drove Lao Taishan and his second uncle to the west of the city, and when Zhong Yi returned to the city government, a guest was already waiting in his office.

This guest was none other than the Minister of the United States, Commodus.

Seeing Zhong Yi, Commodus immediately greeted him warmly and gave Zhong Yi a warm bear hug.

"Zhong, that's amazing!" Commodus's address to Zhong Yi has also changed, no longer His Excellency the Mayor, but has become a cordial Zhong character, and said, "You know, you have made a fortune!" ”

Zhong Yi sat on the big chair and asked, "It seems that Harry Potter is selling well?" ”

"God, it's not bad!" Commodus exaggerated, "It's just wonderful!" It's too good to be true! There has never been such a work in the literary history of the United States! ”

Zhong Yi only smiled slightly when he heard this, because he had been mentally prepared for this.

In another time and space, the Harry Bot series has generated sales of 500 million copies!

Although Zhong Yi can't 100% retell the original Harry Port, there is no problem with the basic plot and key dialogues, and some details may be slightly different, but it will not affect the quality of the whole book, so the sales in this time and space will not be too bad.

Zhong Yi smiled silently, but Commodus himself couldn't hold back.

"Bell!" Commodus said eagerly, "You don't want to ask, how many copies of Harry Bot and the Philosopher's Stone have sold?" ”

Zhong Yi shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't care about the sales of Harry Bot and the Philosopher's Stone at all, I just want to know how many 10,000 copies of your Commodus family's publishing house have been printed for the first time?" ”

"You're boring." Commodus shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, I'll admit it, we Commodus still underestimated this book you wrote, and the first printing was only a million copies!" But did you know that in less than half a month, the first printing of one million copies was all sold! ”

"Not only the first printing, but now even the second edition of the second edition of two million copies is almost sold!"

"God, if we knew it was so easy to sell, we wouldn't have to spend so much money to advertise in more than a dozen big cities such as New York and Los Angeles at the same time, so we could save hundreds of thousands of dollars!"

"At this rate, there is no pressure to print two more million copies!"

Zhong Yi interrupted: "Commodus, your family is too conservative, just print 20 million copies!" ”

Printing 20 million copies, this is still the most conservative estimate, if it weren't for the fear that it would intimidate Commodus, Zhong Yi would directly say that he would print 50 million copies first!

"Oh Tfak?" Commodus said in a cranky voice, "Twenty million copies? Are you kidding me! ”

Although Commodus also admits that the market potential of Hallibot is by no means much worse than that of the Hobbit, there is market potential and whether it can be truly exploited is two different things! Therefore, the Commodus family would never dare to print so many copies at the top of the list, but hoped to put them on the shelves little by little, which was the safest.

Zhong Yi didn't bother to say anything, and directly stretched out his hand and said, "What about royalties?" Since the second edition of the two million copies is about to be sold out, it's time to settle the royalties, right? ”

Right now, Zhong Yi is anxious to wait for the money.

Because all the work in Yinjiang has been fully rolled out, money is needed in all aspects.

The urban construction has been outsourced to the Zhang family, so Zhong Yi doesn't have to worry about it, but the Zhaobaoshan Fortress and the Jinji Mountain Fortress, which have already started construction, are simply gold-swallowing monsters!

There are also officer training classes and the formation and training of the Yinjiang Garrison Regiment, which also require a lot of funds!

It turned out that the money obtained by cracking down on the underworld forces would have bottomed out long ago, and Chen Jiming, director of the Finance Bureau, had already complained to him several times, saying that he couldn't get through this year.

"Don't worry, the first royalties have already been brought to you." Commodus waved back, and the secretary behind him immediately put a lockbox at his feet on Zhong Yi's mahogany table.

Commodus stepped forward to open it, and then turned the box around and pushed it in front of Zhong Yi.

Zhong Yi looked at it and immediately saw a box of green dollar bills.

Commodus pointed to the box and said, "Zhong, $300,000, it's all here!" ”

Zhong Yi was taken aback, but on the surface, he remained silent and said, "How can it be 300,000 US dollars?" ”

Commodus immediately explained: "Zhong, this is also something that cannot be helped, although our country has come out of the Great Depression in recent years, but this unprecedented economic depression has changed the consumption habits of the people of the United States, and they are no longer willing to spend a lot of money to buy bestsellers as before." ”

After a pause, Commodus added, "So, we can only lower the price, to price the Harry Boulette and the Philosopher's Stone at one dollar, you know, even a bestseller like The Hobbit has dropped the price, from the original two dollars per book to the current one and a half dollars, so one dollar is really not too low." ”

Zhong Yi couldn't help but hold his forehead, and only then did he understand that in this era, the sales of rice were so expensive! The price of one dollar per book is really not low, you know, the average monthly salary of the United States in this era is only fifty dollars, that is to say, a month's salary is only enough to buy fifty copies.

By comparison, a magazine sells for just twenty cents.

Therefore, this royalty is more than Zhong Yi imagined, but he is still too little.

At that moment, Zhong Yi frowned again and said, "Commodus, didn't you sell about two million copies of the second edition before?" I simply settled the royalties of the second edition, and I am waiting for the money to be urgent. ”

"How does this work?" Commodus was dumbfounded, "In fact, the first edition of the book has not been fully returned, and our Commodus family only paid the royalties in advance to show you sincerity!" But if we want to pay the royalties of the second edition as well, this is difficult for the strongman, and we don't have the strength to do so. ”

Zhong Yi said coldly: "If that's the case, I'm afraid I'll have to consider cooperating with another publishing house." ”

"Oh? Zhong, you're too uninteresting. Hearing this, Commodus said angrily, "You said before that you want to give us the exclusive rights to publish the Commodus family. ”

Zhong Yi said: "I'm just talking about Hallibot and the Philosopher's Stone, not the entire Hallibot series!" ”

"Okay, okay, I'll get it for you when I get back." Commodus immediately compromised, because after all, this involved millions or even tens of millions of dollars, and in order to continue to get the follow-up copyright, it seemed that it was not unacceptable to pay royalties in advance, which was nothing more than spending more words to persuade the old antiques in the family.

"No, not for it, but for it!" Zhong Yi shook his hand and said, "Within two days, I must get the royalties for the second edition, a total of 600,000 US dollars!" ”