Tokyo Literary Godfather

So that's it, this guy is a gambler.

Owada Kanmasa stared at Fujiwara Kei's face and thought to himself.

Young, talented, and addicted to gambling... If this person were placed in troubled times, he would definitely be a hero.

And now Kei Fujiwara sat down at the gambling table in front of Owada Kanmasa, looked at him with burning eyes, rattled the chips in his hand, and asked him if he dared to bet.

Don't tell me, Owada Kanmasa really doesn't dare. Before coming, station director Yoshida Kashi said that if Fujiwara Kei made a request that exceeded Owada's authority, he should not refuse in a hurry and come back to inform him.

But now Kei Fujiwara's request has more or less exceeded his authority, and he has to go back to the notification station.

Owada Kanmasa coughed, "I understand, the income sharing is determined by grades... It seems that Teacher Fujiwara is really confident. However, I still need to inform Taili about this matter, and I will not be able to reply to you for a while."

Fujiwara Kei nodded: "It doesn't matter."

Owada Kanmasa seemed to be worried and left, Mizuhara Yui and others watched him leave, and at the same time they looked at Fujiwara Kei even more with admiration.

It seems that in order to keep him, even the high-level executives from the headquarters have come to talk to him in person. How have they ever received such treatment...

Is this the quality of a best-selling author? How about we write novels too?

…

The organizers of the Naoki Awards announced the shortlist. A total of five works entered the finals, namely: "White Night Walk", "Aurora Murder Case", "Summer of the Bird", and "The Magical Adventure of Waka Kaka" ", "Winter Girl's Warm Sun" five works.

Among them, Kei Fujiwara, the author of "Bai Ye Xing" and Kei Fujiwara, the author of "Wow Ka Ka Ka", are shortlisted for the first time, and Kei Fujiwara is a pure newcomer.

Among the other authors, Kyogoku Shunpei, the author of "The Summer of the Bird", is undoubtedly the most famous. He is as famous as Mika Miyamoto and Junzan Hattori, and is a representative author of Japanese monster novels.

The Naoki Award is the highest award for popular literature in Japan. It is not only awarded to mystery novels, but judging from the situation in previous years, it is true that mystery novels win the majority.

This year, among the five shortlisted works, there are only two mystery novels. This makes the public wonder whether the taste of the works selected for this year's Naoki Award has changed, and it is also more suspenseful.

Regarding who will win the Naoki Award in the end, there are different opinions in the media and on the Internet.

"Spring and Autumn Literature Award" also gave its prediction, sorting the five shortlisted authors according to the probability of winning.

Among them, the one most expected to win is Ikema Watanabe's "Aurora Murder 1", the second is Kyogoku Shupei's "Summer of the Bird", the third is "White Night Journey", the fourth and fifth is "" Wow Kaka" and "Winter Girl".

In fact, this ranking is not objective, Chunqiu Society has a lot of private goods, and two of the top three are authors of Chunqiu Society. Either he was afraid of being too ugly, which is why Kyogoku Shunpei was promoted to the second position, or else in the ranking of "most likely to win the Naoki Prize", the top two must be authors of the Spring and Autumn Society.

This year's Spring and Autumn Club has made a lot of money. First, they recruited Ikema Watanabe, and then they found the great treasure Kei Fujiwara from nowhere. Although "Aurora 2" received a mediocre response, due to the influence of the first film, sales will not be bad, but it will only slightly damage the reputation of Ikema Watanabe.

Not to mention "White Night Journey", which can be said to be the biggest dark horse in the Japanese mystery literary world in the past three years. It is even better than last year's dark horse work "Aurora 1".

What's more, Kei Fujiwara is still a pure newcomer, which is even more shocking. He shocked the world as soon as he made a move. How bright will this person's future be?

The editors of other publishing houses were almost crying, and among the envious gazes, there were several publishing houses that were swallowing their bitter taste.

For example, "Scream!" "Cheer" magazine. Fujiwara Kei had previously submitted "White Night Journey" to this magazine. Even the editor who received him, Miss Hanayamain, admired the novel. However, it was directly rejected by the then deputy minister at the serialization meeting. Didn't even look at it.

After "White Night Walk" became a hit and even topped the best-seller list for many weeks, it didn't take long for the position of deputy minister to change hands. It would be a serious dereliction of duty to reject a masterpiece based solely on its subject matter without watching it!

There is also Asakawa Bookstore. When Fujiwara Kei came to this bookstore to submit a novel, the editor who received him was in a hurry to go to a nightclub to have fun, causing the novel to be directly stuffed into a corner and no one cared about it. Their editorial director accidentally saw it and immediately asked to sign a contract with Kei Fujiwara. However, at that time, Kei Fujiwara had already signed a contract with Chunqiu Society.

After "White Night Walk" became a hit, the director of the editorial department of Asakawa Bookstore was so angry that he had nosebleeds for three days. The previous editor was also assigned to a women's magazine. I heard that it is difficult for that magazine to sell more than 1,000 a month.

As time goes by, the sales of "White Night Journey" are still strong and have not shown any signs of decline.

Although Kawaguchi Nobu was happy at this moment, he also had some regrets. He regretted that he should not have signed the gambling agreement with Fujiwara Kei.

When we signed an agreement with Kei Fujiwara, if the volume exceeds 500,000 copies, the royalties will be calculated at 10%. According to this trend, sales of 500,000 copies will not be a problem at all. If the volume exceeds 600,000 copies, the excess will be calculated as a 12% royalty.

In other words, if "White Night Walk" can sell one million copies, 400,000 of them will be paid at 12%.

Although one million sales may seem unbelievable, given the market's current popularity for "White Night Walk", this number may not be unachievable.

I wish I had promised him 10% directly... Now I have to give him tens of millions more yen in royalties...

Although he regretted it a bit, Nobu Kawaguchi secretly admired that a new author dared to propose such a betting contract. His courage was really extraordinary!

As "White Night Walk" becomes popular in the book market, the ratings performance of "Anthropology" is also getting better and better.

The royalties and performance bonuses from the TV station were paid into Kei Fujiwara's account at almost the same time.

At this time, there were no smartphones, so you could check your account balance anytime and anywhere. After receiving the money, Kei Fujiwara deliberately went to the bank to check the account balance. Looking at the account balance of tens of millions of yen, he suddenly felt a great sense of happiness.

The plans that were temporarily shelved due to lack of money can now be gradually implemented, including buying mobile phones, buying a car for transportation, and changing to a larger house...

etc. Fujiwara Kei suddenly thought of something and suddenly raised his forehead.

Tax... Before that, you have to file your taxes first, and you need to find a tax lawyer to help you sort it out first.

While Kei Fujiwara was busy dealing with financial troubles, he also took the time to move to a place closer to the TV station and company. While busy, time gradually passed the new year and arrived in 1995.