Tokyo: Earth Online Manga Artist.

After the meeting, Masaya Sakurai was busy again.

The process of turning a book into a standalone volume is much more complicated than chasing weekly serials. It involves not only the manuscript itself, but also a series of steps such as cover design, color pages at the beginning, author's afterword, typesetting and proofreading, printing cycle, and bookstore distribution.

The first thing he had to do was to inform Eri Aragaki, the author of the Attack on Titan manga, about the plan to publish a single volume.

After all, the release of a standalone volume is a big deal for a manga artist.

Firstly, this proves that their comics have gained a foothold and are on the verge of becoming very popular.

Although many manga are serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, the proportion that actually gets published as collected volumes is not high. Many works are canceled after only a dozen or so chapters, never even getting the chance to become collected volumes and be displayed on bookstore shelves.

Secondly, their income is expected to surge.

The royalty for a single volume is 10% of the price. If 50,000 copies of a volume are sold, the royalty income is equivalent to more than half a year's salary for an average office worker.

For a work that ranks in the top ten in popularity, 50,000 copies is just a starting number.

Sakurai Masaya returned to his workstation, picked up the landline phone on the table, and dialed Aragaki Eri's personal number.

The phone rang a few times.

At this moment, Eri Aragaki is busy in her studio drawing the manuscript for the new chapter of Attack on Titan.

Several unfinished drawings lay spread out on the worktable. Some were only outlined and the halftone dots hadn't been applied yet, while others were still wet from being painted black. Next to them were ink bottles and scrapers. Natsume Akane sat to one side of the worktable, carefully applying halftone dots with a scraper in her hand.

On the other side, Ayane Takeda was responsible for drawing the buildings and trees in the background, and her lines were becoming more and more skillful.

Erina sat on a stool next to her, holding a brush and touching up the blackened parts with ink.

The four of them were busy with their own things, and the only sounds in the studio were the scratching of pen tips on paper and the scraping of halftone dots by a scraper.

The phone rang.

Eri Aragaki put down her G-pen and picked up her phone with her un-inked hand.

The caller ID showed Masaya Sakurai's number.

"I need to take this call..."

She gestured to the other three people to wait a moment, then pressed the answer button and said, "This is Aragaki, Mr. Sakurai."

"Congratulations, Ms. Pear."

Masaya Sakurai's voice came through the receiver, his tone slightly more formal than usual, and he said, "I'm here to inform you that the first volume of your manga 'Attack on Titan' is about to be released. Congratulations."

Eri Aragaki's hand holding the phone froze in mid-air.

She froze for a moment.

Then the expression on her face changed from stunned to ecstatic, her mouth almost stretching to her ears.

"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Sakurai."

After all, she'll be making a fortune after the solo volume is released.

Royalties, first printing, and money coming in with each reprint if necessary—this income is on a completely different scale from her current monthly royalties.

Her mind was already racing, calculating what she could do with the money: buy Erina the laptop she'd always wanted, get a bigger monitor, and stock up on several more boxes of Chinese seasoning.

"You're welcome, I'm just making a notification."

Masaya Sakurai said, "We also need to inform the teacher that she will need to cooperate with us on some additional tasks over the next month."

Eri Aragaki immediately replied seriously, "Go ahead and say it, Mr. Sakurai."

"First of all, the first volume of Attack on Titan will include the contents of chapters one through eight, plus the short story I suggested before, which will be the beginning of the volume as chapter zero."

Masaya Sakurai then continued, "We need to check and revise the preceding content. Some storyboards may need minor adjustments, and we also need to prevent any drawing errors."

"what?"

Eri Aragaki stopped writing.

This was unexpected; it sounded like a lot of trouble.

Episodes one through eight, plus that short story, all need to be reviewed again.

She had already gone through those dozens of pages of manuscript in her mind. If she were to revise it page by page, the workload would be no joke.

Moreover, she also has new manuscripts to draw every week, and with these two things piled up, there's never enough time.

"Our editorial team will conduct an initial review of this issue."

Seemingly sensing Eri Aragaki's concerns, Masaya Sakurai added, "We only notify the teacher to make corrections and minor adjustments when there are obvious flaws or errors. Under normal circumstances, the teacher does not need to check it personally."

Eri Aragaki breathed a sigh of relief.

"Then I'll have to trouble Mr. Sakurai and the editors."

Sakurai Masaya nodded on the other end of the phone and said, "Next, for the collected volumes, you need to draw a cover, a color frontispiece, and write an author's afterword. You can draw and write this yourself, teacher, and submit it to us for review along with the artwork."

Eri Aragaki also said, "Okay, no problem."

She probably already had an idea for the cover and the color brochure in front of her.

The cover should definitely feature Eren, the opening color page could depict a group portrait of the entire Survey Corps, and as for the author's afterword, a few words of thanks to the readers would suffice.

"Finally... we will conduct a formal written interview with the teacher in the magazine to promote the standalone book."

Masaya Sakurai added, "It's like a Q&A interview. This week, I'll bring the interview form to you when I submit the manuscript this week, and you can answer the questions on it."

Eri Aragaki also didn't think there was any problem. She had seen many written interviews in magazines before, which were nothing more than answering questions such as "What is your creative inspiration?", "Who is your favorite character?", and "What would you like to say to your readers?"

She read a lot of author interviews when she was browsing forums in her previous life, so answering them shouldn't be difficult.

"Alright."

She casually remarked, seemingly unconcerned.

Sakurai Masaya paused for a moment, then continued, "By the way, teacher, please also provide a photo of yourself; it will be published in this written interview."

"Why???"

Eri Aragaki dropped her pen.

She let out a sound two pitches higher than before, startling Natsume Akane, who was applying halftone dots next to her, and she almost misjudged the scraper.

Ayane Takeda also looked up, and Erina's brush stopped in mid-air. The three of them looked at Eri Aragaki at the same time, wondering what the person on the other end of the phone had said that made her react so strongly.

Eri Aragaki held her phone, her expression shifting from ecstasy to a complex stiffness.