Chapter 39: Thriller Writer

In the next half week, the third issue of *New Novel* began its third reprint, with sales heading straight for 70,000 copies.

According to Asano Aiko's original estimate, the sales of the third issue of *New Novel* should be around 60,000 copies. But she didn't expect that because of the story *Seven Rooms*, many people spontaneously recommended it, causing sales to surge further, and then a third reprint.

In fact, in the category of literary books, there is no shortage of cases where many publications are reprinted because they are interesting or attract social attention. For example, the popular mystery writer Sudo Shuichi in this world once wrote a story about a murderer who committed serial murders and played a battle of wits with the police.

This novel sold very ordinarily when it first started, and the first edition only printed 20,000 copies. But unexpectedly, after the book was published, a similar serial murder case occurred in Shikoku, Nankaido.

At that time, the Shikoku police received a report of a missing woman and immediately started searching, but found nothing. But in the following month, 5 more women went missing.

This attracted great attention from the public, and many ignorant villagers in the local area even claimed that they had been "spirited away" (hidden by gods and ghosts and disappeared in the human world).

Although the police demanded to control public opinion for the first time, this rumor became more and more noisy, especially with the help of the Internet, spreading to other regions of Japan.

It was also at this time that someone discovered that Sudo Shuichi's work described similar plots and even depicted the process of "spirited away" vividly, which was chilling.

Although the police later confirmed that these women were killed and buried by a man in the name of "suicide," this work still accumulated a large number of fans by word of mouth because of this "spirited away" gimmick.

In just two months, it was reprinted many times, and the circulation exceeded 350,000 copies, which directly shocked the publishing and news circles.

Now, Akiwara Yuto's work has also driven the sales of *New Novel* and been reprinted many times because of various book reviews.

However, the volume of *New Novel* is there, and the first edition is only 40,000 copies. Even if it is reprinted, the sales driven are only 70,000 copies at most. Not to mention comparing with Sudo Shuichi, even compared with the 150,000 sales of *Tokyo Literature* of the same Mantanshe, the sales are a big gap.

But the results are still there. After all, the bottom of the industry for ten thousand years has actually "rejuvenated" once, which has also attracted the attention of many media.

Some newspapers and periodicals that cooperate with Mantanshe have even given Akiwara Yuto the titles of "the second Sudo Shuichi" and "a genius second only to Sudo Shuichi."

When Akiwara Yuto learned of these news from Asano Aiko's phone call, he was very speechless in his heart. He had no interest in being second.

And for the nickname ability of the Japanese media, he was also amazed.

In his past life, because the strength of the national men's table tennis team was too strong, the Japanese media gave them a bunch of nicknames, such as the "Empire's Fierce Tiger" for the Zhang-surnamed player, the "Empire's Destroyer Dragon" for the Ma-surnamed player, and the "Empire's Great Green Python" for the Xu-surnamed player. In addition to the sports world, there was also the "Four Thousand Years Beauty" in the entertainment circle.

He wanted to complain a bit, but didn't know how to say it.

Asano Aiko was very excited, and her mood could be heard across the receiver: "Akiwara, in addition, the publicity bureau of the publishing house has approved the budget, and *New Novel* can invest in a promotion of about one page every month later."

This is a good piece of news, especially for the sales of the magazine. Akiwara Yuto couldn't help but smile: "That's really good."

It seems that the reprint of *New Novel* has finally attracted the attention of the higher-ups, which gave a little sweetness to let the editorial department continue to charge.

The two talked about many internal problems of the editorial department through the phone, which let Akiwara Yuto know a lot of news.

Matsushima Kazuhiro tried to get part of the page promotion, but was rejected by Kikuchi Tai; Kadowaki Yuzhen had not appeared during this period, and it was unknown what he was doing; in addition, the cover design for the next few issues had been arranged and would be delivered to an external design company.

Akiwara Yuto was a bit confused. Isn't it handled by the publishing house's own art editor? So he asked: "Why is it handed over to an external design company?"

"It seems to be because Editor-in-Chief Kikuchi Tai ignored the opposition and decided it." Asano Aiko was not sure, but still explained the situation: "He thinks the style suitable for Akiwara's cover should be darker and more thriller."

Akiwara Yuto was speechless for a while when he heard this statement. He thought that the works he wrote were not purely thriller, but contained human nature in the darkness.

Besides, even if it was such a style, wouldn't it be better for the internal art editor to handle it? Anyway, if you are not satisfied, you can modify it again.

He thought about it and gave up this consideration. After all, these matters of the magazine are decided by the editor-in-chief. As an author, although he has the right to suggest, he should not interfere too much.

The conversation went on for about half an hour, and after the two said goodbye, they ended the call.

Akiwara Yuto returned upstairs and began to browse through a pile of newspapers, preparing to take a good look.

Currently, because of the reprint of *New Novel*, many small and medium-sized newspapers have paid attention to it. For example, *Tokyo Daily News*, written by Yashiro Toshihiro, praised *Seven Rooms* extremely, and it was written like this above:

"In this work, Akiwara-sensei does not want readers to pay too much attention to the murderer and his identity. For this purpose, he constructed 'Seven Rooms', which are almost indistinguishable in appearance, with bare walls, and only a lonely iron door and a small water ditch running through them."

"The protagonist is locked in such a secret room without any preparation, and the truth found after using various methods is even more suffocating—he can only live for 7 days..."

It was another full half-page, and it was also equipped with a slightly gloomy room photo.

After Akiwara Yuto finished reading, he nodded involuntarily. The other party is indeed a capable book reviewer. The points he pointed out are just right, and he has left a deep suspense for readers.

He was satisfied and prepared to get up to eat, but when he put down the newspaper, his eyes aimed, and he was attracted by another book review.

"Akiwara Yuto, a thriller writer?"

He was a bit curious and picked up the newspaper to read from top to bottom.

"From the beginning of *Little Ornament and Yoko* to the later *Seven Rooms*, it can be seen that the author is good at outlining the atmosphere of terror through the weak or effective. But what makes people curious is, why can the writer write such an article?"

"In an interview with employees from the publishing house, I learned that Akiwara-sensei grew up in a welfare home, but what did he encounter in the welfare home? It makes me a bit curious, but from such a writing style, it is not difficult for us to guess."

As he watched, he felt more and more wrong, because this book reviewer clearly meant one thing—Akiwara Yuto's unfortunate childhood experience made his psychology distorted, so he wrote such an article...

He was even more speechless.

I didn't expect that writing a novel could give myself the reputation of a psychological pervert, but it seems that many people in the past life evaluated the original author Otsuichi like this.

Forget it, forget it, as long as it doesn't affect sales.

It seems that there was a perverted murderer in Japan in the past life, who wrote a fugitive novel after killing, and earned tens of millions of yen in manuscript fees, and there were many brain-dead fans?

In addition, there was a Japanese international student who killed and cooked a female classmate during his studies in Paris, and after being extradited back, he also published a book, and even went to sea to shoot films and earned a lot of money?!

Akiwara Yuto felt that these 2 things were simply incredible, and could only say that Japanese society was too indulgent, leading to all kinds of monsters and ghosts coming out.

Forget it, these have nothing to do with me, let's write my own novel well...

Unexpectedly, even if he just wanted to do his own thing quietly, trouble still found him. ===== CHAPTER 40 =====