248: Chapter 248: New Book Release and Advertising

The exit of the 4S dealership was right ahead. She turned the steering wheel, the car swerved, and merged onto the frontage road.

There weren't many cars on the road, but she was driving very slowly, just over forty, even slower than the bus beside her.

After driving a short distance, her confidence slowly grew.

The speed increased from forty to fifty, her grip on the steering wheel loosened, and her shoulders relaxed a bit.

Chen Fan leaned back in the passenger seat, watching her become increasingly proficient, and couldn't help but nod.

"Aren't you driving quite well?" he said.

"That's only because you're here, Boss." Qiao Linlin turned her head to look at him, her eyes filled with a hint of reliance.

"Alright, stop with the flattery, keep driving."

Qiao Linlin pursed her lips and smiled, then continued driving toward the company.

...

Back at the office, Chen Fan tossed the car keys onto the desk, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes for a moment before sitting up straight and turning on the computer.

The browser homepage popped up. He tapped his fingers on the keyboard a few times and entered a familiar URL.

A few seconds later, the author dashboard for Qidian Chinese Website popped up on the screen, a page he hadn't opened for a very long time.

Come to think of it, since finishing his last book in April of last year, he had rarely logged into this dashboard.

Every time he opened it, it was basically to withdraw his royalties.

But now, he was opening this page not to withdraw royalties, but to upload a new book.

The new book was titled "cataclysm of all races".

This book was a reward from the system earlier. After Chen Fan received it, he spent a long time going through it from beginning to end and found the original text to be truly bloated.

At eight million words, after cutting out the repetitive descriptions, dragged-out plots, and meaningless dialogue, the essence was actually only about three million words.

So, he spent several months refining the original eight million-plus words down to just over three million.

He had finished writing this book a long time ago, but hadn't uploaded a single word until now.

The reason he was starting to upload it now was because Chen Fan wanted to use this novel to promote his own game.

The reader demographic of Qidian Chinese Website highly overlapped with the user profile of his game: young males with a certain level of purchasing power who were willing to spend money on their hobbies.

People who read novels on Qidian Chinese Website, regardless of the era, would not be in poor financial condition.

Topping up monthly passes, tipping authors, and subscribing to chapters all required money, and quite a bit of it.

People who could read on Qidian Chinese Website for a long time all had disposable income.

If he could place an ad for "archangels sword" within the novel and precisely target this group of high-quality users, the results definitely wouldn't be bad.

Chen Fan's thinking was that as long as the ad got out there, it didn't matter if the book didn't make money or if readers criticized him.

Thinking of this, Chen Fan didn't hesitate any longer. He clicked on the work management page and selected "Create New Work".

After creating the work, Chen Fan uploaded fifty chapters all at once.

And at the beginning of each of these fifty chapters, Chen Fan added a line of text.

"This chapter is exclusively sponsored by the web game 'archangels sword', grand open beta on May 1st."

He clicked publish, the page refreshed, and the work status changed from "Draft" to "Published".

Following the release of Chen Fan's new book, someone suddenly sent a message in the fan group for his previous book, which had become somewhat quiet.

It was a screenshot of the new book "cataclysm of all races" work page, accompanied by only three exclamation marks and a question mark— "!!! Great Pen name has started a new book?!"

Immediately after, the chat exploded.

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, is this real? I'm going to check it out right now!"

"It's been a year, a whole year. Do you know how I've spent this past year? I've been refreshing Great Pen name's author page every day, wondering every day if he had kicked the bucket."

"Holy crap, fifty chapters at once. He'll be able to go live just days after releasing the new book. That's definitely Pen name's style."

"Wait, did you guys notice there's an ad at the beginning of every chapter?"

"Noticed it. 'This chapter is exclusively sponsored by the web game 'archangels sword', grand open beta on May 1st.' Is Pen name taking commercial ads now?"

"Is he being this blatant? Isn't he afraid of getting sanctioned?"

"Damn, I searched for this game, the ad is fucking hypnotic."

"I'm going to go check it out."

"Haha, 'I am Zhajiahui', it's really hypnotic, and those two female warriors are beautiful too."

"Wait, no, what Zhajiahui, what female warriors? What are you guys talking about?"

"You'll know once you take a look."

A group member dropped a web link, which was exactly the game interface for "archangels sword".

...

Meanwhile, the comment section of Chen Fan's new book was also bustling; one part was discussing the content of Chen Fan's new book, and the other part was discussing the game ad Chen Fan placed.

Chen Fan leaned back in his chair, watching the messages in the group scroll up one by one, the smile at the corners of his mouth deepening.

The effect he wanted had been achieved; many readers had developed an interest in the game.

And as this book became more and more popular, more and more people would know about the game "archangels sword".

Chen Fan was leaning back in his chair, scrolling through the group messages, when his phone suddenly vibrated. A number saved as "Editor Xinghe" popped up.

He picked up the phone and answered.

"Pen name, you've finally released a new book!" Xinghe's voice came from the other end of the line, carrying a sense of relief. "I almost thought you had quit the web novel industry."

Chen Fan smiled: "I've been busy, so I waited until I had enough saved drafts before releasing it."

"You spent a whole year saving them." Xinghe sighed with emotion.

Chen Fan smiled and didn't speak.

"However, regarding your new book release, what's up with that ad at the top?" Xinghe continued.

"It's nothing, just placing an ad for a friend." Chen Fan said lightly.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Xinghe seemed to be weighing his words. After a while, he spoke, his tone much slower than before: "Pen name, let me be honest with you. The higher-ups might have an issue with this way you're placing ads."

"Why would they have an issue with it?" Chen Fan leaned back in his chair, his tone unhurried.

"It's mainly because our website's parent company is Shanda, and Shanda itself makes games. You placing ads for other games in your book—this kind of thing wouldn't have been anyone's business before, but you are a god-tier author with high visibility; the higher-ups couldn't possibly miss it."

Chen Fan didn't speak, waiting for him to continue.

"So..." Xinghe paused, "Could you consider removing that ad?"

Remove it? Chen Fan knew clearly in his heart that his purpose for writing this novel was to place ads, so how could he possibly remove it?

"cataclysm of all races" was the core channel he used to drive traffic to "archangels sword". Without this ad spot, the value of this book would be more than halved.

As for royalties, he didn't care at all. A million or so a month was just pocket money to him.