I am a literary giant in Japan

Shizuko Kawaide could not afford to buy the copyright of "Snow Country" for the time being. When other publishing houses learned of this, they began to try their luck.

After all, Mr. Kitagawa signed a free author agreement with Kawade Shobo, and the copyright of his novel does not belong to Kawade Shobo. As long as the price is high enough, Mr. Kitagawa can sell the copyright of his novel to any publishing house.

Regarding this issue, Shizuko Kawaide doesn't care. She thinks that as long as Mr. Kitagawa can make money, it's enough.

Kitagawa Hide personally doesn't care much about which publishing house publishes his novels.

It's not that he has no feelings for Kawade Shobo, but his status in the literary world has reached this level. Even if he wants to favor any publishing house, the other party is unlikely to have the ability to digest his works alone.

According to market rules, as long as book sales are still on the rise, the copyright fees for any writer's works will become more expensive, regardless of the quality of the works.

Since his debut, Kitagawa Hide has had an upward trend in sales and quality of his works, with the exception of a few top novels.

In addition to his current unshakable position as the "number one in the world" in Japanese literary circles, it is normal that the copyright fee for "Snow Country" has been driven up to a sky-high price.

As soon as Kawaide Shobo announced that it would not buy out the copyright of "Snow Country" for the time being, several small but wealthy publishing houses immediately contacted Beichuan Entertainment.

Among them, Tokyo-do Publishing offered 180 billion yen, Shogakukan offered 177 billion yen, and Tokuma Shoten offered 225 billion yen.

These three publishing houses are all backed by a consortium. Among them, Shogakukan, which focuses on girls' comics, has almost tried its best, as if it wants to directly adapt "Snow Country" into a new girls' comic, and then trigger a comic reading craze.

Tokuma Shoten, which offered the highest price, was formerly the Asahi Entertainment News, which was established shortly after World War II. The newspaper was backed by the Asahi Foundation and was famous for reflecting various social issues.

The Asahi Entertainment News merged completely with the Asahi Shimbun in the 80s, becoming a newspaper industry giant on par with the Yomiuri Shimbun.

After that, Tokuma Shoten sprang up and, relying on the strong financial power of the Asahi Group, it swept across Japan at lightning speed and soon became the largest self-operated chain bookstore in Japan.

After the bubble burst, the Asahi Group fell into a certain economic crisis. In order to ensure financial smoothness, the Asahi Shimbun continued to suck blood from the major companies under the group, causing many small and medium-sized companies to go bankrupt.

As the largest of the subsidiaries, Tokuma Shoten was particularly badly sucked away. Between 90 and 95, it went from being the most famous self-operated bookstore in Japan to the bottom of the first tier.

In recent years, Tokuma Shoten has made a lot of money by selling Kitagawa Hide's novels and cooperating with Kawaide Shobo to sell "Wenyi" in advance.

Now that the copyright of "Snow Country" has been released, Tokuma Shoten immediately took the risk and entered the market with a bid of 225 billion yen.

It’s stupid not to make money.

Kitagawa Hide compared the quotations and conditions of major publishing houses. Tokuma Shoten was clearly superior, and its attitude was sincere and respectful.

Therefore, he did not hesitate for too long and directly asked Yumeko to go and sign a contract with Tokuma Shoten, officially selling the 225-year copyright of "Snow Country" to it at a high price of 10 billion yen.

During this period, Kitagawa Hide, no, it should be said that the total assets of the Kitagawa family also jumped from 1000 billion yen to 1500 billion yen, and was about to surpass Kawaide Shizuko's 1900 billion yen.

Kitagawa Entertainment, Kitagawa Network, and Kitagawa Investment, the three companies controlled by Hideo Kitagawa and Yumeko, also became the most popular large companies among the Japanese people during the Great Depression in Japan.

The current situation of the Japanese stock market, with the Nikkei index running down every day, has led Kitagawa Hide to temporarily shelve the idea of ​​listing the three companies.

The ultimate goal of a company going public is to make money from shareholders. The stock market is in a terrible state right now, and almost all the losers are running away.

To release the version against the original version at this time is simply courting death.

However, it stands to reason that with the economic situation so bad, in order to boost the stock market, the Japanese government will generally let the Ministry of Finance force these emerging high-net-worth companies to go public. Most of the money raised will have to be given to the government, under the euphemism of "helping the country and overcoming difficulties together."

Of course, this is what those “patriotic entrepreneurs” without any connections must do, otherwise they won’t be allowed to stay in the circle.

As for a top-level person like Kitagawa Hide, who has the backing of the Prime Minister and the royal family above him and the support of important organizations such as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology below him, the Ministry of Finance would certainly not dare to offend him.

After avoiding the listing issue, the business of these three companies became more prosperous, and the ample funds on hand were poured into the market in waves, helping them make more money.

While making huge profits, Kitagawa Hide did not forget to continue to fleece his "Southeast Asian brothers".

The aftermath of the 97 financial crisis is still there, and the subsequent impacts will still make those unlucky countries suffer.

Kitagawa Hide adheres to the core concept of "If I don't make any money, the Americans will make it", and lets Senhara Masato manipulate foreign exchange frantically, trying to get some leftovers from the mouths of big sharks like Soros.

In 1998, major markets around the world were in a slump, and the only relatively prosperous industry was the entertainment industry.

After experiencing various setbacks, Japanese and Korean entertainment culture began to awaken. Taking Japanese comics as an example, well-known anime such as "Cardcaptor Sakura", "Initial D" and "Cowboy Bebop" were broadcast at this time.

In South Korea, Hide Kitagawa's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Norwegian Wood" became popular all over the country, and then Wenghuacun Publishing House spent a huge amount of money to purchase some of Hide Kitagawa's early books.

The compiled volume of "The Collected Novels of Hide Kitagawa (Korean Translation)" was priced extremely high, but it still couldn't stop the enthusiasm of Korean readers. It was sold out on the day of its release, and has been in a state of repeated reprinting and selling out since then.

Koreans are obsessed with Kitagawa Hide's novels, and they are also very fond of popular literature such as "The Suspect" and "Love Letter".

At that time, Korean dramas had not yet become completely popular, and many Korean drama screenwriters were deeply influenced by these works, and the scripts they wrote were full of the strong "Kitagawa Hideo style".

1998 5 Month 2 Day.

The much anticipated May issue of "Dazhong", the supplement of "Beichuan", has officially been released, the second issue in total.

At six o'clock in the morning, long queues of people buying books formed outside bookstores across Japan.

Readers chatted excitedly and looked forward to the opening of the bookstore.

The reason why this issue of "Mass" has attracted so much attention is that it serializes Kitagawa's latest popular literature novel "We Are the Bubble Entry Group/Hanzawa Naoki".

A while ago, "Dazhong" joined hands with the Japan Bankers Association and the Ministry of Finance to preheat the novel "Hanzawa Naoki".

Popular literature actually has a large audience in Japan, but due to the limitations of subject matter, it has always been considered by the literary world as something that is not presentable.

Keigo Higashino, a leader in popular literature today and almost the number one in Japanese popular literature, has also been criticized for constantly writing mystery novels of varying quality.

Mayumi Aso is known as the "Healing Queen", but she has missed the Naoki Prize many times. Like Shiro Dango, she has always been a representative writer who is popular but not well-received in the literary market.

If the three of them were not all disciples of Kitagawa Hide, the industry would probably have an even worse reputation for them.

Even the top writers in the industry are treated like this, not to mention the middle and lower-level writers and the bottom-level writers.

Mr. Kitagawa has written similar works of popular literature before, but he soon returned to the track of pure literature.

This time he was willing to "condescend" to write popular literature and even promoted it, which was tantamount to a shot in the arm for all popular literature writers and readers who like popular literature but dare not speak out about it.

The industry leaders and the curious gathered around to see what the financial and banking novels written by Kitagawa-sensei would be like. Mori Tetsutarou and Ishida Yasushi were also in the long queue.

The former, by praising Mr. Kitagawa, is now firmly in the top ten of the young and middle-aged literary criticism circle, and will definitely leave a resounding name in the Japanese literary criticism circle in the future.

A while ago, Kitagawa's books were one hit after another, but Tetsutaro Mori missed out on them because of his marriage to his college girlfriend.

Now that his marriage is finalized, he rushes to the bookstore without any distractions and is determined to write a review for "Hanzawa Naoki"!
As Kitagawa Hide's appointed editor for Dazhong, Ishida Taijun had little experience and was once questioned by his colleagues in the editorial department.

It’s not that the atmosphere in the popular editorial department is bad, but it’s really hard for everyone to accept that Mr. Kitagawa chose a new editor instead of them, the old editors.

The example of Rena Saito is right in front of us. Who doesn’t want to be the second Teacher Saito!
However, Kitagawa Hideichi had already designated Ishida Yasujun, and it seemed that he would not change the editor easily, which made them extremely envious.

If you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight.

Ishida Taijun knows this well.

Even if he was personally nominated by Mr. Kitagawa, if he could not provide Mr. Kitagawa with the same help as Mr. Saito, he would eventually lose this valuable position.

Tomoyo Kobayashi has overcome all difficulties and successfully passed the entrance examination for a doctoral degree in the Faculty of Literature at the University of Tokyo.

If nothing unexpected happens, his girlfriend will become a young female lecturer in the Faculty of Literature of the University of Tokyo in the future.

The female lecturer at the University of Tokyo is of great value in Japan, a country where the status of women is extremely low and women are discriminated against in the workplace for many years.

"Keep working hard, Taichun!" Ishida Taichun quietly clenched his fists and whispered to himself to encourage himself.

After pumping the air, he observed the readers' reactions while thinking about the subsequent plot of "Hanzawa Naoki".

This new novel written by Mr. Beichuan gave him a completely new reading experience.

The novels I have read in the past, whether popular literature or pure literature, were basically based on "preaching" and expounding "personal opinions".

Literary works are used to educate the people.

This is the concept that has been consistently implemented in the Japanese literary world.

If the novel you wrote cannot teach the people knowledge and cannot make them gain insights after reading it, then it is garbage among garbage and is not worthy of being placed on the bookshelf at all!

In recent years, a new type of novel called light novel has emerged, and the physical books are basically sold in the form of pocket books.

Ishida Taijun has seen a few of them, all of which are low-quality books with revealing covers that can basically be compared to erotic magazines.

These books were put together with magazines and newspapers, but unexpectedly their sales were quite good.

But these low-quality novels also exacerbate the industry's misunderstanding of popular literature.

They have always been averse to literary works such as mystery novels that are misleading to young people, and now with the emergence of even more outrageous light novels, they simply kill off all popular literature with one blow.

It just so happens that the "Hanzawa Naoki" written by Mr. Kitagawa this time has nothing to do with "preaching".

how to say?

This seems to be a novel that is purely for venting personal emotions and stimulating a sense of pleasure in reading.

Before this, Ishida Taijun had never seen a similar novel.

There is no doubt that the story is a good one.

There is no doubt about the writing skills of Mr. Beichuan.

But will such a novel really be accepted by the market and the industry?
He didn't know.

Therefore, we must conduct in-depth research, investigate the market, get feedback, and then prepare a report for Teacher Beichuan to see!
Thinking of this, Ishida Taijun mixed with the crowd and finally walked into the crowded bookstore.

In order to facilitate the release of "Mass", bookstores opened early, and the clerks carried out piles of thick "Mass" without worrying that they would not sell.

Yasujun Ishida discovered that almost every reader who came into the bookstore had a copy of "Massive", and they were obviously there for Mr. Kitagawa's "Hanzawa Naoki".

Is this the market influence of the top writers?

He couldn't help but be amazed. It seemed that judging from the sales data alone, he didn't have to worry about being held accountable by the editorial department for this issue.

No wonder the editor-in-chief confidently told all editors in the editorial department during the morning meeting yesterday that as long as Mr. Beichuan's book was serialized in "Dazhong", they would never have to worry about sales!
After buying a copy of "Mass", Taijun Ishida did not leave in a hurry. Instead, he observed how many people around him chose to read books directly in the bookstore, and how many people left with magazines.

While he was compiling various data, Tetsutaro Mori also successfully bought a brand new copy of "Mass".

After the founding of "Beichuan", he published several issues of literary reviews as a special guest. Unfortunately, the traffic of "Beichuan" was not as good as that of "Wenyi", and those reviews did not become popular.

"Dazhong" is the supplement of "Beichuan", and its traffic is definitely lower.

In the past, Mori Tetsutarou would have definitely entrusted this task to his studio.

Given his popularity, Popular Magazine is not worthy of him commenting on it personally.

But this magazine contains "Hanzawa Naoki"!

Then it’s not a question of whether he is worthy of commenting, but whether he is worthy of commenting!

Tetsutaro Mori found an empty seat in the bookstore, sat down, and immediately opened "Mass", ignoring all other novels and went straight to "Hanzawa Naoki".

"It turns out that Hanzawa Naoki is the name of the protagonist"

Mori Tetsutarou suddenly realized.

The story begins with Hanzawa Naoki receiving an interview invitation from the Industrial Central Bank.

It was a bright moment for Mori Tetsutarou to discover that Kitagawa-sensei had used real bank names, and that some of the dark details were so detailed.

"Only Mr. Beichuan would dare to write this kind of documentary novel!" (End of this chapter)