The Versatile Master Artist

”Who would admit to these damned market research results... The marketing department didn’t design the statistical plan properly at all.”

Charlie suddenly looked up, staring at the people in the observation room who were shocked by the outburst of the art director.

His eyes were flushed, and he was breathing heavily, like he’d just run a hundred-meter sprint.

”Bullshit, how did you design the survey plan? Herd mentality, it must be herd mentality! It’s not reliable!”

Director Charlie’s face was extremely pale as he grabbed the marketing supervisor by the collar.

The so-called herd mentality,

refers to when everyone gathers, you see others discussing and choosing a certain style of product, and you’ll subconsciously follow suit.

”Director Charlie, please be polite, the survey plan was agreed upon by both parties.”

The marketing director, with an ugly expression, pushed the irrational Director Charlie.

This man is truly a madman.

Charlie knew he was arguing irrationally, his argument was so weak.

Even if it was herd mentality, so what? Herd mentality is a part of consumer psychology. The illustration already demonstrated Detective Cat’s success if it influenced most of the volunteers to make a certain choice.

But he really didn’t want to believe this result.

”Director Morgan?” Charlie looked pitifully at the old gentleman.

”Mr. Charlie...”

The director furrowed his brow, suppressing his displeasure.

Director Morgan knew Director Charlie, and he was also an old acquaintance of President Hill, the top person in the European Region, personally acquainted without bad blood.

The current market research,

was not only a competition between Villerein Illustration Studio and Detective Cat but also a contest between President Hill and President Osborne’s different factions.

Even the old sect leader stationed in North America had personally inquired about this matter.

Morgan’s personal leaning was actually towards Charlie’s side, otherwise, he wouldn’t have flown all the way here as a representative of the board to oversee this open and covert struggle.

However, management ultimately had to prioritize the company’s interests.

You proposed the survey, you agreed to the conditions, and stirred up all these problems yourself.

When the result is a loss, to deny it like a street thug,

isn’t it awfully unseemly?

Morgan and Osborne had just refrained from mentioning the survey results with Villerein’s name, giving Charlie face.

”If you don’t appreciate being given an out, you can’t blame others.”

Morgan thought.

He waved his hand to signal security to take the distressed art director outside to calm down, but was interrupted by a voice.

”Enough. Charlie, it’s over.”

A somewhat dejected voice echoed from the doorway of the observation room — it was Villerein.

The illustration artist’s features were pale, yet his expression was remarkably calm.

After entering the room, he even greeted everyone before patting Director Charlie’s shoulder.

”My friend, let it end here for your dignity’s sake, and let me retain a bit of a loser’s pride.”

”You, you...”

Director Charlie looked at Villerein as if he’d seen a ghost, speechless.

Villerein stuffed the Detective Cat version of ”The Little Prince” illustration into Director Charlie’s arms.

”Take a good look at this painting, Charlie. With an opponent like this, how could I win? Doing the survey over would only result in a worse defeat. With such a clear distinction between right and wrong, to deny the loss is humiliating.”

Villerein sighed and turned to President Osborne.

”Congratulations on finding such an excellent painter. Losing to such an opponent doesn’t feel disgraceful.”

At this moment,

volunteers had already compiled the detailed statistical data into bar charts and distributed them to everyone in the observation room.

The red bar labeled [53] for Detective Cat was prominently placed at the far left of the statistics chart, while other different versions of ”The Little Prince” each had only a few scattered statistics.

The visual comparison of the charts,

was like the slums at the foot of the towering Empire State Building.

...

Director Morgan changed his plane ticket,

he didn’t fly back to the Los Angeles Headquarters as planned in the afternoon.

The director wanted to see the complete market research, and finally organize the detailed survey data from all the volunteer groups.

Even though his heart was already prepared.

When he really saw the final report submitted by the market, he was still shocked.

The group’s survey categorized Detective Cat and Villerein’s illustration works into — [Unacceptable], [Terrible], [Average], [Good], and [Excellent], five levels of impressions.

Fifty-six percent of volunteers gave Detective Cat an [Excellent] rating, while thirty-seven percent gave a [Good] option.

The poor ratings for Detective Cat including [Unacceptable] and [Terrible] barely exceeded one percent.

Comparing consumer data for Detective Cat and Villerein’s two versions, the trend dominated with a 95% to 5% statistic.

That is to say, for every twenty volunteers choosing Detective Cat, only one would choose Villerein’s version.

What delighted Morgan most was,

even within the finer statistical area of [40 Pounds budget to purchase a children’s fairy tale book as a gift without content restrictions], Detective Cat’s ”The Little Prince” priced at 18 Pounds still led the field with a 33.6% ratio.

Far exceeding the data of 13.5% obtained by the Townsend boxed set priced twice as much, and also exceeding other deluxe fairy tale books.

”It’s a big hit, this really has the potential for a big sell.”

In the meeting room, Director Morgan took a sip of coffee, happily looking at Osborne opposite him.

”Once the marketing resources are mobilized, an annual sales of 300,000 copies seems quite easy,” he commented.

Seeing the data on the statistical chart, Osborne couldn’t help but smile.

This exceeded his previous best-case scenario, the vice president for the first time felt that an annual sales target of 300,000 copies didn’t appear too difficult.

”Where do you think it can rank on the chart? I mean SD or NY?” Director Morgan raised an eyebrow and asked.

The physical book market in Europe and America is fiercely competitive.

Like popular songs and newly released movies, books also need companies to compete on the rankings.

There are two standards for evaluating a publishing company’s issued work: quality or sales.

In terms of quality standards, Europe and America have authoritative review systems, including the New York Times Book Review, ”Kirkus Reviews”, ”Book Review Index”...

and audience scoring systems on internet platforms like Goodreaders.

With the production level and translation quality of ”The Little Prince”, quality isn’t a concern, the key is how many copies can be sold.

Scholastic Group constantly monitors the rankings of their published works on major sales charts.

Sales charts are fiercely contested territory for all Western publishing giants.

Securing a spot near the top of the rankings,

is not only a success in sales but also an elevation in reputation and honor.

Much like different singers are always eyeing the ”Billboard Top 100”, always thinking about climbing higher up the ranks.

There are quite a few well-established and authoritative charts in Europe and America.

NY refers to the ”New York Times Bestseller List”, a authoritative list that tracks book sales in the North American Region.

SN refers to the ”Saturday News” under the Moonlight News, the very newspaper that once opened its front page with Anna’s yellow joke.

This newspaper, though known for lowbrow content, was once the world’s highest circulation paper, also publishing a weekly column that ranks book sales in the British Zone.

Together these two lists account for nearly 70% of global English region sales.

”Can it break into the top 50? Or the top 30?” Osborne didn’t dare to boast.

In the past two years, the annual champion of book sales on the New York Times statistics has reached nearly 3.5 million copies a year. Even in less popular years, it’s upwards of 2.7 million copies.

On average, it needs to sell five to six thousand books weekly, and during holidays like Easter or Christmas, selling two hundred thousand books a week isn’t exaggerated.

”The Little Prince” is still quite far from this goal.

”Vice President Osborne, I’m a bit more optimistic than you, maybe during some off-peak sales weeks, it could even break into the top ten.” Director Morgan tapped the table.

Osborne was taken aback, and then a bit wistful.

Should a book can stay in the top ten of SN or NY charts for one or two months,

together in North America and Europe, an annual sale of a million copies doesn’t seem too far off.