The question went straight to the thing that had been bothering Anko.
She put her hands on her hips, indignant, and said furiously, “The author won’t tell me a thing about what happens next.
He says I have to respect where the story’s going and can’t interfere.”
“Ah, I see…”
Momoko Kinomoto understood the author’s behavior perfectly well.
She had been taking in novels for years, after all.
The audience for Konoha Love Story had been clear to her by the time she finished reading: women, and plenty of them.
“So?
Are you taking the book or not?” Anko narrowed her eyes and smiled, thoroughly excited.
She badly wanted to see Konoha Love Story published.
The truth was that Momoko was torn.
She thought highly of Konoha Love Story.
There had never been a book of this type before, so it was fresh.
But a book being good was one thing, and a book selling was another.
From a woman’s point of view this was an excellent work, certain to be loved by women.
Forget the level of the Five Great Shinobi Countries or the Land of Fire.
If every woman in Konoha alone bought a copy, that would be big sales.
Still, what she feared was that it wouldn’t draw a crowd.
If it flopped, the Maruzen-do she had worked so hard to keep running would really come down around her.
The owner had left her far too little capital.
This was no longer the stage where she could pick new books by her own taste.
There were too many factors for her to weigh.
For a moment, Momoko wavered.
Anko had no way of knowing what Momoko was weighing, but she was very good at reading people.
Not much appetite there.
She raised an eyebrow slightly.
Probably it was her status as a special jonin that made it hard to refuse.
She had no wish to put Momoko in a difficult spot, so she stood up and held out her hand.
“If you’re not too happy with it, just give me the notebook, no need to force yourself.
I can help the author out and try somewhere else.”
“No, no!”
The moment she heard Anko wanted to leave with Konoha Love Story, Momoko shot to her feet and blocked her way.
“Lady Mitarashi, this novel is very good.
If it lands well it will definitely sell.
I just had some concerns a moment ago, so I hesitated.
Please sit down, and let’s talk it through slowly.”
Watching Anko sit back down, Momoko let out a breath and sat down as well.
She knew that if she didn’t make a decision now, Anko Mitarashi would take the notebook and walk right out, so she gritted her teeth and settled it on the spot.
Meeting Anko’s eyes, she said seriously, “Maruzen-do will take Konoha Love Story.
We’ll arrange for publication.”
“Ah, that’s wonderful.” Anko was thrilled to hear it.
Getting the novel published was more than she’d hoped for.
She had been afraid that if no publisher took it, Yuuga would lose the drive to keep writing.
Anko’s smile spread to Momoko too.
Without noticing, the corners of her mouth lifted, and her face filled with it.
Since she had decided to buy the publishing rights to Konoha Love Story, the next thing was the price.
Momoko took a deep breath, and with Maruzen-do’s dwindling funds in mind, she asked, “Lady Mitarashi, what value do you and the author have in mind for this book?”
“Ten million, let’s say.” Anko rubbed her chin.
She knew perfectly well she was asking for the moon, but she said it without hesitation, and she even smiled at Momoko.
“That’s not much, right?”
Open with an outrageous demand, and even if it got refused, Momoko would lower her expectations for whatever came next, which meant a better chance of getting a result she’d be happy with.
Momoko: “…Heh.
Lady Mitarashi, why don’t you just rob us?”
Anko blinked at her, the picture of innocence.
“If I were robbing you it’d be more than ten million ryo.”
That nearly made Momoko pop a blood vessel.
Ten million she could actually put together, but it was the last of Maruzen-do’s capital.
If all of it went to the publishing rights for Konoha Love Story, then the printing itself became a problem.
And who knew how many copies the book would sell?
Momoko frowned.
She knew Anko was asking for the moon, so she said, “Lady Mitarashi, could you give me an honest number?”
Anko raised an eyebrow.
“Ten million ryo.”
Momoko: “…”
In Konoha, a bowl of noodles at Ichiraku, the most famous place around, cost 60 ryo.
An ordinary jonin risking his life on an S-rank mission earned only a million ryo for it, and on a squad basis each man took just a few hundred thousand.
Maybe a mission run at the level of the Legendary Sannin paid that kind of money.
So ten million ryo was pure fantasy.
There was also an unwritten rule in the publishing trade of the ninja world: every manuscript was acquired as an outright buyout.
The author brought in the manuscript, the price was settled, and the publisher paid the writing fee in a single lump sum, with profit and loss its own to bear.
If it lost money the publisher ate it and the author carried no risk at all, sleeping easy with his money in hand.
But if it made money, even over a million copies sold, the author never saw another ryo.
The most he got was a higher price the next time he brought in a manuscript.
So the negotiation stalled.
Maruzen-do couldn’t produce ten million ryo for Konoha Love Story now, and Momoko was never going to agree to it.
But taking Yuuga’s book for two million?
Anko absolutely would not do that.
In her eyes the book was worth far more than that.
“Haah…” Momoko saw the teasing look on Anko’s face, thought about it, and decided to speak first.
“Lady Mitarashi, asking Maruzen-do to put up ten million ryo right now is like talking in your sleep.
You know it’s impossible.
How about we discuss it again?”
Looking at the bitterness on Momoko’s face, Anko understood that expecting Maruzen-do to produce ten million ryo really was a pipe dream, all the more so for a Maruzen-do in the middle of a cash crisis.
And her real aim was a royalty split.
Yuuga had talked the situation over with her on the way to the training ground.
Anko put her words in order and laid out Yuuga’s idea.
“So could we change the payment method?”
“I’m listening,” Momoko said helplessly.
“I think we could go with a split.
For example, every time a copy of Konoha Love Story sells, my friend takes twenty percent of the profit.
So if the book is priced at 100 ryo a copy, my friend gets 20 ryo for every copy sold.
How does that sound?”
Anko laid out the “split method” Yuuga had described, unhurried, and then watched Momoko to see what her attitude would be.
Momoko thought it over and decided it could work.
Maruzen-do was short on funds right now, and if the book sold well the money would come back around and they could get through the crisis.
If the book sold badly, Maruzen-do wouldn’t have to pay the author an enormous writing fee.
It suited their cash shortage well.
“If the risk is shared, I think the proposal works,” Momoko said once she had made up her mind.
“But twenty percent is too high.
Our costs for physical publishing are heavy.
Printing, paper, labor, all of it has to be counted in.
The cut we can offer is ten percent.
What do you say?”
“Heh, are you kidding me?” Anko slapped the desk and said irritably, “Twelve percent, and not a fraction less!”
“Done, we have a deal.” Momoko smiled slyly, the merchant in her showing through, and said cheerfully, “Twelve percent is no problem at all.”