Chapter 55: The Crisis of the Writing Club
"Sit down, what's so urgent?" Su Jian asked, gesturing for Liu Mei to take a seat.
"It's really urgent! You've been busy with the internet cafe for the past two days, and I didn't want to disturb you. Now that you're finally at school today, I can talk to you about it!" Liu Mei said with a slight headache. It was clear that she had encountered no small trouble.
"Don't be in a hurry, take your time!" Su Jin got up and poured a glass of water, handing it to Liu Mei.
Liu Mei took over the cup and drank a mouthful before saying: "Have you noticed? The Writing Club's situation isn't looking too good!"
"Writing Society? Isn't the situation of Writing Society not bad, even students from other schools have come to join, it can be said that it's a great thing! The principal even specially praised me for this matter two days ago!" Su said with some confusion.
Liu Mei rubbed her forehead, took out a report and handed it to Su Jin, saying: "Those are just surface phenomena! You can take a look at this report, which clearly shows the current situation of the writing club!"
A week ago, our writing club members experienced negative growth for the first time! At that time, it did not attract attention and was thought to be an accidental phenomenon. Who knew it would get worse and worse! As of today, more than 300 students have quit the writing club!
Although the Writing Club can still be said to be the school's largest club, its members are rapidly decreasing. If nothing is done about it, I believe that the Writing Club will soon disintegrate!
"Really?!" Su Jin was shocked, hastily taking over the report from Liu Mei's hand and quickly scanning it. Indeed, just as Liu Mei had said, up to now, the number of members in the Writing Club had dropped to more than 1200, while during its peak period, the Writing Club had once had more than 1700 students! It was clear that the influence of the Writing Club was rapidly weakening.
"Why did this happen! Is there a reason for it?" Su Jin's eyebrows furrowed, calmly asking.
Liu Mei picked up the water cup on the table and took a sip, saying heavily: "I've asked many students to ask about their thoughts, and after summarizing my own conclusions, I've come to a conclusion. I believe this is the reason for the current state of the writing club!"
"What conclusion?"
Benefit!
"Benefit?"
"That's right, it's 'interest'! You often say 'The world is full of people seeking interest. The world is full of people fighting for interest!' In my opinion, the rise of our writing club was because of 'interest', and now its decline is also because of this one word 'interest'!" Liu Mei said with a determined look on her face.
……
After a discussion with Liu Mei, Su Jin understood what she meant. To be honest, Liu Mei was right! This matter ultimately boils down to the word "interest"!
At first, the writing club was able to expand rapidly and in a short period of time, it allowed 80-90% of students in the school to join. The school's support is one aspect, but more importantly, Su Jian seemed to have found a way for his classmates to gain benefits!
Most students in vocational schools are indeed dropouts from high school, and they are indeed not as good as their high school peers in terms of academic performance. But this does not mean that they do not have the motivation to improve themselves!
On the contrary, because they have always been looked down upon as being one step ahead of high school students, they are actually more concerned with dignity and status! The profession of writing novels online, although in traditional thinking is a position that wastes one's talent.
But to young people, this position is quite mysterious! Especially in this position, they can find their own dignity and status among their readers, and get a sense of being flattered. At the same time, they can also earn some money, why not?
So in the eyes of their classmates, becoming a web writer is actually not a bad choice, at least for this period. But reality gave them a cold shower! Cruelly telling them that there's no such thing as an easy job in this world!
Although they have received Su Yan's training, in terms of writing skills and plot ideas, they are better than some online writers nowadays, but it is not easy to succeed in this field!
In fact, even in the future when the Internet has become a basic industry, it's still not easy to make money online!
The former CEO of Shengda proudly declared: "Now if you take a look on the bus, you'll find that out of every ten people, at least one is online! And among every ten people who are online, at least one will choose to pay!"
Even in this case, how many people can really make money in the online literature industry? Let's take a certain platform as an example! The signing ratio of new books is about 5%, and the shelving ratio after signing is about 10%. In other words, the possibility for a newcomer to open a new book on a certain platform and gain income is only 0.5%!
Look at this number, isn't it frustrating! But the fact is just like that! So most online writers are indeed supported by their interest and enthusiasm! If there's anything else besides interest, it might be the readers' affirmation, approval, and attention!
What an author once said moved Su for a long time! That was an author who had written over 3 million words, but only had around a thousand followers, with just over a dozen clicks every day, and occasionally one or two recommendations.
It's undoubtedly impossible to get signed! But the author continued to update, and update! When someone asked him why, he said a sentence: as long as there is still one person reading this, it means that there is still someone affirming me, recognizing me, I will continue writing!
Living apart, Su Jin didn't know if he had the perseverance of this brother! However, it was still not to the point where he would pounce on him, so there wasn't a chance for him to try either!
In later generations, it was still the case that in this era of network culture, which is basically free, even if Su Jing copied the masterpieces of later generations, he couldn't make money. How could these students possibly make money!
At this time, the only hope to make money is to let readers recognize through the Internet and then issue physical books through publishers to make money! This is also the reason why Dream Net can step by step come to today!
But how many books can the publisher issue? The publisher has to consider profits, he can't publish every book, otherwise not only would Tongzhou lose money, even Xinhua Bookstore wouldn't be able to afford it!
So he will pick some red books recognized by readers on the Internet for publication, which will undoubtedly exclude most online writers! After working hard to write tens of millions of words, it turns out that it's all in vain! How many people can withstand such a blow!
So after the writing club experienced a period of intense activity, most members, having tasted the difficulty of making money, couldn't help but lose enthusiasm and want to give up!
And even if you exclude all these, writing itself is a chore! Every day thinking about the plot, typing word by word, it's so dull! If business school students could really bear loneliness and boredom, they wouldn't be in business school!
Even if you can't be among the top in high school, at least it's no problem to follow and take a college entrance exam! So there are also some members who have coded tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of characters and cannot persist, so they quit.
From this point of view, it is very consistent with the characteristics of online writers, high mobility, mostly part-time work! In fact, in Su Wei's opinion, writing itself is also a kind of exercise for people.
Nowadays, most students are restless and lack perseverance. If they can really calm down and write a book of two or three million words, I believe it will be very beneficial for their character. At least in the future, when they do anything, the length of time they persist will increase!
Of course, this has nothing to do with Su. What he needs to consider now is how to deal with the current crisis! The Writing Club is his foundation and also the core of his future career, he absolutely cannot tolerate it going downhill!
Su Jian lowered his head, seemingly already deep in thought, with ideas rapidly turning over in his mind! As for the situation before him, he wasn't without a way out! In fact, he had long since come up with a plan! Once put into action, it would perfectly resolve the problem at hand!
However, this plan was what he had when he was first reborn, and it was abandoned after he established his new life goals! Because in a sense, the plan conflicted with his goals!
And it's likely to trigger some uncertain factors, from now on, it has a taste of drinking poison to quench thirst!
"Never mind, let's just drink the poison to quench our thirst! A crisis can sometimes be an opportunity! If we operate well, who knows, maybe we can turn trash into treasure!" Su Jin thought for a moment and finally made up his mind, saying resolutely.
