Buying followers?

Watching Quin leave reluctantly, Li Daniu let out a helpless sigh.

He was not truly being willful; rather, there were many things he had no way to explain, and no need to explain.

So he could only hide himself behind the mask of stubbornness.

From Quin’s perspective, spending so much money to produce a television program was entirely unjustified. For there had never, in the history of television, been a program whose production cost reached one hundred and fifty million dollars.

It was not that television could not make that much money; in fact, many programs could generate astonishing profits. Take the Super Bowl in the United States, for example: a thirty-second commercial already cost three million dollars, and in a few years that figure would double.

But the Super Bowl had already become part of the American way of life, just like the Spring Festival Gala in Huaxia. A program of that kind was, strictly speaking, no longer merely a television program. It was like the evening news in Huaxia, which could bring in five or six billion yuan a year in advertising. But could you really say that the evening news was only a television program?

A real television program was supposed to use a small investment, combined with creativity, to win ratings and make money.

Li Daniu, however, was not a pure television producer. He only wanted to discover talented singers, have them perform the songs he had brought from another world, and then make money through those singers.

As for producing the television program and spending an enormous sum of money without restraint, that was merely to build popularity for those singers, so it would be easier to promote their songs afterward.

In this, he was fundamentally the opposite of television producers. They ran talent shows merely for ratings, then chose the most popular contestants and turned them into stars. As for the others, they were left to drift with the current and develop however they might; after all, making a star required an immense amount of resources.

Not to mention anything else, just finding the right songs was already extremely difficult.

Yet in Li Daniu’s hands, what he lacked least of all were songs. The classic songs of an entire world were more than enough to create dozens of stars.

Besides, the biggest investment in this program was the broadcasting fee charged by the television station. If the show achieved the expected ratings, Li Daniu would then be qualified to choose the station. After all, television stations needed ratings too. A high-rated program could drive far more than just advertising revenue during its airing slot. If Li Daniu could guarantee the show would rank first nationwide in its time slot, then although a station would by no means let him use its airtime for free, it would absolutely be possible to charge only a token fee.

As for the stage setup, although the venue itself was rented, the equipment inside was not a one-time expense. Once used, it could be dismantled and stored away in a warehouse, then used again next time, or even rented out to another singing program.

So Li Daniu’s enormous investment was definitely not born of caprice; it was confidence that he could obtain the profit he deserved through this program.

Online, when netizens saw Li Daniu’s latest update, they could not help but click to repost it. Many people found it strange: why was it that Li Daniu’s updates always made people repost them almost involuntarily?

As more and more people saw the post, discussion on the internet began to turn to Li Daniu’s purpose. Some said he was merely having fun, with no real meaning at all. Others said he might be trying to select people with good singing voices and turn them into professional singers, after all, Li Daniu had that kind of strength.

No matter how the discussions unfolded online, when many people saw the post, they recorded a short audio clip of themselves singing and sent it to the email address Li Daniu had provided. After all, sending an audio file cost them practically nothing.

And the people in the music department organized by Quin were stunned the moment they opened the inbox. In just a little over ten minutes since Li Daniu had posted the update, there were already more than a thousand new emails.

“General Manager, we can’t even get these emails open. They’re coming in too fast,” one of the music department staff said with a bitter face.

“That’s your problem. The only requirement I gave you was to choose from this inbox at least enough contestants to record two episodes,” Quin said, unconcerned with what methods his subordinates used. He only wanted results.

The music department members began their miserable search for good voices in the inbox. Fortunately, this was a corporate email account, so it could be opened simultaneously on different computers, and the cloud storage was ample. Otherwise, before they could pick out any good voices, the inbox would have already burst at the seams.

Quin watched for a while and realized that the music department alone could not possibly complete this task. You checked one entry, and a hundred more were added to the inbox—how could they ever finish? He could only notify the entire company to join this online audition.

Whether a voice was pleasant to the ear or not required no professional skill to judge. Employees from other departments first screened out a batch of voices that sounded good, and then the music department would screen them again from among those selections.

Of course, among those audio clips there were also plenty of prank submissions, and even some that directly insulted Li Daniu. Such audio was naturally deleted outright; there was no way they were going to let Li Daniu hear it again.

As the boss, Li Daniu naturally did not need to concern himself with his subordinates’ flurry of activity. Since the company had already been established, the necessary departments and positions were all in place. He only needed to assign the task and wait for the results.

While Li Daniu was browsing updates on BookFace, he received a call from Louis.

“Your Majesty, your new book has passed review and obtained its publication number. We can begin publicity and publication now.”

“How many copies have been printed so far?” Li Daniu believed Louis would never wait until the publication number was in hand before beginning printing.

“The first volume has already been printed in two hundred thousand copies, and the factory is now printing the second batch of three hundred thousand,” Louis replied.

Harry Potter was divided into seven volumes. This time Louis had chosen to print them separately because he wanted to use the sales and word of mouth from the first volume to determine the plan for the later ones. After all, this book was different from The Lord of the Rings, and he did not think very highly of it.

As for the print run of five hundred thousand copies, that was also because of the reputation Li Daniu had already built with The Lord of the Rings. Louis believed that even if the market for this book was not strong, it should still be possible to rely on the fan base Li Daniu already had to sell through those five hundred thousand copies. As for how long it would take, that was not such a concern.

“Still a bit conservative, Louis,” Li Daniu said. He knew very well how huge the market for this book was, but there was no point in saying such things. Even the original author had submitted manuscripts for seven years before getting a publishing chance; for him, a plagiarist to come in and immediately secure a first print run of five hundred thousand copies was already quite good.

“Well…” Louis gave an awkward laugh and said, “Your Majesty, would you perhaps be willing to cooperate with the publicity a little?”

“How do you mean?”

Seeing that he had successfully changed the subject, Louis cleared his throat and said, “We hope that besides the advertisement for your new book on BookFace, you could also appear on a television program. This program is currently the most-watched interview show in the United States, and we believe it can bring a considerable boost to the sales of your new book.”

The most-watched interview show? Li Daniu smiled on the other end of the line. At last, these programs had been tempted by him.

“All right, no problem. Arrange the time and let me know.”

Li Daniu hung up, thought for a moment, and then posted a new update on his BookFace.

“My new book, Harry Potter, is about to go on sale. Guess how many copies it will sell in its first month? Leave your guess below this update. The commenter whose guess comes closest to the answer will receive a cash reward of one hundred thousand dollars. Comments are valid for three days, and each ID may comment only once.”

The celebrities who noticed the post instantly went ballistic. This was nakedly buying fans with money, because in order to comment on someone’s update, you had to follow them first.

“I’m going to file a complaint against you!” Seeing the post, Big J immediately grabbed his phone, called BookFace’s official customer service, and made a实名 complaint.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Big J,” the official customer service said after hearing his report. “We have no rule stating that BookFace users are not allowed to offer rewards to their own fans. In fact, you previously held a fan raffle on BookFace to give away autographed records. Thank you for your trust and support of BookFace.”

Big J: “…”