Chapter 290

Facing the invitation from Akiwara Yuto to become president, Nishijima Sōta hesitated for a long time, but in the end, he agreed.

Because besides the status of president, he could also receive a certain amount of dry share dividends at the end of the year based on the publisher's performance.

Immediately after, the news that Nishijima Sōta had succeeded Anjiu Jin Gangyi as president and Asano Aiko had become vice president was known to all the publisher's employees.

As for the news that "Anjiu Bookstore" was renamed "Tsutaya Bookstore," not many people paid attention to it.

After all, Nishijima Sōta was the original head of the marketing department, and the news of him serving as president was quickly accepted by most employees.

It was just that Asano Aiko serving as vice president made many people let their imaginations run wild and become suspicious.

Akiwara Yuto had no intention of coming forward to explain; he just let Nishijima Sōta arrange the publishing work with Asano as soon as possible and remove Anjiu Jin Gangyi's original "confidants," such as the original heads of finance and personnel.

Immediately after, the new Tsutaya Bookstore publishing house began to work at full speed on the publication of the book "A Personal Matter."

Because the word count of this book was relatively small, in less than a week, the proofreading, typesetting, printing, cover design, and other work were completed, and 60,000 copies were prepared for the first edition to be released.

However, before the official release, a very serious problem was encountered.

Monday afternoon, the third-floor conference room of Tsutaya Bookstore, the atmosphere was very oppressive.

At the conference table, Akiwara Yuto sat in the main seat, looking down and flipping through a document submitted by Nishijima Sōta. Nishijima Sōta sat next to him, while Asano Aiko, Satake Maki, and others sat in the lower seats.

This was an internal meeting, and the main task was to discuss the sales volume of the first edition.

After Akiwara Yuto put down the document with a solemn expression, he said in a voice that could not tell whether he was happy or angry: "President Nishijima, is the order volume from the distributors only half of the original?"

For the circulation of books in Nihon, distributors are a very important channel.

In other words, most publishers and bookstores often only deal with book distributors, and the model is "Publisher—Distributor—Bookstore."

The reason for the birth of this model is that the Nihon market has nearly 500,000 types of books and more than 3,000 types of magazines in circulation every year. For some bookstores and publishers, it is very difficult to find the other party to cooperate individually.

And because of cost reasons, in the continuous development, the distributor system gradually formed two major monopoly enterprises, namely the Tokyo Distribution and Nihon Distribution companies.

Nishijima Sōta felt a bit guilty; after all, it was the first job he handled after becoming president, and as a result, this slip-up occurred.

However, he still told the truth: "Yes, Tokyo Distribution proposed to order 3,000 copies, and Nihon Distribution proposed to order 7,000 copies, both of which have dropped by a significant proportion compared to before."

"What is their reason?"

"The people in charge on both sides believe that 'A Personal Matter' is traditional literature, and the sales volume will definitely be limited."

After hearing this, Akiwara Yuto was silent; this was undoubtedly just an excuse.

Before this, his own "Snow Country" was also traditional literature and sold well. And at that time, they did not reduce the procurement volume because of any claim about traditional literature.

And all this happened after he acquired Anjiu Bookstore, which was too coincidental, right?

Akiwara Yuto had a suspicious target in his heart, but he skipped this point first and just asked: "President Nishijima, then for the remaining 50,000 copies, what channel do you plan to use to sell them out?"

Nishijima Sōta and Asano Aiko looked at each other, and then replied: "Teacher Akiwara, we are preparing to see if we can sell 30,000 copies through a reading session, and then keep the remaining 20,000 copies as bookstore inventory."

After hearing this, Akiwara Yuto didn't even raise his head and just asked calmly: "Can a reading session sell 30,000 copies?"

The so-called reading session is actually the publisher finding a bunch of bookstores with good relationships to come and support the scene.

But Anjiu Bookstore, or the current Tsutaya Bookstore, only has good relationships with about a hundred bookstores in the Tokyo area.

If they want to sell 30,000 copies, it means that each of them must order at least 300 copies or more.

You must know that "A Personal Matter" is only traditional literature, and the order quantity for each store will definitely not be as high as detective fiction; being able to have a hundred copies can be considered as fulfilling the favor.

The atmosphere in the conference room cooled down, Nishijima Sōta felt guilty and didn't speak, while Asano Aiko stood up and replied: "Akiwara, we will try our best on our side."

Akiwara Yuto heard these words and could only nod hesitantly.

He knew he was being a bit unreasonable; the decrease in distributor orders was very likely due to Jingfan Society causing trouble behind the scenes.

So to tell the truth, it couldn't be blamed on Nishijima Sōta.

However, not having an immediate solution to this matter still made him feel a bit unhappy.

Akiwara Yuto thought for a while and then made a suggestion: "President Nishijima, if we establish channels with all bookstores individually, how much cost is expected to be spent?"

Nishijima Sōta heard this proposal and immediately shook his head: "Teacher Akiwara, this is not feasible! There are more than 30,000 bookstores and more than 50,000 agency sales outlets in all of Nihon. If we rely on ourselves to establish channels, the cost is too expensive."

He paused and then said: "And many advance payments and settlement payments must allow distributors to assume the intermediary function. If we do it ourselves, it will occupy the existing operating funds."

After hearing this, Akiwara Yuto did not feel frustrated but began to ponder in his heart.

Tokyo Distribution and Nihon Distribution occupy the bulk of the market, representing the procurement business of many bookstores, but there are still about 8,000 bookstores that procure goods themselves or cooperate with other distributors.

So he could find a way out and strengthen cooperation with these distributors.

Besides that, there is competition between Tokyo Distribution and Nihon Distribution, and perhaps he could visit one of them and strengthen sales through exclusive cooperation.

However, before this, he still had to determine how Jingfan Society influences Tokyo Distribution and Nihon Distribution.

After clearing his thoughts, Akiwara Yuto said to Nishijima Sōta: "President Nishijima, let's do the channels on the publisher's side according to what you want to do, but I have one requirement."

Nishijima Sōta had just let out a sigh of relief in his heart, and then it tightened again: "Please go ahead."

"Within these 2 weeks, compile the contact information of all distributors on the market and estimate how much their sales volume is respectively. Besides that, help me make appointments with the people in charge of Tokyo Distribution and Nihon Distribution separately."

Nishijima Sōta quickly understood Akiwara Yuto's plan and nodded in agreement.

Time quickly reached next Tuesday, Akiwara Yuto and Nishijima Sōta, together with gifts, arrived at the headquarters building of Tokyo Distribution...