I am a literary giant in Japan

The result that could verify Kitagawa Hide's judgment soon came.

The next day, the newspapers were filled with news about the huge success of the online version of Beichuan Library.

Previously, many people in the industry have publicly or privately questioned Kitagawa Hide's behavior of creating a new literary brand, a light novel literary brand that is extremely inconsistent with his status in the literary world.

The main reason why so many people are pessimistic about "Kitagawa Bunko" is that they believe that no matter how popular light novels are, they can never squeeze out the pure literature market that has existed for hundreds of years.

That's right.

The "Four Heavenly Kings" such as "Dengeki Bunko" are very popular, and the sales of physical magazines are also rising steadily, and they can even compete with the first-tier literary magazines.

But there is a lingering problem with this type of light novel magazine.

That is, most of those who support them are young people whose minds are not mature enough, and even more than half are minors who do not have much civil capacity.

These people have low consumption power, almost zero social influence, and are prone to causing public opinion storms.

In order to satisfy the hobbies of these young people, Japanese light novels are gradually moving towards the direction of curiosity, pornography, and perverse values.

It is also for this reason that a large number of light novels are now entering the physical book market, but only the previously popular "Kino's Journey" is selling well.

Those novels that came later had good reputations and were popular in the ACGN cultural circle, but they died suddenly as soon as they were published in physical form.

Now the "Four Heavenly Kings" are more inclined to publish "pocket book" series, winning by quantity, and do not expect that the physical books of light novels can compete with serious literary works.

Of course, there are also "know-it-alls" who stand up and say that the increasingly sluggish economy has led to a decline in people's willingness to consume, and expensive paperback books have become unpopular, while cheap "pocket books" have become extremely popular.

Call it the "lipstick effect" of the recession.

In short, despite all the different opinions, no one can change the embarrassing situation that light novels have uneven quality, have failed many times to enter the physical book market, and are completely excluded from mainstream literary awards.

If Beichuan Entertainment follows the trend and launches "Beichuan Library", it will inevitably be regarded in this public opinion environment as Beichuan Xiu trying to make some money.

However, in order to dispel everyone's doubts, Hide Kitagawa personally wrote "Ring World 1: Bell" and simply released the less optimistic online version first.

It seemed as if all this pointed to Mr. Kitagawa's attempts to hide something only made it more obvious, and finally his true face was revealed by everyone.

However, on the third day after the Beichuan Library was officially launched, the overwhelming news reports were full of data about it and various words of praise.

The online website of Beichuan Library implements a visitor access or member registration access system - member registration is free, but only members can recharge on the website and pay to read novels.

截止至1999年3月12日中午12点，《北川文库》线上网站已突破1.2亿次游客访问量，其中会员访问量为0.98亿次，目前有效的会员注册数量为1200余万人。

根据日本邮政省去年发布的“1998年版通信白皮书”，截止1998年年底，日本15岁到69岁的因特网用户数为2706万人。

Even if the membership registration of Kitagawa Bunko is a bit inflated, it is basically certain that at least one-third of Japanese netizens rushed to register within two or three days after learning that Kitagawa Bunko had been launched.

This is exactly the same situation as when Hide Kitagawa opened his private website "Kitagawa's Little Bookstore".

In other words, even if Mr. Kitagawa really created the literary brand "Kitagawa Library" to make money as those people said.

Given his influence in Japan today, nearly one-third of readers would be willing to learn about him, or even pay for him!

The slap on the face didn't hurt or itch, but it left a red handprint, which made them feel particularly embarrassed.

Some people may argue that being a registered member does not mean that one will definitely pay, and that the messy charging model and revenue situation are not as intuitive and quantifiable as the “first print day data” of physical books.

But this time, Kitagawa Hide had obviously already thought about how these people would refute and find fault. Before they could speak, the financial statements and various internal data of Kitagawa Bunko were released first, faster than those released by Oricon, and all the opposition was shut up with lightning speed.

According to the financial statements of Beichuan Library, among the more than 1200 million registered members, about 400 million people have recharged and made purchases on the website. The per capita consumption amount has not yet been calculated, but there are only a dozen novels published in total, and their payment data is clear at a glance. It is easy to infer the consumption willingness, ability and consumption situation of these readers.

For example, taking the most popular novel on the website "Ring World 1: Bell" as an example, the novel currently has a total of 12 chapters, the first two chapters are free chapters, and the next ten chapters are paid chapters. The average number of words in each chapter is about 1, and the price of a single chapter is about 25 yen.

In other words, a member will have to pay a total of 1 yen for reading "Ring World 250: Bell".

Currently, the total revenue of "Ring World 1: Bell" is about 2.5 million yen, which is equivalent to 100 million people paying the full price for it!

At first glance, many people would feel that this does not seem to match Mr. Kitagawa's status and worth.

Because before this, whenever Mr. Kitagawa serialized a new book in any magazine, the first-day sales of that magazine would generally be around three to five million copies.

And since physical literary magazines are priced higher, their total sales are definitely higher.

But think about it carefully.

A book called "Literature and Art" is hundreds of pages thick, with a total word count of nearly 30 words. At least a dozen popular writers have serialized their works in it.

In addition, there are many side contents, as well as beautiful illustrations and gifts.

Obviously, the reason so many people bought it wasn’t just because of Mr. Kitagawa.

Moreover, online sales have never been favored by the public. Many people are reluctant to buy online when the payment environment is not good or there is a risk of theft.

This can be seen from the online pre-sales of major literary magazines.

The reason why everyone is unanimously pessimistic about the "electronic reading" that Mr. Kitagawa strongly advocates is because they think that even Kitagawa Hide will find it difficult to attract a large number of readers to pay and read online.

But the now-released data of an average of about 100 million people paying in full instantly silenced those who were pessimistic.

Of course, there are also people who attribute all these things to Hide Kitagawa alone.

Anyway, Kitagawa Hide is now a pure bug in the Japanese literary world.

All the unclear things seem to be explained by including Kitagawa Hide.

But this time, the situation is different.

The success of Ring 1: Bell can be attributed to Kitagawa Hide alone. However, the data released by Kitagawa Bunko clearly states that the second-ranked Ju-Grudge has updated 15 chapters, 10 of which are paid and 5 are free, with each chapter having nearly 1 words.

The total revenue of "The Grudge" is about 2500 million yen, which means that an average of 10 people paid the full price for it!

The third place is naturally "Kara no Kyoukai 1: Bird's Eye View" written by Jabami Rei under the pseudonym Girl A.

This light novel with a very strong personal style was serialized in one go, with a total of 20 chapters. The first 5 chapters are free, and the word count of a single chapter is still 1 words. The total revenue according to statistics from "Kitagawa Bunko" is about 2850 million yen, which means that an average of 7.6 people paid for it in full!

Indeed, apart from "Ring World 1: Bell", the second and third ranked light novels have less than one-tenth of its paying users, which seems to just prove that Mr. Kitagawa is the top star and he is the one who supports the "Kitagawa Bunko" alone.

But professionals who were a little more sensitive to data, or those colleagues who were keeping a close eye on the Beichuan Library, soon saw clues from a series of sales data.

The novel ranked last in the Kitagawa Bunko had a total revenue of about 140 million yen.

According to the author benefits and contract templates disclosed by Beichuan Library, since the online sales model does not involve the printing and promotion costs of physical books, the publishing house is willing to split the total revenue 50-50 with the original author!

In other words, even the writer with the lowest income could earn about 70 yen in less than three days!

Of course, the current high sales volume is partly due to the fact that they are the “first to try something new” and partly due to the fact that the traffic was consumed first, so the subsequent profits will obviously not be that high.

But no matter how you calculate it, the writer with the lowest income is estimated to get more than 300 million yen in royalties a month!
Soon, a professor from the Department of Economics and Finance of the University of Tokyo wrote an article explaining this seemingly unscientific income from royalties and the huge impact that the Beichuan Library might have on the entire literary market from an economic perspective.

". Let's take Mr. Kitagawa as an example. Mr. Kitagawa's debut work is "Hear the Wind Sing".

As we all know, "Hear the Wind Sing" won the Group Portrait Newcomer Award. At the time, Kodansha paid Mr. Kitagawa a total of 6000 yen before tax for the serialization fee at the price of 69 yen per piece of manuscript paper.

I specifically investigated the Chinese literary market. Since the 80s, with the economic stagnation, the income of writers has reached a bottleneck period, and the unit price of royalties has been stable for at least ten years.

General publishing houses pay authors 2000 yen per piece of manuscript paper, while top publishing houses pay 5000 yen per piece of manuscript paper.

Mr. Kitagawa is the winner of the Newcomer Award, so he can get a higher price of 6000 yen per piece of manuscript paper.

But the above data also show that the royalties for Mr. Beichuan's "Listen to the Wind Sing" are considered to be those of top authors - it was published in the core magazine of a top publishing house, and his salary is higher than the average.

For a novel of less than 12 words, a top real-life writer like this only gets 69 yen in royalties before tax.

So how much do the bottom-level authors of Beichuan Library get?
The minimum estimate is 300 million yen!

This is definitely a remuneration that most newcomers or veteran writers in the industry cannot even imagine!

Having said that, there will definitely be many people who will refute me.

They will say that the novelists who benefit from physical books mainly earn their income from royalties and various adaptations. Who would rely on the little bit of serialized royalties after the novel is published?
The question is, won't the works in Beichuan Library be adapted? Will those writers not get royalties?

No matter how you argue, in terms of royalties alone, the writers of Beichuan Library do make more money.

What I want to tell you is mainly why this situation occurs."

In his article, this professor from the Department of Economics and Finance emphasized one point.

In the previous publishing model, ordinary novelists had two sources of royalties.

First, the serialization fee after the novel is published.

Second, royalties after the novel is published.

But in reality, most novelists cannot even reach the threshold of being published and serialized. Even many of the winners of the Newcomer Award from the five major publishing houses in the past have never been able to publish a physical book in their entire lives.

Mayumi Aso, who won the Group Portrait Newcomer Award before Hide Kitagawa, is the best example.

The calculation method for serial royalties is just as the professor said, fixed and low (for ordinary authors).

Only those novelists who can publish physical books, or even sell the rights to film and television adaptations of their novels, can achieve true financial freedom.

But the new model of Kitagawa Bunko breaks this.

Everyone feels that the online version of the serial is the same as the published version of the literary magazine.

In fact, after careful analysis and research, it can be found that the online publication of "Beichuan Library" is more like publishing a physical book.

It’s just that with this “online publishing”, readers cannot receive the physical book and can only own it online.

But relatively speaking, the price of a single chapter is very low, readers have more choices, and the payment method is more flexible.

In addition, without the constraints of physical books, the production cost is low, which means that all novelists can try to "publish" what they have written online.

Flexible sales and payment models.

This is the core of "Beichuan Library", or the "electronic reading" advocated by Mr. Beichuan, which can subvert the physical book market!
In short, the professor praised the economic changes brought about by the Beichuan Library, saying that it was good news for readers and authors, and that the literary market would inevitably evolve from being controlled and profited by a small number of people to a more popular and market-oriented model.

No one can say whether the future will turn out like this.

But the great success of the online version of the Beichuan Library is a fact that no one can deny.

Rena Saito received more than 15 million yen in pre-tax royalties for serializing 15 chapters of "The Grudge", which only consisted of 1200 words. This is more than half of her annual salary!

After tasting the sweetness, her motivation to write was unprecedentedly high, but at the same time she became increasingly confused and fearful about the future situation in the publishing industry.

That afternoon, she skipped work from Kawaide Shobo again and came to the editorial office of Kitagawa Bunko with Jabami Rei. As soon as they entered the door, they complained to Kitagawa Hide about their worries and confusion.

“What the professor said is basically correct, but he also deliberately ignored the huge traffic brought by the launch of Beichuan Library. Now you are just reaping the benefits, and newcomers in the future will definitely not be able to enjoy such a terrifying income from royalties.

The fact that your book is a hit itself has something to do with it.”

Beichuan Xiu had read a lot of online literature in his previous life, and was familiar with the online literature. He smiled and comforted her,
"Of course, the fun is just about to begin." (End of this chapter)