What does it mean to “have the ending printed out”?

Is it what he’s thinking?

Fu Wenyu was so shocked that he almost failed to control his expression.

He remembered clearly telling Shopkeeper Zhang when he handed over the complete manuscript of The True and False Young Masters that the first 80,000-plus words should be copied and printed by the Liuzhou Tabloid, while the most exciting remaining 40,000-plus words should be withheld. This way, by the time the Liuzhou tabloid reached the part near the ending, the complete book would already be printed.

It would perfectly coincide with the most thrilling part!

Moreover, the remaining 40,000-plus words could conservatively keep the Liuzhou Tabloid printing for nearly three more months. In other words, during the three months after the complete book went on sale, there would be a small sales surge every five days. Although each surge might only amount to ten or twenty books, over time, it would still be significant.

But now he’s being told it’s all gone?

How could it be gone??

Wasn’t the Liuzhou Tabloid supposed to print 3,000 characters per issue?

Facing Fu Wenyu’s confusion, Shopkeeper Zhang awkwardly explained, “Wenyu, it’s like this. Because Mr. Sanliu’s The Woodcutter and the newly added story only have a few tens of thousands of words, and most people in Liuzhou have already read them, Tabloid ended up printing all of your story instead.”

Fu Wenyu was stunned, “All of mine?”

So, instead of “3,000 words per issue,” it was “10,000 words per issue”!

“Yes, and of course, there’s also the matter of Mr. Tang’s son being switched at birth by a servant, which has made the entire city of Liuzhou very interested in your story.”

“So, so…”

He said with some regret, “So over the past month or so, the Liuzhou Tabloid has been printing your story exclusively. Originally, they would have run out after printing the first 80,000-plus words, but coincidentally, both sides share the same printing house. When printing the book, we even borrowed their printing plates.”

“So after the 80,000-plus words were printed, they took the printing plates from the book side to use. After all, the words are the same; they just needed to disassemble the plates and adjust the order slightly, which was very convenient. Not to mention, a while ago, the boss found his son and was so overjoyed that he specifically ordered them to print two extra copies.”

“So now your story only has less than 20,000 words left. The printing house reported this today, asking what to print after finishing your story, and that’s how we found out.”

As for why Shopkeeper Zhang hadn’t noticed earlier, it was because he had been busy communicating with booksellers and merchants, trying to sell more books, so he hadn’t paid attention.

Fu Wenyu: “…”

He was speechless, truly speechless.

So his ancient editor was even less reliable than a certain website’s servers.

Not only did they arbitrarily change his draft release schedule, but they also automatically and eagerly added updates without readers even asking, releasing 10,000 words each time. As a result, in just over a month, they had exhausted all his drafts, leaving only 20,000 words, enough for just two more updates?

How could they be so unreliable?!

And what’s with these ancient editors?

They only mention it when they’re about to hit a dead end!

Should he be grateful there are still 20,000-plus words left, and not just 2,000?

After listening to Shopkeeper Zhang’s somewhat guilty explanation, Fu Wenyu felt like his heart was bleeding.

After all, serialization and completion are two completely different concepts, especially in an ancient environment where information spreads slowly. Once a story is completed, its spread accelerates, and some people, knowing the ending, won’t buy the book anymore.

It was precisely because of this factor that he had introduced the concept of “serialization.” The goal was to expand the reader base and then cut off the serialization at a critical point to attract readers who wanted to see the ending to buy the book.

A well-timed cliffhanger in serialization could sell more books!

The cliffhangers in the last 40,000 words of the ending were all carefully designed by him.

But now, forget about using cliffhangers to sell books—if handled poorly, the Liuzhou Tabloid might release the ending first. If that happened, they’d be lucky to sell the 1,000 copies they had on hand.

So Fu Wenyu’s expression turned serious.

“Uncle Zhang, what do you plan to do?”

Shopkeeper Zhang was no stranger to crises. On the way over, he had already thought of a solution, so he replied without hesitation, “There’s nothing we can do about what’s already been printed. But before coming here, I’ve already spoken to the people at the Liuzhou Tabloid. From now on, they can only print one chapter per issue.”

“This way, the 20,000 characters can last for about a month.”

Fu Wenyu nodded slowly. This was a good solution.

Then Shopkeeper Zhang added, “As for our side, we don’t need to wait for an auspicious date. We’ll start selling tomorrow, as much as we can. Wenyu, don’t worry, we’ll sell all 1,000 copies.”

But Fu Wenyu wanted to sell more!

So after careful consideration, he raised an objection.

“No, we won’t sell!”

Shopkeeper Zhang was taken aback, clearly unable to understand.

In his view, books should be sold as early as possible. As Fu Wenyu had previously said, if it’s too late, readers will already know the ending and won’t be willing to buy. After all, not everyone is like Liu Changmiao, the wealthy young master who could buy out all the books in the shop without even asking the price.

He asked curiously, “If we don’t sell, what will you do?”

Fu Wenyu stood up, took a few copies from the stack of printed books, and divided them into two piles in front of Manager Zhang. He explained in detail, “We won’t sell the books outright. Instead, we’ll switch to pre-orders.”

Manager Zhang was puzzled, “Pre-orders?” But isn’t pre-ordering still selling?

But Fu Wenyu said, “Uncle Zhang, selling books and pre-ordering books are different.”

“Do you remember when I told you that the deluxe edition is too expensive, so we could use a pre-order model, printing only as many as are ordered to avoid losses?”

Shopkeeper Zhang nodded, “Yes, using this method, we’ve already pre-sold ten copies of the so-called deluxe edition. Five were ordered by people in Liuzhou, and the other five were ordered by out-of-town merchants.”

“Now we can use the same model for the regular edition.”

Fu Wenyu pointed to the shorter stack of books on the table, “If both of us are interested in a story and want to see the ending, and you buy a copy, I can borrow yours and won’t need to buy my own. The result is that the bookstore sells fewer copies, because fewer people buy.”

“But pre-ordering is different.”

He pointed to the taller stack, “If you pre-order a copy but haven’t received it yet, I can’t borrow it from you. At this point, I either have to order my own copy or wait indefinitely for you to finish reading. If I don’t have the money, I’ll choose the latter, but if I do, I might just order a copy myself to avoid the wait.”

“This way, the bookstore can sell more copies.”

Manager Zhang nodded slowly, “…I understand.”

Moreover, he thought of another benefit. Because of the incident at Mr. Tang’s household, out-of-town merchants had already placed orders with him, and Fu Wenyu’s story had effectively sold over 300 copies. This was the situation he had previously hinted at to Fu Wenyu through Zhang Er. After selling the initial 1,000 copies, they would likely need to print more.

But if they used Fu Wenyu’s “pre-order” method, they could know in advance how many people wanted to buy. Once they knew, the printing house could arrange to print them ahead of time.

They wouldn’t have to worry about unsold copies because all pre-orders came with deposits.

“This is good, let’s do it this way!”

Shopkeeper Zhang immediately made the decision and even added on his own, “I’ll go find the people of the Liuzhou Tabloid now and have them print the pre-order announcement in the next issue. Since they caused us such a big problem, this will serve as their apology.”

“As for the sale date, let’s set it for ten days from now.”

“One announcement three days from now, and another eight days from now. With two issues of the tabloid, everyone who needs to know will know. At that point, we’ll sell to customers in Liuzhou first, and out-of-town merchants can wait another three to five days.”

After all, those merchants aren’t in a hurry to read. They buy the books to resell elsewhere, so a slight delay isn’t a big deal. Moreover, the books bought by the people of Liuzhou won’t spread to other places so quickly, so there’s enough time. The same logic applies to the Tang family’s bookshops in other cities—they can send the books there a bit later.

Fu Wenyu agreed with this approach.