Section 35 said that in the autumn of 1994, not long after opening of the autumn semester, Mr. Shihua Li came to my home with the CEE (College Entrance Examination) English syllabus, whose appendix was 2000 CEE English words. And we began to edit a dictionary, explaining the usage of these CEE English vocabularies for the senior middle school students to study, whose name was “Usage Dictionary of CEE English Vocabularies”. In Jan. of 1995, the dictionary was published and we were to be forced to sell 3000 ourselves. We were compelled to enter the business line of selling books. Both of us had connections with English teachers of middle schools, and selling books began very lively and profitable. Xuzhou City as a center, we sold our books to the counties and cities around it. In addition, we sold our books to the wide area of the whole country by putting an advertisement in an English paper for middle school students published by Shanxi Province. Almost every day we wrapped books to send to our readers by post. The income of selling books exceeded that of the contribution fee a lot, encouraging us to go on doing this line of business. Later I cooperated with my colleague in Pengcheng University Mr. Zhengfeng Sun to sell the materials of junior college English. All the books sold are as follows:
Books sold with Mr. Shihua Li:
1. Usage Dictionary of CEE English Vocabularies
published by National Defense University (NDU) Press
2. New Edited English Dictionary for Middle School
published by Beijing Normal University Publishing House
3. New Teaching Material, New Syllabus, CEE English Dictionary
published by Ocean Press
4. Practice on typical English Exercises for CEE Self printed
5. Must of English Exercises for CEE Self printed
Books sold by myself only
6. Practical Computer English 900 Self printed
7. English Listening Training for Multi Level Exams Self printed
Books sold with Mr. Zhengfeng Sun
8. Practical English Exam Exercises China Finance & Economic Publishing House
9. English Exercises for Junior to Senior College Exam self printed
Section 49 narrated that the ratio of listening part of all level English examinations was increasing, I began to make plans for books to practice English listening, with MP3 audio files, including listening trainings for CEE (College Entrance Examination), Practical English Exams for Junior College Students, CET (College English Test) Band 4 and Band 6. It took less time and less cost for self printed materials. In addition, I also printed “handbook for memorizing vocabularies of CET”. I spent a lot of time learning to edit audio mp3 files, able to transform audio formats, to cuts, delete, copy, and paste and to decide the length of the audio files according to the need. By communicating with the Linshu County Printing House of Shandong Province, the factory manager, Mr. Liu, came to my home, to sign a printing contract. I also spent some money asking a student to help me to construct a website to upload my audio files.
Unfortunately, it didn’t develop smoothly. First, the listening books were hard to sell. I found some of my former students, who helped me to sell some. The promotion of my audio website was not powerful and the click rate kept low. Before long I felt a lot of difficulties lying in front of me. It was three years since those books for training listening were printed, and the amount of them in our basement almost kept the same, which became our anxiety. Not able to sell them, because materials for exams were in flood, and all the schools tightened up the management, which made it too hard for me to sell through teachers. We became old and printing and selling books needed a lot of mental and physical power. Staying at home could not succeed in doing all those things. We had no strength or power to sell and to promote, never giving up was impossible. Not strange, it was just like a high jump athlete always ending in a failure. If not failing completely you would hope to continue and only the disaster was coming, you would make your mind never to do it any more, which was already narrated in Section 49.
On Nov. 21 of 2010, we finally decided to sell all the printed books in the basement to a salvage station, which weighed 1600 kg, worth only ￥2250. The freight was ￥50. As waste paper, it cost so much, could you image how much was lost? I estimated the lost was more than ￥10,000. I returned to the status of a pure author, only writing books, not printing or selling books. The income was sure to decrease and it didn’t matter and I was sure that I could find other ways to make money.
Living and dying is the rule, no living without dying. A Chinese saying: setting up a thousand li awning for a feast, which could not always continue, and would be over in the end. Printing books made me learn the App of Fangzheng typesetting system; selling books helped me contact a lot of teachers and students and let me earn some money to support my family, to finance our research work and to enjoy our travel life. I should thank the experience of printing and selling books for 15 years, but must be determined to stop without any hesitation, just like a high jump athlete gave up jumping after the three times’ failures. The failure marks that you have tried your best, and should have not any regret.
Oct. 22, 2018 in Xuzhou
Proofreading on Jan 4, 2019 in Xuzhou
Uploading on Aug. 10 2023 in Xuzhou
