Chapter 301: The Ability to Help Everyone

In the conference room on the third floor of Tsutaya Bookstore,

Akiwara Yuto and Asano Aiko arrived at the president's office and met with Sota Nishijima.

Upon seeing Akiwara Yuto, Sota Nishijima wore a complex expression.

He had only learned about Akiwara Yuto's film project later on.

Regarding this matter, he had once thought the other party was neglecting his proper work.

He believed Akiwara Yuto was a complete sucker, having been swindled by others into investing and filming.

But unexpectedly, this film was now so popular that he could even see related reviews in the newspaper every day.

How was this guy's brain wired?

He pushed this thought aside, invited the two to sit down, and had his secretary come in to brew two cups of tea.

Immediately after, he took out two documents and placed them on the coffee table.

"Akiwara-sensei, Asano-san, this is the opening plan I've formulated for the second-hand bookstores; please take a look."

Although he spoke politely, he felt quite confident inside.

Because this document was the result of him running around to more than 10 cities over the past two weeks.

It was basically done after investigating the local market conditions to find the locations with the highest cost-performance ratio.

On the other side, Akiwara Yuto took the documents and began his review.

He attached great importance to this plan.

After the two distributors, Tokyo Sales and Neon Sales, adopted a "passive" attitude toward cooperation, he had to find another way to seek out channels to sell the books.

Among these channels, they were divided into two distribution markets: the Tokyo metropolitan area and outside the Tokyo area.

The Tokyo metropolitan area was undoubtedly the most important; although its population only accounted for one-fourth of the total population of Neon, its per capita GDP and consumption power were the highest.

Therefore, of the 3 million books sold by the publishing house last year, 1.6 million were sold here.

And outside the Tokyo metropolitan area, besides the two main markets of Daban and Kyoto, there were numerous individual prefectures.

While Akiwara Yuto and Asano Aiko were reading the documents, Sota Nishijima also began to explain simultaneously.

"According to Akiwara Yuto-sensei's requirements, the current sales method is still primarily through telephone and mail orders, so I plan to set up a dedicated office within the publishing house to handle calls from various places.

To facilitate the logistics and transportation of the publishing house's books, I am currently preparing to open a bookstore containing a larger warehouse in each of the 47 first-level administrative districts to serve as transfer points for the distribution network.

Because bookstore sales are not the primary goal, I suggest making the bookstore scale smaller and increasing the warehouse capacity to achieve the purpose of saving funds."

After hearing these words, Akiwara Yuto raised his head and glanced at him.

"President Nishijima, do you not hold a positive view of the future of the second-hand book market?"

Sota Nishijima replied: "That is not the case; it is just that the book funds are insufficient."

"How much is left now?"

"Only about 150 million yen."

Akiwara Yuto asked: "Then is the existing cost for opening the stores enough?"

After all, for opening stores, besides rent, there were also labor costs and initial renovation costs.

Sota Nishijima said with difficulty: "I personally suggest mortgaging part of the assets of Tsutaya Bookstore to the bank to obtain some capital for circulation."

Akiwara Yuto laughed in spite of himself; the most valuable thing Tsutaya Bookstore had now was the distribution rights for the batch of books on hand.

But if the copyrights were mortgaged to the bank again, who knew what kind of trouble Jingfan Press might stir up.

So he also heard the implication in Sota Nishijima's words, which was the hope that he could further inject capital to realize this plan.

Asano Aiko naturally heard this meaning too, so she looked at Akiwara Yuto with an inquiring gaze.

Akiwara Yuto thought for a moment and then asked: "President Nishijima, who do you think would be suitable as the person in charge of this bookstore chain business?"

Opening a bookstore sounded simple, but every trade had its own tricks.

However, the people around Akiwara Yuto were basically all in the publishing industry and lacked knowledge of specific bookstore management methods.

If he didn't find a specialist to do this, the final outcome would likely be all his efforts coming to nothing.

Sota Nishijima hesitated for a moment and said: "Sorry, I have no suitable candidates to recommend."

He was actually lying; after all, having been in the publishing industry for so many years, he naturally knew many suitable bookstore operators.

But the people he recommended would very likely be considered his own faction.

At present, all the business of the publishing house was under his responsibility; if he reached his hand into the distribution channels as well, it might provoke Akiwara Yuto's suspicion.

He did not want to follow the same path as Goichi Akutsu.

Akiwara Yuto was naturally not stupid and heard the meaning in his words.

However, he didn't intend to break it down; after all, in his view, the bookstore industry was currently in the dead of winter, with bookstores closing down and laying off staff every day.

It wouldn't necessarily be that hard for him to find a few suitable candidates.

"Let's stop here for now," Akiwara Yuto waved his hand and left the publishing house.

He prepared to ask some acquaintances over the next two days to see if there were any suitable personnel recommendations.

……

8:00 PM, Adachi Ward, Tokyo, Sagara Izakaya.

Sugihara Aisa, who worked as a bookstore clerk, wore a dress and arrived on the second floor of this izakaya.

On the second floor, a group of men and women were already sitting and chatting; one of the women saw Sugihara Aisa and hurriedly waved: "Aisa-chan, over here, over here!"

Sugihara Aisa breathed a sigh of relief, hurried over to sit down, and took off her coat.

"Come, come, have a drink!" A square-faced man in his 30s opposite her smiled and poured wine into the glass in front of Sugihara, and Sugihara Aisa immediately smiled and said "Thank you."

Soon, dishes and other food were served one by one by the waiter, and everyone chatted while drinking.

Looking at the lively scene in front of her, Sugihara Aisa sighed in her heart.

"So many old faces are missing again this year!"

In Neon, there had always been a tradition of industry mixers, the main purpose of which was to build connections, while the secondary purpose was matchmaking.

As a leftover bookstore clerk, Sugihara Aisa naturally participated in several industry mixers organized by the bookstore industry every year.

But what made her feel a bit uncomfortable was that there were fewer and fewer familiar people.

She thought for a moment and still asked her good friend: "Why didn't Misato-chan come?"

"She was laid off by the bookstore, so she went home to continue running the inn."

"What about Kusei-kun?"

"He hasn't received his salary for three months; I don't know where he went."

"Then..."

"Don't ask, just drink properly!"

Her friend put an arm around Sugihara Aisa's shoulder, urging her to drink together.

But Sugihara Aisa always felt that her friend was just deliberately "anesthetizing herself" to force herself to forget these things.

Looking at the lively scene at the venue, she didn't know why, but she felt a sense of sorrow in her heart.

If only she had the ability to help everyone, how good that would be!

But what she didn't know was that this opportunity would come very soon!