Chapter 319: Where is the Breakthrough Point?

Jingfan Publisher, President's Office.

As the president, Kohei Honda looked at the documents in his hand, frowned, and said: "Executive Shimoku, is the market share of detective novels definitely beyond saving?"

Saime Reiko replied uneasily: "Judging from the current situation, it is difficult to surpass Tsutaya Bookstore in the short term,"

"After the Uemura Prize results came out, readers' interest in Akiwara Yuto became even greater, driving the sales of all his works."

Honda Kohei raised his head, stared at his female subordinate carefully for a while, and only after the latter was uneasy did he ask: "What about the distribution channels?"

"According to the intelligence we collected, Tsutaya Bookstore is now building its own distribution channels, which can sell books without relying on distributors, so we have no way."

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

"Executive, you are derelict in your duty, I am very disappointed."

He paused and said again, "What I want to hear is not the sentence 'no way'."

Saime Reiko was even more terrified.

In order to successfully suppress Tsutaya Bookstore, Jingfan Publisher not only specially set up a special department and funding for her, but even mobilized the connections of the two major distributors, but even so, she failed.

She gritted her teeth and proposed another method, "Perhaps we can find some stains and do some tricks on his personal reputation."

"How to do it?"

Honda Kohei asked, and while saying this, he tapped the table with his fingers.

"I think we can find some newspapers to fabricate that Akiwara Yuto's private life is chaotic, such as how many mistresses he has, or illegitimate children." 【319

"Fabricate?" Kohei Honda stopped his movements and asked: "Haven't you found any real facts?"

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

She had hired two private detectives to specifically dig deep into Akiwara Yuto's life, and the result left her completely speechless.

He achieved success at a young age, had money and fame, and logically he should be young and frivolous, going out to have affairs, but she didn't expect that he didn't drink, didn't smoke, and didn't even get close to women.

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

You have to know, Akiwara Yuto's net worth and status made him a total catch. As long as he crooked his finger slightly, there would be plenty of people willing to come close.

Even the few female stars currently popular in the entertainment industry probably wouldn't refuse his pursuit.

After all, in Nihon, the status and net worth of a famous writer are much higher than those of an entertainer; if they were to date or marry Akiwara Yuto, these entertainers would probably be willing to give up their acting careers to become full-time housewives.

So in Reiko Shimoku's view, the only way to smear Akiwara Yuto now was to fabricate some baseless news.

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

Many Nihon writers have chaotic lives, and even if the public sees it, they just criticize them for a moment and then go back to doing what they were doing.

In this situation, even if it were exposed that Akiwara Yuto had a mistress and an illegitimate child, he might not be the worst one.

"Actually, it's still a little useful," Reiko Shimoku defended,

"Because Akiwara Yuto is young and wealthy, he has accumulated a group of loyal female fans and readers; if he were exposed for having an illegitimate child and a mistress scandal, this group of readers would likely be disappointed in him and leave."

Kohei Honda looked at her with a disappointed expression and then said: "Executive Shimoku, I don't object to your method of smearing Akiwara Yuto, but the place you chose is wrong."

"Wrong?" Reiko Shimoku was a bit confused, and then she felt uneasy.

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

"What do you mean?" Reiko Shimoku asked, confused.

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

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

For Keihan Publisher, although the detective novel market is not the one with the highest sales, it is the one with the most abundant profits.

Especially by adapting detective stories into film and television dramas, it has brought a lot of extra added revenue for Keihan Publisher.

But after Akiwara Yuto's works rose to prominence, the value of all of Keihan Publisher's detective film and television IPs shrank significantly.

Consequently, even when he attended shareholder meetings, he was satirized both openly and covertly.

So he is a bit anxious now; if killing people weren't against the law, he would love to find someone to stab Akiwara Yuto to death.

Reiko Shimoku looked at the president's stern expression, and she also made up her mind.

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

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

If they failed this time as well, she probably wouldn't even be able to keep her position as executive!

On the other side, Akiwara Yuto was also thinking about this old rival, considering how to completely defeat Keihan Publisher in business.

However, compared to Keihan Publisher, he was much more at ease now.

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

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

This number accounted for nearly a quarter of the total number of bookstores in Nihon.

Because of the large volume of orders, by the end of February, the total volume of books published by Tsutaya Bookstore would be nearly 1 million copies, further occupying a larger share of the detective novel market.

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

"How should I solve this?" Akiwara Yuto couldn't help but mutter to himself: "How about attacking Keihan Publisher's other publishing markets? Like magazines and romance, etc.?"

When mentioning magazines, he couldn't help but think of Tamae Seto's previous discussion with him about acquiring "New".

However, he soon shook his head and gave up on this idea.

Although the detective magazine market is very large, even comparable to the single-volume market, a magazine cannot be supported by just one person; it also requires many other writers to submit manuscripts.

Besides that, if he were to dominate the detective magazine market, it would inevitably provoke hostility from fellow writers.

After all, in the current detective fiction community, many writers still need magazines to earn manuscript fees; he has to leave a way for others to make a living, right?

And wanting to run a good magazine still relies on short story series to be more reliable, but all that remains in his mind now are long-form stories.

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

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