Zhou Yun, former editor-in-chief of iQiyi Novels: "The industry of online literature will not die" 丨 Choice 2021

Zhou Yun (Nong Jian, Liang Shuyi/Photo)

"Those who stay continue to refuel, and those who leave don't have to be frustrated. Sink your heart, find a place to take a few days off for your mood, and think clearly about the road you want to take in the future, which is more important than jumping ship to a new platform. ”

After learning the news of the layoffs, Zhou Yun made a few sighs on the workplace social platform, and received more than 80 comments and more than 300 likes, which resonated with a large number of professionals. This was the warmest response of all his announcements.

Zhou Yun, 45 years old in 2021, has been engaged in his first Internet content job since 2008, and has worked in the literature department of several large Internet platforms in China. Before being laid off, Zhou Yun's last stop was iQiyi. Here, he spent only one year.

Here's what he had to say:

Sudden layoffs

In the impression, after the company's earnings report disclosed that the stock price fell sharply, news of possible layoffs began to come out in late November. During this time, my business unit also began to discuss measures such as reducing manpower, and reported various plans. In the end, the company chose the option of retaining the smallest number of people, which meant that many people needed to leave.

My boss had given me a preventive injection beforehand, and I was prepared that I might be within the scope of the cut.

I think, from the perspective of Internet companies, it is definitely preferential to choose young people with lower labor costs. Although I am experienced, the age and salary costs are relatively high, and I am not the first choice of the company at this stage.

At the end of November, when I walked into the leader's office and saw that he was having difficulty speaking, I guessed that the big picture had been decided. Sure enough, the leader told me heavily that I was on the company's layoff list. Next, he continued to announce the layoff decision to other employees, and I saw that he was very depressed, and in turn comforted him.

There are pros and cons to leaving me or not, which is also the result of the company's rational choice. From a certain point of view, the people who stay are actually more difficult than the people who are announced to leave on the spot, on the one hand, to watch the colleagues who have been with each other leave one after another, on the other hand, they have to find a breakthrough for the future of the business, so I understand everyone's mood at that time.

After leaving the leader's office, I went downstairs and smoked a cigarette to calm my mood. At that time, the mood was still good, and the main thought was how to do a good job in the aftermath.

After talking to the leader the next day, the manpower came to me. I asked the manpower how long the company had given to deal with the handover. Generally speaking, it is normal to have January 2022, after all, there are some big projects on hand that are still following up. Because the environment was relatively special at that time, I finally followed the company's advice, chose to hand over as soon as possible, and left after taking annual leave.

Due to the tight time, the handover process was indeed a bit hectic, perhaps because no one was sure whether the person they handed over would be able to stay in the company smoothly. It also happened at that time that when the person who was announced to leave handed over the work to a person, that person was also soon notified of the dismissal.

This time is different from the past

I am not afraid of change, because I have grown up step by step in various changes.

In 1994, I was admitted to a university in Beijing to study law, and most of my undergraduate time was spent reading various novels, and when I went to school, I went to the library to copy ancient poems. When I was a graduate student on the job, in addition to earning a manuscript fee for submitting articles to the magazine, I also found that it was also possible to make money writing online novels on websites such as Magic Sword and Starting Point, so I began to try to create serials on the website, and also got the opportunity to sign a contract on the website to write fantasy novels in a traditional publishing house.

At that time, I rushed to the manuscript all night every day, and the inspiration came to write uncontrollably, although I could make a lot of money a month, but my life was very irregular. By chance, I was introduced by a friend to a publishing company as a suspense novel editor, planning to publish the best-selling book "Infinite Horror", which was originally popular on the Internet Chinese the starting point.

In 2008, I joined the founding team of Zongheng Chinese network as the editorial team leader, which was my first job as an online editor. In the following three years, it was the period of the rise of mobile reading, and I successively went to Chinese Online, Tomorrow Technology, and Huaxia Moxiang as content planners and editors-in-chief.

Tencent Holdings' Huaxia Moxiang was subsequently incorporated into Tencent Literature, and I also came to Tencent Women's Frequency (later renamed "Yunqi Academy") as an associate editor. In 2014, my team left the Tencent system and moved to a new company, which is also the predecessor of Reading Group. In March 2015, Reading Group was established. However, I left reading articles in September to go to Taobao to read.

Many friends advised me not to leave the reading text, but after careful consideration, I still followed my heart and planned to try a new online text model on a new platform with strong resources. However, Taobao reading was not done well for various reasons, everything is very similar to 2021, and it was also the end of the year when the business was suddenly notified to be suspended, and the team members were transferred to other business lines.

What is different is that at that time, the entire Internet was very short of people, and Ali was even more lacking. Although my rank was only P7 at that time, Ali's other departments knew the news and came to dig people, such as the operation of women's clothing categories.

I didn't stay in Hangzhou, it just so happened that Ali had already acquired UC and Shuqi, and the head of the Shuqi team pulled me back to Beijing with a technical colleague, hoping that I would start from scratch and build an original team of online literature. In 2015, with the efforts of many parties, Shuqi was officially unveiled as Ali Literature.

A few years later, the development of the book flag business fell into a bottleneck, especially after the arrival of the era of free reading in 2018, the living space of many original paid reading platforms was squeezed, although some trial and error and breakthrough attempts were also carried out, but the overall was not particularly successful.

I reflect that because the general direction of the group is still for e-commerce services, the nature of the goods is obvious, which is not completely consistent with the development law of the entertainment content industry itself. To focus on the content industry, there must not be too many interfering factors or external expectations, to have the ability to cultivate carefully, and to insist on doing what they think is right for a long time.

The incubation cycle of original content is very long. It takes at least half a year to a year for a high-quality novel to finalize whether the strategy is effective and whether it needs to be adjusted, but the internet platform only gives you three months to verify. Many Internet platforms do content, look at the wind direction but lack foresight.

In 2020, I have been at Ali for six years, and the rank has already been promoted to P9, and the crisis has followed. My experience in the content business is difficult to communicate with Alibaba's other business lines. Especially with my so-called "high P", it is difficult to find other suitable internal positions. If I can't continue to bring more value to the company, I can be optimized at any time.

After being referred by a friend, I joined iQIYI. In my opinion, iQiyi's link from original novels to film and television is smooth, better than several others, but the signing and operation of original novels is still mainly for IP services. 2016 is the period of fire in the online ip industry, and the establishment of iQIYI literature reflects iQIYI's intention to revitalize IP through literature.

However, the value of the online text itself has still not been seen, and it cannot lay a good foundation for the ecology of iQiyi's original novel platform. In fact, iQiyi's bosses are still good with their patience with original novels and have been giving opportunities. It's just that now the industry is seriously involved, financing is tightening, and it can no longer be as crazy as in the past, and it is tried and wrong with continuous losses.

Stop and recharge

After being notified of leaving, I went home and said to my wife, "I may be unemployed, so I will go home to cook and take care of my children." ”

My wife expressed "contempt" for my words, I have been busy working for many years, and I have no skills to cook with my baby, but she expressed understanding, said many words of comfort and encouragement, and hoped that I would take advantage of this time to rest and recuperate my body.

Most of the people in the community we live in work in internet factories. We also communicate frequently with our neighbors. In recent years, everyone knows that the life of Internet companies is getting worse and worse, and even some people have long changed tracks, left the big platform with excessive inner volume, or simply left Beijing.

After working in the Internet industry for so many years, many of our colleagues and former colleagues have cancer due to overwork, especially since the past few years, several industry partners I am familiar with have passed away due to various sudden diseases, and everyone has begun to pay attention to their bodies.

After my wife gave birth to a child, she became a full-time wife at home, mainly relying on me to support the family. Fortunately, we did not have much economic pressure in the short term, and we were also very rational when buying a house at that time, the price of the second-hand house we bought was not high, and the loan was as long as possible, which was still within the scope of ability control.

I haven't thought about how long I'll take a break, and I'll watch the opportunity while taking a break.

Since I left my job, headhunters have been very responsive, and they will come to me and ask them to help push. But at my age, I still have to be cautious in choosing jobs, and I can't go to every platform. Follow-up also depends on the position pushed over, talk to the platform about whether the concept is appropriate, whether it is possible to achieve long-term goals.

Now I don't really care about the salary problem, because what you have to do determines that the treatment your boss gives you will not be too low, the focus is to see whether what you do is in line with the direction of the company, especially the direction that the boss expects. That's the most important thing. The further you go, it's not called finding a job, it's about finding a partner.

After reaching a certain level, the strategic planning and execution level only accounts for half of your working time, and you also need to consider human nature and life issues, how to get along with people inside and outside the company, especially friends. More importantly, you need to set aside enough time outside of work and life to plan your career, recharge your batteries to learn new knowledge, and maintain strong energy and active thinking skills.

In the future, I will continue to firmly do the content business. The industry of online literature will not die, on the contrary, in the cold winter of the Internet, it will often give birth to new platforms and new business models.

Southern Weekend reporter Zhou Xiaoling