The president of Shueisha, Taniyoshi Shoichi, was sitting in his office, looking at the financial statement for the second quarter of 1992 in front of him with some distress.
Although Shueisha's figures were good this year, its magazines, especially "Weekly Youngermen Jump", had reached an unprecedented sales volume of 5.8 million copies in one issue, and it was estimated that it could even exceed 6 million copies next year. This was a peak that no one in Fusang had ever reached.
But Taniyoshi Shoichi's expression was not relaxed, because Shueisha's losses in other industries, especially the huge losses in the investment of Yutani Company, caused the financial statements of the previous two quarters to be quite ugly. Taniyoshi Shoichi felt that he did not know how to explain it to the shareholders.
A publishing group with an annual revenue of 40 billion yen, the actual profit of the previous two quarters was only 120 million yen, who would believe it?
It had 200 million last year.
In fact, he also knew the reason, because basically no copyrights were sold today, and if they could not sell the copyrights, naturally, the income was not enough.
Just when Taniyoshi Shoichi was distressed, his secretary suddenly knocked on the door and came in, reporting to him, "President, there is a China man who wants to see you, he said that he has a business deal with a net profit of 20 million yen, and he wants to talk to you about it!"
"No …" Taniyoshi Shoichi refused without thinking, but just as he spat out the two words, he abruptly swallowed them back.
Wait, 20 million yen of net profit, is this real or fake?
"Is he really talking about net profit?" Taniyoshi Shoichi confirmed with his secretary.
"Yes, that's right!" The secretary nodded.
"Then, please invite this gentleman to the living room!" Taniyoshi Shoichi nodded, slightly tidied up his appearance, and saw Jia Yapeng in the living room.
"Mr. Jia said that there is a net profit of 20 million yen, what kind of business cooperation is it?" Taniyoshi Shoichi asked with a smile.
"It's very simple, I have a manga, and I hope to serialize it in Shueisha's" Weekly Youngermen Jump "magazine. If President Taniyoshi agrees, I can directly pay 20 million yen in cash, this is indeed a net profit!" Jia Yapeng laughed.
"20 million yen, what a huge sum." He had to admit that Shoyoshi Tanida was a little tempted, but he also knew that Shoyoshi Tanida had always adhered to the rules and beliefs of "Weekly Youngermen Jump". It seems like going against these rules for 20 million yen will make the editors unhappy! "
Thinking of this, Furuta Masayoshi hesitated.
"I need to discuss this matter with the editors!" Shōyoshi Taneda said hesitantly.
"30 million yen!" Jia Yapeng said without raising his head, "30 million yen. Get it serialized. I don't want any reason to reject me!"
"Suck!" Furuta Masayoshi looked at this young man in shock. In order to serialize an issue of the magazine, he spent 30 million yen. Which family's young master was this? He was so generous that he didn't see money as money.
Wait, she looks like a Hua Xia. Are Hua Xia people so rich?
"President Taneda, what do you think?" Jia Yapeng asked with a smile.
"30 million yen!" Furuta Masayoshi's heart instantly sank into anxiety. 30 million yen, compared to Shueisha's annual sales of 50 billion yen, it seemed not worth mentioning.
But compared to the 120 million yen net profit in the first half of this year, it was very important. This way, the profit in the first half of this year could reach 150 million yen. At least it looked a lot better on the surface. At least he could answer to the shareholders.
But if he did this, he was afraid that he would be scolded by the editors below him like an old dog!
Furuta Masayoshi was very hesitant. He was wavering left and right. It was very uncomfortable.
"How about this, a fixed price of 40 million yen. If President Taneda doesn't agree, I will leave now and not disturb you anymore!" Jia Yapeng narrowed his eyes and said.
Furuta Masayoshi was completely shaken. This 40 million yen was too tempting for him.
Furuta Masayoshi wasn't a serious editor. He was a businessman. A businessman would only think about profits. And in Furuta Masayoshi's eyes, 40 million yen was worth breaking some rules.
Anyway, the other party only asked for serialization in the magazine. This wasn't an excessive request. Every month, a new serialized manga would appear in the magazine. At the same time, there would also be serialized manga that would be cut in half.
No matter which manga was serialized, it was still serialized. Among the 18 manga in the magazine, more than 10 of them were ultimately cut in half. And these manga basically couldn't bring any profit to Shueisha. It was difficult for the sales of a single volume to exceed ten thousand. The animation required a large amount of investment, and no one cared about the surrounding manga.
Serialization of such manga not only couldn't bring any profit, but also lost a lot of money.
The net profit of "Weekly Youngermen Jump" was, in fact, the profit brought by the top manga like "Dragon Ball" and "Oolong Police Station". They were the real profit core. As for the other manga, they were just used to raise voodoo insects.
Among these voodoo insects, only a small amount could grow up and eventually become Shueisha's money printing machine. As for the other manga, they could only be thrown into the waste paper pile of history. And such waste paper pile accounted for more than 80% of the serialized manga in "Weekly Youngermen Jump".
So for Shueisha and Furuta Masayoshi, serializing "Yu-Gi-Oh" was indeed a good business. They didn't need to pay any price. It was just cutting a failed manga and replacing it with another one that might fail.
As for the quality of this manga, Furuta Masayoshi didn't care. It wasn't that "Weekly Youngermen Jump" didn't have any extremely bad quality manga, but as long as it was cut in half in time, the readers could still accept it.
More importantly, Furuta Masayoshi actually just flipped through "Yu-Gi-Oh" manga. Although the style was still a bit immature, the story was undoubtedly interesting. Such a manga was actually no different from those manga that were cut in half. The readers may not like it after reading it, but they will never be bored.
Serializing "Yu-Gi-Oh" won't cause any loss, but it can make a profit of 40 million yen. One must know that when Shueisha sold the game copyright of "Dragon Ball", it only sold it for 30 million yen. But how many manga like "Dragon Ball" in the world?
This "Yu-Gi-Oh" is equivalent to making a profit of 40 million yen before it even hits the shelves. How many serialized manga can achieve this?
Furuta Masayoshi finally made a wise decision.
"No problem, leave this matter to me, but there is one thing, if the serialization results are very bad, or even lead to continuous bad reviews, then the serialization will last for at most a year, and will be forcefully cut off!" Tanida Shouyoshi said.
"This is a wise decision!" Jia Yapeng smiled slightly, then sat down.
"The reason why Your Excellency is willing to spend so much money is probably to monopolize the copyright of this manga!" Furuta Masayoshi is not stupid, no one will spend so much money to buy the right to serialize, so Jia Yapeng must have a plan.
"Yes, Shueisha only has the distribution license of the manga, the other copyrights are all in my hands, and it has nothing to do with Shueisha!" Jia Yapeng nodded.
"The other copyrights can be given to you, but the distribution rights of the manga in the future must be in the hands of Shueisha. Once this manga is serialized in Shueisha, it must not appear in any other publisher's magazine!" Furuta Masayoshi added, this is the most important point, Shueisha's exclusivity cannot be changed, this is not something that can be exchanged with money.
"Okay!" Jia Yapeng nodded, "But it is limited to the internal copyright of Fusang, except for the Fusang region, all the copyrights have nothing to do with Shueisha!"
"But I have a request, that is, in the next issue of" Weekly Youngermen Jump "that has not yet been printed, it must start serialization, and at the same time, it must have all the rights of a normal serialized manga, the editorial department must not have any bias towards my manga!"
"No problem!" Furuta Masayoshi nodded his head straightforwardly, then took out two glasses of red wine from the bar in the living room and clinked glasses with Jia Yapeng. At the same time, he smiled and said, "Happy cooperation, Mr. Jia Yapeng!!"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
