Pei Qian took a sip of tea and continued: “We’ll only offer buyout contracts to our site’s top-tier authors.”

“Since these buyout contract terms are quite good, it’s essentially a benefit for our site’s authors. Authors from other sites won’t get this benefit until they prove their capabilities.”

“Full buyout, total word count between 100,000 to 500,000 words, cannot exceed 500,000 words.”

“Buyout price will be calculated at three times the author’s previous book’s subscription income. For example, if an author’s old book earned about 1,000 yuan per thousand characters, then this buyout book will pay 3,000 yuan per thousand characters.”

“No minimum daily update requirements – write as much as you want. Slow work produces fine results, after all.”

“Also, no completely original works accepted – only commissioned writing. We’ll provide the IP for authors.”

After finishing, Pei Qian couldn’t help but admire his own brilliant strategy.

Buyout + commissioned writing – won’t this completely ruin all the top authors on the Chinese network?

Anyone familiar with web novels knows that buyout + commissioned writing is the easiest way to produce garbage content.

Because the first prerequisite for creating good works is freedom.

Only when web novel authors can freely write in their strong genres with strong motivation can they produce excellent works.

An author skilled in sci-fi novels forced to write romance will definitely produce something disastrous.

Commissioned works often have specific commercial promotional needs from clients, so authors’ creative ideas are inevitably restricted by the client.

To meet their requirements, clients will definitely suggest changes or interfere with the outline; meanwhile, authors can’t create according to their own thoughts and will develop a perfunctory attitude, unable to give 120% effort.

Since commissioned works primarily target clients rather than readers, they’re highly unlikely to appeal to readers.

With commissioned works’ genre restrictions plus buyouts, this would further kill authors’ creative enthusiasm.

Buyouts mean guaranteed income, and commissioned work buyouts offer very high rates. Authors just need to use their brains a bit to write works at about 60% quality to meet client requirements – completely unnecessary to work hard for 80% or even 100%.

Or even if they wanted to achieve 100%, due to insufficient creative freedom, unfamiliar genres, and other reasons, they simply couldn’t.

So Pei Qian released this killer combination of commissioned + buyout to “buy off” all of the Chinese network’s top authors.

For these top authors, whether writing for subscriptions or buyouts, it ultimately came down to making money. The specific choice depended on which earned more.

Writing commissioned buyouts was easier, with per-word rates nearly doubling. Just casually writing daily could earn the same as before – why not?

If previous royalties were 1,000 yuan per thousand characters, writing 300,000 characters monthly earned 300,000 yuan. With buyouts tripling rates, writing just 100,000 characters monthly earned the same amount.

But workload decreased drastically!

Although this buyout system was voluntary, not mandatory, Pei Qian felt nobody could refuse such excellent conditions.

Who would struggle against money?

This way, authors’ income remained unaffected, but the site lost money, achieving Pei Qian’s goal.

Ma Yiqun clearly understood this principle too, showing surprise on his face, unsure what Mr. Pei was planning.

Though authors could freely choose whether to write buyouts, at current rates, probably only a few top authors would refuse.

Good for authors, naturally, but for the site… seemed quite risky, potentially causing huge losses if not careful.

Ma Yiqun considered for a moment, then asked: “Mr. Pei, are there any other restrictions on this buyout system? What if authors’ novels get no readers? Can we require early completion or forced revisions?”

Pei Qian shook his head: “No other restrictions, but there are word count requirements – each book must be 100,000-500,000 words. Over 500,000 words, no payment. Must start a new book.”

Setting word count requirements mainly created difficulties for authors used to writing lengthy novels.

Current web novels typically ran 2-3 million words, with some even reaching 5 million or more.

When authors initially planned story outlines, they habitually set total words above 2 million. Top authors, experienced at success, were definitely adept at this.

Now forcing them to compress stories to 100,000-500,000 words, writing short works, was a creation method they weren’t good at.

For web novel readers, most preferred longer works, showing little interest in short stories.

This further reduced novels’ earning potential.

Ma Yiqun asked again: “Then if authors continuously produce garbage books, we can terminate buyout contracts, right?”

Pei Qian initially wanted to say no, but felt this lacked logic. Authors continuously producing garbage while the site still paid extremely high buyout royalties seemed too unreasonable to justify.

So after consideration, he adopted a compromise: “If two consecutive buyout books perform poorly, they return to subscription writing. After succeeding with subscriptions, they can resume writing buyouts.”

This way, authors wanting easy money could write a successful subscription work before returning to buyout writing. The site’s rules wouldn’t scream “come scam our money” and “we’re stupid and rich.”

Ma Yiqun asked further: “Only commissioned writing – what specific type?”

“Can we accept commissioned works from outside companies?”

Pei Qian immediately shook his head: “No! Only Tenda’s own IPs.”

Ma Yiqun: “…”

If accepting outside commissioned works, these buyouts might still profit.

For instance, popular online games needing promotion – Ma Yiqun could recommend excellent authors to companies, who’d pay for buyout writing, letting the Chinese network earn advertising fees.

But Mr. Pei instantly eliminated this profit possibility!

According to Mr. Pei, commissioned work topic restrictions were quite bizarre.

Neither pure originals, nor outside commissions – only Tenda IPs.

What were Tenda’s IPs?

Ma Yiqun quickly tallied: games developed by Tenda like “Looking Back to Shore,” “Sea Fortress,” “Struggle,” etc.;

Short videos and films by Fei Huang Studio, including “Beautiful Tomorrow” and the currently filming “Mission and Choice”;

Various licensed IP characters in GOG, plus original heroes like Modeste and Ruan;

Various superhero characters from the acquired Hurricane Comics;

Additionally, popular novels on the site and other miscellaneous content counted as Tenda IPs.

Though seemingly numerous, what purpose would commissioned writing serve?

The only use might be enriching the “Tenda Universe” story collection, but many IPs didn’t need enriching – original works already expressed their content thoroughly. Why add unnecessary continuations?

Could these authors seriously write stories comparable to originals? Ma Yiqun completely disagreed, as many originals were personally crafted by Mr. Pei – authors couldn’t catch up even trying.

Moreover, considering buyout costs, this was still losing money.

This buyout strategy targeted not one author but all top Chinese network authors. If determined to slack off and scam money, the site would spend fortunes on garbage, hardly protecting website interests.

After long consideration, Ma Yiqun remained confused about Mr. Pei’s decision.

But seeing Mr. Pei’s confident expression, Ma Yiqun didn’t argue much.

After all, Mr. Pei’s actions always seemed incomprehensible, yet decisions appearing ridiculous or strange initially always proved deeply meaningful and highly successful.

So Ma Yiqun nodded: “Alright, Mr. Pei, I’ll arrange this quickly.”

Pei Qian was satisfied with his attitude: “Good.”

“Also, another matter about the author training program.”

“This program has run for some time. Time for improvements.”

“My idea: based on this training program, create an ‘Inspiration Class.'”

“Gather top authors, especially those writing commissioned buyouts, for this inspiration class.”

“In the inspiration class, we provide abundant novels, movies, games for daily material collection, then exchange writing skills and knowledge, recommending good games or movies they find interesting.”

“This inspiration class needs upfront investment. Large monitors, quality headphones, comfortable chairs. We’ll buy original, ultra-high-definition Blu-ray content, providing the best viewing experience.”

“In the previous training program, authors could only write and research. But in this inspiration class, authors can only collect inspiration-related activities. Of 8 daily hours, maximum 2 hours for writing.”

Ma Yiqun was stunned again: “Huh? This…”

This wasn’t an inspiration class – clearly an enjoyment class, a slacking class!

The previous training program succeeded largely by creating “study bubbles” where less disciplined authors could focus on creation, producing excellent works.

Now everyone could watch movies or play games freely. Not only no “study bubbles,” but even writing time limited to 2 hours daily?

Wasn’t this encouraging slacking?

Moreover, Mr. Pei specified this inspiration class mainly targeted authors choosing commissioned buyouts. These people already had low update requirements and likely low creative motivation. Providing such comfortable, enjoyable environments…

These people might be ruined!

They were the Chinese network’s top authors, backbone figures. If ruined, impact wouldn’t just affect site revenue but also quality content and reader satisfaction…

Ma Yiqun hesitated: “Mr. Pei, isn’t this environment too relaxed?”

Pei Qian chuckled: “It needs to be relaxed!”

“For top authors, they don’t lack technique or ability. To improve further, they need more inspiration, need to slow down for quality work!”

“Many novels reach millions of words, updating thousands or ten thousand daily. Under such massive update pressure, how can they produce masterpieces?”

“Let them slow down, polish carefully!”

Ma Yiqun opened his mouth to say more but ultimately remained silent.

Clearly, Mr. Pei’s idea seemed somewhat unrealistic. These were web novels for entertainment. Slowing down and polishing – could they really produce classics?

But Mr. Pei’s idea wasn’t wrong, just that Mr. Pei saw further depths and had grander ambitions.

Ma Yiqun hesitated finally nodding: “Alright, Mr. Pei, I’ll arrange it immediately!”