The Versatile Master Artist

Even... in Osborne’s view, it’s somewhat too high.

In the past five years, especially since he took over the project, the traditional book market has been continuously shrinking due to price increases in the physical print industry and the impact of Amazon e-books.

The economic situation in the entire Europe isn’t great, and fewer and fewer people are willing to spend a high price on these collectible books.

Moreover, although ”The Little Prince” is very popular, this market is not endless. Over a billion copies have already been sold, and the total sales pie each year is getting smaller.

Osborne feels that selling a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand copies in the first year would already count as a successful bestseller.

Unfortunately,

the board’s initial target of three hundred thousand copies sold in a year hasn’t changed.

This puts a lot of pressure on him, making him almost feel like giving up.

He was already prepared for the book to fail.

This is also why Osborne decided to agree to Anna’s request.

If this truly is a book with the potential to impact a million in annual sales—Osborne, even if indebted to the Ilyena family, would not want to hand such an important project to an online illustrator.

Even so,

the decision to involve Detective Cat in this book project has caused Osborne a lot of controversy within the group.

”Director? Director? Sorry, you can’t go in now.”

A shout came from the secretary at the door.

In the next second,

without anyone pressing the doorbell, Osborne’s office door was rudely pushed open.

”No, no, no!”

A man with a goatee and Gucci gold-rimmed round glasses stormed into his office, full of anger.

He pushed the secretary aside while shaking his finger, rage evident in his eyes; he was like an enraged bull.

”Osborne, I completely don’t understand the company’s decision. You absolutely can’t bypass me to hire that damn Detective Cat. I am going to file a formal protest with the board.”

Osman frowned.

He gestured for the hesitant secretary at the door to leave.

”Director Charlie, what’s happening?”

Those with access to the building’s 41st floor via the VIP elevator without an appointment are all core leadership of the group, and Charlie Oliver is among them.

He is the highest head of the art department in the European Region of the group, the Art Director of the publishing house.

”I’m very angry, you don’t respect me!”

The Art Director seemed to be greatly insulted.

He stood in front of Osborne, staring into his eyes, breathing aggressively onto the Vice President’s face.

”There must be some misunderstanding...”

”Don’t f*cking play dumb here, Osborne, I’m talking about ’The Little Prince’.”

The Art Director pulled out his phone, opened the group’s official account, and brought up a new tweet he just posted.

”I’m the Art Director at Scholastic, why do I only find out that ’The Little Prince’ is being commissioned to some cheap online artist while browsing Twitter.”

”Don’t f*cking tell me this wasn’t your doing. Osborne, are you insulting my intelligence? F—, is that b*tch your mistress or your illegitimate daughter? Having an online artist involved in such an important project is utterly ludicrous.”

He’s been with the group for many years.

Even though Scholastic habitually outsources projects, collaborating with internationally renowned illustrators, bringing in a non-mainstream online artist is a first for him.

Osborne took a step back, avoiding the Art Director’s spit.

Director Charlie and he aren’t strictly hierarchically related.

The other’s position is slightly lower than his, but Osborne is only the Vice President of the European Region, whereas Charlie is a key associate of President Hill in the European Region.

The Art Department’s independence is also quite high.

Basically, Director Charlie is the King of his own domain, showing little respect for Osborne.

Office politics is usually severe in such large companies.

”She’s been quite popular lately, have you listened to Detective Cat and Mr. Tree Sloth’s new podcast? Even Curator Tangkis highly acknowledges Detective Cat’s professional quality.”

Osborne tried to play it cool.

He knew that for heavyweight projects like ”The Little Prince”, deciding independently to hand it over to a certain online artist without the Art Director’s consent had procedural issues.

But he also knew, just like he thought Anna was crazy.

If a formal departmental document were issued, Director Charlie would definitely not sign it to agree. Osborne could only choose to proceed without permission.

Mr. Tree Sloth’s podcast was a pleasant surprise.

He had been struggling to come up with related excuses but didn’t expect Anna to share an art podcast with him in the early hours.

Detective Cat not only performed well on it, receiving consistent praise from the audience, but even received recognition and admiration from Curator Tangkis of the Taylor National Art Gallery.

This at least justified a reason for further collaboration.

”So what? Such level of online artists, we’ve got plenty of them.”

Director Charlie wasn’t buying it.

He is the head of the Art Department and inherently criticizes Scholastic Group’s behavior of awarding substantial projects to external artists.

This is equivalent to giving the juiciest meat of Lion King Charlie’s territory to the outsider lion.

If he had a choice with the goatee, he certainly wouldn’t do it happily.

Yet, illustrators capable of entering cooperation with Scholastic Group aren’t easily dealt with either.

Though Charlie might pounce, he might not win against them,

and it’s hard for him to say much.

But Detective Cat... this isn’t a robust outsider lion; at best, it’s a poor wild cat pretending to compete for food with him?

”Plenty of them, you say? You should have seen Mr. Hibernian’s video, right? Are you sure there’s plenty of them? Director Charlie, if you can find an illustrator like Jean Arnou, I’ll immediately hand over ’The Little Prince’ to your Art Department. As long as you can guarantee to meet the board’s set yearly sales target.”

Charlie opened his mouth, tried several times, and still couldn’t say one ”good”.

Facing legendary artists like Jean Arnou or Andy Warhol, Charlie didn’t even have the courage to raise a paw.

He knew agreeing now would mean Osborne would hand over ”The Little Prince” to Charlie.

But what then?

He knew the group’s set target of three hundred thousand copies, and if the target sales weren’t met, Osborne would definitely blame it all on him without hesitation.

”Can’t reach it, can Detective Cat do it? Even if Jean Arnou rejected our collaboration invitation, if you are getting Detective Cat, you might as well let the originally planned Villerein Studio handle it; we’ve worked with them several times, and have even preliminarily talked about the intention contract.”

Charlie didn’t want to let go of such a hefty order easily.

”Villerein Illustration Studio... um, I’ve heard you have quite a good relationship with the owner there?”

Osborne said it somewhat slyly.

”Nonsense, Osborne, be careful, I might sue you for slander.”

Charlie took a cautious step back.

The art world is all about connections.

Just like Anna could reach out to Osborne, Director Charlie had some unspoken connections with the current top-notch illustration studio, Villerein Studio.

Depending on different company policies, even some publishing house art directors blatantly award contracts to studios they hold shares in.

With Scholastic Group’s relatively strict regulations and internal audits,

Director Charlie wouldn’t dare to hold shares in some studio openly, but exchanging interests is unavoidable.

The cooked duck flew away,

and this is why Director Charlie is so angry that Osborne handed over ”The Little Prince” to an online illustrator.

”Let’s do it this way, since it’s a trial manuscript contract, let Detective Cat submit a sample first? If it’s really not up to standard, we’ll just let her handle a few small static scenery pieces. The main manuscripts still go to Villerein; having multiple artists work on a single project isn’t unheard of.”

This is the most prudent idea Osborne could think of at the moment, doing no harm, balancing interests, and explaining to Anna.

Of course,

it’s premised on Detective Cat producing something reasonably decent.

”But...”

”Don’t push it, Charlie, I’m the one responsible for this project.”

”Alright, You are the boss.”

Director Charlie was silent for a few seconds. He felt finding faults in the trial submission would not be difficult, thus reluctantly said, ”But if there’s an issue with Detective Cat’s work, you’re the one taking responsibility.”