Chapter 308: Needs Time

After Miyagi Kentaro praised it, he followed the procedure and recommended the book *All She Was Worth* to the candidate list.

And the members of the judging committee, after seeing this book, also showed different complex expressions.

Some were happy, some were disappointed, and some were embarrassed.

The happy ones were naturally the two judges of the social school; the book *All She Was Worth* described the era background of economic crisis and the expansion of personal desire, which was undoubtedly a masterpiece of the social school.

And the publication and winning of such a work would undoubtedly further enhance the status of the social school.

The disappointed ones were the judges of the Biange Sect and the court school, although the works they recommended had little hope of winning.

But because of the conflict between the social school and the Honkaku school, there was at least a glimmer of possibility.

Especially according to the new regulations of the judging committee, any judge must vote for two or more works.

But after seeing Akiwara Yuto's work shortlisted, they had completely given up on this plan.

The last embarrassed ones were the Honkaku school, or the three judges of traditional Honkaku.

In this selection, they tried their best to exclude New Honkaku authors from serving as judges, in order to make *The Tokyo Zodiac Murders* lose the qualification for the award, thereby reducing the influence of the New Honkaku school.

But they didn't expect that Akiwara Yuto would publish a new work again.

The only thing to be thankful for was that this work was social school.

So it could only be said that it wasn't a complete failure.

However, for the winner of this Uemura Prize, everyone already knew in their hearts.

A week later, the conference room on the third floor of Tsutaya Bookstore.

Akiwara Yuto, Nishijima Sota, and Asano Aiko held a meeting to study the first-week sales of *All She Was Worth*.

Asano Aiko took the document sent by the statistics department and read: "The first-week sales are about 50,000 copies, of which sales in Tokyo are 40,000 copies, and sales outside Tokyo are only 10,000 copies.

And according to the channel conversion, most of the books sold directly to bookstores have been cleared by 80%, and some bookstores have already called to order new ones. But the distributors have only cleared 40%, and have not been contacted yet."

Nishijima Sota was a bit puzzled: "Something is wrong, why is there such a big difference between the data of distributors and direct sales to bookstores."

According to reason, the market determines the sales of a book, so whether it is a distributor or a bookstore, the overall proportion should be balanced.

So if the bookstore side cleared 80%, then the distributor side should also clear 70% or 80%.

"Because Tokyo Hanbai and Nihon Hanbai played a little trick."

Akiwara Yuto took out two order books from his briefcase and handed them to the other two.

These two order books were sent by the two distributors, Tokyo Hanbai and Nihon Hanbai, to various cooperative bookstores, writing down all the book numbers and publisher information currently on sale.

And generally, if a bookstore wants to order books, it has to find the book on the order form and call the distributor to order it.

Nishijima Sota and Asano Aiko took the order books and looked at them carefully, but as they looked, both of them showed expressions of doubt and uncertainty.

Because on the first 10 pages of the order book, Akiwara Yuto's book *All She Was Worth* was not written at all, and it wasn't until the bottom of the 11th page that they saw the name of this book.

"Akiwara, we should go and protest against them!" Asano Aiko said indignantly.

The further back the position in the order book, the more it would be ignored by the bookstore manager.

And as a bestselling author, Akiwara Yuto should not enjoy this treatment.

Akiwara Yuto shook his head, "Asano, this is meaningless, after all, it is Jingfan Publisher that is pushing all this. If you look carefully, you will find that Jingfan Publisher's detective works are placed in the front of the order book."

Hearing this, Asano Aiko and Nishijima Sota lowered their heads to look further.

But as they looked, they found it more and more wrong.

On this order book, many works under Jingfan Publisher were ranked in the front, and even some unpopular works were ranked in the first 3 pages.

Along with it, all of Akiwara Yuto's previous works were also squeezed to the back.

Asano Aiko still wanted to say a few more words, but Akiwara Yuto waved his hand.

"Asano, all this is normal commercial competition, there is no question of whether it is fair or not.

If Jingfan Publisher doesn't do anything, their detective fiction market will be further occupied by us,

So it is also a normal behavior for them to rely on their shares in distributors to suppress us."

Regarding this matter, Akiwara Yuto saw it very openly.

After all, cutting off someone's wealth is like killing their parents. Jingfan Publisher pushing distributors to engage in commercial competition is also a very reasonable method.

However, he was no longer the writer who had just debuted.

Since they wanted to use the monopoly of distributors to suppress him, he would also use normal commercial means to break their monopoly.

Nishijima Sota sighed, "It seems that the pace of chain bookstores needs to be accelerated."

His mood was a bit complex.

One was that the publisher was booming but was targeted and suppressed by Jingfan Publisher, and the other was that the other party's suppression also proved the strength of Tsutaya Bookstore Publisher.

In short, being able to become an enemy of one of the four major publishers could be considered a kind of "glory."

"How is the progress of the chain bookstores now?"

Akiwara Yuto asked casually, and Nishijima Sota explained.

"Currently, the clerks of the direct-operated stores are being recruited, and more than 30 employees have been found for training, most of whom are university graduates, and a small part are original bookstore employees, and the location of the bookstores is also being checked."

"And for the cooperative part, Ms. Sugihara has contacted a batch of original bookstore practitioners, 50 of whom are willing to accept loans and open stores."

Nishijima Sota reported seriously.

He was actually not optimistic about this plan at the beginning, but as he came into contact with it more, he felt it was feasible.

And now because of the suppression of distributors, it is difficult to enter the market outside Tokyo.

Therefore, this method might be the only means.

Akiwara Yuto nodded, "When can the first direct-operated store open at the earliest?"

"The first one is planned to be set up near Yokohama National University, and it can open in 2 months at the earliest, and if you want to set up direct-operated stores in all prefectures nationwide, it will take another 5 months at the earliest."

Akiwara Yuto nodded, while thinking about the issue of time in his heart.

His *All She Was Worth* had been sent to be shortlisted for the Uemura Prize.

It is estimated that in 2 months, that is, at the end of November, it will be officially announced on the candidate list, and by February next year, the news of his winning the award will likely be officially on the newspaper.

Perhaps, he can achieve his goal through the Uemura Prize!

He thought for a while, and then said to Nishijima Sota: "President Nishijima, after the subsequent reprinting, I think we should reduce the supply of books to Tokyo Hanbai and Nihon Hanbai..."

Nishijima Sota and Asano Aiko showed puzzled eyes, and Akiwara Yuto explained.

In fact, his purpose was also very simple; the Uemura Prize was undoubtedly a good opportunity for the exposure of the work.

At that step, even if Tokyo Hanbai and Nihon Hanbai played tricks again, they could not stop this book from being known and ordered by bookstore managers in various places.

But if they found that there was no source of goods on the distributor side, they would inevitably call the publisher here.

And with orders and contacts, the publisher could completely cast aside the distributors in the future and achieve direct sales to bookstores in various places.

However, before that, he must first build the channels and network.

In short, all he needs to do now is wait for time! ===== CHAPTER 309 =====