Chapter 115: The Hen That Lays Golden Eggs

After a car ride of over 40 minutes, the motorcycle soon arrived at Chiyoda Ward, which was right in front of Akiwara Yuto’s home.

After stopping the bike, Akiwara Yuto got off, thanked her, and then returned the helmet to Satake Maki.

"Akiwara-sensei, thank you for your hard work today," Satake Maki said to Akiwara Yuto as he opened the gate.

"No, it is you who worked hard," Akiwara Yuto waved his hand; although he had been signing his name all day, at least he had been sitting down.

Looking at Satake Maki and the other staff members, who not only had to stand the whole time to maintain order but also had to constantly bow and smile, it was exhausting just to think about.

Just then, Satake Maki suddenly seemed to remember something and said, "Akiwara-sensei, how are you going to handle dinner?"

Akiwara Yuto was just about to walk through the door when he unexpectedly heard this question.

He paused for a moment, but immediately replied, "For dinner, a cup of instant noodles will be fine."

Satake Maki shook her head, "Cup noodles are too unhealthy. President Anjiu told me to take good care of you." She thought for a moment and added, "Akiwara-sensei, why don't I make you dinner before I leave?"

Hearing this suggestion, Akiwara Yuto refused directly, "Editor Satake, go home early, otherwise your family will be worried."

Satake Maki’s expression became a little dissatisfied, but she knew she was wearing a helmet and wasn't afraid of being discovered by Akiwara Yuto.

She thought for a moment and said, "Then in the future, can I make an extra bento for you in the evenings?"

"No need, we'll see," Akiwara Yuto said, then turned and walked into the courtyard.

Satake Maki was even more unhappy and silently muttered "this idiot" to herself twice.

Just as she was preparing to drive away on the motorcycle, a familiar voice came from afar: "Take care on the road."

Hearing these words, Satake Maki’s expression finally brightened.

She started the engine and drove off in the other direction.

……

Akiwara Yuto knew nothing of the young girl's thoughts. He returned home, hung his outdoor clothes on the wall, boiled a pot of hot water, and made a cup of instant noodles.

Watching the steam rise before him, Akiwara Yuto fell into thought.

Based on the current data, adding the figures from this signing event, 10,000 copies of the 30,000-copy first edition had already been sold. If there were no surprises, the remaining 20,000 copies could generally be sold within these two months.

Perhaps even faster.

According to what Satake Maki said, there were still several more touring signing events to be held. If each one could provide a certain amount of publicity and momentum, it would undoubtedly increase the book's exposure.

Besides that, the traffic from the forum was still slowly fermenting. Only three installments had been serialized so far, and there were still three more to be released.

Akiwara Yuto looked up at the clock on the wall, and seeing that the soaking time was about right, he opened the lid and began to eat the noodles.

As he ate, he continued to think.

Once the 30,000 copies of the first edition were sold out, he would be able to recoup a portion of his funds.

After deducting the dividends for Anjiu Bookstore, expenses, and other costs, he conservatively estimated that he would receive over 50 million yen.

If he had that much money, should he invest it himself to buy newspaper advertisements?

As long as the additional sales revenue brought by the newspapers was greater than the advertising expenditure, he would not lose money.

After all, according to his experience from his past life, *The Devotion of Suspect X* could sell at least over a million copies!

Akiwara Yuto finished his noodles, sorted the trash, and walked to the mailbox at the entrance to retrieve the magazines he had recently subscribed to.

In order to better understand the trends of the four major publishing houses and magazine sales, he had specifically subscribed to the *Publishing Statistics Weekly*, which implemented the ABC system and tracked all books and periodicals with a circulation of over 10,000 copies.

Akiwara Yuto opened the book and further examined the current top five literary magazines.

The highest-selling was still Dongying Society’s *Tokyo Youth*, with a weekly circulation of 250,000 copies, firmly occupying the No. 1 position in the literary world. The second highest-selling were Jingfan Society’s *Spring of Literature* and Mantan Society’s *Tokyo Arts*, both of which reached a weekly circulation of 180,000 copies.

Ranked behind them was Kejiaoguan’s *April Youth*, whose sales had actually fallen to 110,000 copies, a drop of about 10,000 copies from the previous month's weekly average. Meanwhile, *New Novels* had only 100,000 copies, and it was declining at a visible rate almost every week.

Akiwara Yuto fell silent; this data was a bit off.

The sales of *Tokyo Youth* and *Spring of Literature* hadn't changed much, and the decline of *New Novels* was no surprise, but why had the sales of *Tokyo Arts* risen so much? And why had *April Youth* actually declined?

Akiwara Yuto thought for a long time without coming to any conclusion, so he stood up, walked to the phone, and called Awazu Hideki, an editor at *April Youth*.

After waiting for a while and hearing the sound of the receiver being picked up on the other end, Akiwara Yuto said, "Editor Awazu, this is Akiwara Yuto."

A somewhat surprised voice came through the receiver, "Akiwara-sensei, is something the matter so late at night?"

"I have a question, and I'm not sure if it's appropriate for you to tell me." Akiwara Yuto hesitated for a moment, but still made the request.

After all, his relationship with Awazu Hideki was a bit awkward; they could only be considered enemies or competitors of Mantan Society.

Awazu Hideki was puzzled for a moment, but still replied, "No problem, go ahead. If it's convenient to disclose, I will naturally tell you."

Hearing the other party agree, Akiwara Yuto asked, "Could you tell me the reason for the sales changes in *Tokyo Arts* and *April Youth* over the past few weeks?"

In truth, knowing this wasn't of much use to Akiwara Yuto at the moment, but he believed it was very necessary to obtain intelligence on his competitors.

Awazu Hideki didn't expect this question. He thought about it, felt there was nothing to hide, and said, "You mean the decline in *April Youth*'s sales and the rise in *Tokyo Arts*'s sales, right?"

He paused and added, "Actually, this has to do with you."

"Has to do with me?" Akiwara Yuto was a bit surprised and couldn't quite wrap his head around it for a moment.

He had ended his cooperation with Mantan Society over two months ago, so how could he be involved?

Awazu Hideki continued, "Do you still remember Miyagawa Yosuke-sensei?"

Akiwara Yuto frowned, thought for a while, and recalled the name.

Wasn't that the mystery writer he had met at the stage play? The other party had even written a book review for his *Poetry of the Sunny Side*, which helped *New Novels* increase its sales significantly.

He replied into the receiver, "Is it Professor Miyagawa from Waseda University? I had a brief encounter with him at Tokyo Woman's Christian University. But what does that have to do with this?"

Awazu Hideki gave a bitter laugh and explained it to Akiwara Yuto. Through his explanation, Akiwara Yuto slowly understood the cause and effect.

This Miyagawa-sensei had a disciple named Nakata Keito who, dissatisfied that his teacher had written a book review for Akiwara Yuto but not for him, decided to jump ship to Mantan Society to defeat Akiwara Yuto with his own writing.

Because *New Novels* had a circulation of 200,000 copies at the time, Nakata Keito decided to go to *Tokyo Arts*, which had lower sales, and set the goal of *Tokyo Arts* surpassing *New Novels*.

But what Nakata Keito didn't expect was that after he jumped to *Tokyo Arts* and began his serialization, Akiwara Yuto left *New Novels*, leaving him with nothing to show for his efforts.

Isn't this a joke? Akiwara Yuto was caught between laughter and tears for a moment.

Akiwara Yuto thought for a moment and said, "Editor Awazu, I roughly understand the reason for the rise in *Tokyo Arts*'s sales. But what does this have to do with *April Youth*?"

Awazu Hideki sighed, "Akiwara-sensei, Nakata-sensei was the signature writer for our *April Youth*. Once he left, his related works stopped serializing, and he also took away a group of readers."

"By the way, speaking of which, have you considered serializing another work in *April Youth*? We will show the greatest sincerity regarding manuscript fees and royalties."

Akiwara Yuto weighed it for a moment, but still refused on the grounds that he was busy. After all, in two months, 50 million yen would be in his hands; he really didn't care about the meager manuscript fees from *April Youth*.

However, he didn't shut the door completely, only saying that he could consider cooperation if there was an opportunity.

After ending the call, Akiwara Yuto sat cross-legged and thought about another question: if there was an opportunity, should he start his own literary magazine?

Like in his past life, some writers had founded their own publications; Edogawa Ranpo promoted the founding of *Jewel*, and Jin Yong founded *Ming Pao*.

After all, even if a work was a big hit, its annual sales were often no more than a million copies. Conversely, if one managed a literary magazine well, even if the weekly sales were only 100,000 copies, it could sell nearly 5 million copies a year.

After deducting distribution costs and other royalty splits, the income would be extremely objective. In other words, it could be considered a hen that lays golden eggs.

Once he reached that point, even if he used up all the literary works from his past life's memories, he could still accumulate a considerable fortune by relying on this literary magazine!

Akiwara Yuto thought for a long time and decided to put it aside for now.

One must eat one mouthful at a time; for now, it was better to let *The Devotion of Suspect X* become a big hit first...