I am a literary giant in Japan

Chapter 30: Is there a little black guy causing trouble?
Kitagawa Hide had diligently completed "Pinball in 1973" long before signing the contract, and is now in the revision stage.

In order to better convince Muramatsu Tomoshi, he also gave a small hint of the last part of the "Youth Trilogy" - "A Wild Sheep Chase", which has also started recently.

Of course, he was well aware of the principle of "never let the enemy know how many bullets are left in your gun", so he just waved his hand and did not try to tell Saito Rena the truth right away.

Sometimes, you just have to whet people’s appetite like this, so that they will look forward to and cherish what you write even more!

After leaving Kodansha, Kitagawa Hide didn't even have time to eat. He took the subway back home without stopping, wanting to tell his little wife the good news as soon as possible.

In the past two and a half months, in order to help this "useless man" to get out of the shadow of his ex-girlfriend, my wife Yumeko has done her best, taking care of his daily life and helping him work to earn money to pay off his debts.

Every time Kitagawa Hide comes home from get off work, he provides meticulous emotional value.

She was very introverted and shy, and her expressions of affection were even a little clumsy, but she truly made Kitagawa Hide feel her burning love.

Before he knew it, Mengzi had become an indispensable part of his life.

"I'm back! Mengzi-chan, I have good news for you! From now on, you can eat as much sweet potato buns as you want from the Shiose family."

Kitagawa Hide’s butt failed to push open the door of the rental house, which meant that Yumeko had not yet arrived home.

Hey, it’s already past eight o’clock, and there’s no convenience store work today?

He turned the key to open the door, and then a nimble black shadow swooped over.

"Meow~"

The fat-butt British shorthair blue cat Pete jumped into his arms, begging for rubs, looking pitiful.

"Yuezi-chan?" Kitagawa Hide walked around and didn't see Yumeko, but he saw a bento box on the table with a letter underneath.

Kitagawa Hide's heart tightened. Could it be that his little wife hasn't yet recovered from the fact that he is Kitagawa's teacher and is so shy that she ran away from home?

I opened the envelope, the letter fell, and a few short sentences came into view -

"Parasite! Unfortunately, we have been selected as the promotional ambassadors for the 'Todai May Festival'!"

"So please lend me your Yumeko-chan for a while!"

"By the way, you have to remember to make money to support your family. Don't forget your promise to me!"

"The apology gift is in the storage room, remember to sign for it!"

Judging from the tone and handwriting, Kitagawa Hide knew without a doubt that it was that vicious little woman, Jabami Rei.

And there is a high probability that after she was chosen because of her long legs, she shamelessly dragged Yumeko along, who didn't know how to refuse.

When she reminded him of this, Kitagawa Shucai remembered that the famous "May School Festival" of the University of Tokyo was about to begin.

It is well known that the Japanese love festivals, especially in the summer, when there are festivals of all sizes almost every day.

Among them, the festivals held in universities are the most famous, and they often last for 3 to 5 days. The most popular one is the Tokyo University May School Festival, which can attract up to 20 visitors.

The so-called publicity ambassadors are the pretty girls in the school who wear various sexy outfits, such as maid costumes, bunny girl costumes, etc., and then hold signs and distribute small red cards at the school gate.

In short, I can't rest day or night and am very busy.

So after being selected, Agatsuma Yumeko would definitely have to move to Jabami Rei's rental house in Bunkyo Ward for a few days.

The house was empty. Feeling lost, Kitagawa Hide picked up Pete and jerked him hard a few times, then walked towards the storage room.

There was a gift box lying quietly inside.

When I opened it, I saw a fountain pen that looked quite expensive and a stack of brand new and beautiful draft paper.

"Your translation of 'The Lost Three Hours' is pretty good. Come on and make Yumeko-chan happy!"

Kitagawa Xiu smiled silently, took off the sticky note on it, picked up the gift box and walked to the desk.

"Meow~" Pete jumped onto the table, rubbed his hand with his head, then sat on all fours like an overseer, looking at Kitagawa Hide, as if to say, "Mom is gone, so you are not allowed to be lazy!"

"Okay, okay, I got it, I'll start writing now." Kitagawa Hide took out his new equipment and continued writing "A Wild Sheep Chasing Adventure".

In order to motivate himself more, he picked up a piece of draft paper and wrote in big letters on the first line, "Each manuscript is worth 6000 yen", and then listed the books he was currently writing one by one.

"Hear the Wind Sing": A total of 4 words, serialized royalties before tax of 6 yen.

"Pinball in 1973": A total of 6 words, serialized royalties before tax 3 yen.

Group Portrait Newcomer Award: Prize money of 200 million yen before tax.

The current total income is 363.5 million yen, and the total principal and interest of liabilities is 1 million yen.

Looking at it this way, it became clear that the feeling of loss caused by Mengzi's departure disappeared instantly, and the motivation to write books and make money came instantly!
He carefully glued the draft paper to the left corner with glue, so that he could always remind himself to keep writing, pay off his debts as soon as possible, and then live a new life.

The next day.

After a sleepless night, Kitagawa Xiu completed a day's guard duty with dark circles under his eyes.

Looking at the people coming and going at King Records, he planned to resign after receiving the royalties from Kodansha and getting a clear understanding of the record company's business model, and devote all his energy to writing novels.

As for why he wanted to understand the record company's business model, he had previously agreed to open a jazz cafe with Yumeko. Based on his understanding of Japan at this stage, a store that simply sold coffee and alcohol would definitely not make ends meet and would only end up closing down.

If they could get some good stuff from big record companies, or invite some popular idol singers to perform, their jazz cafe might be able to benefit from the idol fever that emerged after 95.

Kitagawa Hide's focus is not just on the Japanese literary world.

Although I didn't know much about the industries in Japan that could make money in 95, I knew the general trend of the times, so it was not a problem for me to make some advanced investments and small businesses.

Of course, these are just pastimes and entertainment besides writing. My current life goal is to develop pure literature, which is the backbone of my career.

After watching the last group of employees leave the company, he packed his backpack and prepared to go to the bank to check whether his royalties had arrived.

Just as he was about to run away, a black figure swayed in the distance, and then the familiar two ponytails "tapping" hit the plump buttocks wrapped in a professional skirt while running at high speed.

His editor-in-chief, Reina Saito, rushed over.

"Saito-san?" Kitagawa Hide looked at her in confusion.

At this time, she should be busy day and night with the publication of "Listen to the Wind Sing".

"Huff, huff." Saito Reina's whole body seemed to be surrounded by a faint smoke. She slightly bent her body and panted violently for a long time. Then she put her hands on her knees and said to him, "Kitagawa-san, are you free to have a drink tonight?"

Kitagawa Hide keenly noticed the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in her right hand, and then looked at her face, which was very good, swollen and with dark circles under her eyes.

It's only been a day, what's going on at Kodansha again?!
"Okay, let's go to Beihai Pavilion, shall we?" Beichuan Xiu nodded, his expression becoming serious. "But I have to go to the bank first."

Saito Reina nodded in agreement. She was actually quite embarrassed. Kitagawa Hide should be in a good mood right now because he had signed the contract and would be paid for his work soon. It was a bit tactless and embarrassing for her to come and disturb him.

But there was really nothing she could do.

A bunch of things that happened last night and today made her realize that someone was really trying to make the publication of "Hear the Wind Sing" fall into bad public opinion, and the other party was most likely an internal employee!
This matter must be notified to Kitagawa Hide in advance.

After one hour.

With a large bag of cash in their pockets, Kitagawa Hide and Saito Rena once again sat under the curtain of "Hokkaitei".

The barbecue master smiled and gave each of them a large glass of beer, then went on to make fried squid.

Saito Rena went straight to the point and handed today's daily and evening editions of the Yomiuri Shimbun to Kitagawa Hide.

"After get off work yesterday, I contacted the company's internal typesetters and designers as usual. Because the Ministry of Culture refused to provide any resources, the publishing work of "Hear the Wind Sing" was entirely contracted by us."

Saito Reina took a big gulp of beer. Whenever she was upset, she would drink to relieve her sorrow. After drinking and wiping her mouth, she continued,

"Mr. Kitagawa, you should know this, right? Publishing consists of six stages: typesetting, design, printing, binding, publicity, and distribution. According to the previous process, the typesetters and designers would have already started working on the day the publishing project was approved. By today, they should have already started printing and binding."

Kitagawa Hide said "hmm" and listened to her while carefully reading the newspaper.

Saito Rena is definitely not acting without a purpose. To make her so anxious, it seems that her publishing work has been blocked or she is being targeted by someone.

Soon, he found the relevant news in a tofu block of the daily magazine: "Does "Hear the Wind Sing" have the qualifications to be published in a hardcover paperback edition?"

Great, the title cuts straight to the point.

The book publishing plan had just been approved and was far from the promotion stage. It was considered semi-confidential within Kodansha, but it was directly put in the newspaper at this time.

Someone is causing trouble.

Seeing that he had found the news, Saito Rena stopped talking and wanted to wait for him to finish reading it, but she heard Kitagawa Hide suddenly say, "Go on, Saito-san, I'll listen while you read."

She was surprised at Kitagawa Hide's ability to do two things at once, so she nodded and continued, "But when I asked last night, I learned that the plan was temporarily changed midway. The book's appearance and content format originally set by the typesetter and designer were all rejected because they required the hardcover paperback to be published directly!"

The so-called hardcover paperback book is a more luxurious binding based on the ordinary paperback book. The cover of the book is made of a more textured material, and the content is also accompanied by illustrations drawn by famous painters.

This is generally used for famous works by pillar writers within the publishing house, or collector's editions such as anniversary limited editions.

Using a hardcover paperback edition will significantly increase publishing costs and will also involve greater risks.

This also means that if sales plummet, the two will have to bear greater responsibility.

"Even to this day, I haven't received any notification about the decision to change to a hardcover paperback edition!" Saito Reina rubbed her temples and whispered, "It is said that Editor-in-Chief Muramatsu is not aware of it either."

Kitagawa Hide had just finished reading the news at this time.

The news writer is called "Ichiro", which is obviously a pseudonym. And using this name is like seeing the author's name as "Xiao Ming" in the newspaper, it is as fake as it can be.

The problem is that the Yomiuri Shimbun is the best-selling general newspaper in Japan.

How powerful does one have to be able to issue a press release under such a pseudonym?

The content of the article is very well written, and it is obvious that it was written by a professional literary critic.

It did not smear and belittle "Hear the Wind Sing" like those low-level articles. Instead, it first praised it highly, believing that the novel was indeed worthy of being appreciated by a group of newcomers.

But then the tone changed, saying that Kodansha wanted to take advantage of this wave of popularity to publish a hardcover paperback edition, which was too commercial and contemptuous.

"Ichiro" listed the hardcover paperback novels produced in recent years. There are very few produced by Kodansha, and the most recent one is the signed limited edition of "Thirty Years in the Human World" by Oshima Hikaru.

The ones published by other publishers are all famous works by famous authors.

He believed that Kitagawa Hide was not worthy of being on par with these predecessors, and that Kodansha's commercial "deification" behavior desecrated the pure literary world.

He also felt that the sales of "Hear the Wind Sing" would definitely not be able to match those works, so he still wanted to publish a hardcover paperback edition. Was it self-humiliation or was there an inside deal?

The article was full of conspiracy theories and arguments, which immediately put Kitagawa Hide on the spot.

This "Ichiro" is really good at using the method of changing the concept.

In fact, whether it is published or awarded, "Hear the Wind Sing" is benchmarked against this year's new works by new writers. He now deliberately uses the hardcover paperback edition as an entry point to compare Kitagawa Hide with a group of "middle-stream" literary masters such as Oshima Hikaru.

It's like you've just learned the basics of dribbling and then are told your next opponent is an NBA professional basketball player.

The intention is extremely sinister!

"Someone wants to praise me to death?" Kitagawa Xiu folded the newspaper and looked at the evening edition.

There are many such small reports in the evening magazine which focuses on entertainment. I found three of them at once.

This was reported in the Yomiuri Shimbun, which made you famous overnight.

Kitagawa Hide had thought of many ways of appearing in the Yomiuri Shimbun, but he had never considered that he would be known to the public in this way.

"Yes, and it must be an internal employee of the company!" Saito Rena had a suspicion and saw the same name in Kitagawa Hide's eyes.

But they have no evidence.

"On the one hand, they are trying their best to praise me in the company, and on the other hand, they are slandering me in influential newspapers." Beichuan Xiu returned the newspaper to her with a calm expression, "The preparations are quite thorough."

Several news articles were well-written. Some of them took the new literary style pioneered by Kitagawa Hide as their starting point and argued that it was a bit inappropriate to hastily publish such a novel.

Others use the fact that he mainly writes love stories as an entry point, believing that "love is cliché" and is not worthy of leaving a strong mark in the hall of pure literature.

However, the most powerful one is "Ichiro". He is a professional black fan. In the era of online water army in the future, he will definitely be able to thrive.

"The problem is that the plan has been issued. It is estimated that the first batch of 1000 hardcover paperbacks will be released in the next few days. If the sales are not good, the serialization of "Pinball in 1973" may be forced to be postponed."

Rena Saito was worried but helpless. Things were clearly moving in a good direction, but why did she feel like she was back to the days before liberation?

"The price of the hardcover paperback edition will be very high, right?" Kitagawa Hide suddenly asked.

"Eh? It should be more than 5000 yen." Saito Reina replied. When she talked about the price, her mood became even worse.

Pricing will also affect readers' desire to buy.

Is there really anyone willing to pay for such an expensive paperback edition, especially a debut work by a new author?

She looked at Kitagawa Hide and was surprised to find that he suddenly took out a pen and draft paper and had already focused on calculating the profit of the hardcover paperback.

This is too ambitious!

(End of this chapter)