Chapter 315: The Encouraged Crowd

The second floor of Tsutaya Bookstore.

In the large conference room, all the employees sat upright, listening intently to Sugihara Aisa’s report on the effectiveness of the channel establishment.

Akiwara Yuto was naturally no exception, sitting in the front row next to Nishijima Sota; the other employees were also accustomed to this sight.

Although Akiwara Yuto held no official position within the publishing house, everyone knew he was the true owner of this enterprise.

Sugihara Aisa stood on the stage and spoke in a voice that everyone could hear.

"Currently, our second-hand bookstore chain has relevant direct-operated stores or franchises in major regions such as Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki, and Chugoku, but we are still accelerating our layout in Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu, Okinawa, and other areas."

"In short, we have gained a foothold in 23 of the country's 43 first-level administrative districts. Among them, 30% of the bookstores have already begun to see successive profits."

Upon hearing this result, expressions of excitement appeared on the faces of everyone in the room.

After all, this meant that Tsutaya Bookstore had begun to take its most critical step in warehousing and distribution channels.

After Sugihara Aisa finished her speech, Kuda Kenichi, who had returned from out of town, also stood up and walked to the front of the crowd.

"In the Osaka and Kyoto markets, we have built a direct sales model with about 60% of large bookstores, and under the influence of these large bookstores, some medium-sized independent bookstores have also begun to send in orders one after another."

"In addition to this, other regions have also seen steady growth in orders due to continuous visits."

He paused and added, "At present, even without relying on the two major distributor systems, we have established direct cooperative relationships with nearly 3,500 bookstores."

Listening to this good news, Akiwara Yuto felt encouraged as well.

He had originally thought it would take a very long time to reach this point, as the two giant distributors had monopolized the entire market for over half a century.

But he had not expected that it would take only a few months to so easily establish relationships with 3,500 bookstores.

This number was already equivalent to one-ninth of the total number of bookstores in all of Japan!

However, he was also clear that this was inseparable from the current supply-demand imbalance of "Snow Country" and the strategy of free ordering.

But regardless, it could already be considered a success!

If he were home alone, he would probably open a bottle of red wine to celebrate immediately!

Nishijima Sota did not worry too much and laughed directly; as the president of Tsutaya Bookstore Publishing, he was naturally happy to see the bookstore's scale growing larger and larger.

Asano Aiko and Satake Maki exchanged glances, both showing expressions of relief.

During this period, because of the constant suppression by Keihan Publishing and the two distributors, they had both secretly worried about the future of the publishing house.

And the series of suggestions Akiwara Yuto had proposed were things they had never heard of before.

So, after proving that these methods could succeed, a heavy stone in their hearts was finally lifted.

Seeing that their superiors had expressed their approval, the ordinary employees also showed joyful expressions, and some even applauded each other.

In this era where the seniority-based wage system was still practiced, their entire lives were already deeply tied to the enterprise.

Not to mention the current economic downturn; if Tsutaya Bookstore were to go bankrupt, they would likely be unable to find another job.

Therefore, they naturally felt the same way about all the good news for the bookstore.

In short, everyone present felt a sense of relief, and under Akiwara Yuto's signal, Nishijima Sota even directly announced that a celebration party would be held later to commemorate the current achievements.

However, Nishijima Sota was still worried that everyone would slack off, so he requested that they must still do their jobs well.

After all, only 23 bookstores had been opened so far, which was still a distance from 43, not to mention the four major regions where the market was still a complete blank slate.

Akiwara Yuto looked at the noisy scene, the corners of his mouth curling up.

For him, everything was moving in a positive direction.

Regarding Tsutaya Bookstore's move to build its own channels, neither Tokyo Publishing Sales nor Japan Publishing Sales had reacted in time.

After all, in terms of business volume, compared to manga, romance, or girls' magazines, mystery publications occupied too small a market, accounting for less than 4% of their respective total business volumes.

So even if they learned that Tsutaya Bookstore had established a direct sales system, the two giant distributors probably would not pay much attention to it.

Besides, Tsutaya Bookstore was not a distributor, and it was not just them who were establishing direct sales businesses.

At the same time, Keihan Publishing, through commercial espionage, had actually learned some specific details.

However, after investigating, Keihan Publishing found that they had no way to deal with Tsutaya Bookstore.

As a publishing house, although they were in the upstream of the publishing industry chain, they had no direct connection with those bookstores that were their customers; they could not threaten these bookstores and demand that they not order Akiwara Yuto's works.

If they really did that, they would likely be cursed at by all the bookstores in Japan tomorrow, and might even face boycotts from readers.

As an enterprise that relied on its reputation, they naturally could not be so overbearing, otherwise, they would only end up like Mantan Publishing did back then.

On the other side, after everyone had left, Akiwara Yuto sat alone in the reception room, holding the sales data for "Snow Country," and began to ponder.

From the time it was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award until now, "Snow Country" had sold a total of over 400,000 copies; although by the standards of traditional literature, this was definitely a big hit.

But compared to the overwhelming publicity outside, this number was still somewhat low.

In fact, he was also clear that the reason for this low number was because shipments to the distributors had been restricted.

In fact, after the sixth printing, the two distributors could only receive about 10,000 copies per batch each, and cumulatively, they had only been given less than 100,000 copies.

Therefore, many bookstores across the country wanted to order the book but could not buy it.

Akiwara Yuto did not regret it; if he hadn't done so, it wouldn't have been so easy to establish direct sales channels with 3,500 bookstores so quickly.

In short, the market channels were now gradually being established, which could be considered achieving the result he wanted.

However, this matter was not over yet; he had not forgotten that Keihan Publishing was the mastermind behind all these troublesome things.

Once the selection results for the Uemura Prize for the book "The Train" were out, he would definitely use the secondary exposure brought by the Uemura Prize to strike a blow at the other party's arrogance in the mystery publication market!

If he wanted to truly change the situation in the publishing industry, he had to start from the mystery publication market!

Once he gained a foothold in the mystery standalone book market, he would continue to attack Keihan Publishing's other publishing fields!