment.

So he decided to give Lin Chaoyang some more knowledge, "Did you know about John Sloan? He painted a painting of "McSorley's Back Room"

, right here.”

Lin Chaoyang looked in a certain direction across the bar and shook his head honestly. Luan Walter was immediately proud.

"Holly is also the one who wrote "The Death of Van Gogh". You don't even know about John Sloan?"

After saying this, he started showing off.

"John Sloan is a very famous painter. He painted a series of paintings with McSorley as the theme, such as "McSorley's Bar", "McSorley's House" and "McSorley's Cat".

Each of these paintings has the same warm atmosphere of the city. While he was talking incessantly, a burst of laughter with a thick phlegm sound came from the opposite side of the bar, from the direction where Lin Chaoyang's eyes had just been.

The other party seemed to have heard some funny joke and kept laughing until he coughed in the end, but he did not forget to laugh with a slightly ironic tone.

Luan Walter's showoff stopped as soon as the other party started laughing. Although the other party did not speak, he could clearly feel that the other party was coming towards him.

He saw what the other person looked like, a fat old man with a red neck!

Luanne Walter looked angry, "Man, what are you laughing at?"

The red neck coughed a few times, then recovered and said, "It's nothing, it's nothing."

Seeing that the other party's attitude was gentle, Luan Walter was reluctant to question him any more and turned around to continue talking to Lin Chaoyang.

"Sloan's love for McSorley was obvious—"

"Ha ha!"

The harsh laughter came again, Luan Walter was furious, are you laughing at you?

He stopped talking and looked at the other side with cold eyes, trying to suppress the other side with his momentum.

After a while, seeing that the other party had stopped laughing, Luan Walter was about to speak, but unexpectedly, the other party burst out laughing as if he couldn't hold it in.

The anger in Luan Walter's heart was gradually replaced by doubt. He really didn't understand what the other party was laughing at.

When people are laughed at, they tend to become less confident. This is what he is like now. He has completely lost the ease with which he showed off his knowledge just now.

"Why is he laughing?" Luan Walter's voice was not loud, as if he was asking himself or Lin Chaoyang.
To be continued...