Chapter 319: Where is the Breakthrough Point?

Jingfan Publishing, President's Office.

As the president, Honda Kohei looked at the documents in his hands, frowned, and said, "Executive Director Hosome, is the market share of mystery paperbacks truly beyond saving?"

Hosome Reiko answered uneasily, "Looking at the current situation, it will be difficult to surpass Tsutaya Bookstore in the short term.

After the Uemura Prize results were announced, readers have become even more interested in Akiwara Yuto, which has driven sales for all of his works."

Honda Kohei raised his head and stared closely at his female subordinate for a moment, only asking after she became anxious, "What about the distribution channels?"

"According to the intelligence we have gathered, Tsutaya Bookstore is now establishing its own distribution channels and can sell books without relying on distributors, so there is nothing we can do."

Hearing his subordinate's excuse, Honda Kohei raised his head and narrowed his eyes.

"Executive Director, you have failed in your duties; I am very disappointed."

After a pause, he added, "What I wanted to hear was not that there is nothing you can do."

Hosome Reiko became even more terrified.

To successfully suppress Tsutaya Bookstore, Jingfan Publishing had not only set up a special department and budget for her but even mobilized the connections of two major distributors; yet, despite all this, she had still failed.

She gritted her teeth and proposed another method, "Perhaps we could find some dirt and manipulate his personal reputation."

"How?"

Honda Kohei asked, tapping his fingers on the desk as he spoke.

"I believe we could find some tabloids to fabricate rumors about Akiwara Yuto's chaotic private life, such as how many mistresses he has, or perhaps illegitimate children."

"Fabricate?" Honda Kohei stopped his movements and asked, "Have you not found anything real?"

Hosome Reiko gritted her teeth and said unwillingly, "No, we failed."

She had hired two private investigators to dig deep into Akiwara Yuto's life, but the results left her completely speechless.

He had achieved success at a young age, was wealthy and famous; logically, he should be young, frivolous, and out having affairs, but unexpectedly, he did not drink, did not smoke, and did not even associate with women.

As far as she knew, he did not even have a romantic partner, which made people suspicious of his sexual orientation.

One must know that with Akiwara Yuto's net worth and status, he was a highly sought-after catch. As long as he crooked his finger, plenty of people would be willing to come to him.

Even the popular actresses in the entertainment industry today probably wouldn't refuse his pursuit.

After all, in Japan, the status and net worth of a famous author are far higher than those of an entertainer. If they were to date or marry Akiwara Yuto, many of these entertainers would likely be willing to give up their careers to become housewives.

Therefore, in Hosome Reiko's view, the only way to smear Akiwara Yuto now was to fabricate some groundless news.

"Even if we smear Akiwara Yuto's private life, will it have any impact on his book sales?" Honda Kohei said coldly.

Many Japanese authors lead chaotic lives; even when the public sees it, they just criticize them for a moment and then go back to what they were doing.

In such a situation, even if it were exposed that Akiwara Yuto had mistresses and illegitimate children, he might not be the worst of the lot.

"Actually, it would still be somewhat useful," Hosome Reiko argued,

"Because Akiwara Yuto is young and wealthy, he has accumulated a group of loyal female readers. If a scandal about illegitimate children and mistresses were exposed, this group of readers would likely be disappointed and leave him."

Honda Kohei looked at her with a disappointed gaze and said, "Executive Director Hosome, I do not object to your smearing of Akiwara Yuto, but the angle you chose is wrong."

"Wrong?" Hosome Reiko was somewhat confused, and her heart began to flutter with anxiety.

"Akiwara Yuto is an author, and for an author, the most important thing is his work," Honda Kohei nodded slightly, "Since that is the case, you should attack him on his writing talent."

"What do you mean?" Hosome Reiko asked, puzzled.

"Are you an idiot?" Honda Kohei turned to look at her, "Find some experts to criticize his works for having problematic ideologies, or find someone to directly claim that Akiwara Yuto is plagiarizing or using a ghostwriter."

"Isn't that much more useful than what you were thinking of?" His voice became much harsher.

For Jingfan Publishing, although the mystery paperback market is not the one with the highest sales volume, it is the one with the most lucrative profits.

Especially by adapting mystery novels into film and television dramas, it has brought a lot of extra additional revenue to Jingfan Publishing.

But after Akiwara Yuto's works rose to prominence, the value of all of Jingfan Publishing's mystery film and television IPs shrank significantly.

Consequently, he was even satirized both openly and secretly when attending shareholder meetings.

So he was feeling a bit desperate now; if killing people weren't illegal, he would have loved to find someone to stab Akiwara Yuto to death.

Hosome Reiko looked at the president's stern expression and made up her mind.

The previous failures had already caused quite a bit of negative gossip about her within the company.

After all, she had used the entire company's resources to suppress a medium-sized publisher and still hadn't succeeded.

If she failed this time, she probably wouldn't even be able to keep her position as Executive Director!

On the other side, Akiwara Yuto was also thinking about this old rival, considering how to completely topple Jingfan Publishing in business.

However, compared to Jingfan Publishing, he was much more at ease now.

With the massive exposure brought by the Uemura Prize, more and more bookstores across the country were calling to place orders, requesting to order Akiwara Yuto's "Train" and other works.

And Tsutaya Bookstore had taken the opportunity to reach direct sales agreements with about 8,000 bookstores.

This number accounted for nearly a quarter of all bookstores in Japan.

Because of the large volume of orders, by the end of February, the total number of books published by Tsutaya Bookstore reached nearly one million copies, further occupying a larger share of the mystery paperback market.

But this also brought a new problem, which was that the publisher's development had hit a bottleneck.

"How should I solve this?" Akiwara Yuto couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Should I attack Jingfan Publishing's other publishing markets? Like magazines and romance novels?"

When mentioning magazines, he couldn't help but think of the matter of acquiring "New" with Seto Tamae previously.

However, he quickly shook his head and abandoned the thought.

Although the mystery magazine market is very large, even comparable to the paperback market, a magazine cannot be supported by one person alone; it requires many other authors to submit work.

Besides, if he were to dominate the mystery magazine market, it would inevitably provoke hostility from fellow authors.

After all, in the current mystery literature world, many authors still need magazines to earn writing fees; he had to leave a way for others to make a living, right?

Moreover, to run a magazine well, it is more reliable to rely on short story series, but all that remained in his mind were long-form novels.

Akiwara Yuto frowned and paced a few steps, falling into deep thought.

If none of these work, where exactly is the breakthrough point for the publisher's business?