Chapter 15 (1/2)

Chapter 15 – I Am Generous

“Should I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, I drank some already. I’m fine.”

The three people sat on cus.h.i.+ons in Jaegun’s room.  In the bleak room that was vacant for so long, Jaegun first said.

“I’ll forget everything that doesn’t have anything to do with business. I won’t say any words.”

“Ahah, Yes…”

Manager Ma Jonggu could only put down his head because he felt a bit guilty. He knew it himself. It was the truth that he was harsh on the past no-name writer Jaegun. He could have done better to him, but he didn’t.

“You know the conditions that I gave to Gyungsu, right? I’ll start from there.”

“That is, sir, the paper books conditions are fine, but the electronic book conditions are a bit… yes. Couldn’t you lengthen the contract length or give us more on the ratio? Couldn’t something like that occur?”

Jonggu was saying this, practically begging.

Even though he wasn’t the type to act like a baby, Jaegun looked around and let out a sight as if he was frustrated. Just with this, Jonggu and Gyungsu became afraid and shook.

“Then let’s do this.”

Jaegun, even though he thought of this earlier, said like he just thought of it now.

“I’ll only take 10 percent for the paper books. I don’t need guaranteed circulation, and I’ll take 1 percent starting from 4000 copies. But I’ll keep the 2 year contract with the 7 and 3 ratio for the electronic books.

Jonggu’s face showed his complicated thoughts. Jaegun added as if he was being generous.

“I’m being generous.”

“Ah, Yes. Sir… but…”

It was awkward for Jonggu to contract like this.

There was no way to see how many paper books were going to sell and the market wasn’t good as well. There was no guarantee that Jaegun’s books were going to be a string of successes. It was his honest thoughts that he wanted to take more on the electronic side of the business.

Just then, Jaegun held up his index finger and continued.

“If you listen to my personal request, I can maybe allow the contract year to increase to 3 years. Or maybe I can give you 1 more on the electronic settlement ratio.

“Personal request?”

Jaegun held up his middle finger and his ring finger as well and opened three fingers.

“Enter in 30,000 dollars in first.”

Jonggu opened his mouth wide enough to show his uvula.

There was no way to know what Jaegun was going to write, how many books he was going to write; there was absolutely no information on his new works. And with that, an input of 30,000 dollars, that was a huge amount.

“Wr-writer Ha…”

Instead of the flabbergasted Jonggu, Gyungsu spoke up.

“This might be a bad question, but if you sign with use, how many books are you gonna write for the series.”

“At least 10 books.”

Gyungsu nodded his head and did the calculations.

The cost for a 10 book series is about 24,000 dollars if it’s 3000 copies per book. To not have any losses, there constantly needs to be at least 3000 copies selling or Jaegun had to increase the series length. There was no guarantee that even 3000 copies would be sold either.

‘If we contract and make a loss…’

The thing that was left was the electronic platform.

If there was a loss, the only way to make it up was like electronic books. Hetae Media went into the electronic market a bit late. To make a profit for the company, they needed some more time to grow.

“Hmm…”

Jonggu was deep in thought pressing on his nose.

It was Jonggu’s way of just throwing out writers who didn’t result in money. Therefore, that was why he was afraid. He was afraid if Jaegun was going to throw out Hetae Media the same way.

“10 books… Please, you need to write no matter what until the 10th book.”

“I said it with my mouth. If the project needs more because of pacing, I would write more.”

Jonggu felt somewhat relieved but one part of his mind was still hesitant. Jaegun pulled out his phone, checked it, and showed it to Jonggu.

“Would you look at this?”

Jonggu and Gyungsu’s eyes both went to the phone screen. It contained Starbooks’ Somii’s message.

The Modern Rankings is printing 2000 more copies. The Martial Rankings is also probably printing a thousand more copies. Now it’s 4000 copies and 5000 copies. Total of 9000 copies! This is good news so I thought to tell you as soon as the news was released. Good work today as well.