Chapter 170: Polarization of reader opinions

Time passed quickly. After Akiwara Yuto submitted the manuscripts for the next two issues, the second and third issues of *April Youth* were also sold in the following two weeks.

In the second week, the sales of *April Youth* grew from 100,000 copies to 120,000. By the third week, it grew from 120,000 copies to 130,000.

Although the trend was generally upward, according to the data, the growth rate of each week was shrinking...

Tuesday morning, Chiyoda Ward, Kejiaoguan Headquarters, *April Youth* Editorial Department.

Akiwara Yuto sat in Dacheng Lixiang's office, discussing the issue of sales.

Dacheng Lixiang brought a statistical table and placed it in front of Akiwara Yuto.

"Master Akiwara, this is the daily sales table for last week sent by the statistics department."

Akiwara Yuto took the statistical table and began to read.

But as he read, he couldn't help but feel a bit puzzled.

Judging from the data of last week, the first-day sales were about 30,000 copies, and then decreased by a certain margin every day. By Sunday, sales were only about 6,000 copies.

How come this data doesn't match the daily sales curve of *New* before? It dropped a bit too fast, right?

Is it a book review problem?

He thought for a moment and asked again: "Editor-in-Chief Dacheng, are there any book review-related reports about *April Youth* recently?"

Dacheng Lixiang nodded, dialed an internal phone, and ordered Awazu Hideki to send a pile of newspapers.

Akiwara Yuto took the newspapers and read them carefully.

He was surprised to find that the book reviews on these newspaper layouts were basically publicity investments funded by the Kejiaoguan itself, and the release time was basically on Monday.

The book reviews that spontaneously promoted the work *The Invisible Guest* were not only few in number, but the writing style was also a bit restrained.

For example, in the *Osaka News*, the title of the book review was *Akiwara Yuto's

Although the title was somewhat sensational, the book review content inside merely described the background of the work simply and did not delve into it much. Moreover, from beginning to end, the article never once mentioned the word "recommend."

After reading the entire book review, Akiwara Yuto was even more confused.

When he originally released the "Zoo" series in "New," every single piece had been spontaneously recommended by quite a few reviewers. It made no sense that now that his fame had grown significantly, there were so many fewer book reviews.

If it weren't for the fact that Kejia Hall had poured a significant amount of money into promotion, it is estimated that there would be even fewer book reviews promoting his work.

Could it be that this adapted work, "The Invisible Guest," is truly suffering from a lack of local appeal?

He thought for a moment, then turned to Editor-in-Chief Dacheng, who was sitting across from him, and raised his doubts.

"Akiwara-sensei, you are indeed mistaken about this point."

Upon hearing Akiwara Yuto's doubts, Dacheng Lixiang laughed instead.

In her view, the current steady growth in sales of "April Youth," as long as it could eventually stabilize at around 150,000 copies, was already enough to maintain its status as one of the four major literary journals.

Therefore, she believed that this result was not bad at all and had completely met her expectations.

She took out several other newspapers, spread them on the coffee table between the two, and said, "Akiwara-sensei, take a look at these and see if you have any different discoveries."

Akiwara Yuto was somewhat puzzled, but he looked at them anyway. After finishing all the newspapers, he replied uncertainly, "It seems the culture-related sections have increased quite a bit?"

Dacheng Lixiang replied, "You are right. Now, because of the competition among the four major literary journals, all major publishers have increased their investment in book reviews. Therefore, space resources are limited. If you put it this way, you should understand now, right?"

Akiwara Yuto thought for a while and soon understood what she meant.

When he published the "Zoo" series, the competition among literary journals was not as intense as it was now.

Therefore, there was still plenty of empty space in the various newspapers at that time, allowing his work to be effectively promoted.

But now, because major publishers were all running advertisements, the space in newspapers had decreased significantly. Therefore, even if reviewers wanted to recommend his work, they would be limited by the space.

Akiwara Yuto subconsciously frowned.

If this was the case, it would likely be much harder for "The Invisible Guest" to replicate the sales turnaround of the "Zoo" series.

Seeing the expression on Akiwara Yuto's face, Dacheng Lixiang added.

"Akiwara-sensei, regarding the promotion of 'The Invisible Guest,' Kejia Hall will continue to invest resources. In addition, the corresponding autograph session will be arranged for next Thursday. Please be prepared by then."

Akiwara Yuto nodded to indicate he understood, but his mind kept thinking about another question.

Besides the reason that book reviews were now highly competitive, did the fact that "The Invisible Guest" could not get promotion also have something to do with the content of the work itself?

Bidding farewell to Dacheng Lixiang, Akiwara Yuto left Kejia Hall.

He prepared to search online to see what everyone's opinions were on this work.

After a 20-minute car ride, he arrived at the internet cafe he frequented, paid at the front desk, walked into a cubicle, and turned on the computer.

Akiwara Yuto thought for a moment, registered a new account named "Jiecheng Lidu," logged into a detective-related online forum, and entered the keyword "The Invisible Guest."

After waiting for more than 10 seconds, the search results appeared, with about forty or fifty entries from top to bottom.

Akiwara Yuto clicked the mouse and began to browse. After filtering through them, he opened the post with the highest popularity.

The title of this post was "My Personal Thoughts on Akiwara-sensei's New Work," and the content was very long, about 3,000 words.

At the beginning, the author stated their identity, saying they had started paying attention to Akiwara Yuto because of the work "Suspect X," and had read the series of works Akiwara Yuto had released previously, so they could be considered a loyal reader.

But regarding this "The Invisible Guest," this author expressed some dissatisfaction.

Seeing this, Akiwara Yuto became confused. Dissatisfied? Why?

He thought for a moment and continued reading.

In the latter part of the post, the author gave specific reasons, believing that this detective work differed too much from Akiwara Yuto's previous style and contained a technique of being deliberately mysterious.

It was neither honkaku nor social, and all the clues were hidden so tightly that one had to keep following the client's words to discover them.

But even these clues were not necessarily true.

Below this post, there were many agreeing replies, and some even suggested that Akiwara-sensei might have fallen into a creative slump, which was why he wrote such a work.

This claim was agreed with by many, as few writers could consistently publish excellent works.

Akiwara Yuto frowned as he looked around and found that the replies below this post were all stating this same viewpoint; even if someone expressed support, they were immediately "refuted" by another group.

Could it really be a lack of local appeal? After reading all the replies, Akiwara Yuto could not help but start thinking.

He closed this post and opened another popular one, but he was surprised to find that the author of this post actually expressed great appreciation for "The Invisible Guest."

"I have been a reader of 'April Youth' for a long time and had not read Akiwara-sensei's works before this. But I believe 'The Invisible Guest' is a unique work and should not be overly criticized."

"For a long time, Japanese honkaku works have mostly used the narrative technique where a detective discovers a crime scene and then begins to solve the mystery. Looking at 'The Invisible Guest,' it actually adopts a narrative plus Q&A technique to reveal the case."

"I believe this breakthrough in traditional techniques is truly worthy of admiration! And for me, being able to explore the true and false clues between the words while following the two people's dialogue is a very fun thing!"

Unlike the previous post, most people below this post expressed support, and some even said they were curious and would specifically go buy a copy.

Akiwara Yuto nodded with satisfaction, but then he thought of another question.

Why were the opinions of readers on this work so polarized?

He put down the mouse, closed his eyes, and thought, finally reaching two conclusions.

The first conclusion was that the narrative technique of this work was indeed different from the current mainstream narrative techniques, so it caused a certain reading barrier for some readers.

The second conclusion was that this work had only been serialized for 3 issues so far. But what was truly shocking was the story reversal brought about in the final few issues!

Only when the truth was truly revealed would the content in this story truly shock all readers.

Therefore, it was far from time to admit defeat! He still needed more patience.

Having reached this conclusion, Akiwara Yuto closed the computer and prepared to leave.

Rather than worrying, it was better to write the manuscripts for the subsequent issues early.

While Akiwara Yuto was writing diligently at home, the sales statistics for "April Youth" appeared almost simultaneously before the editors-in-chief of the other three major literary journals.

And regarding this change in sales for "April Youth," each editorial department had different views.

For example, the editorial department of "Literary Spring" at Jingfan Publishing specifically held a regular meeting to analyze Akiwara Yuto's "The Invisible Guest"...