I am a literary giant in Japan

The good show performed by the online version of "Kitagawa Bunko" was soon staged repeatedly in the Japanese literary market.

On March 1999, 3, the online version of "Kitagawa Bunko" was launched as scheduled. Amidst the doubts of countless industry insiders in the literary and publishing circles, the 10 light novels published in total achieved impressive sales figures.

Over the next five days, the number of readers who heard the news increased instead of decreased, the number of registered members on the website increased, and the payment rate remained high, which once again severely slapped the faces of the opponents.

At the same time, after discovering that the light novel industry is indeed profitable and beneficial to most grassroots creators and related practitioners, many grassroots novelists and illustrators who were unable to serialize novels in the "Four Heavenly Kings" or participate in illustration production also turned to the Kitagawa Bunko.

The original size of the light novel market was so large that even though Dengeki Bunko had repeatedly proven the commerciality of this subject matter, the industry insiders in the traditional publishing industry remained unmoved because they did not think that this little bit of traffic could bring about any major changes to the industry.

If it weren't for Keigo Higashino, people would not have taken the detective literature that was so popular at the time seriously.

And what if Keigo Higashino is there?

Now even Keigo Higashino himself is moving towards pure literature and the traditional publishing industry, and does not intend to stay in the comfort zone of mystery literature for a long time.

All these prove the judgment of this group of people.

However, what they did not expect was that the Beichuan Library, by using the Internet as a medium, very cleverly solved the fundamental problem that the capacity of physical books is limited and it is indeed impossible to take into account all grassroots practitioners.

The professor of economics and finance at the University of Tokyo has already made it very clear.

The biggest impact that Kitagawa Bunko had on the market was not that it was unusually profitable, or that it made the industry realize that light novels are not without plasticity.

The biggest change it made was the shift in sales model, which broke the limitations of the physical book market!
This group of light novel writers and illustrators of varying quality flocked to Kitagawa Bunko. If it were another publishing house, they would probably issue a statement immediately to raise the entry threshold and screen out a bunch of slackers.

However, the Kitagawa Library had already received a first-level order from Mr. Kitagawa. Before things developed, Mr. Kitagawa had anticipated this situation and had a very complete response system.

3 month 15 day.

Along with "Kitagawa", the physical magazine version of "Kitagawa Bunko" is also released.

However, because online serialization does not require concern about the length of the novel, and offline physical books must be shortened due to capacity issues, the "Kitagawa Bunko (Physical Edition)" only includes the top five online novels, and it is also published in pocket editions, which are only priced at 249 yen per copy. Considering the current income and consumption situation of the Japanese people, this is a very cheap price.

249 yen, 1 yen less than the price required for online membership to watch "Ring 1: Bell".

At first, other publishing houses thought that Beichuan Library was arrogant and stupid for blatantly collecting readers' IQ tax.

But when they bought a pocket edition of the Beichuan Library, they immediately discovered that this was not the case.

First, the physical book only contains the top five novels, and the volume is small, and it is a pocket book with rather sloppily bound binding.

Second, even for these five novels, the serialization progress is much slower than online. After comprehensively calculating the prices, I found that they are not much cheaper than online readers.

In other words, Beichuan Library gives readers two choices.

You can either pay to keep up with the latest updates online. Although you cannot own the physical book, the progress is the fastest, the unit price is low, and you have more freedom to choose.
Or you can spend money to buy magazines offline, which is more affordable and cheaper, but you can't read books other than Huoshu, and you have no choice, but it is stable and cheap.

The two sets of logic correspond to two types of readers, perfectly solving the doubts and difficulties of many people in the publishing industry.

In addition, unlike other literary magazines, Beichuan Library (Physical Edition) is not published once a month. It publishes one issue every five days, and six issues are published in a month. Readers don’t have to worry about not having enough to read!

The different strategies for the physical and online versions also echo the treatment of authors formulated by Hide Kitagawa.

As long as the new writers and illustrators who flock to the magazine can pass the assessment of the Human Resources Department and the Audit Department and successfully sign the contract, they can directly publish their signed works on the online version, put them on the shelves and pay for them on their own, and share the profits equally with the Beichuan Library.

And those outstanding creators who emerge from it can further serialize their works in the physical books of "Beichuan Library" and get more income and dividends.

This is equivalent to the Beichuan Library providing them with a platform to showcase themselves, and whether it is good or bad depends entirely on the quality of their own works.

The impact of this change on other magazines in the light novel industry was devastating.

Like traditional literary magazines, all light novel magazines, including the "Four Heavenly Kings", rely on poaching and soliciting articles to provide themselves with a steady stream of fresh blood in order to maintain their strong competitiveness in the industry.

The five major literary magazines in the past established new writer awards and subsequent awards in order to attract more attention from contributors.

As long as the quantity goes up, the quality will definitely follow.

However, as the major forces in Japan's literary and publishing circles have become increasingly class-stratified, everyone is tacitly aware of the matter of stealing people. While maintaining their own piece of land, they try to steal a little without affecting their relationships.

This is also the reason why the publishing industry was always dominated by the five major literary magazines, with Shinchosha and Bungeishunju firmly occupying the first and second places.

That year, the emergence of Kitagawa Hide led Kodansha into the top three. After that, he changed jobs and led Diaocheweihechubo to surpass the other four companies and became the industry leader.

Now, it is Kitagawa Bunko, founded by Kitagawa Hide, that has brought about this revolution, giving hope to many writers who are on the sidelines or unable to serialize in most light novel magazines.

Such a large number of new writers instantly made the Beichuan Library, which had just been launched, "overcrowded".

The industry has mixed opinions on this. Although some people do not agree with the behavior of Kitagawa Hidekazu and Kitagawa Bunko, it has indeed absorbed a wave of grassroots creators and brought certain positive impacts to the country's economy and employment issues. It is not good to jump out and say that it is bad.

Those who insist on saying bad things about the Kitagawa Bunko in a tough manner are basically all colleagues in the publishing industry, as well as those writers and novelists who have an inexplicable sense of superiority.

They accused Kitagawa Hide of completely breaking the "literary boundary line", allowing all kinds of monsters to come up and write novels, which is the ultimate insult to literature!
In the past, if a person wanted to become a professional novelist, he had to go through numerous assessments by major publishing houses. No matter how outstanding a blank slate writer was, if he did not receive a valuable newcomer award, even if he became successful in the future, his career resume would be incomplete because of this.

Other awards in the industry are the only gold standard that can help them establish their status and identity in the industry.

This is also the reason why in the original history, even though he wrote a masterpiece like "No Longer Human", even a top writer like Dazai Osamu had to bow to the jury because he failed to win the Akutagawa Prize many times.

The fact that Dazai Osamu kept writing letters to Yasunari Kawabata, a judge of the Akutagawa Prize, to recommend himself and even went to kowtow to him is one of the most ridiculous and terrifying anecdotes in the history of Japanese literary world.

In the past few years, Kitagawa Hideyoshi blurred the boundaries between pure literature and popular literature with books such as "Hanzawa Naoki", "White Tower", and "The Villainess", allowing a large number of authors who could not make a living in the field of pure literature to make a living in popular literature.

Because of this incident, he has been criticized many times by the Japanese Literary Society and various forces in the literary world.

But popular literature is, after all, a recognized literary genre, and as time goes by, more and more excellent popular literature works have verified this. Now, both readers and industry insiders tend to recognize it as a part of Japanese literature.

And now, light novels have been pushed to the forefront by this group of people.

But this time, these people were extremely determined and would never give in.

Popular literature only takes a share of their cake. If light novels invade, that would mean they could lose their jobs. They will never compromise!

The volume of opposition this time was unprecedentedly loud, and even Kitagawa Hide, the "number one in the world" in Japanese literary world, couldn't shut these people up.

Saito Rena and the others even came to ask Kitagawa Hide about this matter.

After all, Kawaide Shobo and Kitagawa Entertainment are also beneficiary companies of pure literature and popular literature. The sudden emergence of light novels will inevitably make the company's senior executives worried.

The current largest shareholder of Kawaide Shobo is Kitagawa Hide, followed by the Kawaide family controlled by Kawaide Shizuko. The shares held by these two families are enough to completely influence all decisions within Kawaide Shobo.

Not to mention Beichuan Entertainment.

Kitagawa Hide, who traveled through time from the future, knew that he could not let power fall into the hands of others and allow messy people to interfere with his business, even though he did not know much about business and economics.

Even so, after the "Kitagawa Bunko" was launched for sale, waves of discordant voices were heard within Kawade Shobo and Kitagawa Entertainment.

no way.

When it comes to the interests of vested interests, even if they do not have much power, they have various ways to express their dissatisfaction.

For example, deliberately slacking off at work, spreading rumors, and leaking inside information to competitors.

In short, the management of a large enterprise is not as simple as Kitagawa Hide and others thought. Even the experienced Kawaide Shizuko was sweating profusely and felt overwhelmed when faced with these emergencies.

Recently, Shizuko Kawaide has been privately upset with Hide Kitagawa.

Among the few of them, her emotions have always been the most stable.

Moreover, Shizuko Kawaide came from a wealthy family and had experienced and seen many ups and downs. Logically, she should be a more stable person than Kitagawa Hide.

Kitagawa Hide was confused, and finally, with Mengzi's suggestion, he finally understood why the "big boss" was suddenly dissatisfied with him.

He led Yumeko to write "A Ghost Call", led Saito Rena to write "The Grudge", and even led the "outsider" Jabami Rei to write the "Kara no Kyoukai series". However, the "big boss" Shizuko Kawaide who originally recruited him was ignored.

It's just like in high school, we were all in a small group, but in the end we suddenly found out that every winter and summer vacation, you guys went on school trips without telling me, and I was the only one who was excluded. How could Shizuko Kawaide not feel bad?
For the time being, Kitagawa Hide has no good solution to this matter.

In principle, he just needs to be nice to Yumeko alone.

It is natural for a husband to love his wife.

But Rena Saito, Rei Jabami, Shizuko Kawaide, and even Kaoru, who was led by him to the path of literature, are now important partners in his life and career. He cannot ignore them, but it is also not easy to treat them equally.

The most important thing is that over the past four years, Kawade Shizuko's wealth has increased and her abilities have become stronger, but her appreciation and creation of literature are still the same as they were four years ago.
All in all, it's a level that's hard to describe.

Fortunately, the incident was big enough this time, and Shizuko Kawaide only slightly revealed her emotions and did not disturb Kitagawa Hide too much.

When it comes to internal company matters, Kitagawa Hide still believes that "professional matters should be left to professionals."

He spent so much money and hired several corporate executives at high salaries who completely obeyed his arrangements. If they can't even handle this internal conflict, what's the point of keeping them?

As for Kitagawa Hide himself, he is still focusing on the "Ring World Series" at hand.

This was the beginning of his wave of horror literature, and also his stepping stone to open up the e-reading and light novel market.

If these two things are available, the Japanese literature market will not be exploited.

He and all those who depend on him will not be eliminated by the new era and have no food to eat.

However, compared with the literary career that Kitagawa Hide will continue, "Kitagawa Library" is just a small and insignificant part.

He is still a long way from becoming one of the world's top literary giants. This is a shortcoming that he must make up for in his future literary career!
The main reason why he failed to gain full recognition from the Western world was the two points he had already figured out.

First, Western literature has a natural discrimination against Eastern literature. Just like racial discrimination, to some extent, it has been deeply rooted in the minds of those people.

In order to make them surrender, we must produce another world-class masterpiece that can subvert their cognition.

Second, among the world-class literary awards, the Nobel Prize in Literature, as an important award, is like the pearl on the crown of literature. Perhaps it is not the most dazzling, or even the one with the most value.

But just like Dazai Osamu tirelessly pursued the recognition of the Akutagawa Prize.

Kitagawa Hide has failed to win the Nobel Prize in Literature many times and was even banned once by the authorities. This always makes his supporters or readers who are unaware of the situation feel aggrieved and inexplicably lack the confidence to speak up for him.

Now the Nobel Prize officials are helpless. After dealing with the Arnault couple and the Arnault Club, they also indirectly helped Kitagawa Hide to be "rehabilitated."

But he didn't win the prize the first time he was shortlisted, and wasn't even shortlisted the second time. The Nobel Prize officials are still trying to smooth things over and deliberately avoid the issue.

Kitagawa Hide must produce a work of sufficient weight to complete this last piece of the puzzle.

He had actually thought about this matter and discussed it with Mengzi for a long time.

Rena Saito, who had been slowly becoming disenchanted with the Nobel Prize, also came over to discuss the topic.

Everyone's final decision was to hope that Kitagawa Hide would try again.

I hope he can write another literary work that will go down in the history of world literature. (End of this chapter)