Chapter 104: New Conditions

Akiwara Yuto dragged the mouse and continued browsing. He found that the search results for "New Novel" were significantly higher than "Suspect X," or rather, they were dozens of times more.

But there was a problem inside, which was that most of these search results were published between July and September, which was when the *ZOO* series was still being serialized.

After mid-September, the number and frequency of new posts began to decline sharply and began to decrease rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Akiwara Yuto pondered for a while and found it wasn't strange. After all, if there is a lack of topical works, *New Novel* will indeed encounter coldness.

Looking at this trend, sales must have fallen quite a bit. It is estimated that the editorial department will have a headache...

He thought for a while, slid the mouse, found a post with the most replies in the recent period, and clicked in to look at it.

The title of the post was "What happened to the recent New Novel," and the content was dissatisfaction with the content of *New Novel*.

In the replies below, many people expressed one after another that after teacher Akiwara stopped serializing, *New Novel* became very boring and lacked innovative stories.

However, some people also put forward different opinions, saying that according to the insert announcement of *New Novel*, teacher Akiwara will release a new work in a while.

Akiwara Yuto was a bit surprised, and even more speechless. When did I say I was going to release a new work?

He pondered for a while and replied with this new account of his: "According to a friend of mine who works inside, the cooperation between teacher Akiwara and the *New Novel* editorial department has already been declared over."

After finishing the reply, he waited for a while, found no one responding, closed this post, and opened another one with the title "Very disappointed, regarding Kadowaki Yuzhen's work *Searching Footsteps*."

Out of curiosity, Akiwara Yuto read it carefully and found that this post was written with thousands of words, analyzing the protagonist of *Searching Footsteps* and several detective methods.

By the end, the person who posted the post also emphasized that most of these contents were picking up others' wisdom, making people feel boring. Watching this book is not as good as buying a copy of *Hokkaido Tourism Guide*.

In the replies below, two distinct factions were formed. One faction expressed support for the OP's point of view and also felt it was very boring, while the other faction emphasized that this was adapted based on real police detective work.

From the quantity, the number of people in the former faction was larger, occupying the vast majority.

Akiwara Yuto laughed. Kadowaki Yuzhen snatched his Gold Prize, and he still felt a bit unconvinced in his heart. And from his professional perspective, he indeed felt that this work was very boring.

Should he also write a post to "step on" it?

Akiwara Yuto thought for a while and gave up.

If he has this time, it's better to find out how to drive traffic.

The number of netizens now is at least hundreds of thousands. Even if only 1 in 10 people likes detective novels, it can bring more sales for *Suspect X*.

And more importantly, it can increase a certain amount of exposure for *Suspect X* through the internet channel, thereby making the book sell better.

However, how should he do it?

At this time, Akiwara Yuto suddenly remembered the post *Detective Taxi* he had published on this forum before, so he quickly found this post and clicked it open.

Under the post, there were actually thousands of replies, and many people even replied saying "Really scary," "So scary."

In addition, many people also expressed that they were preparing to buy *New Novel* to see the author's other works.

Seeing so many reply contents, Akiwara Yuto was a bit surprised for a moment. After all, judging from the number of replies, this post had several times more than Kadowaki Yuzhen's *Searching Footsteps* just now.

You have to know, the other party is a long-form novel standalone volume of more than 100,000 words, while *Detective Taxi* is just a short story of less than 10,000 words.

Could it be because it's free?

Akiwara Yuto put down his hands holding the mouse and keyboard, closed his eyes, and leaned his body on the computer chair. He turned the chair and pondered another question.

If that's the case, should he serialize a long novel online to attract traffic and convert it into purchasing power?

However, would it be a bit wasteful?

He pondered for a long time but didn't make up his mind, deciding to think carefully after going home at night.

After making the decision, he turned off the computer and walked to the front desk to pay.

Leaving the internet cafe, Akiwara Yuto walked along the street, walking neither fast nor slow towards his home.

After a journey of about 15 minutes, he returned to the entrance of his "detached house."

But to Akiwara Yuto's surprise, standing at the door of the house was a man in glasses wearing a suit.

It took less than two seconds for Akiwara Yuto to recognize that the other party was the new editor-in-chief of *New Novel*, and also Songdao Kazuhiro, who served as Kadowaki Yuzhen's editor-in-charge.

Songdao Kazuhiro had actually been here for half an hour. He originally saw that it was getting late and was prepared to leave first. But he didn't expect that just as he was preparing to leave, Akiwara Yuto actually came back.

He didn't hesitate, immediately walked up two steps, and greeted Akiwara Yuto: "Good evening, teacher Akiwara."

Akiwara Yuto nodded and responded with "Good evening," then immediately asked: "Editor-in-chief Songdao, may I ask what the matter is?"

Songdao Kazuhiro nodded, "There is some work-related matter, I want to hear teacher Akiwara's opinion."

Akiwara Yuto pondered, but still opened the door and welcomed him in. After all, you don't hit a smiling person.

And there was no direct conflict between him and Songdao Kazuhiro.

The two changed shoes at the entrance and walked to the living room on the second floor. Akiwara Yuto invited the other party to sit down and poured a cup of hot tea.

"Editor-in-chief Songdao, can you explain your purpose now?"

He had some guesses in his heart, but still wanted to hear what the other party had to say.

Songdao Kazuhiro picked up the teacup, blew on it, and then opened his mouth: "Teacher Akiwara, regarding the subsequent serialization of *New Novel*, do you have anything you want to say?"

Akiwara Yuto shook his head and replied: "Since editor-in-chief Songdao came, you should have already understood my thoughts, right? If there are no accidents, you should have read my new work."

Songdao Kazuhiro sighed in his heart. He heard Akiwara Yuto's meaning; this was a polite refusal.

It seems that wanting to simply invite Akiwara Yuto to serialize again is not such a simple matter.

Damn it, Kihara Daigo and Takei Kohei, look at the good things you two have done!

Songdao Kazuhiro thought for a while and decided to persuade him again. After all, the current downward trend of *New Novel*'s sales had reached a level that could not be ignored.

He took a sip of tea and said: "Teacher Akiwara, can I ask you to serialize in *New Novel* again?"

Seeing Akiwara Yuto was about to refuse, he took out a contract and placed it on the table, saying sincerely: "If these are the conditions, can you accept them?"

Akiwara Yuto was a bit puzzled. After all, his attitude was already very clear, and the other party was undoubtedly making things difficult for him.

But he thought about it and still picked up the contract on the table and read it for a few glances.

Immediately after, he saw the new conditions on the contract... ===== CHAPTER 105 =====