If the results of "Tsunami" are somewhat unexpected, then the results of "Norwegian Wood" were completely within Cao Zhiqiang's expectations.
Just when the record-level video tapes related to the song "Tsunami" were gaining ground and selling like crazy, "Norwegian Wood" published by Kodansha was quietly released on the market without much publicity. .
Due to a previous agreement, the pen name of the book "Norwegian Wood" is a new vest "Yusaku Kudo", which has no connection with "Green Spring in the Forest", and the editor-in-chief of publishing this book, Watanabe Yuno It was also guaranteed to be kept confidential, so when "Norwegian Wood" was released, no one connected the book's author "Yusaku Kudo" with the singer "Forest Aoi".
Since the pen name "Kudo Yusaku" was not widely used in the industry and he was a complete newcomer, and there was no publicity or hype, the book "Norwegian Wood" had very average results when it first went on sale.
Two weeks have passed since the first edition of 30,000 copies was printed, and a total of only more than 3,000 copies have been sold, with sales barely exceeding one-tenth of the printed volume.
This result seems very shabby, but in fact it is a very good result among new authors and cannot be considered a low score.
Because "Norwegian Wood" belongs to pure literature, not comics, and in this era, comics have begun to become popular in Japan, and fewer and fewer people actually read pure literature.
Therefore, more than 3,000 copies were sold in just two weeks, and he was still a complete newcomer. According to Kodansha, this result is already very good.
Of course, this result is still far inferior to that in history, that is, Cao Zhiqiang's previous life.
However, in Cao Zhiqiang's previous life, before this book was released, Haruki Murakami was already well-known in the industry, so he had the popularity bonus of his pen name.
But Cao Zhiqiang's "Kudo Yusaku" is different. This is a purely new writer.
According to Watanabe Yuno, usually at least half of pure new writers cannot sell 30,000 books in a year, but can sell one-third, which is 10,000 books in a year. If it is registered, it is already a relatively good family and belongs to a family with relatively high potential.
And someone like Cao Zhiqiang, using a purely new pen name, without adding any popularity bonus, sold more than 3,000 copies in two weeks. This is an achievement that only a very few veteran writers can achieve.
Moreover, Watanabe Yuno also said that he went to investigate specifically and found that most of the more than 3,000 copies were sold in the second week.
In other words, in the first week, probably because of the pen name, the book was not eye-catching and few people bought it.
But in the second week, suddenly more people bought the book.
Basically, the sales of more than 3,000 copies, at least more than 2,500 copies, all occurred in the second week.
There is only one explanation for this, and that is that some old readers were spontaneously promoting this book, which aroused the curiosity of many people, so they bought it and read it.
In addition, Watanabe Yuno also said that according to his survey, 90% of the people who currently buy this book are students, and they are mainly college students, but there are also some high school students.
And now it is October. In Japan, October is not a school holiday, and it is also a time when studies are intense.
At this time of intense study, there are still so many students buying this book, which fully shows that this book has great potential.
All in all, Watanabe Yuno asked Cao Zhiqiang to relax, saying that even if he didn't tell the story that "Kudo Yusaku" is "Forest Spring", the future sales of this book will still be good, at least 30,000 will be sold this year Ben, I guess it is very possible.
It is already October. If we say that we can sell 30,000 copies this year, it means that we have sold 30,000 copies in just two months. This kind of achievement can be regarded as the level of a well-known family.
Of course, if Cao Zhiqiang is willing to disclose the true identity of "Yusaku Kudo" and say that "Yusaku Kudo" is "Qingquan in the Forest", it goes without saying that with the current traffic of "Qingquan in the Forest", I am afraid it will not take more than a week. Out of stock.
It's just that since Cao Zhiqiang did not authorize and agree, naturally this kind of thing cannot be made public, otherwise he will be held responsible.
In fact, at least in Kodansha, only Watanabe Yuno is the only one who now knows that "Kudo Yusaku" is "Mori Nakaizumi", and he didn't even tell anyone else in Kodansha.
It can be seen from this that Watanabe Yuno is a very principled person with high personal accomplishment and will not do anything for money.
You know, although Japan's current laws are relatively sound, in fact many people can't bear it once interests are involved.
Let’s talk about Kodansha’s current editor-in-charge system. Its essence is a contract system, which means that the performance of each editor is linked to the editor’s income.
To put it simply, in the current Japanese book publishing industry, printing is done first and then sold. Moreover, after the book is printed, the author must be paid first and how much money is paid for the printing. The subsequent sales of the book have nothing to do with the author, only the author. It has something to do with the publisher and the editor in charge.
If the editor confirms receipt of the manuscript and agrees to print and publish it, the editor will be responsible for your work. Once it is printed, the sales are not good, causing the publisher to lose money. Although the publisher will not ask the editor to compensate, the editor's The bonus is gone.
At the same time, if the work contracted by the editor continues to lose money, usually more than ten times a year, then the editor will be transferred or resigned.
In 1983, because Japan's economy was pretty good, large companies like Kodansha generally would not fire employees, especially top students who graduated from Tokyo University. However, if the number of losses was exceeded, most of them would be transferred to other jobs. Do jobs that pay less and are more boring, such as proofreading.
On the other hand, if the work signed by the editor is very popular, the editor will also give a commission bonus based on the sales of the work. Different publishing houses have different standards for the specific commission ratio and bonus amount.
And if an editor wins a big prize and signs a contract with a famous writer, then he is lucky. Maybe the editor only needs to serve this one writer well and he can make a living for half his life.
This kind of editorial responsibility system causes editors to pay special attention to review, and they actually value the actual sales of the works they contract more than review.
Under this model, in order to earn more commissions, the general editor will definitely try his best to increase the sales of his contracted works. However, if it is other editors with low moral character, after knowing that "Kudo Yusaku" is "Morinaka Ao "Quanquan", he will definitely try his best to let the public know that "Yusaku Kudo" is Qingquan in the forest, so as to reap the dividends of "Qingquan in the forest".
As for the secret regulations, these things are meant to deceive gentlemen. If you really want to circumvent them, there are many ways.
For example, anonymously and anonymously submit information to TV stations and newspapers, so that relevant reporters can get wind of it and use relevant paparazzi and other people to expose the fact that "Yusaku Kudo" is "Aizumi Morinaka".
External reporters are not restricted by private confidentiality regulations when exposing the truth. In this way, it is easy to make the name "Yusaku Kudo" popular, and also make "Norwegian Wood" popular.
In this way, if you go to trouble the editor Yuno Watanabe, he can push back and say that he did not spread the news by himself, and there will be no proof.
By then, sales of "Norwegian Wood" will be guaranteed, and Yuno Watanabe's commission bonus will also skyrocket, so this is the most beneficial plan for Yuno Watanabe.
There are very few people who can't be tempted, but Yuno Watanabe actually resisted this temptation and really gave up his chance to become famous and get high bonuses, so he called "Yusaku Kudo" the "Qingquan in the Forest". "The matter is boring in my stomach.
There is no other explanation for this except that he has better personal ethics and is more principled.
Of course, after careful contact with Tong Bian Xiongye, Cao Zhiqiang roughly understood why he was so simple and kind. In the final analysis, most of the reasons were probably related to his family.
Watanabe Yuno's family is well off. His father is a businessman engaged in import and export trade, and his mother is a high school teacher. In addition, his residence is Bunkyo District, which has the best security and the strongest educational atmosphere in Tokyo. Therefore, Watanabe Yuno He has had no worries about food and clothing since he was a child, and he has received the best education since he was a child.
As the saying goes, those who have enough food and clothing know honor and disgrace. Watanabe Yuno has been pampered since he was a child. He has always been in contact with good people and has always been a top student. Even though he has graduated from college now, his job is not far from home.
In addition, Watanabe Yuno is the only son of the Watanabe family, and his father has always secretly supported him financially, so Watanabe Yuno never has to worry about life.
People who are educated in such an environment naturally do not value money very much, but they value principles and dignity other than money more, and they also respect talented people more.
For example, for Cao Zhiqiang, although Watanabe Yuno did everything according to the rules and did not do anything special for Cao Zhiqiang, he would visit Cao Zhiqiang's house in the name of reporting on work or something.
It is not clear whether Watanabe Yuno came to Cao Zhiqiang's house so frequently because he admired Cao Zhiqiang or because he wanted to chase the star Akina Nakamori. It was probably both.
But no matter what, Watanabe Yuno brought gifts every time he came, and he was funny and polite. Neither Cao Zhiqiang nor Nakamori Akina actually disliked him.
Therefore, it didn’t take long for Watanabe Yuno and Cao Zhiqiang to become good friends.
Since meeting Yuye Watanabe as a friend, Cao Zhiqiang found it quite interesting. At least chatting with Yuye Watanabe was quite pleasant.
This is mainly because Yuno Watanabe has no airs and is very knowledgeable. He is also gentle and friendly, and has a sense of humor, which is very suitable for Cao Zhiqiang.
Speaking of which, since Cao Zhiqiang traveled through time, he has not actually met a friend with whom he can really talk.
Without him, just because after time travel, most of the people he met were people from this era, and their style of talking and doing things were incompatible with his original appearance.
To be more precise, there is a generation gap between everyone.
On the contrary, although this Watanabe Yuno is still somewhat different from Cao Zhiqiang who was born in the 1990s, there is not much difference in general outlook, which gives Cao Zhiqiang a strong sense of déjà vu.
Drinking and chatting with Yuno Watanabe is like going back to 2023, playing politics online with a group of friends after get off work, talking about the international situation, talking about the future direction, or talking about history, talking about comics, all kinds of fun. time.
After coming to this time and space, Cao Zhiqiang could not talk about this with other people, but he and Watanabe Yuno were somewhat interesting, so this made Cao Zhiqiang very happy.
Having said that, the current sales performance of "Norwegian Wood" is so "sluggish" only because of the popularity of Cao Zhiqiang's other identity.
If you put aside Cao Zhiqiang's other popular singer identity, and purely from a family perspective, Cao Zhiqiang's pen name "Kudo Yusaku" actually has not bad results.
According to Watanabe Yuno's analysis, given the current situation of the book "Norwegian Wood", as long as he writes a few more articles praising this article and puts it into professional review newspapers and magazines, it should be published soon. Create a craze.
Unfortunately, before Yuno Watanabe could write the touted "After Reading" and submit it to relevant newspapers and magazines, in the third week after "Norwegian Wood" was on the shelves, the book suddenly became popular.
This sudden explosion was unexpected.
At the beginning, a local news reporter from TV Tokyo went to the streets of Tokyo with a photographer to search for local current affairs news. He suddenly found a huge queue in front of a bookstore, and they were all young people. He was very curious. So I hurried over for an interview.
This interview didn't matter. I found that these people were college students from some nearby universities, including the University of Tokyo, Meiji University, Tokyo Medical University, etc.
And these college students from famous universities come here to queue up for no other reason than to buy a newly released book called "Norwegian Wood".
It is said that this book was not well-known at the beginning. It was mostly bought by some literature-loving students in the university to relieve their boredom.
As a result, when the first readers of the book finished reading the book, they immediately liked it and began to promote it everywhere.
As word spread, a second group of readers developed among college students.
The second batch of readers increased exponentially compared to the first batch of readers, and then these people began to spread the word everywhere.
By the time the third batch of readers appeared, the book "Norwegian Wood" had already gone viral among literature lovers at various well-known universities in Tokyo, and even caused more literature lovers to follow suit and read it. A support group for this book emerged and began to spontaneously promote the book on university campuses.
The result is that, after two weeks of preparation, this book finally ignited literature lovers in various university circles in Tokyo. After some networking and gatherings on Sunday, these literature lovers finally aroused the interest of more people, so many people College students all decided to come to the bookstore here and queue up to buy it.
Originally, this was just an accident, because the people queuing up to buy the book were all fans of that book, or members of the support group, and they only came to this bookstore to buy, not all bookstores.
But after this reporter from TV Tokyo conducted such an interview and treated this matter as an anecdote on the evening news the next day, something went wrong.
(End of chapter)
