House Dad's Literary Life

Chapter 183 – Fairy Tale Collection Flops

Urging for updates? That didn’t exist for Yang Yi.

He still updated according to his own pace, and updating two chapters at two different times of the day was the limit of his ability.

It wasn’t that rewriting the TV drama into words was particularly difficult. If it were just words, Yang Yi could have updated several chapters a day without any problem. But this needed to be accompanied by a large number of illustrations to help the audience understand the story and character images!

Drawing illustrations took a lot of time! Updating twice a day was already enough trouble!

Moreover, Yang Yi didn’t like to spend too much time on drawing and writing s. He still has a life, Xixi, music… Oh, and that coffee shop he has been struggling with.

“Boss, another cup of mocha please!” There, another customer was calling out.

“Okay, just a moment!” Yang Yi was helplessly interrupted from his train of thought, quickly brewed a cup of coffee, and served it over.

After school started, the previously unknown coffee shop started to become lively. Even though there weren’t many students coming from the back entrance, it couldn’t resist the huge student base of the university. Dozens of people came every day, which was enough to keep Yang Yi busy!

Moreover, some customers didn’t just leave after finishing their coffee. Some came with friends and could chat for hours. Others even used the coffee shop as a study room. After buying a cup of coffee, they would hide in a quiet corner and read and study, sometimes sitting there for a whole morning or afternoon.

Find the coffee shop’s music too noisy? No, they even wore headphones to listen to music!

Yang Yi didn’t mind people taking up space. He didn’t care if the coffee shop made money or not. Why would he care about these issues?

He felt that with more customers, he had less time for himself and couldn’t afford to space out when things got busy.

Yang Yi somewhat missed the state of having only two or three customers a day. It was so much better then. He didn’t have to rush to make coffee or wash cups. Most of the time, he would sit alone in the shop with his eyes closed, listening to music.

If Xixi hadn’t gone to kindergarten, he probably wouldn’t have time to accompany her, right?

Yang Yi brought the coffee over and sat back at the counter, his brow furrowing slightly. He thought to himself, “This won’t do, I need to think of a solution!”

How about hanging a sign at the door saying that only two or three customers are allowed in a day? If there are too many, I won’t sell coffee.

However, he felt he didn’t have that much influence, so what reason did he have to turn customers away? Yang Yi felt this idea was inappropriate.

What if I raise the price? Sell the most expensive coffee to deter people?

But Yang Yi didn’t want to become a shrewd businessman who only served the wealthy!

Moreover, Yang Yi didn’t want to turn away music lovers like Lu Xiaoshu and Miao Chuan, who couldn’t afford expensive coffee. At one point, he had even considered lowering the price!

These ideas obviously wouldn’t work.

Yang Yi suddenly thought of Yan Xiaopei, or to be precise, he thought of her flower shop. This woman was very astute, employing college students to work part-time at her flower shop, and paying them much less than full-time employees.

Of course, Yang Yi didn’t want to exploit college students or hire cheap labor, but it seemed like a good idea to hire one or two shop assistants to work in his shop!

“I can offer a higher salary as long as the employee is diligent and capable. Money is not a problem!” Yang Yi thought to himself.

He began to imagine that scene, where someone was working behind the counter in his shop, and he, the boss, would leisurely sit in one of the booths reading the newspaper and listening to music. Whenever he wanted a cup of coffee, he would just go to the counter and make one for himself.

How great would that be?

…

Just as “Prison Break” was released, another book by Yang Yi quietly appeared on the shelves of major bookstores.

“Xixi’s Bedtime Stories,” a lame name coined by a father who spoils his daughter, obviously didn’t have any appeal to readers. 1

Naturally, Sahara Publishing House has done some promotion before this, but they had never been involved in the field of children’s books. The marketing materials still used the same approach as they did for adult books. Some of Yang Yi’s fans had heard about this news, but they didn’t have the intention to buy children’s book.

Even when the news of Yang Yi wrote a collection of fairy tales spread among his fan group, many of them still felt it was a rumor and a hoax!

“Are you kidding! Yang Yi writing fairy tales? This is just a fairy tale in itself!” Someone sarcastically commented, and many people agreed.

it was true to say that Yang Yi’s impression on book fans was similar to his own. He was a burly veteran who was good at both literature and martial arts, and perhaps a bit aloof and reticent. But he was definitely not the kind of taciturn man who likes to tell stories in a childish tone.

Although the themes of Yang Yi’s recent books have gradually started to darken his image, it still has a long way to go before it could be compared to fairy tales.

As a result, “Xixi’s Bedtime Stories” received a cold reception on the first day of its release. Thanks to its colorful illustrations, it managed to catch the interest of some children who happened to pick it up, and thus it barely sold some copies.

At the end of the day, Sahara Publishing House counted only a few thousand copies sold nationwide. Compared to record-breaking titles like ‘Drawing Sword’ and ‘Soldiers Assault’, this book was a complete flop!

Fu Jun attached great importance to Yang Yi’s collection of fairy tales. Even before its release, he, who was also a father, had taken a sample book home to show his son.

His son liked it very much!

Then his wife accompanied their son to read it and surprisingly she also liked it…

Later, Fu Jun himself found it quite interesting after reading it, so he had an inexplicable confidence in Yang Yi’s book. He even felt that this collection of fairy tales might create miracles. After all, the readership spanned across ages and genders!

However, reality dealt him a heavy blow.

“Have you notified Yang Yi yet?” Fu Jun asked Mr. Lu during the meeting.

“Not yet, boss. Do you want me to call Yang Yi now?” Mr. Lu misunderstood.

“No, no, don’t tell him!” Fu Jun waved his hand and said, “I went to Qiyue’s website and saw that his new book ‘Prison Break’ was really well-written. Although it only had two chapters, I felt like my heart was being scratch by a cat. I wanted to know why this Michael didn’t think twice about robbing a bank and didn’t run away quickly after stealing the money, so he was unceremoniously caught by the police!”

“I think there’s a profound meaning in it.” Mr. Lu also read it, and he has long been a loyal fan of Yang Yi.

However, Fu Jun didn’t want to talk about “Prison Break” with them. He knocked on the table and said, “The performance of ‘Prison Break’ were very good. On the day it was released, it surpassed ‘Yu Zui’! This is due to the excellent promotion by Qiyue!”

“We also need to reflect on ourselves. Is there something wrong with what we did? How could you sell Yang Yi’s interesting children’s storybook like this? Is it the worst result in the history of the publishing house?” Fu Jun said, feeling frustrated.

The department managers below moved their mouths, but they didn’t dare to speak out: Actually, the worst result in the history of the publishing house… it was the autobiography that the boss wrote himself with pride that did not sell many copies at all.

“Go back and think about it. Where did we fall short? Go and see how others do promotional and sales activities in the field of children’s books! You have one week. I want to see sales, sales!” Fu Jun waved his fists and shouted.

“And the online bookstore, promote this book more for me. I think more people will buy it through online sales…”