Chapter 162: The Choice for the Next Work

7: 0 PM, Chiyoda Ward, Garden Family Restaurant.

"Asano, regarding the invitation from *April Youth*, do you think I should accept it?"

After finishing dinner, Akiwara Yuto put down his knife and fork, wiped his mouth, and asked.

Sitting across from him was Asano Aiko, who had just returned from Anjiu Bookstore.

After Awazu Hideki extended the invitation to him, he did not agree immediately; instead, he sent the other party away with the excuse of needing to consider it, and arrived at this family restaurant at the appointed time.

Asano Aiko put down her teacup, thought for a moment, and then replied, "Akiwara, what is your own take on this?"

Akiwara Yuto pondered, lowering his head to think.

To be honest, he didn't think much of the manuscript fees and royalties offered by *April Youth* at the moment.

After all, besides the channel of Anjiu Bookstore, he had also begun to attract the attention of quite a few book critics.

Through the promotion of these channels and critics, the revenue his own works could bring him was far greater than working for someone else.

However, if he cooperated with them, he estimated he could gain a favor.

After all, adding flowers to a brocade is far less valuable than providing charcoal in snowy weather.

Although the sales of *April Youth* had dropped quite a bit, it was still a magazine under Kejiaoguan, one of the four major publishing houses.

Seeing that Akiwara Yuto was still pondering, Asano Aiko continued.

"Akiwara, I think we should modify the contract and limit the scope of cooperation to serialization only, excluding other aspects."

Akiwara Yuto was a bit puzzled upon hearing this, but he quickly realized what she meant.

"Asano, you mean to keep the rights for the collected volume and subsidiary rights like film and television adaptations in our own hands."

Asano Aiko nodded and added, "As a large publishing house, Kejiaoguan definitely has limits on royalty splits. I think 30% is already the ceiling; it's hard to make them concede any further."

"Since that's the case, Akiwara, you only need to serialize it. After all, what they value most is the work's effect on boosting the sales of *April Youth*, right?"

Akiwara Yuto nodded; if that were the case, it would be barely acceptable.

He could fully utilize the serialization to make a work famous in *April Youth*, and then publish the work at his own expense through the Anjiu Bookstore channel.

Following this operation, he could balance both the favor of Kejiaoguan and the benefits of the collected volume.

Asano Aiko smiled.

"Akiwara, besides what I just said, the work on the book *Death by Negligence* is also progressing steadily. If you intend to release another work, the current promotional resources of Anjiu Bookstore might not be able to cover it..."

After hearing this explanation, Akiwara Yuto also showed an embarrassed expression.

He had indeed overlooked this point. Generally speaking, when an author releases a collected volume, they usually only put one out every so often so that they can fully utilize the promotional resources.

So if he were to release another work now, it would be a bit like crashing into himself.

Looking at it this way, accepting the invitation from *April Youth* would actually help him get through this gap period...

Akiwara Yuto took a sip of water and said.

"Asano, I understand. Then I will contact that editor, Awazu, in these two days."

After confirming his thoughts, Akiwara Yuto and Asano Aiko chatted briefly about other aspects of cooperation with Anjiu Bookstore.

But what puzzled him was that Asano Aiko said that although the employees at Anjiu Bookstore were serious about their work, they were all a bit gossipy, which made her feel somewhat depressed.

Akiwara Yuto was a bit confused after hearing this; in his impression, those people shouldn't be like that, right?

Never mind, as long as it didn't affect his book releases, it would be fine.

Akiwara Yuto shook his head, said goodbye to Asano Aiko, and walked toward his home.

After a 15-minute walk, he sat down at his desk on the second floor again.

What should he write for the next book?

Akiwara Yuto held his pen, looked at the paper on the desk, and fell into thought.

Now that he was cooperating with *April Youth*, there was no need to bring out any particularly classic works.

Since that was the case, should he stick to his previous idea and continue to adapt a foreign mystery work?

Anyway, *April Youth* only required him to serialize it; they didn't stipulate what he had to write.

Akiwara Yuto nodded and made the decision to use *April Youth* as an experimental field.

That said, what exactly should he write?

He gripped his pen and wrote the names of three mystery works on the paper: *Murder on the Orient Express*, *Witness for the Prosecution*, and *And Then There Were None*.

These three works were all by the Queen of Mystery, Agatha, and this author was also very popular in Japan in his past life.

*Murder on the Orient Express* tells the story of a murder that occurred on the luxury train "Orient Express," recounting how the great detective Poirot cleared away the heavy fog on the murderous train and finally locked onto the real culprit among twelve suspects.

In his past life, this work was adapted into a local version by Japan.

Although he hadn't seen the Japanese adaptation, he only needed to adjust the protagonist's background and the era in this story.

So the difficulty of adaptation wouldn't be very high.

*Witness for the Prosecution* tells of a man accused of murdering a wealthy woman; although the man repeatedly claimed he was innocent, his wife appeared in court to testify that he was the murderer.

It wasn't until the appearance of a mysterious woman that things took a turn...

This story involves the court and jurisprudence, so it would be a bit troublesome to adapt.

To do a good job with the adaptation, he might need to gain a deeper understanding of Japan's judicial and legal systems.

As for *And Then There Were None*, it tells of eight strangers invited to a black island in the sea; after they arrived, they were greeted by a butler couple.

After that, these 10 people began to die one by one...

This story involves nursery rhyme murders, and he would need to search Japanese folklore to see if there were any similar ballads.

Besides that, it also involves a lot of other social, legal, and medical knowledge.

It seems the difficulty of adaptation is still a bit high.

Akiwara Yuto frowned and pondered. He suddenly thought of a problem: although these three works were from a long time ago, they were still very classic, and giving them to *April Youth* felt a bit wasteful.

Then what should he do? He couldn't just write an original one, could he?

Just then, a plot suddenly flashed into his mind.

A murder occurred in a closed hotel room: a female photographer was killed, but apart from her, there was only her wealthy lover in the room.

After the police arrived at the scene, they quickly detained the lover and believed he was the murderer.

Facing the police's accusations, the lover naturally refused to give up and hired a lawyer, claiming he was framed and that the murderer was someone else.

But what puzzled the lawyer was that the room's doors and windows were all tightly closed; it was a complete locked-room mystery.

How about this work?

In terms of the murder method and legal knowledge, it seems there isn't much difficulty in adapting it?

Akiwara Yuto weighed it for a while and then wrote the name of this work on the paper—*The Invisible Guest*.

Immediately after, he buried his head and began to write.

For a time, only the "swish" sound of the pen tip moving could be heard in the room...