Chapter 354 Are you nineteen years old?
To describe it in a comic way, President Inoue walked into the editorial office. There seemed to be black anger around his body, swirling and twisting. Everyone present, whether Zhecheng, Takeda, long hair, wig and Gui...
His eyes were like X-rays, scanning everyone, and the president walked into his office. The look in his eyes was like a stone that could turn into substance, causing a faint pain when hit.
Soon after, the landline phone on Zhecheng’s desk resounded through the space, like a crow’s call. Not a good sign. Sure enough, Zhecheng was called into the office by the president.
“Have you seen the works of Chinese people?” President Inoue turned his back to him, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking Tokyo Bay and the Skytree.
How to respond? Zhecheng was confused at first, but then he realized that he would be killed no matter what with this knife.
“I’ve seen it.” Zhecheng decided to tell the truth.
“How is it?” President Inoue’s voice was very soft.
“It is a wonderful work.” Zhecheng said, “This book seems to be written especially for our neon book market.”
“I agree with you. , so regardless of our early publicity, its sales will be unstoppable," President Inoue said suddenly.
Eh? Don't you plan to pass the blame to him?
Zhecheng was ecstatic and responded immediately, "I think so. I have studied Gu Lu's writing style in detail. They all call him a genius, but actually it is more appropriate to call him the ever-changing ghost. He He was able to completely change his writing habits, leaving only a few traces of wording to suit the subject matter. I suspect that he has been studying Mr. Matsumoto Seiharu's works for five years, focusing on the margins. People and domestic violence. But he also deeply realized that there is no market for socialist reasoning, so he increased the proportion of his original style." sales will be reduced by at least a quarter.
However, Zhecheng is indeed qualified to look down on Takeda who "went through the back door". His professional vision is really accurate. The best-selling author on the planet himself admits that his writing career was influenced by Matsumoto Seicho.
Hearing that it took five years to research, President Inoue felt a little better and said, "Yes, we will publish a few similar works. We, Kadokawa Bookstore, must consider readers and fill the vacant market."
As a publishing house, Kadokawa Shoten is too big and has too many writers resources, so it is very easy to follow the trend.
“Spread your reasoning just now.” President Inoue said again.
As long as you have something to do by yourself, it at least means that you will not be fired or demoted before the matter is completed. The moment he closed the president's office, Zhecheng felt like he was surviving a disaster. He leaned against the door and rested for a while.
The next moment I heard a series of sounds of "pop, crash, crash...".
Zhecheng guessed that the president broke his favorite fish tank and it was not a good place to stay for a long time.
The previous arrangement was based on Inoue's rationality as the president, but seeing Gu Lu making money and seeing him easily surpassing "Shoot a Bullet at the Sun" was even more uncomfortable than him losing money!
Despicable foreigners!
Where is this? What's more painful is behind.
On the third day, 310,000 copies were sold daily.
As soon as Bulletin Board's daily book market data was released, "The Devotion of Suspect X" once again shook up the sluggish real world.
It’s very unscientific and goes against the rules of the book market!
There were even TV reporters conducting street interviews. They say it's on the street, but actually they're blocking the door of the bookstore. When they see someone buying something, they go up to interview them.
The interviewee is a man who looks to be in his mid-thirties or mid-thirties, with wheat-colored skin and a very poor condition, as if it has been damaged by sandpaper.
“When was the last time I bought a book?” the reporter asked first.
“Abandon light novels? I have always had the habit of buying light novels.”
"Not counting the library version." The reporter responded.
After the development of light novels, the content of light novels is actually becoming more and more blurred with popular novels. In terms of neon definition, due to issues with publishing organizations, most light novels are sold in the form of library books. As for the library, the paper is a little yellowed, and the size is relatively light, making it easy to carry.
"It's been three years then."
"Why did you buy "The Devotion of Suspect X"?" the reporter asked again.
“Because I have been reading Teacher Gu Lu’s works since I was in middle school. I happened to know about Teacher Gu Lu’s return and saw many people on the Internet praising it, so I bought it.”
"I'm sorry, sir, Teacher Gu Lu's work should have been published five or six years ago, in junior high school?" The reporter found a loophole in his words.
“It’s so rude, I’m only nineteen years old now! Six years ago I was second in the country.”
Is this person nineteen years old?
Seeing that the other party did not believe it, the respondent immediately took out his driver's license to prove that what he said was true.
Follow-up interviews followed this format. Most of the interviewees had not bought books for one to two years. There are many reasons why people come to buy Gu Lu’s books.
"My favorite cartoonist recommended this book, and it is also recommended for one more series this week", "No special reason", "I was inspired by a sentence on the forum, 'The ultimate love is devotion', I like to read it "Purely loves books", "My friends around me are buying them, and so am I"... It seems that Gu Lu was not in the right place at the right time and with the right people. Thinking about it carefully, does that thing make sense for a wall hanging?
The enemy did not expect that his own people were also confused. The latter's emotions could be satisfied with one sentence: "Fuck, you can win like this?!"
Published Sato, the president of the book, is sometimes happy and sometimes sad.
Happiness is a must.
Eight hundred thousand coins were sold in three days, which was extremely exaggerated even in the 1990s.
The eight hundred thousand pieces were sold online including Amazon Books and Yahoo, but the current books are not enough offline, let alone online. Therefore, more than 200,000 copies sold online have not yet been shipped. Hurry up and do the second seal.
Not to mention Bai Tongshe, which has a short history, even Xiangchuanshe, which was founded in the 1980s before the merger, "The Devotion of Suspect X" is a record-breaking existence. In this case, the whole society is happy. As the president, Sato told the company employees that if they work overtime during this period, they will all be rewarded.
So what is sadness?
On the one hand, he believes that the most beautiful moment of genius is when it withers at its peak. On the other hand, he insisted that his release of "The Wandering Earth" a collection of science fiction short stories was the reason why Gu Lu retired from the literary world. Sato is still very proud to have interacted with such a genius.
Now the intersection has been cut off...
"Go all out to promote "The Devotion of Suspect X"." There was a slight depression in his heart, but it did not affect his judgment. Sato knew that the current one might be their Bai Tongsha. peak.
Compared to Sato, Yao Xiaoju is purely happy as one of his own.
“Reversing history, this sales volume seems to be the peak of 20 or 30 years ago.” Yao Xiaoju is in London at the moment.
He also just flew from Tokyo to London today. In the early stage, he kept following the promotion, and it was not until the conclusion that the product would become a hit on the market was finalized that Yao Xiaoju left.
The British industry is much bigger than neon. After five years, Gu Lu was known as "the best interpreter of Sherlock Holmes" and "the genius who wrote the most special fairy tales" in the English writer area. It cannot be said that he has conquered the entire English world, he can only be regarded as slightly famous. Even so, it is one of the best-developed Chinese writers in Europe and the United States.
Gu Lu currently has a huge flaw in the European and American markets. If it cannot be solved, it will be very difficult to go further...
"Bang bang——" The knock on the door interrupted Yao Xiaoju's thoughts. .
It must be noted that Yao Xiaoju is currently in the general manager's office of "Little Prince Cultural Communication Company". Yes, we have established a company overseas. As you can imagine, European and American copyright management is very good.
The front desk called to say that someone was visiting, and Yao Xiaoju said please come in.
The person who came was a white man in his mid-thirties, with curly hair, and the frame on the bridge of his nose looked precarious.
The secretary brought the person in, closed the door and left. The person sat down without being polite at all.
"Mr. Kane, are you here today?" Yao Xiaoju moved his chair back a little distance without leaving any trace.
The person who came was none other than Kane Van Zestone, a reporter from The Sun five years ago!
However, Kane is no longer a reporter. Four years ago, he transformed into a writer, a well-known British writer.
"Did Mr. Gu Lu re-create it?" Kane got straight to the point.
“Huh?” Yao Xiaoju wondered, did the news spread so fast? It seems that in the Internet era, all information in Blue Star Village is communicated with each other. But in fact, news about the neon literary circle is basically invisible in the UK.
"Weymouth series creator Gu Lu released a new book, neon has no rival"
The headline on the second page of the Guardian, Kane flipped to the second page and placed it in front of Yao Xiaoju's eyes.
“The Cthulhu series is the most watched horror series,”
The Cthulhu series has indeed attracted a lot of attention. The popularity accumulated in the early stage came from Gu Lu's short story series, but a few short stories will definitely not be able to maintain the popularity for several years.
The later popularity comes from the contribution of the second creator, and that second creator is Kane!
Five years ago, Kane resigned in a high-profile manner from The Sun. When interviewed by other newspapers, he shouted something like this: "No one understands Gu Lu better than me, and no one understands Cthulhu better than me. "
Yao Xiaoju still remembers the photo in the newspaper. Kane's look was crazy and serious.
Seriously, no joke.
Kane has read "Dagon", "Weymouth Asylum", "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Haze at Weymouth", "The Horror at Portsham", "The Necronomicon"... over and over again and again. Memorized the entire text. There are also Chinese short stories written by Gu Lu. Even though he doesn’t speak Chinese, he borrowed a translator to read them all.
Gu Lu is a real genius, even a genius like Shakespeare and Bacon! At the age of sixteen, the scope of my writing is exaggerated to this extent. Other stupid Brits just don't get it.
He knows a lot, so he understands!
Since then, Kane began to create the Cthulhu series of works, and even constructed a complete myth system based on Gu Lu's short stories. Created works such as "The Clay of Weymouth", "Dark Brotherhood", "Woodland Thing" and so on.
(End of this chapter)