Novelist Running Through Time - Chapter 168



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The Novelist Who Leapt Through Time Episode 168

It was something I could never get used to hearing a thank you from someone who once made my heart tighten just by hearing his voice.

“Thank you so much for hanging out with us Yuna.”

A plate was placed in front of me with a clatter sound. It was an American breakfast with two fried eggs and thick bacon.

Green parsley powder was sprinkled on top of the fluffy yolk, and the bacon was exquisitely cooked, so it was neither overly crispy nor mushy.

To sum up, even though it was only a simple breakfast, it seemed like a lot of care was put into it. It’s like serving a very important guest.

That precious guest was me.

How on earth did this happen?

“Would you like a glass of milk?”

It wasn’t a question. Mrs. Min Chae-won said as she placed a glass of milk in front of me. Then the answer is decided, so all I have to do is answer.

“… … thank you.”

“Thank you, I am more grateful, hoho.”

Mrs. Min Chae-won, who is more poisonous than a puffer fish, smiles at me. It was like there was a barricade in her throat and she wouldn’t get over the food.

Then, Professor Koo Hak-jun, who ate with a newspaper spread out at the table like a typical father in a 90s American drama, scolded him.

“Well, why do you keep putting a burden on my child while he’s eating?”

“No, I’m grateful. With our Yuna… ”

Gu Yu-bin, who was busy eating breakfast and preparing to go to college, covered her mouth and laughed.

“Are you using the honorific terms Mom and Dad now? “In front of guests?”

“W-what are you saying again? “I originally wrote it sometimes.”

“What do you use?” This is her daughter’s first time hearing it too… ”

The quarrel between Gu Yu-bin and Min Chae-won ended with a single word from Gu Yu-na, the tyrant of the Gu Hak-jun family, a child who was like the incarnation of the 7080 patriarchy.

“water.”

Squeak-

Gu Yubin once again politely poured water into Gu Yuna’s glass.

Gu Yu-na took one shot like an old man drinking a glass of soju at a street food stall after work, made a strange groaning sound, and suddenly got up from his seat.

Then he grabbed the back of my neck and lifted me up.

“Now let’s go write.”

“Hey, wait a minute! “I haven’t finished eating yet-”

Gu Yu-na, a child of all ages, is not caught up in trivial matters.

I saw Gu Hak-jun laughing as he was being dragged by Gu Yu-na, Gu Yu-bin laughing heartily, and Min Chae-won getting angry and telling the customer not to be rude.

But even Mrs. Min Chae-won had a smile that couldn’t be hidden on her lips.

During the few weeks I spent going to Gu Hak-jun’s house to continue my joint writing with Gu Yu-na, I found myself blending into this household.

“… … ”

Perhaps, a future like this could have come to me in the past?

Ironically, I who thought this way was none other than my ‘past self’.

But I had already sought the answer within myself, and time was not in the form of lines or surfaces, but in the form of memories.

Therefore, there was only the harsh truth that the time already experienced cannot be undone.

So let’s leave regrets as regrets and focus on the story we are writing now.

The most important thing is-

EP 10 – Starry Sky

“It’s not literature.”

That was Lim Yang-wook’s answer.

Even though I thought about it, agonized over it, sold the book over and over again, the conclusion was the same.

Therefore, Lim Yang-wook answered the two editors’ question, ‘Why should we join forces?’

“It is not the content of the novel that affects sales.”

“… … ”

“It’s wrapping paper.”

Cliché phrases are used on the novel’s packaging, that is, the cover and the book strap. A masterpiece that shocked the nation, a hot new work, or a hot work of the year…

Of course, the most effective among such cliché phrases is the history of winning literary awards, such as winning a certain literary award.

In other words, Lim Yang-wook declared that the commercial value and sales volume of a novel depend entirely on such external factors.

Literary quality comes second.

It was a remark that Koo Hak-jun would have frowned upon if he had heard it, and if Park Chang-woon had heard it, it was a problematic remark that would have made the top of Lim Yang-wook’s head concave.

However, Kyosensha’s Yohei Iwamoto smiled an embarrassed yet sinister smile, and Collins Press’ Richel Surface whistled, saying it was a very bold statement.

They were not people who wrote books, but people who sold books, and such remarks were nothing new to book sellers who had all kinds of dust on them.

It was a thought that everyone had darkly buried in the back of their minds as they bumped into the cold walls of the industry over and over again.

So two editors.

Kyosensha’s Yohei Iwamoto and Collins Press’ Richel Surface paid attention to Lim Yang-wook, who brought out the darkness in the editor’s heart.

And Lim Yang-wook also used his own money, not the company’s money, to secretly invite these two people and gave them plane tickets as a gift.

It’s also a business class seat.

Even a round trip.

In order not to waste the terrible expenses that cut into office workers’ salaries, Lim Yang-wook carefully selected his next remarks.

Taking a long breath to calm his mind, Lim Yang-wook finally threw the dice.

“At some point, a time came when the content of a novel was not that important. People in the world do not know what the content of the novel is, but they pick up the book only because of how famous the author is, what awards he has won, and how many copies it has sold. so… ”

“… … ”

“… … Why not fool the world?”

* * *

The saying that there is no mourning blessing is not used for anyone.

It is natural that people who seem unlikely to win an award will not win an award. The expression used for a person who seems capable of winning an award but fails to win it is ‘no mourning clothes.’

The writer was a writer without mourning clothes.

Although he showed off his spirit by winning as many as 16 literary awards at the same time as his debut, strangely he has not had any mourning clothes since then.

At least I was nominated for a literary award in England, on the other side of the world, but it was ‘expected’ to win the award and I didn’t win it.

To express this in a simpler way, it is called ‘nomination’.

If I were to express it in a way that made it seem like it wasn’t there, it would be ‘obvious’.

Therefore, the writer is an unrelated novelist who has never won any major literary awards, except for ‘It Was Obvious’, which won the Booker International.

And it won’t happen for quite some time in the future. The karma of damaging the pride of all literary journals by exposing the practice of paying entry fees was great, and even the Booker Prize, the world’s most commercial literary prize, was all about using writers as kindling for box office sales.

why? Awarding a literary prize to a minor means turning into enemies many people who cannot accept it. Therefore, if you have brains, you have no choice but to give rewards to people.

Lim Yang-wook felt this reality painfully.

After debuting in a storm with literary awards, who came up with the idea to expose the practice of paying entry fees by saying, ‘I’m sorry, I dragged you in to show you this’?

It was the writer who fanned the flames of the house by buying 16 instead of just 1, but in any case, the first person to think of it and suggest it was Lim Yang-wook himself.

Contrary to popular misunderstanding, Lim Yang-wook was not a cephalopod but a primate, so he could not help but feel remorse.

If you want to sell a lot of books, you need a literary award.

But that depends on fate.

You can’t win a literary award just because you want it, and even if you try to use illegal methods to get it as much as possible, the chances are not 100%.

Of course, the story is different when it comes to large publishers like Baekhak Bookstore.

Because there was the ‘Baekhak Literary Award’ organized by Baekhak Ilbo, an affiliate of Baekhak Group.

If Lim Yang-wook had shouted, ‘We are strangers!’, the writer would have won the Baekhak Literary Award four times.

And in reality, he is not even a ‘man’. Publishers and media companies have the same historical roots, and Baekhak Ilbo and Baekhak Bookstore were once the same company.

All of the people who are on the Baekhak Ilbo Baekhak Literary Award judging committee have a close relationship with Lim Yang-wook, and even Lim Yang-wook is in a position where it would not be strange to be on the judging panel.

However, Lim Yang-wook did not give the Baekhak Literary Award to a writer. This was true even though the Baekhak Literary Award was one of the top five prestigious literary awards in Korea.

Because the reader was not stupid.

Moonin is very close to the Baekhak Group. It wasn’t even really a secret to her. Therefore, it was clear that the first voice that would come out as soon as he won the Baekhak Literary Award was not ‘congratulations’ but ‘suspicion’.

It is not important whether Lim Yang-wook was actually involved in the writer’s award. Writers are simply writers who should not win the Baekhak Literary Award. So Lim Yang-wook has been putting pressure on writers to prevent them from winning the Baekhak Literary Award.

Ironically, that’s how the world works.

Therefore, a slightly more sophisticated ‘trick’ is needed.

That was Lim Yang-wook’s decision.

* * *

Even though Lim Yang-wook could not give a literary prize to a writer, it was always possible for him to place his work at number one on the bestseller list.

In fact, the fame of a writer has reached a level where it is strange that his work does not rank first on the bestseller list. In fact, if you don’t get first place or fall from first place quickly, you get criticized.

Therefore, when Lim Yang-wook mobilized all his promotional capabilities, it was not that difficult to find the following phrase in an online bookstore.

A starry sky.

“hmm… … ”

Yohei Iwamoto, an executive-level editor and translator at Kyosensha, smiled slyly as he looked at the text on the smartphone screen.

#1 bestseller in Korea.

Because that was the ‘signal’ promised to Yangwook Lim.

Operation begins.

Yohei Iwamoto pushed the desk with all his might. The chair with its wheels rolled and rolled. Yohei Iwamoto naturally reached the employee behind him and gave instructions.

“Miyamoto-san.”

“yes!”

“The starry sky, please submit it tomorrow.”

“All right!”

Preparations had already been completed. Translation has been completed, printing has been completed, and distribution to bookstores across the country has been completed.

And the book already had a belt decorated with the phrase ‘Korea’s No. 1 bestseller’.

That phrase was prepared before ‘The Starry Sky’ was even published in mainland Korea, so it was the product of thorough planning.

And if the plan went smoothly, preparing the next phrase wouldn’t be that difficult.

The writer’s popularity has not yet cooled down in Japan, publishing profits from novelist writers’ works in Japan are set in favor of Kyosensha, and even the person in charge, Yohei Iwamoto, has secured the position as an exclusive translator in the future…

In fact, the industry, company, and people in charge are all sending a positive signal to the business.

So, now that we have the Holy Trinity to overcome the maze of shady personal connections, we are ready to sweep the Japanese publishing industry, which foreigners are running away from in horror.

“Uhuhu… ”

Yohei Iwamoto smiled darkly and licked his lips with his tongue.

‘No. 1 bestseller in Japan’.

I can’t help but laugh at the thought of eating that glorious title raw like yellowtail sashimi in winter.

* * *

When a small ball launched from Korea was caught in Japan and passed back to the United States, it was no longer a ‘small ball’.

Therefore, Richelle Surface, editor of Collins Press, was able to engrave this phrase on the cover of the novel ‘The Starry Sky’.

“oh.”

It has everything Americans think of as a ‘likable Asia’. China is in a state of life and death, and Southeast Asia may be stuck somewhere.

So Richelle Surface thought about it, twisting her hair with her fingers, and came up with a catchphrase.