Chapter 161: This is an arms race

Awazu Hideki, while smiling bitterly, told the whole story from beginning to end.

After listening to everything, Akiwara Yuto was surprised to find that this matter really had something to do with him.

During this period, because of the turmoil of the Burakumin incident he triggered, the Mantanshe Society's *Tokyo Literature* and *New* were affected, and sales fell by 40% compared to before.

But due to timely public relations and a good attitude, the Mantanshe Society quickly resolved this turmoil. Moreover, they increased the management and investment in relevant literary journals.

In addition to personnel changes, they also invested huge sums of money to increase publicity in layout advertisements.

They even poached a group of signed writers from other publishing houses on the condition of increasing manuscript fees.

This also caused the sales of *Tokyo Literature* to begin to recover to its previous level, and there was even a possibility of going further.

Faced with the challenge of the Mantanshe Society, the literary journals of the other three major publishing houses naturally began an "arms race," successively increasing publicity and raising corresponding manuscript fees.

But the magazine platform was more suitable for newcomer writers and middle-aged and young writers; some veteran writers were still more willing to publish single volumes directly.

This also made the "poaching actions" of the four major publishing houses more applicable only among the four major publishing houses.

In this "red ocean," if the manuscript fees were not much different, magazines with larger sales and fame would often be more favored by writers.

Conversely, if a magazine's sales were not good to begin with, and the manuscript fees were not additionally increased, then the signed writers of this magazine would have the possibility of leaving.

After listening to all this, Akiwara Yuto understood a little and then said to Awazu Hideki.

"So, *April Youth* was poached by the other three major publishing houses for quite a few writers? Speaking of which, you are also one of the four major publishing houses, it's impossible that you don't have much money, right?"

Awazu Hideki sighed.

"Master Akiwara, in terms of manuscript fees, we are confident that we will not be lower than the others, but it is mainly because the previous sales were really too poor, which made many writers have the intention to leave."

He paused and added.

"Have you forgotten? I told you before that because I wanted to challenge you, our signature writer Master Nakata jumped ship to *Tokyo Literature* and took away a group of readers, which caused sales to drop to 110,000 copies at one point."

Akiwara Yuto raised his eyebrows when he heard this explanation.

Oh, that disciple of Master Miyagawa Yosuke!?

The other party seemed to be a Radical in the Honkaku school.

Looking at Awazu Hideki's resentful eyes, Akiwara Yuto touched the back of his head embarrassedly.

He really had forgotten about this. After all, he had been busy winning awards, publishing books, and fighting "word wars" with the Mantanshe Society; he had no interest in paying attention to these "messy things" between publishing houses.

He thought for a moment and asked again: "If the circulation of *April Youth* is only 70,000 copies now, then what is the approximate sales volume of the literary journals among the three major publishing houses?"

Awazu Hideki put down the teacup he was holding and began to describe, letting Akiwara Yuto understand the latest market situation.

The Mantanshe Society's *Tokyo Literature*, because it launched an offensive earliest, poached a group of popular writers, and increased newspaper publicity, caused the circulation to exceed 240,000 copies per week, which was much more than its previous peak.

Toei Society's *Tokyo Youth*, because it had always been the boss of literary journals, few writers chose to jump ship. Instead, because of increased publicity, its circulation was only one step away from 300,000 copies.

Jingfan Society's *Spring of Literature*, on the condition of increasing copyright sharing, further tied down its subordinate writers. And by strengthening cooperation with major universities in Japan, it opened up new markets, which also increased sales to more than 200,000 copies.

As for *April Youth* of the Education Publishing House where Awazu Hideki was located, although it had learned relevant information early on, because the management was slow to react and sales were already at the bottom, many writers inside chose to leave one after another.

The departure of writers interrupted serialized works, which caused a group of readers to leave rapidly. Under this situation, the effect of advertising and publicity became increasingly poor, forming a vicious cycle between poor sales and writers leaving.

Akiwara Yuto nodded. This reminded him of many business cases in his past life: the boss and the second-in-command fought, and as a result, the third-in-command was killed.

Speaking of which, he really didn't know that in the two or three weeks he was reconciling with the Mantanshe Society, such interesting things had happened in the literary circle.

"Editor Awazu, then what about the Mantanshe Society's *New*?" Akiwara Yuto asked again.

Awazu Hideki shook his head, "The sales of *New* are now less than 50,000 copies. Now many people in the industry no longer recognize it as one of the five major literary journals."

"What happened?" Akiwara Yuto frowned and asked in surprise.

Awazu Hideki nodded and began to speak again.

"Before this, the sales of *New* had already been declining relatively quickly, and after Kikuchi Tai was transferred, the newly appointed editor-in-chief Matsushima Kazuhiro also chose to transfer to *Tokyo Literature*, which made the internal staff of *New* unstable. And in this Burakumin incident, it was also affected quite a bit."

Akiwara Yuto was still a little puzzled.

"Didn't the Mantanshe Society support *Tokyo Literature*? Didn't they support *New*?"

Awazu Hideki shook his head.

"Master Akiwara, although the Mantanshe Society is one of the four major publishing houses, funds and energy are limited after all. If the strategic focus is placed on two different magazines, it will instead be at a disadvantage in the competition."

He took a sip of tea and continued to add.

"According to the information we obtained, the Mantanshe Society not only did not support *New*, but even reduced the budget for layout and manuscript fees to further strengthen the influence and publicity of *Tokyo Literature*."

Hearing this news, Akiwara Yuto began to think.

It seems that the Mantanshe Society's determination to reform literary journals this time is not small. It wants to tilt all resources to *Tokyo Literature* to maximize the market share of *Tokyo Literature*!

Although this approach is a bit of a gamble, after Akiwara Yuto thought about it, he instead thought this was the correct decision.

After all, what can support the sales of a magazine is still the quality of the works in the magazine.

But after he left *New*, the only one left who could be brought out was Kadowaki Yuzhen.

But even Kadowaki Yuzhen is only in the middle level among second-rate writers, right?

With the quality of his works, it is difficult for the sales of *New* to have any rapid development.

Rather than this, it is better to rely on *Tokyo Literature* well.

Serialized in *Tokyo Literature* now, besides Master Seto Tamae, there is also Nakata Keito, the signature writer of the original *April Youth*.

Coupled with the resources drawn from *New*, even if *Tokyo Literature* can surpass Toei Society's *Tokyo Youth* after a while, he wouldn't find it strange at all.

However, thinking that *New* would fall back to its original level, Akiwara Yuto couldn't help but feel a little sigh.

On the other side, Awazu Hideki turned around and took out a file bag from his briefcase.

Then he stood up, bowed deeply, and handed over the file bag.

"Master Akiwara, *April Youth* really needs your help now. This is the highest condition we can offer at present. If you are not satisfied, we can continue to modify it."

Akiwara Yuto was not surprised. After thinking simply, he reached out and took this legal document and began to read it.

According to the provisions of this contract, his manuscript fee is 50,000 yen per page, and as for royalties, it is set at 30% of the selling price, while the first and second use fees for film and television, etc., are not specifically restricted.

Akiwara Yuto was a little surprised and recalled the contract he signed with the Mantanshe Society when he first debuted—at that time, his manuscript fee was 7,000 yen per page, and the royalty was only 10%.

Compared with the conditions *April Youth* offered him now, it was simply not too far off.

Akiwara Yuto put down the document and began to think.

The other party has stated the reason and offered the conditions, should he agree or not? ===== CHAPTER 162 =====