Chapter 94

Seeing that Akiwara Yuto was confused about what a "trial reading session" was, President Anju Tsuyoshi took the initiative to explain.

As a publisher that has been in business for many years, although President Anju Bookstore is small in scale, it has established cooperative relationships with more than 30 bookstores. In order to allow these bookstores to increase their orders for books, when President Anju Bookstore releases specific books, they will rent a venue in the nearby shopping street, invite the operators of cooperative bookstores to come, and have them read the relevant works.

Akiwara Yuto nodded, not surprised, and expressed his support for holding a trial reading session. After all, in his view, increasing channel promotion is much more useful than sending some messy gifts.

However, he was still a bit puzzled.

"President President Anju, when will the trial reading session be scheduled?"

"That will have to wait until the proofreading and cover design are perfected; it will take about two weeks."

"How much sales volume is expected to increase?"

President Anju Tsuyoshi hesitated for a moment and said in an uncertain tone: "That depends on whether they recognize that this book can be a bestseller. If they all place orders, it can probably solve about 3,000 copies."

Akiwara Yuto supported his chin with his hand and began to ponder carefully.

3,000 copies, spread across 30 bookstores, that's about 100 copies per store; it seems most of them are just small bookstores.

Forget it, something is better than nothing; just treat it as opening up the market. However, what about the other 27,000 copies of the first edition?

Before he could raise this question, President Anju Tsuyoshi took the initiative to explain, informing him that these books would be handled by distributors and that they would seek cooperation with other bookstores.

Just then, the office phone rang. President Anju Tsuyoshi, who was sitting at the desk, picked up the phone: "Hello, this is President Anju Bookstore..."

"Oh, is that Miyagi-sensei? You're coming over tomorrow afternoon, right?"

"Okay, okay, thank you very much!"

Seeing President Anju Tsuyoshi put down the receiver, Akiwara Yuto asked curiously: "Has the cover design plan come out?"

"Yes, Miyagi-sensei asked us to go over tomorrow afternoon. Besides that, there is one more thing that concerns you, Akiwara-sensei."

"Hmm?" Akiwara Yuto was a bit puzzled.

"Miyagi-sensei said she wants to apologize to you."

"Eh?!"

The next afternoon at two o'clock, Miyagi Design Studio.

"Akiwara-sensei, President President Anju, it was truly rude of me to let you leave in such a hurry last time because something came up."

Facing Akiwara Yuto and President Anju Tsuyoshi, who were sitting properly, Miyagi Fumie bowed slightly and said in a sincere tone.

She had her own intentions for saying this; after reading *The Devotion of Suspect X*, combined with her assistant's reaction, she immediately understood the huge commercial value of this work.

This meant that by virtue of this work, this author named Akiwara Yuto might be able to have a place in the literary world.

And she, too, could receive more orders from large publishers by designing the cover for this work.

So she had to take this opportunity to build a good relationship with Akiwara Yuto. As for President Anju Tsuyoshi, he was just an afterthought.

Seeing Miyagi Fumie's actions, Akiwara Yuto and President Anju Tsuyoshi also stood up immediately, hurriedly bowing and responding.

After some polite exchanges, Miyagi Fumie's assistant, Nishijima Kyoko, who was wearing a kimono, pushed open the sliding door and entered the room, stepping forward to pour tea for everyone.

While pouring tea for Akiwara Yuto, she secretly glanced at him several times from the corner of her eye.

This is the author who wrote that story about sacrificing for love; he's really a bit excessively young... and he's actually a bit handsome, I didn't even notice last time...

After satisfying her curiosity, she bowed and left.

Miyagi Fumie picked up her teacup, took a sip, then stood up, brought over two colored drawings, and laid them gently on the tea table, "These are the two cover design plans I have made for *The Devotion of Suspect X*. Please take a look, both of you."

Akiwara Yuto nodded and began to look at the two covers carefully.

The first picture was a scene with a black-gray background, with white lines outlining a long staircase and three people; one person was walking down the stairs, and the other two were walking up the stairs. But the top of the stairs was getting narrower and narrower, becoming a dead end. And the book title was placed directly above this scene.

The second picture had a white background, with gray tones outlining three people: a larger person standing in front of the other two, using his body to block the incoming rain for the other two. But his body area was limited and could not block all the raindrops.

Akiwara Yuto hesitated for a moment and lowered his head to think; the intentions of both design plans were very clear, namely that Ishigami wanted to help the Hanaoka mother and daughter but failed to do so. But in terms of tone, one was black and white, and the other was white and gray.

"President President Anju, which plan do you think is more suitable?" After thinking for a while, Akiwara Yuto decided to ask someone else.

President Anju Tsuyoshi hesitated for a while and replied: "How about the first plan? Black will look a bit more stylish."

Akiwara Yuto was a bit speechless when he heard this suggestion; it wasn't a book being sold to business people, so what would looking stylish be good for? If it's aimed at readers, it would be better to look a bit special.

Right, a bit special...

"President President Anju, could you take me to a nearby bookstore? I want to see the literary books on the market."

President Anju Tsuyoshi was a bit puzzled but still agreed.

After apologizing to Miyagi Fumie and agreeing on the next time, the two left the design studio and drove to a small bookstore.

After entering the bookstore, the two walked directly to the literary book section to look at the books on the display stands and shelves.

Looking at the covers of these books, Akiwara Yuto pondered carefully; it seemed that most of them were white or gray-toned covers. Judging by this, if the second white-and-gray plan were adopted, once the book was inserted into the bookshelf, it might be directly ignored by readers.

In this way, the first plan was more suitable; after all, among a pile of white-covered books, a black book appearing would surely attract readers to take a closer look... I'll communicate this idea to President President Anju later.

As he was thinking, his eyes suddenly caught a book on the display stand, *The Footsteps of Searching*, with the name Menxie Menxie Youzhen written under the title. On the book's obi (the paper strip in the middle of the book cover), it was written "Gold Prize of this year's Mantanshe Literary Award."

Akiwara Yuto picked up the book, looked at it for a few moments, and his mood became a bit complicated for a moment.

If it weren't for those accidents with Mantanshe, according to the original plan, his standalone book should have been released too...

If that were the case, the book placed here should have been his *ZOO*, and this line of text on the obi should have been his own.

President Anju Tsuyoshi didn't know about the grudge between Akiwara Yuto and Mantanshe; he walked up and found that Akiwara Yuto had been holding the book without saying a word, thinking he was studying it.

He also took the opportunity to pick up a copy of *The Footsteps of Searching*, looked at it for a few moments, and clicked his tongue in wonder at the line "Gold Prize of this year's Mantanshe Literary Award" on the obi.

After all, he was not a person in the literary world and hadn't published many literary books. Upon seeing this honor, he had a feeling that it was very impressive.

Right, how could I forget about the obi.

"Akiwara-sensei, do you have any suggestions for the copy on the obi for *The Devotion of Suspect X*?"

Akiwara Yuto lowered his head, pondered in his mind, and then made a suggestion.

"Sometimes, just by living, a person is enough to save someone else."