Chang Jihong talked with Chen Jing for a long time, understanding every aspect of him and all his demands before finally leaving.
When Chen Jing returned to his hotel room, his emotions were somewhat stirred. With his manager now settled, his upcoming idol life meant a formal beginning.
That night, Chen Jing's thoughts wandered extensively for a long time before he drifted off to sleep unawares.
Early the next morning, Chen Jing woke up quite early—a habit stemming from this body.
As a training fanatic, Chen Jing had always persisted in practicing. Even with a hectic schedule, he would still wake up early to warm up his voice and exercise his body. This was precisely why, despite being the youngest, he had been able to become the lead vocalist of SJM.
However, having just recovered from a fever, Chen Jing's body still felt somewhat weak, so he only warmed up his voice and practiced for a little while. After all, with his debut solo album about to be released, he had to maintain a good condition.
"Knock, knock, knock..."
Just as Chen Jing finished practicing and eating breakfast, he heard a knock on the door. "Coming."
Opening the door, Chen Jing saw a girl around one meter sixty tall, with a figure that was neither curvy nor slender, just slightly undulating. Her appearance was medium-to-above-average, and she wore black-rimmed glasses.
"Who are you?" Chen Jing asked.
"Hello, I'm Ge Feng. General Manager Chang sent me to be your assistant," Ge Feng hurriedly introduced herself. "You can just call me Xiaofeng."
Hearing this, Chen Jing did not step aside, instead frowning as he looked at the girl in front of him.
It was not that Chen Jing was being overly fastidious, but having just returned to the country, he had to be cautious about such matters to avoid getting himself into unnecessary scandals.
Some media reporters truly had no bottom line, coming up with all sorts of tricks just to catch people's attention.
Seeing this, Ge Feng realized that Chen Jing was suspicious, so she directly called Chang Jihong. Only after Chen Jing heard Chang Jihong's confirmation did he smile and say, "Apologies, I didn't mean anything else by it. Come in!"
"It's fine, it's fine, it's only right," Ge Feng let out a long sigh of relief and smiled.
"Would you like something to drink?" Chen Jing asked.
"No thanks, I'm not thirsty," Ge Feng said, waving her hand while secretly glancing at Chen Jing. She thought to herself that he was indeed very attractive—even more handsome than in his photos. No wonder he was the visual center of SJM.
"How old are you? What school did you graduate from?" Seeing the awkwardness, Chen Jing took the initiative to start a conversation.
"I was born in 1988, and I graduated from Communication University of Zhejiang," Ge Feng said.
After a few casual remarks, the awkward atmosphere eased somewhat.
"Is there anything you need me to do?" Ge Feng asked.
Chen Jing thought for a moment, then took out his laptop and logged into his QQ. "This 'Demon Queen' is an administrator of my fan club. You need to contact her often.
In the future, if I have any activities, you can tell her so they can organize cheering and things like that.
When there's nothing going on, you can also send them some photos of my daily life or work photos as a perk."
"Got it, got it," Ge Feng nodded and said.
"And there's also this 'Fairy Tail' Baidu Tieba. This is where the Elves gather. You can pay more attention to the feedback and opinions from the Elves, and let me know if you think it's necessary," Chen Jing opened Baidu Tieba as he spoke.
In December 2009, Weibo had only been online for three months, and WeChat had not even officially debuted yet, so instant messaging in the mainland was still dominated by QQ.
As for fan interaction platforms, Baidu Tieba and major forums remained the primary gathering places.
Fans were the top traffic star's greatest reliance, though sometimes they were also a double-edged sword. Therefore, Chen Jing needed to communicate more with the Elves to avoid accidentally getting hurt by friendly fire.
After having Ge Feng communicate with the Elves, Chen Jing began to continue his grand enterprise of song-writing.
To be honest, the 2010 Chinese music scene was already on the decline. Not only were sales getting lower and lower, but affected by the general environment, good songs were also becoming scarcer, making it somewhat difficult for Chen Jing even if he wanted to plagiarize.
Moreover, many songs could remain popular for several years once they became hits, so Chen Jing had to make sure the songs he wrote hadn't been released yet.
At the same time, once they were written, Chen Jing had to register the copyrights immediately to prevent any muddy incidents in the middle.
When afternoon came, Chang Jihong arrived at the hotel once again.
"Let's talk about your debut album first," Chang Jihong said. "I've contacted Huayi Music for you, and we've agreed on releasing 3 albums within three years. The album producer is Zhang Yadong."
"Huayi!" Hearing this, Chen Jing nodded.
Although Huayi had not previously specialized in music, Huayi Music was developing fiercely with the backing of Huayi Brothers, having acquired the former Warring States Music and signed quite a few well-known singers.
The Yuquan duo, Huang Zheng, Yang Kun, Jane Zhang, Shang Wenjie, the BOBO duo, and Chen Chusheng, who had been poached from Tianyu not long ago.
As for Zhang Yadong, he could also be considered a musical talent and an industry-renowned producer.
With him escorting and protecting Chen Jing, one could also see Huayi Music's sincerity.
"Huayi Music is developing very rapidly right now and has quite strong strength," Chang Jihong said. "More importantly, by achieving a musical cooperation with Huayi, future cooperation in film and television will become much smoother."
Hearing this, Chen Jing nodded and then asked, "How are the album royalties calculated?"
Chen Jing had previously released the album *Mi* with SJM, but the royalty cut was too small. However, returning to China now would definitely be different.
"I roughly inquired beforehand. An album's revenue split is generally divided into three parts: the singer, the production side, and the distribution side.
Under normal circumstances, the distribution side takes 25% of the total album revenue. The singer's share depends on the situation; some rookie singers are simply given a lump sum to settle the matter and do not participate in the revenue split, while those who do participate generally get between 15% and 30%, and all the rest belongs to the production side."
"Then the production side takes up 45% to 60% of the entire album's revenue," Chen Jing said.
"Don't think that the production side takes too much. The primary purpose of the production side releasing an album for you is to make money, so taking a high share is certain.
In addition, although the production side's revenue is 45% to 60%, they also have to bear the album production costs, and the production costs of this album are complicated.
First is the album producer. For Zhang Yadong, who is producing the album for you, his appearance fee alone is hundreds of thousands.
Others include recording fees, lyric and composition fees, arrangement, mixing, instrumentalist fees, styling, photography, costumes, record cover and overall packaging art design.
MV shooting, master post-processing fees, CD design fees, post-promotion fees, as well as CD burning, transportation, inventory, and so on—all of these must be borne by the production side," Chang Jihong said.
Hearing this whole pile of items, Chen Jing felt his head ache slightly. Although he had also released albums, apart from recording songs, he hadn't participated in many of those links, and someone unfamiliar with it really would find it hard to imagine.
"Of course, some of these things not only don't lose money, but actually make money instead. For example, during promotion, there are many sponsors, and some distributors will also sponsor to hold events, which can actually earn quite a bit of profit," Chang Jihong looked at Chen Jing and smiled.
"Then wouldn't someone like Jay Chou, who opens his own company, be able to get 75% of the album's profits?" Chen Jing asked.
"Theoretically that's true, and the split ratio can even reach a higher 80%. After all, Jay Chou can compose himself, and major distributors love A-list stars, often yielding profits to these top names.
However, production costs still have to be deducted. If someone like Jay Chou has his own music company, the costs are lower, and there are sponsors during promotion. Generally, he can take 60% to 75% of all profits from a single album," Chang Jihong nodded and said.
"Based on Jay Chou's album selling 2 million copies at a unit price of 40 RMB, wouldn't he make around 60 million from a single album?" Chen Jing calculated.
"It's not that much. Top stars like Jay Chou have extremely high demands for album production. Their cost to produce an album is around 15 million, and taxes still have to be deducted," Chang Jihong shook her head.
"However, once you have popularity, endorsements, commercial performances, and concerts earn you even more."
"Right now I just want to know how much my share can be for a single album." Hearing how lucrative it was, Chen Jing only wanted to know how much money he could make from one album.
"Don't look at how much Jay Chou earns; he is the only one. Most singers actually earn popularity by releasing albums, and they can't make money relying on albums alone.
You've just gone solo, but considering your popularity, Huayi's offered split for your first album is 18%," Chang Jihong replied.
"What if I write the lyrics and arrange the music myself? There's a share for this part too, right!" Chen Jing asked.
"I asked before; generally, lyricists and composers hold about 15% of the entire album's copyright," Chang Jihong said.
"Which means I can get 33% of the album's profits?" Hearing this percentage, Chen Jing thought it was pretty good—much stronger than during the SJM period.
"You won't get that much. First, you have to make sure your songs can actually be used, and second, you still have to pay another 20% in personal income tax," Chang Jihong shook her head.
"The company doesn't take a cut?" Chen Jing asked.
"They take a cut from other aspects, but the music company is fully responsible for the album, so the management company generally doesn't participate. Management contracts and record contracts are usually separate," Chang Jihong said.
"What is roughly the pricing for my album?" Hearing this, Chen Jing hurriedly asked.
"The average price should be around 35 RMB," Chang Jihong said.
"That means for every album, I can get 35 * 0.33 * 0.8 = 9.24 RMB."