Chapter 93

President Anju Bookstore, second floor.

While Miyagi Fumie was pondering how to design the cover, Akiwara Yuto was invited here to attend a promotional planning meeting hosted by President Anju Tsuyoshi.

Because there was no dedicated meeting room, everyone had to make do with holding the meeting in President Anju Tsuyoshi's office; some sat on chairs, some on the sofa, and some simply stood.

In his capacity as a partner and client, Akiwara Yuto was arranged on the sofa, at the second-farthest position from the door.

President Anju Tsuyoshi coughed once and then presided over the meeting. He first faced the other five people in the room and introduced Akiwara Yuto: "This is the already-debuted author, Akiwara Yuto."

After finishing, President Anju Tsuyoshi also introduced the five employees beside him, named Satake Maki, Itakura Naka, Oka Yuito, Nagao Teppei, and Nishijima Sota, who were responsible for proofreading, editing, sales, promotion, and administration, respectively.

Akiwara Yuto stood up, bowed to everyone in the room, and offered his greetings.

Just then, the female editor named Satake Maki stood up and tentatively said, "May I ask if you are the Akiwara-sensei who serializes in *New Fiction*?"

Akiwara Yuto was stunned for a moment; he didn't expect to run into his own reader here, so he nodded.

Satake Maki confirmed his identity and immediately became happy, saying with surprise, "Akiwara-sensei, I am a loyal fan of your work; I have purchased and collected every issue of the *ZOO* series!"

The other four people were also surprised when they heard this and began to whisper to each other.

Just when Akiwara Yuto didn't know how to respond, President Anju Tsuyoshi beside him gave a heavy "cough," "Satake, it is meeting time now."

The president had spoken, and Satake Maki realized she had been too impulsive; she subconsciously shrank her head and then sat down obediently.

Seeing that everyone had quieted down, President Anju Tsuyoshi nodded with satisfaction and then said, "Alright, let's get to today's topic."

He looked around and then said, "The reason I asked everyone to come here today is mainly to talk about the fact that President Anju Bookstore and Akiwara-sensei have reached a cooperation to publish the work *The Devotion of Suspect X*. Before the release, we need to formulate a detailed plan."

After finishing this sentence, he fixed his gaze on Akiwara Yuto, "Akiwara-sensei, for the first batch of published books, we are prepared to cooperate with the bookstore side to promote them in the form of bundled gifts."

"As for the specific form of the gifts, we still need to discuss it on our end."

Akiwara Yuto asked, "Can you tell me what the specific budget is?"

President Anju Tsuyoshi waved his hand, "The total budget is about 2 million yen, and we try to control the unit price within 100 yen. The two books that sold 100,000 copies at our President Anju Bookstore previously used this method."

Hearing this, Akiwara Yuto began to think.

Since the last contract signing, he had discovered that he did not know enough about the publishing industry, so he had gone to find a large number of books to study, from which he had learned quite a bit. Not only that, he had also used sales statistics tables to list all the bestselling books of recent years and carefully analyzed the reasons why these books were able to sell well.

To be honest, the method of gifts, in his research, was more suitable for some women's magazines.

Akiwara Yuto shook his head and said, "President President Anju, the two books that sold well before were *Red Wine Tasting* and *How to Dress Exquisitely*, right?"

"Yes."

"May I ask what the gifts for these two books were?"

Before President Anju Tsuyoshi could answer, Satake Maki snatched the words, answering in a crisp voice, "They were a bottle opener and a bracelet, respectively."

Akiwara Yuto replied, "I see."

With this premise, he had his own ideas in mind. After a pause, Akiwara Yuto said, "President President Anju, I do not approve of the gift method."

President Anju Tsuyoshi asked in confusion, "Akiwara-sensei, can you explain the reason for your disapproval? After all, the previous bestsellers have already proven the success of the gift method."

Akiwara Yuto replied, "President President Anju, as a publishing professional, you should know more than I do about book positioning and the segmentation of customer groups. I will give an inappropriate example here: which type of people do you think is the main customer group for the book *How to Dress Exquisitely*?"

Although President Anju Tsuyoshi was puzzled, he still answered, "Women with dressing needs, or rather, female white-collar workers."

"Yes, that's right," Akiwara Yuto continued, "For women, suitable gifts often increase their desire to purchase, let alone a bracelet attached to a dressing textbook. Therefore, for the female group, the effect of gifts is often quite good."

In his past life, many Japanese fashion magazines often came with a large number of gifts because they sold well; these gifts included bags and jewelry. Sometimes, the value of the gift was even higher than the magazine itself.

However, this type of method actually has considerable feasibility; judging from historical data, those magazines that first implemented the gift strategy all made a fortune.

"Akiwara-sensei, how do you explain the book *Red Wine Tasting*? This shouldn't be aimed primarily at women, right?" A man sitting by the door raised his hand to speak; Akiwara Yuto remembered his name was Nishijima Sota.

"That's a good question," Akiwara Yuto replied, "May I ask Nishijima-san, can you tell me the main customer group for *Red Wine Tasting*?"

"They are business people," Nishijima Sota answered in an uncertain tone.

Akiwara Yuto asked in return, "May I ask if you have conducted a detailed reader feedback survey?"

He held a certain degree of doubt about Nishijima Sota's words; after all, there is often a certain discrepancy between people's subjective assumptions and facts, and only through investigation can it be confirmed.

Nishijima Sota did not answer, and President Anju Tsuyoshi, who was sitting next to Akiwara Yuto, felt awkward instead; President Anju Bookstore was only a small publisher, so where would they have the extra funds to conduct these surveys?

Seeing that the atmosphere was a bit cold, Akiwara Yuto continued, "As far as I know, among the group that buys books, business people certainly make up a certain proportion, but there are also more entry-level bartenders, as well as a portion of housewives."

"For these two types of people, an exquisite bottle opener is often what they need. Therefore, in cases where the prices of similar books are not much different, the book *Red Wine Tasting* can sell better."

Akiwara Yuto's words actually held back quite a bit; in his view, most business people only need to know the brands of red wine and how to toast. Only a very small number of red wine enthusiasts would go to study how to taste red wine.

President Anju Tsuyoshi also understood Akiwara Yuto's intention, "Akiwara-sensei, are you saying that the group for the book *Suspect X* is mainly male, so the effect of gifts is not great, is that it?"

Akiwara Yuto nodded and then shook his head, explaining, "That the effect of gifts is not great is certain, but the reason I oppose it is mainly because *Suspect X* is a literary work, and the readers' desire to purchase it comes more from word-of-mouth or recognition of the work itself."

Akiwara Yuto took a sip of tea, "Therefore, I think this money should be spent on posters or rebates to bookstores, so as to increase the exposure of the book. In addition, I suggest that we can send trial reading samples to bookstores in various places to further open up channels."

President Anju Tsuyoshi expressed his agreement; he felt that what Akiwara Yuto said also made sense. The others in the room were even more surprised; they didn't expect that Akiwara Yuto, as an author, would actually understand knowledge about book publishing channels.

President Anju Tsuyoshi was silent for a while and then made a suggestion: "Akiwara-sensei, since that's the case, why don't we hold a trial reading session?"

"A trial reading session?"

(PS: The previous chapter was criticized for being filler, so I rewrote it; it is recommended to refresh and take another look. Also, there is only one update today; the author needs to adjust the outline for the later parts.)