Shadow of great britain

At night, in Arthur's house.

The shareholders and writers of "The Englishman" gathered together, and Disraeli carefully reviewed the manuscripts in his hands one by one.

After a long time, he pressed the thick stack of manuscripts on the table with a smile on his face, and took a deep breath: "To be honest, I really can't think of a reason why this magazine failed. Every one of them The novels are masterpieces and would have attracted legions of loyal readers even if they had been published separately. But now they are bound together. In my opinion, eightpence per issue is still too cheap. Maybe we can set the price a little higher? After all, our magazine is almost as big as three issues of The Times."

Disraeli was worried about raising the price even before it was released. Arthur obviously had a different view on this.

Because for him, making money from the newspaper industry is secondary. Establishing a public opinion position through "The British" and continuously expanding his voice are his top priorities.

And since he had just received a financing of two thousand pounds from the Rothschild family, at this time, he did not care at all about losing a large sum of money in the early stages of the magazine's operation.

But in order to convince Disraeli and his partners, he obviously had to come up with a more convincing plan to make everyone give up their worries about losing money.

Arthur did not reveal his intentions first, but tactfully made a strange argument: "Whether newspapers and magazines make money does not actually depend on the income generated from sales. As for me as a frontline patrolman at Scotland Yard, Judging from my experience over time, many newspapers with large sales volume are actually not operating smoothly. Sometimes it even happens that the greater the sales volume, the more money the newspaper loses."

"Oh? What's going on?"

Although Disraeli had run a newspaper before, he was just a hands-off shopkeeper at that time, otherwise he would not have been defrauded out of seven thousand pounds.

At this time, Arthur threw out such a novel theory, which naturally attracted the attention of this young man who was eager to prove himself.

Others were also interested in what Arthur said.

Alexandre Dumas asked directly: "If newspapers don't make money from sales, how else can they make money? Is it possible to steal and defraud newspapers?"

When Arthur heard this, he didn't answer directly, but said to Dickens, a long-time news reporter.

"Charles, you have worked as a reporter for several newspapers, so you should know that after deducting the printing and distribution costs of a newspaper, the profit each newspaper can earn is usually very small.

However, the larger the newspaper, the more it needs to maintain a large team of reporters, or pay high remuneration to hire big-name professional writers. Only in this way can they get first-hand information faster than other newspapers and obtain high-quality articles.

And these behaviors will also cause them to spend more and more on personnel and content costs, until they can no longer maintain a balance of payments and can only go bankrupt. Therefore, in order to fill this hole, large literary magazines and newspapers will introduce the concept of advertising space.

For those truly large-scale news media, it would be good if the money from selling magazines can cover their expenses. Their main profits come from advertising revenue. I should be right about this, right? "

Dickens looked at Arthur with wide eyes in surprise, and he said in surprise: "Arthur, I thought you were just an excellent police officer, but I didn't expect you to know so much about the ecology of the news magazine industry."

Arthur smiled helplessly: "Actually, it's not me who understands, but Mr. Hetherington who founded the Poor People's Guardian. I just chatted with him a few days ago, and he told me these things. . He also said that "Poor Guardian" was determined not to accept any advertising, so even if it could sell tens of thousands of copies every day, it would still be unable to make a profit."

"Hetherington?" Elder's head popped out from the magazine wrapped in a book cover: "Didn't I hear that he was arrested last month? How could he be released so soon?"

Alexandre Dumas took a sip of coffee and said in a moderate tone: "Elder, if you have nothing to do, use your brain. Guess how Hetherington was arrested?"

Elder raised his eyebrows, pulled the corners of his mouth and laughed loudly: "Arthur, damn it, why was Hetherington arrested for no reason? Everyone said that his usual whereabouts are very covert. It turns out that it was your boy who did that, and now everything makes sense. After all, you are probably the only one in Scotland Yard who has this ability."

When Arthur heard this, he just said calmly: "Elder, don't get me wrong, the LPS does not have the power to arrest the target. The one who carries out the arrest is the Tower Hamlets Police District of Scotland Yard. And most importantly, He Mr Therlington voluntarily submitted himself to Scotland Yard's arrest."

"Voluntarily accepted arrest?" Alexandre Dumas frowned and asked, "Why? Did Hetherington drink too much Thames water? Or did he suddenly suffer from some serious disease that likes to be imprisoned?"

"Nothing." Arthur replied: "I just said a few words to him."

"What did you say to him?"

Arthur put down his teacup: "I told him that the reason why he was charged this time was because the Tory government felt threatened by public opinion from the Poor Guardian, and the charges against him this time were also very light, just not Just pay stamp duty normally.

In addition, the Tory Party was in turmoil at that time, and most London citizens were dissatisfied with the cabinet. Therefore, even if a case was filed, it might not be supported by the magistrates' court and the jury, so there was a high probability that a guilty verdict would not be received.

Therefore, rather than fleeing London to prove his guilt, which would lead to a trial in absentia, it would be better to follow Scotland Yard directly to the magistrates' court.

Oh, by the way, I also mentioned to him that Mr. William Corbett, who founded the Poor People's Political Monthly, attacked stamp duty and satirized government corruption, and was sentenced to two years in prison for libel. As a result, after he was released from prison, the sales of "Poor People's Political Monthly" increased instead of decreasing, with more than 40,000 copies sold every month.

While I would not encourage Mr. Hetherington to follow Mr. Corbett's lead, I cannot say that he is breaking the law if he does use this for marketing purposes. Go in and squat for a few months, just like gilding the newspaper.

When the "Poor Guardian" is published in the future, Mr. Hetherington can also proudly add at the beginning of the newspaper - the founder of this newspaper has been in prison, brackets. Unfortunately, the sentence is slightly longer than Mr. Corbett. shorter. "

Dickens was originally worried about Hetherington's situation, but after listening to Arthur's words, he not only let go of his worries, but also couldn't help but joked: "It seems that in order to increase the sales of "The Englishman" , we can also consider selecting a suitable candidate to send in?"

Arthur blinked when he heard this. He took out the quick handcuffs hanging on his belt and threw them on the table.

"Due to work, I can't go to jail for the time being, but I can help you get a fast track. Which of you is willing to sacrifice yourself?"

Alexandre Dumas raised his elbow and poked Elder: "It's up to you."

Elder glared at Dumas upon hearing this: "Damn it, Alexander, don't get the context wrong. You have to go to prison first before you can be sent to the Royal Navy, and I am already at the later stage of this stage."

Arthur nodded when he heard this: "Alexander, Elder is right about this. And sending this kid to prison doesn't require a slander charge like Mr. Corbett. I have a bunch of questions on hand." His criminal record.”

Darwin couldn't help but burst into laughter when he heard this.

Unexpectedly, Elder saw him smiling and couldn't help but glared: "Charles, why do you have the nerve to laugh at me? Your crime is more serious than mine! I'm going to the church to accuse you of intending to betray God."

Who would have thought that when the red devil heard this, he just put a hand on Arthur's shoulder and said with a wicked smile: "Betraying God? Oh, my dear Arthur, there should be another one of us who betrays God, right?"

Arthur ignored him and spoke to Disraeli, who was deep in thought: "So now, Benjamin, you should understand that it is basically impossible to make a profit by selling newspapers. We can only expand sales. Attracting enough investment from advertisers can ensure the healthy development of the magazine.

And if we want to increase sales, blindly increasing pricing is not feasible. Perhaps for the upper classes, a penny more and a penny less than the price of a magazine makes no difference. But for the middle class who are careful about their budget, or ordinary workers with average financial status, every time the price increases, we will lose a group of readers. "

Disraeli seemed to be struggling: "It can be said that, but even if you don't consider the initial profit issue, you must also take into account the vanity of the middle class. Sometimes the price of the magazine is lowered too low. It will make them feel that reading our magazine is not stylish.

We can't really be like the Poor People's Guardian and only sell it for a penny an issue, can we? They don't have to pay stamp duty, so they can naturally keep costs down. But if we sell it for three pennies, even if we don't count the printing cost, we still have to pay two pennies per copy. That's not how business works! "

Arthur thought for a while and suddenly asked with a smile: "So, Benjamin, have you ever thought about tiered pricing?"

Disraeli wondered: "What is tiered pricing?"

Arthur said: "This is easy to understand, that is, for the upper and middle classes, we adopt a normal pricing strategy. At the same time, we can also delay for a few weeks to put some targeted products at second-hand bookstores or street vendors. Magazines for ordinary workers, these magazines are definitely cheaper than the original ones.

Of course, in order to expand our popularity, perhaps we can also provide some free magazines to those full-time tavern newspaper readers. Long-term serialized novels like ours will definitely be very popular among newspaper readers. Also, I should mention that I have a concert at the Coburg Theater this weekend.

If you can print the first issue of the magazine before the concert, I think you can give a small gift to the guests after the concert. I believe those gentlemen and ladies with strong spending power will definitely be interested in it. Our fashion novel is very interesting. "

Disraeli's eyes lit up when he heard this. He tapped his fingers on the table and said with a smile: "Yes... this thing is like laudanum. I can guarantee that as long as they finish reading the first issue, they will definitely think Here’s another bottle.”