I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 415: Every policy has its own countermeasure - no one can stop us from selling Mr. Beichuan's novels!
1998年10月18日，10月号《文艺》于上午8点准时登陆日本国内各大知名书店。

Three days ago, the two major conglomerates, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, had a good effect in their pursuit and blockade of "Kitagawa".

Amidst a wave of condemnation, sales of Beichuan were cut by nearly one-third compared to last month.

Although "Kitagawa" later revived for a while thanks to the reputation and quality of "Asakusa Red Group" and the subsequent promotion of literary criticism and readers.

However, the negative impact caused by the two major conglomerates is difficult to reverse, and whether Kitagawa Hide is worthy of the title of "the best in the world" in Japanese literary world has become a question in many people's minds.

Now that the relationship has been broken, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo will certainly not back down at the critical moment.

"Kitagawa" is just an appetizer, their ultimate goal is still Kitagawa Hidekazu's publishing leader Kawaide Shobo!
Mitsubishi and Sumitomo stepped up their smear campaign against "Bungei" which was released on the 18th. It is said that they have invested hundreds of millions of yen in publicity and public relations.

Bookstores that are fully controlled by the two major conglomerates are complaining bitterly. They can accept not selling "Beichuan", but if they don't sell "Wenyi", the most popular book in the pure literature world, the loss will be too great.

There are also all the single-volume books published by Hide Kitagawa, which is also a major source of income for the bookstore.

The ban on the sale of these two items cut the bookstores' revenue by more than half, and the store managers and clerks immediately became the first victims of this silent commercial war.

The top management of the consortium only issued orders without caring about the bookstore's profits or taking any compensation measures.

This caused complaints from the bookstores below, and made the employees, who were already reluctant to follow such excessive orders, even more unhappy.

Conservative writers in university academic circles and the Japanese Literature Society are still making irresponsible remarks, indiscriminately attacking the writers of the Kitagawa Hide school from various angles.

Kitagawa Hide and Kawaide Shobo drew away a large number of young writers, dealing a heavy blow to the Japan Literary Society. Acting president Nagasaki Nobuo "deeply saddened" him and held an emergency press conference, announcing the expulsion of Kitagawa Hide as honorary vice president and stating that he would never be accepted into the society again.

The new vice president who replaced Hidetsugu Kitagawa is Kazufu Nagai.

The old man in his sixties has been in high spirits recently. I don’t know how much benefits the consortium has given him to make him dare to stand up against Kitagawa Hide.

Nagai Kazufu informed all citizens through a press conference that he and his conservative writers would launch a massive wave of new books.

Starting from next month until the beginning of 1999, their new base, New Literature, will launch a large number of new books, allowing readers to enjoy a different "literary era wave".

In the "list of emerging writers" provided by Nagai Kazufu, readers saw many familiar faces. These people were all famous big names who once dominated the Japanese literary world, which is indeed quite exciting.

The lifeless Japanese literary world has been stirred up by the stone of Nagai Kazufu, creating ripples, but it is unknown how long these ripples will last and whether they can shake Kitagawa Hide's unrivaled position in the literary world.

Under such a terrifying attack, "Wenyi" showed amazing resilience and a reader fan stickiness that no one expected.

It is generally believed in the industry that under such abnormal suppression from Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, Kawaide Shobo, which has no other consortium to support it, will be overwhelmed and will most likely choose to avoid the limelight and temporarily give in.

But the actual situation is that "Wenyi" will be released as it should be, and all activities such as online pre-sales, offline reprints, and book club exchanges will proceed as usual.

In the past three years, many large bookstores have been completely controlled by Kawaide Shobo. In the Tokyo area, in terms of literary market competition, Kawaide Shizuko is not inferior to Mitsubishi and Sumitomo.

Beichuan Entertainment's online sales channels are in full swing. Although people don't trust the newly started "Beichuan" and "Dazhong", they highly recognize "Wenyi" whose reputation and sales have always been stable.

10月17日晚，北川文娱线上销售渠道共预售了30万册10月号《文艺》，河出书房自家的线上渠道也卖了近10万册。

With the guaranteed minimum of 40 copies, the sales pressure on October 10th was greatly reduced.

Readers' enthusiasm is also much higher than when they bought "Beichuan" before.

If they fail to buy the book once, twice, or three times, they will still go to a new bookstore and try for the fourth and fifth time.

In addition to the popular "The Villain", there are other popular serialized novels in "Wenyi". The readership of these new generation writers should not be underestimated.

Compared with the older generation of readers who grew up reading newspapers and watching TV, these young readers are more fan-like and crazier.

For the sake of their idols, they are willing to run around to bookstores dozens of kilometers away to buy books, and are even willing to buy more than ten or twenty books each to support their idols.

Kitagawa Hide had predicted to Kawaide Shizuko and others the "downward movement" and "universalization" of Japanese idols a long time ago.

He feels that future idols will no longer be unattainable TV and movie stars, but ordinary people that fans can reach out and touch.

Fans can see the impact of their investment on their idols and can grow and become stronger along with their idols.

This idol-cultivation model will replace all past models and become the mainstream.

At first, Kawaide Shizuko, Saito Rena and others did not agree, especially Jabami Rei, who was in the entertainment industry, who scoffed at this statement.

But Kitagawa Hide forced Jabami Rei to follow this style, and she had no choice but to obey.

As time passed, Kitagawa Hide's predictions came true one by one, which surprised the girls.

The same is true in the literary world.

Shizuko Kawaide, who has always adhered to the "big family" business model, finally saw her long-term strategy bear fruit.

Under the crazy suppression from Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, the authors under Kawaide Shobo also showed terrifying resilience.

By 10 p.m. on October 18, the real-time sales data was encouraging. Judging from the data samples, the October issue of "Wenyi" did not seem to be affected much by the two major consortiums, which was completely different from "Beichuan" which was caught off guard three days ago.

The readers of "Wenyi" have used practical actions to tell the high-ranking financial groups that some things cannot be achieved by simply throwing money at them.

the other side.

At around four or five in the afternoon, some bookstores finally couldn't bear the pressure anymore and were ready to take risks, using "countermeasures from below" to counter the "policies from above" of the consortium.

Seikado Bookstore near Asakusa Station was one of the first major bookstores to "turn against" the government.

The whole day of October 10th.

Leading bookstores like Seikado Bookstore are showing a strange polarization phenomenon.

The big bookstores that cooperate with Kawade Shobo and Beichuan Entertainment are crowded with people, and there is an endless stream of readers coming to buy books, and the doorsteps of the bookstores are almost broken down.

However, those large bookstores that were fully controlled by the consortium and had completely removed all books related to Kitagawa Hide from their shelves three days ago have become deserted, with customer flow dropping to a horrible level.

The manager of Seikado Bookstore watched helplessly as customers continued to leave.

At first, many customers came to the store to cause trouble, and many readers came to inquire about Mr. Beichuan’s new book and "Beichuan" and "Wenyi".

The next day, there were fewer of these people, and those who came were basically customers who wanted to cancel their bookstore membership.

By the third day, there were no more customers who wanted to withdraw from the club.

Until now.

At Seikado Bookstore, everyone from the store manager and deputy store manager to the shopping guides could only stand in a row and watch the bustling coming and going of people in the small and medium-sized bookstore not far away that had the right to sell "Wenyi".

After the bubble economy burst, the lifetime employment system and seniority system gradually disappeared from the Japanese workplace.

Nowadays, employees’ wages and benefits are directly linked to the store’s turnover. If the store does good business, everyone will earn more.

Therefore, both old employees and interns are extremely anxious and want to change this bad situation every minute.

They looked at the store manager eagerly. The store manager looked solemn and seemed to be unable to do anything except scratching his head. "Manager, we can't go on like this!"

Finally someone couldn't help it anymore.

A ten-year veteran employee mustered up the courage to close the bookstore's glass door, then turned to the store manager and said, "Manager, the total sales of the past three days are not as good as the sales of one hour before. If this continues, we will be fired by the headquarters sooner or later!"

The order was issued by the headquarters. It is impossible to say that the people above have not considered the turnover issue.

But considering it, if the boss's mistakes are not borne by the subordinates, will the boss have to bear it himself?
In the end, it is definitely these low-level employees who will suffer.

They don't want to sit and wait for death, and they don't want to lose this stable and decent job when the economic environment is so bad.

"Yes, store manager, the headquarters won't care what the reason is for the sudden drop in our sales!
Those guys who only know how to push the blame on us and take away the credit don't care about our lives!"

As soon as someone spoke up, others followed suit.

"But the ban on the sale of Wen Yi is a death order from headquarters."

The store manager was equally anxious, but he did not dare to commit the crime and risk being severely punished or even fired by the headquarters.

The old employee, who had known he would say this, immediately stepped closer and whispered his "countermeasure" to him.

The old employees are not worried about these problems. They are just afraid that the store manager will be conservative and insist on following the orders of the headquarters.

Now that he was attracted by the store manager, he immediately told him the plan he had thought of.

"It seems that this method is not impossible." The store manager hesitated for a moment, but when he thought of the messy bill, he immediately made up his mind.

If he doesn't do this, this month's sales will inevitably hit rock bottom, and he will be the first one to suffer.

Doing this might result in severe punishment from the headquarters, but at least there is a glimmer of hope!
"Manager, what do you mean?" The old employee's eyes lit up.

"Just do as Mr. Kawada said!" The manager gritted his teeth and no longer hesitated.

"Understood! I'll get everyone started right away!" The old employee Kawada was delighted and quickly ran back to communicate with other store employees.

6 pm.

Shortly after getting off work, Kaoru took the train to the Asakusa community.

"We Living in Asakusa" written by Yumiko and Umekichi received a very good response, and with the popularity of Kitagawa's "Asakusa Red Ball", it attracted a lot of readers.

For a new writer with no literary background, not having his work cut out is the best outcome, and being able to achieve something now is a huge blessing.

The two of them are also the first authors signed independently by Xunzi, and Xunzi is very concerned about them.

In order to ensure the quality of the subsequent novels, every time the part-time job is over, Kaoru will come here to negotiate with the two, and then go to the cram school in Chiyoda District to make up for the lessons.

As a senior in high school, she didn't want to delay her work at Beichuan, nor did she want to fail the college entrance examination. At the same time, she had to take care of the novels of her authors, and she was already busy working non-stop.

Although she is very busy, she enjoys it and does not feel tired at all.

Now everyone in the editorial department started joking that Kaoru has inherited Kitagawa's true workaholic nature.

"Let Gongzi and Meggie write their first novel into a long novel, which can not only guarantee their income from royalties, but also allow them to practice their writing skills.

That way, by the time they write their second novel, they might just soar to the top.”

As she walked, Kaoru thought for a while about how to discuss the matter with the two of them. At this moment, the unusual movement coming from the Seikado Bookstore across the street attracted her attention.

The Seikado Bookstore, which had originally seen a sharp drop in customer traffic, inexplicably became popular again.

Kaoru remembered that this bookstore was the one that Yumiko and Meggie had mentioned, the first famous bookstore to boycott Kitagawa-sensei.

According to the current situation, these bookstores should be greatly affected.

She walked forward curiously, but before she reached the door of the bookstore, she was stopped by a woman dressed as a shop assistant.

"Excuse me, miss, do you want to go to Seikado Bookstore to buy books?" The woman leaned close to Kaoru and asked in a low voice.

Xunzi was stunned for a moment, then nodded slightly: "Yes, I want to see what new books have arrived in the store."

"Excuse me, do you want to buy Literature and Art?"

The woman came closer and spoke more quietly, like a thief.

There are many bookstore clerks like her who stop passers-by and ask questions, scattered around the outskirts of Seikado Bookstore.

Kaoru became even more curious.

Thinking that she had not yet received the latest issue of "Wenyi", she nodded again.

After receiving a positive answer, the woman pulled her sleeves and said like an underground party member: "Okay, then please follow me over here."

Kaoru followed her to the side door of the bookstore.

As she walked, she found that the customers who came into the bookstore in a steady stream were asked similar questions and then taken to the side door one by one.

On the small display stand behind the side door, Kaoru saw stacks of "Nikkan Sports News".

"880 yen per copy, thank you." The female clerk picked up a copy of the Nikkan Sports News and handed it to her.

Xunzi widened her eyes and looked at her in disbelief.

The most expensive newspaper now only costs 250 yen, how dare they sell it at that price?

She took the newspaper and found it was particularly thick.

When I opened it, I found a brand new copy of "Literature and Art" inside!
Xunzi understood instantly.

This is skirting the law in sales!

No wonder Seikado Bookstore was not affected and so many people came to buy books!

If they were found out and held accountable, they could just say they were selling newspapers and giving away books.

The bookstore's gifts are not under the jurisdiction of the head office. If the bookstore gives the gifts at its own expense, it does not need the approval of the head office.

If the headquarters still refuses to give up, they can also deal with these bundled products before the headquarters investigators arrive.

The investigators from headquarters can't just squat at the door of the bookstore and watch over them all the time, right?

For readers, no matter how you sell books, as long as I can buy what I want.

When Seikado Bookstore did this, word quickly spread, and it attracted a large number of readers to buy books.

Within half an hour, most of the bookstores in Tokyo had adopted this shameless mode.
(End of this chapter)