The Versatile Master Artist

The probability that customers feel moved by the illustrations is one hundred percent.

Then there are no excuses.

Even if he is unwilling to believe it, Hawke must believe it.

It seems that the impressive illustrations of Detective Cat are what caused such a bustling scene before him.

Looking at those smiling faces in the shop, amazed while flipping through books, he thinks back to the audience’s reaction during his previous lecture on stage.

A thought emerged in Charlie Hawke’s mind that he had never considered before the book launch.

”Whoa, could I, a grand translator, really be taken to new heights by Detective Cat.”

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”Sir! Sir! There’s an issue.”

An employee carrying a basket rushed into the second-floor manager’s office, panting heavily.

”The ’Little Prince’... is selling like hotcakes. This is already the third batch of returned reader survey cards, and the prepared intent survey cards are completely gone.”

”All gone!”

The manager of the Waterstones Oxford Street store, who was drinking tea and discussing work details at the computer, was nearly choked by the tea; he coughed twice and asked.

”Cough, cough, all 2000 cards, not even one left?”

The manager initially didn’t pay much attention to this ’Little Prince’ book signing event.

Just a signing event after all.

This bookstore frequently hosts heavyweight authors for signing events and reader meetups.

Such big occasions are seen often.

Recently, the headquarters is negotiating Annie Erno’s reader meetup next month here.

Since she became the 16th female Nobel Prize in Literature awardee last year, Waterstones wanted to invite her to host a series of reader meetups.

But it couldn’t proceed due to Erno’s poor health.

This time the female writer is coming to London for academic exchanges, perfect opportunity to make up for it.

The manager is following up on every aspect of this important task with the headquarters’ specialists, having no time to monitor the signing event downstairs.

He indeed heard quite a fuss outside the window in the afternoon.

But it’s Oxford Street!

There’s never a time it’s not bustling, the manager didn’t take it to heart.

So, when suddenly hearing the survey cards were all distributed, the store manager was genuinely a bit incredulous.

Two thousand survey cards, meaning two thousand readers and customers have entered in the past few hours. For a bookstore’s bearing capacity, this is already near full-load operation.

Waterstones did almost no large-scale warm-up activities before the signing, yet there are so many readers voluntarily pouring in.

Thinking about this, the manager took a sharp breath.

”Yes, all gone, the number of entering customers already exceeded 2,100.” The employee nodded vigorously like pecking rice.

This number couldn’t be ignored by the manager; temporarily putting aside the Nobel Laureate’s reader meetup subtleties, he said to the headquarters specialist to discuss at night, then interrupted the phone meeting.

”What about shipment volume? How many new books did we sell?”

The manager walked to the wall, lifted the curtain, and looked at the queue under the bookstore sign, clicking his tongue twice.

”Did it surpass six hundred copies, no, it should definitely have... Tell me, did it surpass eight hundred copies?”

The manager asked curiously.

Usually, among the crowd stepping into the bookstore during book signings, there are inevitably plenty of freeloaders who are only there for the hustle and bustle, or accompanying family and friends.

It’s impossible for everyone to make a purchase among the 2,000 people.

Normal payment conversion rates range from 30% to 40%, exceptionally hot-selling works occasionally exceed 50%.

”The computer background shipment volume already exceeds 1,200 copies, to be precise, it’s 1,236 copies; 60 sets of limited edition gift boxes sold out shortly after launching. The 600 hardcover editions have also just sold out a while ago. Out of 700 paperback books, 576 copies were shipped, it’s expected the remaining hundred or so copies won’t last long either.”

The employee smiled wryly: ”Sir, I know you had important phone meetings in the afternoon. I came because almost all stock in the warehouse was bought clean, and restocking wasn’t possible.”

”I just called the distribution center in London West End, they said the other two Waterstones bookstores in London ran out of over a hundred copies of in-stock books too, asking for transfer.”

”All...sold out!”

The manager was a bit dazed.

Shop rents on Oxford Street are extremely expensive.

The Waterstones backstage storeroom’s area is compressed very small, usually general books have just 2-5 copies in stock, sell out then restock, some unpopular books even have only one copy displayed on the store shelf.

But today is the first-day signing event.

They had extra inventory stocked.

The most optimistic estimate by President Osborne from the publisher side was just selling 600 sets of books.

Waterstones stocked nearly 1,400 sets, which is two and a half times that number, yet even this excess was completely sold out.

Wait,

The deeper the manager pondered these numbers, the faster his heart raced.

customers queued, nearly 1400 books sold, this payment conversion rate has surpassed 70%.

Usually, the higher the payment conversion rate, the stronger the book’s long-term potential.

Able to make more than half of entering customers pay.

Means this book either has national topic appeal, or the contents itself hold immense attraction for readers.

Whichever scenario, it wouldn’t be a flash in the pan, the sales cycle’s shipment data curve won’t show obvious crumples.

And over 1000 books sold on the first day.