Chapter 40: Numerous Channels

Zhang Chu woke up early in the morning. To his surprise, the old house had a decent internet connection. He sat under the jujube tree in the courtyard, enjoying the morning breeze, and connected his phone to the Wi-Fi.

Though he had lived two lives, it was still his first time publishing a work. He was so eager to see the print version that he could barely wait. For now, reading the digital edition was already quite satisfying. Zhang Chu logged into his account and spent 2.99 yuan to purchase the latest issue of "Chronicles of Mystery."

This magazine didn’t rank very high in the official Huawei bookstore; Zhang Chu had to scroll through several pages of the rankings before finding it. “The cover looks nice, but too bad it’s not my story,” he muttered.

Nevertheless, Zhang Chu had at least contributed to his own sales. He opened the newly downloaded e-book, found the table of contents, and was surprised to see his story, "Detective Sherlock," listed right on the first page!

Writing a novel and reading a novel are two entirely different experiences. This time, Zhang Chu treated himself purely as a reader, savoring each line slowly. “Did I really write this? Am I actually this good?”

There are two kinds of writers in the world. When they revisit their own works, one type feels their writing is terrible and wishes to rewrite everything; the other is amazed at their own brilliance, convinced they could never write like that again. Zhang Chu, truthfully, still lacked some confidence. Most of the first chapter of "Detective Sherlock" was his own work, adapted from a television series. The system had only allowed him to watch the BBC series as many times as he wanted; it hadn’t written the sentences for him, nor had it generated the novel wholesale.

As Zhang Chu sat on the wicker chair lost in thought, Zhang Bowen rubbed his sleepy eyes and came outside.

Yawning, Zhang Bowen asked, “Why are you up so early?”

“You couldn’t sleep either. I just checked online—people are saying your story is pretty ordinary.”

Today was the release day for "Chronicles of Mystery," and both father and son were anxiously awaiting feedback. Neither wanted to see negative reviews.

Hearing his son’s words, Zhang Bowen wasn’t surprised; instead, he sneered. “I already checked online before I came out. Hardly anyone is talking about it at all—you can’t fool me.”

Bantering with his father always amused Zhang Chu. He shrugged helplessly. “Alright, so you’re a modern man after all.” Unlike the other entries in the Sherlock Holmes fan fiction contest, both "Detective Sherlock" and "Elementary" were designed to develop into long serials, not just one-off stories. If readers’ reactions were poor, it would certainly affect the magazine’s view of the work. Whether future installments would be published, or even serialized at all, was suddenly in doubt!

Troubled, neither father nor son could sleep, and now they sat in the courtyard, staring at each other.

“The magazine is already on sale today, but why are there no comments? I have no idea if it’s good or bad,” Zhang Bowen fretted. He’d intended to share the magazine’s digital edition link with his friends but now hesitated.

If the feedback was negative, sharing the link would only give people something to laugh at.

Zhang Chu refreshed the comments section in the official bookstore app on his phone, but it was still empty. He tried to reassure his father, “It’s still early. Who would have already got the magazine, finished reading, and left a review? Maybe by noon there’ll be more comments. How about we go for a walk?”

Endlessly refreshing the phone wasn’t helping. A walk might clear their minds and distract them.

…

Meanwhile, as the father and son strolled through the fields outside Longsha Town, basking in the morning light, the staff at the "Chronicles of Mystery" editorial office were already arriving at work.

Liu Qiao had come in unusually early today. Just past eight, she turned on her computer to monitor the latest data in real time, uncertain whether the recent wave of publicity had had any effect.

“Liu, you’re here early too,” Wan Yuan said, draining the last of his soy milk. He’d come in half an hour ahead of schedule, only to find someone already at her desk.

“I woke up especially early today. Since I had nothing to do, I figured I’d avoid the subway rush,” Liu Qiao replied without looking up, her eyes fixed on the sales figures.

Subtracting those who had subscribed for a full year and those who had pre-ordered the July issue on the official website or Tmall and Dangdang’s official stores, the number of new online buyers wasn’t actually very high.

Sales were better in the Huawei, Google, and Apple app stores. "Chronicles of Mystery" also had its own mobile app, though it was quite rudimentary. While Amazon had entered the Chinese market and the Kindle dominated e-readers, its model didn’t really fit local habits. Many people were used to reading directly on their phones and saw no need to carry an extra device, even an affordable one like the Kindle. For most consumers, a dedicated e-reader was just inconvenient, so Amazon’s e-book downloads remained quite limited.

There were countless readers in China, with digital reading users numbering in the hundreds of millions—the vast majority reading on their phones. Of all the mobile apps offering magazine downloads, the pre-installed app stores boasted the highest sales: Apple’s iBooks, Xiaomi’s Mi Books, Huawei Reading, Samsung Reading, and the three major carriers’ contract phone stores—Mobile, Unicom, and E-surfing Book City.

Beyond these, there were major paid download platforms like Douban Reading and Duokan, as well as QQ Book City, Palm Joy Book City, and many more. The sheer number of sales channels made calculating total sales extremely complicated!

Magazines nowadays weren’t just sold via postal subscriptions or street kiosks; paid digital downloads had become the norm. Sales figures from external platforms couldn’t reach the magazine instantly; the staff had to wait for periodic data updates.

But based on the internal data so far, sales had already risen sharply compared to before, and online search volume was on an entirely different scale!

“It seems the top scorer from the college entrance exams really does have drawing power. Searches for ‘Detective Sherlock’ have already exceeded eight hundred thousand. If only all those searches could be turned into sales,” Liu Qiao mused.

She knew she was just daydreaming. If "Detective Sherlock" were free, reaching over a million reads would be easy. But the moment money was involved, many curious onlookers lost interest. It wasn’t that they were stingy, but a matter of consumption habits—they just didn’t think an article was worth paying for.