Became an American Retro Novelist - Chapter 159



Only Noblemtl

159.

I have agreed to invest in the company Simon is creating and take a stake in it.

It was my work that made Simon think about starting a business, and moreover, he had a feeling that having a stake would allow him to work freely as a writer even as the company grew in the future.

The writer communicates with the world through his work, but to do that, he must also become stronger. That was my current thought.

Simon, whose biggest concern was money, readily agreed to my words, and so we talked about our dreams while drinking beer and cola on a California beach.

Simon acts as the representative and editor, selling the work both domestically and internationally, and Julia helps him with this.

A future that is thrilling just to imagine is drawn.

California in the 1980s.

That night downtown was absolutely gorgeous.

Neon signs flashed everywhere, and people in leather jackets and fluorescent jumpers were walking around the streets. Even though it was night, they were wearing sunglasses, perhaps because the colorful lights were so dazzling. Or maybe it was just a certain 80s coolness.

Just a little while ago, I was walking down the street with Simon and Julia, wearing a biker jacket that Alexa had chosen for me, almost like them.

Cyberpunk, early synthwave vibes reminiscent of the 1980s.

We are not tired yet.

“Come on, let’s talk some more!”

“I have to go to work tomorrow.”

“Hey, there’s someone close to my company too!”

“You sober up and drive, Simon.”

Julia, in her trouser suit, and Simon, in his checked shirt, looked more like they’d be at home in a bar in a wealthier neighborhood a little further up the street.

But what does it matter what you wear? The beer is cold (even though I can’t drink it) and we’re really drawing our future right now.

As we entered the nearby pub, we were greeted by the owner, a biker in a leather vest.

We sat side by side at the bar table.

“Come on in.”

“Here, one shot of tequila each!”

“······What are you talking about, Simon? I’ll have a beer, please. Oh, and here’s a cola.”

“Are you too old to drink yet?”

“I like it.”

“So you’re saying that it’s not legally possible?”

The biker, who was wiping the glasses, laughed heartily and poured two glasses of beer from the tap. The thick, large glasses were filled with a golden liquid with bubbles rising up, and the biker, after scraping the foam that was rising like an explosion with a wooden stick at his side, handed them to us with a deft movement.

My mouth watered as I recalled that bitter yet refreshing taste.

‘I can’t wait to go back to college.’

And I wanted to grow up quickly. Why am I still too old to drink alcohol?

Instead, what was in front of me was a can of Coca-Cola.

The worst. It’s not Pepsi.

“Okay, Cheers!”

Under the cheers of a pleasantly drunk Simon, we clinked our glasses and cans together, taking a sip each with a refreshing sound.

Simon let out a sigh of relief and laughed.

“That’s amazing. I thought I would be a journalist my whole life.”

“How do you feel about making this new choice?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. There’s still a lot of work to do. For now, I’ll have to contact the writers and say hello before I quit… I’ll also have to go to the city hall and register my business.”

“Have you decided on a company name?”

“Oh, I’d like to talk about that together. What do you think, writer?”

“well.”

A name came to mind.

“How about ‘SIN’?”

“Original sin?”

“Yes. It’s a bit of a twist on my name, which will be the representative writer of our publisher, and it means that the act of reading novels and exploring the fun and truth is like the original sin that all humans are born with. I can’t help but think that it’s more like the interpretation of a dream than a dream.”

Julia and Simon’s eyes widened.

“Wow, really······.”

Julia opened her mouth, stammering.

“‘SIN’ as a publisher name? That’s really bad.”

“······I’m sorry.”

“Haha, that sounds like some unsellable pro wrestler’s name!”

Simon gave me another hit.

‘Shin’ will never forget this.

“Then let Julia speak this time!”

“In this case, we should hear Simon’s story first. He’s the publisher’s representative.”

“······.”

It was really annoying how he just slithered away like a snake.

And after hearing those words, Simon, who had been pondering for a long time, opened his mouth.

“Usually it’s named after the founder’s name or surname, right?”

“Simon Publisher?”

“Cover publisher?”

“I feel embarrassed just thinking about my name being included in the publisher’s name. I think it would be better to include the author’s name or Julia’s name instead.”

“A new publisher? A new publisher?”

“Julia Publisher or Chandler Publisher?”

Oh, Chandler. It’s surprisingly good. The tone is good, and among the great writers, there’s also Raymond Chandler.

That was the moment I thought so.

“Chandler is no good… I have to choose one of the five.”

Julia narrowed her eyes and looked lost in thought.

‘Why not Chandler?’

Is it because of that ‘Raymond Chandler’? He has no relation to you, so using that name could cause unnecessary misunderstandings.

Oh, if you look at it that way, Simon’s last name is also ‘Carver’. Some people might think of ‘Raymond Carver’ when they see the publisher’s name, but there’s not a single person in the world with the last name Carver.

‘Hmm, now that I think about it, both of their names are Raymond.’

Anyway, I was tilting my head at the question that briefly occurred to me, and Simon asked me first.

“Why five?”

“Of course, the company name we came up with must not be registered as a trademark. If it is a different industry, it can be registered, but even in this case, it is better to carefully examine the situation. If there is even the slightest overlap that could cause confusion, it should be avoided. There should be no room for problems.”

Only then did I understand.

According to Julia, if there are companies with the same name in similar industries, it could cause some headaches in future business. For example, when establishing and managing a company, the names could be confusing and cause inconvenience to people in other companies.

“It’s best if the name is easy to remember. It’s even better if it has meaning.”

When I heard that, one word came to mind clearly.

“······Hardboiled.”

I thought that it would be easy to remember and at the same time meaningful.

“Hardboiled?”

“It’s a name that clearly seems like it was taken over by another company, author.”

“But if there’s one word that connects the three of us, then there’s no other word, right?”

I explained with a grin.

I have a typewriter called the ‘Hard-Boiled Nine Thousand’.

It was originally used by Julia Chandler, and after she left the company, it was left dormant at Torrance New Media like a holy sword waiting for the right person to appear, and then Simon Carver gave it to me, and it has been a solid support to me so far, helping me overcome all kinds of adversity(?).

“Oh, that’s how it feels. I’m the Lady of the Lake and you’re like King Arthur?”

“Oh, then what about Simon?”

“lake.”

Suddenly Simon became nature.

“Hearing that, I hope that name isn’t taken over by another company.”

“Ha, let me apply. I like it. Author! Hardboiled publisher!”

I smiled brightly in front of the two people who responded positively.

‘That’s a really good name.’

I just hope that no one has already preempted it.

***

As a result, there was no publishing company in California that used the name “hard-boiled publisher.”

Simon Carver, who had carefully chosen three names and prepared the relevant documents before going to Los Angeles City Hall, seemed surprised to find out that the name “Hardboiled Publishers” was not registered.

In fact, there was a company called ‘Hardboiled’, but in that company’s case, it was a family-run farm that mainly sold eggs, so they registered it right away without looking back.

······The name of the company that sells eggs is Hardboiled, which means ‘hard-boiled’. It was a name that I definitely wanted to try later.

Anyway, when I heard the results, I was so dumbfounded that I ended up laughing.

‘I recommended hardboiled because I expected this might happen.’

This is because the name is so common that you might assume someone has already registered it, so you might not even think about registering it.

So the company name that Simon Carver registered became ‘Hardboiled Publishers’.

By the time I finished that work, it was almost time for the semester to start, so I met with Simon and signed the contract right away, even though registration hadn’t yet been completed.

Broadly speaking, a contract for a work is a matter of coordinating two things.

One is the rights to the work, and the other is the settlement according to the distribution of those rights.

In general, publishing a book was a risky undertaking for the publisher. The writer provided an intangible product called ‘writing’, but it was the publisher’s job to process it into the form of a ‘book’ and release it to the world, and most of the capital needed to publish a book was spent in that process.

So, in this barbaric(?) era, publishers often tried to obtain the rights to a work by engaging in copyright battles(?) with authors.

In my case, starting with ‘Mother’ and continuing with ‘About T’, didn’t I continue to share a lot of the profits I earned from the sales of my works with the publisher?

‘I wish Simon had started a publisher to get away from that.’

When I had to pay off my family debt, I was in dire need of money right away, so I put a lot of weight on the deposit and manuscript fee, but now things are a lot different. I think I can handle my writing a little more as a business. In the process, Simon was a very comfortable and good partner.

In general, the more rights the author has, the more the work’s ratio is aligned with the average. On the contrary, the lower the rights or settlement ratio of the work, the more the author gains in areas such as the initial contract fee. And these factors tend to fluctuate greatly depending on the author’s name value.

And this ‘hard-boiled publisher’ was, in fact, a company founded solely on the strength of my name and the work ‘Country of Losers’. It certainly didn’t have much capital, and there were bank loans involved in various areas. For Simon, it was a big gamble.

But the reason he could predict a fairly high chance of winning in that gamble was because of the ‘information’ he had.

“Author, let me be honest with you.”

He had met all sorts of people at publishers while working at newspapers, and was well versed in their internal workings. He also knew how to supply the work called ‘book’ to the market, and had already established himself in the market, so he had secured several routes.

In other words, he didn’t jump into this without thinking about it at all.

“Hardboiled Publisher is a smaller company than the author himself. It has just started, and normally, I would have to contact the authors I know here and there and ask about publishing. However, if the author trusts Simon and entrusts his work to me, I can promise one thing for sure.”

“What is that?”

“I will make sure that the author will never be disappointed.”

What should I say?

If someone else had said that, I would never have believed it, but since it was Simon’s words, who had been in the field for so long, I trusted him.

I held out my hand.

“Simon also believed in my work and threw himself into the ocean of the publishing market. Although it is a business, we will not be too rigid and will do our best for each other.”

After a quick handshake, the contract was quickly signed.

Since the hard-boiled publishers didn’t have much money to give me for the contract, I benefited greatly from the percentage and rights. All copyrights of the work belonged to me, and after three years, I could immediately terminate the contract every year if I wanted.

I didn’t really have the heart to do that if Simon was going to be nice to me in the future.

After finishing signing, I smiled.

‘That’s it.’

The rest was just waiting for ‘Country of Losers’ to come out.

***

The departure from Torrance New Media was a clean one.

Perhaps because of the accident, no one came out to see him off. Simon, who was about to leave after tidying up his place, looked around when he noticed the only cigarette left on the desk.

And then he found Miss Brown’s phone number written in small letters on the white part of a yellow filter cigarette and clenched his fist.

Splash!

······The cigarette broke, and he hurriedly wrote down the number.

Still, it was a company life where there wasn’t anything left over.

I felt awkward because of the stares from others, so no one wanted to accept me, but I was satisfied with just the stares from my former colleagues.

Simon Carver, a former employee and now the company’s CEO, smiled as he looked up at the blue Torrance sky after finishing his greetings.

“good.”

Now it was the beginning.

Simon began editing Country of Losers, commuting to a small office in Los Angeles that he had set up with a generous investment from Hardboiled Publishers and a small loan.

After receiving the manuscript from the author, the subsequent process largely proceeded in two tracks.

The work involved editing the manuscript itself and cutting it to fit the specifications for publication, as well as contacting and coordinating with external resources who could provide professional assistance in commercializing the book.

In fact, it wasn’t much different from the newspaper work I had been doing. The only thing that changed was the medium through which I was working.

In particular, Simon was an expert at editing manuscripts, having worked at a newspaper company and occasionally done outsourced publishing-related work.

He checked the final manuscript of ‘Country of Losers’ given by God, corrected typos, and continued to edit diligently using the new typewriter he had recently purchased.

Meanwhile, I was looking for people who could help sell this novel.

The first one to hit the cover is the man who will be taking charge, Denzel Flair.

He said that he had been getting a lot of outsourced work recently, and as soon as he heard that it was a new work by a new writer, he immediately asked for the manuscript. Shin readily agreed, and Simon handed him a copy of the manuscript himself, and of course, he also had him sign a nondisclosure agreement.

And the next day, Denzel called with this news.

[Should I quit my job too?]

“······Calm down.”

‘Country of Losers’, a devilish novel that increases the sense of futility in life and leads to resignation.

I thought that if Denzel Flair were to do the cover of that work, it would definitely be a great painting.

At the same time as asking for the cover to be created, Simon also began looking for someone to write a ‘book review’ to go with the book.

A person who is both sympathetic to the new author and influential enough to write a great review that can influence the sales of the book.

The first person who came to mind was Glenda Hoffman, the comforter of American housewives.

End

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