Chapter 83: The wind is rising, how can we follow the footsteps of Kodansha? Keep him for me!

Chapter 83: The wind is rising, how can we follow the footsteps of Kodansha? Keep him for me!

Chapter 83: The wind is rising, how can we follow the footsteps of Kodansha? Keep him for me!
Kitagawa Hide sat at the bar and first made a glass of "Cuba Libre" for Saito Rena, then started flipping through the pile of sales data sheets.

He was confused by the strange indicators and graphs. It turned out that there were many things that non-professionals could not understand at all.

Fortunately, Saito Rena thought of this before coming here, and each chart is accompanied by several rows of small notes in beautiful handwriting.

The more Kitagawa Hide read, the more surprised he was. He felt that he might have seriously underestimated people's demand for and recognition of paper books before the Internet era.

After reading it again from beginning to end, he couldn't help but ask, "Is this data embellished?"

He knew that some bookstores would secretly inflate the sales of certain books in order to please the publishing houses of the books, hoping to get more book resources from them.

As for the over-reported part, it is usually absorbed by the group to which the bookstore belongs. Therefore, in some media companies, employees often receive various books distributed by the company, which is euphemistically called "benefits for old employees."

"Eh?" Saito Reina, who was sipping her cocktail, almost choked and quickly waved her hands, "No, no, what I got are the bookstore's most original sales data, which can basically be used as a reference for the actual sales."

"Bookstores usually report the embellished sales to statistical companies. We only look at the raw data internally." Worried that Kitagawa Hide didn't understand, she explained it again, then tilted her head and asked, "Kitagawa, do you think the data is wrong?"

"Since it's raw data, there must be no problem. It's just a little... too exaggerated." Kitagawa Hide couldn't help but sigh. It looked like they were going to make a fortune.

"Yeah, I was also shocked when I got the data this morning. I heard that after President Kawaide found out, he hurriedly went to convene a board meeting." Saito Rena took a deep breath and swallowed the last drop of wine into her throat. She immediately let out a satisfied cry and her cheeks flushed slightly.

Just yesterday afternoon, sales of No Longer Human were still stagnant at the embarrassing figure of only 897 copies sold that day, and then in the evening, the data jumped up a level almost every half hour.

As of 11:5 last night, the 3 copies prepared for Saturday and the copies printed and published on Sunday were all sold out.

And judging from the sales feedback forms sent by bookstores in various regions, bookstores with less stock sold out hundreds of books in the store within ten minutes at night, like a whirlwind. Maruzen Marunouchi Bookstore, which had the largest stock, had to postpone its closing time from 10:30 to 11:30, otherwise it would not be able to explain to the long queues of people forming outside at night.

What's even more embarrassing is that, according to the bookstore clerks' observations, even so, nearly half of the readers who rushed to buy books last night were unable to buy "No Longer Human" in the end.

Including the 1 copies sold on the morning of the first day, that is to say, 9 copies of "No Longer Human" were sold in two days, and the supply was in short supply.

Looking back at the sales journey of "Hear the Wind Sing", it is almost certain that "No Longer Human" will surpass its predecessor!

"If my estimate is correct, 'No Longer Human' should be able to break the single-month sales record of the hardcover paperback edition held by 'Hear the Wind Sing'." Kitagawa Hideya was a little excited.

In order to hide his expression that was about to collapse, he quickly scooped a glass of iced cola from the bucket, added some crystal clear ice cubes into it, and drank it all in one gulp.

what--

Cool!
"Kitagawa, do you mean that the monthly sales can exceed 28 copies?" Saito Rena came closer to him with a red face, her eyes flashing with excitement and anticipation.

In fact, the pressure on her shoulders was very heavy, as a vassal brought by Kitagawa Hide when he switched to "Wenyi" - at least that's how she saw herself. As soon as she entered the editorial department, she did nothing and directly took the position of deputy editor-in-chief.

Although the colleagues in the editorial department of "Wenyi" are not as snobbish as those in Kodansha, but over time, if you, a person who is parachuted in to pick peaches, fail to produce any results, everyone will gradually complain.

Fortunately, Kitagawa Hide is still very strong. "No Longer Human" is likely to be another "Hear the Wind Sing", and she can also use it to gain a firm foothold in "Wenyi".

After that, he formed a clique while developing his wings, then climbed step by step to a higher position, and finally led "Wenyi" to fight a life-and-death battle with his former employer "Qunxiang"!
In "Gunzo", Saito Rena, who had had enough of all kinds of contempt, sexual harassment in the workplace, and gender discrimination, was actually very angry. She could hardly protect herself before "picking up the opportunity" with Kitagawa Hideki, let alone fight back against those disgusting faces.

Now with "No Longer Human" as a backup, the faint flame in Saito Rena's heart began to flutter, burn, burn, and burn again!

"In fact, we can be more optimistic." Kitagawa Hide chuckled and nodded. 28 copies was too conservative. Based on his understanding of "No Longer Human", the final sales volume might even double this figure.

"Hmm!" Saito Reina was in a good mood. She tapped the empty glass in front of her with her fingers and said loudly, "Boss Kitagawa, please give me another glass! No, three more glasses!"

The large conference room on the sixth floor of Kawaide Shobo's new headquarters in Sumiyoshicho, Shinjuku-ku.

Sitting in the first seat, Shizuko Kawaide's expression was as calm as ever, as if nothing could affect her emotions.

In fact, the shock she felt in her heart was ten thousand times greater than what the directors below were showing right now!
When she received the data analysis sheet sent by Saito Reina this morning, her hands were shaking so much that she almost couldn't take it steadily.

After her father fell ill unexpectedly, the family had to send him to the United States for recuperation. She, the 29-year-old eldest daughter of the Hechu family, was actually forced to take on the job, and when she took over the company, she was only 25 years old!

When she first came to power a few years ago, the Kawade Shobo was filled with voices of distrust and rejection. Even if you were the daughter of the Kawade family and had academic qualifications and resources that ordinary people could not achieve, you could not avoid being questioned because of your identity as a working woman.

Naturally, the company's middle and lower-level managers didn't dare to criticize her as the acting president. Even if they did, they mostly kept it in their hearts and didn't even dare to fart in front of her.

But these senior directors are different.

Especially those executives and special managers, as long as they catch her doing something wrong, they will not give her a good face.

Strictly speaking, they are He Chujia's partners rather than subordinates. After all, they hold so many shares and cannot be underestimated.

In their view, the core business of a commercial publishing house is still to make money.

No matter what method Shizuko Kawaide uses or what she does, as long as she can make money for Kawaide Study, the board of directors will have no objection. Otherwise, no matter how loud you talk and how powerful you act, it's all bullshit!
In the past four years, under her leadership, Kawade Shobo has finally climbed from the embarrassing position of a quasi-first-tier publishing house to the level of the "Top Five". In any case, it is a foregone conclusion that "Wenyi" is one of the top five pure literature magazines, and no one can deny it.

However, it is an indisputable fact that "Wenyi" has been at the bottom in sales for many years and there is still a big gap between it and "Qunxing" which ranks fourth.

What gives Shizuko Kawaide the most headache is the physical book publishing business.

Since she took office as acting president, "Wenyi" has changed its previous style of saving budget costs and started to frantically encourage new and veteran writers to sell a large number of single-volume books.

In order to support its writers, Kawade Shobo often pays out of its own pocket to make up for the gap caused by the sudden drop in sales of single books.

During the most difficult times, out of the more than 2000 single-volume books sold in a year, nearly 1500 were big losses, and the rest were all small losses!
But it is also relying on this reckless money-burning strategy that "Wenyi" has quickly accumulated a good reputation in four years and added nearly a hundred potential pure literature writers.

However, the physical book publishing business, which has been losing money year after year, has become a weapon for the board of directors to criticize her.

Whenever the bloody deficit report was thrown before her eyes, the usually icy Shizuko Kawaide would break down a little, and a hint of worry and loss would appear in her eyes.

She tried many ways, but failed to reverse the decline of physical book publishing business.

Because the key to physical books lies in writer resources, and in the current Japanese publishing industry, everyone has its own system for training new people. Who would be willing to be the "Whampoa Military Academy" and train talents for their competitors?

The few freelance writers are either extremely bad and there is no need for any cooperation, or they started out in the "upper class" and have their own fixed literary exchange circles. The factional barriers are so huge that they generally only accept publishing houses related to their own factions and turn a deaf ear to other publishing houses.

In Japan, the chaebols have absolute power and have easily infiltrated many industries, turning them into nutrients for their own growth.

Only the literary world is the private domain of these academic cliques and "the best in the world".

Don’t think they will buy into your ideas just because you are a chaebol!

As for those "best in the world", Shizuko Kawaide had contacted them before and was severely disgusted by them.

You are already in your seventies or eighties! Can you still get hard?
How dare you make such an excessive request to me?

Thinking of these things, she was so angry that she quickly took a few deep breaths to avoid breaking down her image. "President, No Longer Human is indeed a good book, but it has only been on sale for two days. Isn't it a bit too aggressive to rush to release peripheral products and discuss adaptations now?"

The person who spoke was a female executive. She was holding the newly released "No Longer Human" spin-off plan in her hand and was a little dissatisfied with Shizuko Kawaide's arbitrary approach.

Just as there are left and right wings in politics, when a company becomes large, there are bound to be some bad apples and troublemakers on its board of directors.

In Shizuko Kawaide's eyes, this female general manager who relied on her body to get to the top was just this kind of person.

The only things she can show off are her chest and the skills in bed that she has honed over the years. As for her professional ability, it is probably not as good as that of the grassroots employees.

The task of these troublemakers is very simple. At every board meeting, no matter what plan Kawaide Shizuko proposes, they just have to oppose it.

The main purpose is to disgust you.

"Advance?"

Many company executives dare not be too harsh on these troublemakers. After all, no one knows how many people are manipulating them behind the scenes. If you go too far, a terrible power struggle may occur within the company.

But Shizuko Kawaide is an outlier.

She glanced at the female executive calmly, and when she saw her murderous gaze, she immediately lowered her head and dared not look at her.

"In the four years since I took over the company, the best-selling single volume sold 2892 copies on the first printing day, and the total sales in two days were less than 4000 copies! And this is just a single volume, not to mention the hardcover paperback editions that are extremely expensive and have a higher collection value than reading value."

Shizuko Kawaide slammed the plan in her hand on the table, and when she found that the female executive did not dare to look her in the eye, she continued with satisfaction,

"Do you know what is the highest sales record of a single volume of Wen Yi magazine since its inception?"

No one responded.

Who has the time to remember this kind of data?
They were complaining in their hearts, but unexpectedly, Shizuko Kawaide told them everything like she knew the whole story.

"The Succulent Story, published in 1952, had a total sales volume of 41.3 copies that year, and has accumulated sales of 123.1 million copies to date. It ranks 874th in the annual sales ranking of physical books and 74th in the total sales ranking."

"This is the best-selling physical book of our "Wenyi" magazine so far, a paperback single volume priced at 800 yen, a popular science book written by a late author in 43 years."

"Do you know how many copies of "Hear the Wind Sing" have been sold so far? In just over two months, the cumulative sales have reached 49.2 copies. In just over two months! Its sales have exceeded the annual sales of our best single volume!"

"I know that many of you don't read books very often, nor do you pay much attention to the data of the company's new books. Yes, the company's revenue mainly comes from the "Wenyi" magazine and the film and television adaptations of some novels. Instead of tilting resources to newcomers, it would be easier to promote the famous works of those old writers. Don't you all think so?"

None of the directors dared to respond, but isn’t that the truth?
Shizuko Kawaide spent four years and invested a lot of money in new writers, but what was the result?

Compared with the other four newcomer awards, the Art Newcomer Award is like a joke.

There are even some people in the literary world who mock the New Art Award by saying, "If you think you can't win the Top Newcomer Award, then consider the New Art Award. They like to buy lottery tickets!"

"No Longer Human, without any serialization, relying only on the reputation of Mr. Kitagawa's old book, and rashly switching to our Kawade Shobo, under an environment that was questioned by public opinion, sold 9 copies in the first two days of its release! And the demand still exceeds the supply!"

Shizuko Kawaide pressed hard on the derivative project that she had spent the whole morning drafting, and said word by word to the people below,

"Just last night and this morning, the Distribution Department temporarily printed an additional 20 copies. Most of them have been delivered to various bookstores. I just received the latest news before the meeting that 10 of them have been sold out. It is estimated that the remaining 10 copies will not last until tonight."

Her voice was not loud, but the conference room was too quiet and the echo continued, sounding very strange.

At this point, all the directors were stunned.

They thought they heard wrong.

"Boss, are you saying that No Longer Human might sell 20 copies today?!"

Even though the news came from Shizuko Kawaide, they were a little bit unbelieving.

20 books a day?

Has there ever been anything like this in literary history?

After thinking about it carefully, I can’t think of a similar case for the time being.

This is 20 copies a day, not 2 copies.
"It's very likely that the supply is still insufficient to meet the demand." Shizuko Kawaide looked at them meaningfully.

There was an uproar.

"So, General Manager Oguri, if this is considered reckless, can you tell me what is not reckless?" She stood up abruptly and glared fiercely at the female general manager.

General Manager Oguri now wishes he could hide his head in the ground.

After a long silence, she squeezed out a few words with all her strength: "I agree with your plan, President."

"The meeting is dismissed!"

Shizuko Kawaide sat back down. As soon as she finished speaking, a group of directors finally breathed a sigh of relief and fled the conference room like defeated soldiers.

No one dared to stay for long under Shizuko Kawaide's aura.

After everyone left, the female secretary came over on tiptoe and said to her with some worry, "Boss, I don't think I've ever reported such data to you."

It is true that 20 copies were reprinted, but the specific sales figures for today have not yet been reported by various bookstores. We can only say that there is a high probability that the sales will be even higher than last night.

But the president started talking about "more than 20 copies sold a day", which scared the secretary out of his wits, fearing that he would be blamed for no reason.

"Stupid!" Shizuko Kawaide rolled her eyes at her. This little secretary was also a member of their Kawaide family, but why didn't they notice that she was so stupid before?

"Eh?"

"Now is the time when No Longer Human is gaining momentum. I have full confidence in Mr. Kitagawa! If I don't support him in the company at this time, it would be better to help him in his time of need than to add icing on the cake." Kawade Shizuko patted her head and said helplessly, "If we want to truly turn things around at Kawade Shobo, we must keep Mr. Kitagawa and make him willing to serialize his novels in Literature and Art! Do you understand?"

"But, but take over the directors..." The secretary's face turned green. Hearing the president's thoughts, she felt that the chances of her taking the blame were even greater!

I shouldn’t have said so much if I had known this!

"They? They can't even remember the best sales record in history, how can they hear the problem with the data?" Kawaide Shizuko waved her hand, "Even if they found out, the plan has already been implemented. Will it be terminated?"

She just wants to keep Kitagawa Hide at all costs now. As for other things, she will get the derivative projects approved first!
4800 words long chapter, (2/?)
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(End of this chapter)