"As the editor-in-chief of the magazine, I have decided to offer the highest royalties in the whole country to all article accepters, regardless of whether you are famous or not, and there are no additional signing conditions. We are not a talent show's agency company, but we can't accept one manuscript submitted to multiple parties at the same time." Han Han recently announced the call for submissions of his newly edited magazine, and he played the "high price" card. Han Han offered a standard of 1 yuan per word for ordinary original manuscripts, and cover articles even reached 2 yuan per word. Han Han claimed that this standard reached 10 to 40 times the industry standard.
Compared with text manuscripts, Han Han offered higher prices for photographic works. The magazine adopted photos, with an ordinary price of 1000 yuan per photo, and the cover or important photo standard was 2000 to 5000 yuan per photo.
Han Han's magazine is preliminarily priced at 11 yuan per issue. Regarding the high royalties he offered to authors, his publisher Lu Jinbo also felt helpless. He admitted that this standard posed great survival pressure on the magazine, but he also stated that according to surveys, with Han Han's ability and popularity, the magazine's circulation should not be a problem.
It is not uncommon for celebrities to run magazines. As early as 2007, Han Han's good friend Xu Jinglei started the electronic magazine "Kaila". However, Han Han said that Xu Jinglei running a magazine actually had no impact on him because he had wanted to do it four years ago, but just when he was about to start, he was beaten by a peer. To avoid being accused of following trends, he slowed down.
Although Han Han did not name anyone, this peer easily reminded people of Guo Jingming, whose magazine "The Fiction" sold very well in the youth literature market. When asked about the differences between his magazine and Guo Jingming's, Han Han joked that the royalties he offered were about 30 times what Guo Jingming offered. He felt that his magazine was generous in all aspects and more generous in its approach.
"Different characteristics, no competition," In response to Han Han's teasing, Guo Jingming consistently took a cold treatment approach. However, he countered that giving more money would not be proportional to the quality of the manuscript. Regarding Han Han's claim that his royalties exceeded Guo Jingming's by 30 times, Xiao Si (Guo Jingming) believed that further discussion was meaningless, simply stating that everyone's efforts were fine.
Han Han offering high royalties for magazine submissions and comparing himself to Guo Jingming not only drew criticism from the "pro-Guo" faction but also sparked considerable controversy online regarding the event itself. Many netizens believed that high royalties could attract healthy competition, increase authors' income and status, which in the long term was not necessarily a bad thing. This view was supported by some writers. A Lai expressed that competition brings progress, and having someone write is always better than having no one write.