The Versatile Master Artist

Watching the reporters, the store manager issued the order.

”From now on, be prepared. As soon as the last copy is sold, immediately hang signs in all display windows reading ’All 1400 copies of the Scholastic Group’s new edition of ”Little Prince” are sold out, please come back tomorrow!’ Make them as prominent as possible using our largest promotional boards. The kind that everyone on Oxford Street can see.”

Book promotion also relies on sensational topics.

In the news field, the frenzy of readers who cleared out the entire Oxford Bookstore is far more newsworthy than whether 1400 or 1500 copies were sold.

The store manager, seasoned by the book market trials, is a smart person.

He plans to give reporters an opportunity to create a news sensation.

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March 26, 2017, 1:30 AM.

The still brightly lit London Financial Street, 41st floor of the Scholastic Group European Headquarters Building.

”Country roads, take me home...”

A voice like a clanking bell sings John Denver’s famous folk song in the office, its sound reaching the ears of the secretary woman at her desk just outside the soundproof office door.

She inadvertently presses her earlobe and smiles wryly.

Leaders always have various quirks.

President Osborne’s quirk is an inexplicable fondness for humming this vintage 70s song ”Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

The happier he is, the more he sings, and he’s always out of tune.

The secretary has been with President Osborne for a long time; she is his most trusted aide.

The last time she heard Osborne loudly hum this song was after he had just finished a meeting with the board of directors. That meeting promoted him from regional manager to Vice President of the European Region.

He sang all the way back in the car.

Today marks the first day of the ”Little Prince” release, for which President Osborne is nominally responsible.

After having a takeaway night snack around ten o’clock, the off-key singing of ”Country Road” from the CEO’s office persisted intermittently.

Judging by the volume, duration, and the level of freedom Osborne displayed,

Based on the situation, the sales of ”Little Prince” are exceedingly good.

At this moment, in the luxurious CEO office, Osborne has become a cheerful mid-aged English gentleman.

Except for having slightly bald hair.

Osborne seemed to have aged backwards twenty years, as excited as when he first went on a date with a girl in middle school.

He hummed while playing office golf, occasionally glancing at screens around him.

There are laptops and iPads opened for news on the tables, window sills, and cabinets around him.

Even the large TV hanging on the wall meant for monitoring the group’s stock price was frozen on a frame from a BBC late-night news channel.

Virtually all news interfaces showed a unified theme — [SOLD OUT!!!]

In BBC’s late-night news studio illustration,

In the display window under Oxford Street’s black Waterstones Store sign, staff are hanging a huge promotional board reading ”SOLD OUT”.

Next to it, in peoplehead-sized Arabic digits, the number 1360 is written and underlined three times in bright red.

It’s so prominent you can spot it from across the road.

This illustration has become the most significant news photo in the entire English book domain today.

[On the first day of the new edition ”Little Prince,” a long queue formed in front of Waterstones bookstore, the leader in children’s literature domain, Scholastic Group delivered a new fairytale ace!]

[SOLD OUT—A frantic crowd and the first-day sales figures of the new edition ”Little Prince” undoubtedly exceeded the original work on April 6, 1943. Perhaps you should buy one too.]

[1360 copies sold out in four hours, breaking the 2017 single-day sales record for similar fairytale books at Waterstones!]

[Battle of giants, Thomson Man Publishing House vs Scholastic Group, who will exclusively own the ”Little Prince” golden IP in the English world?]

[The focal point of the illustrated fairytale book—a potential first-day sales exceeding ten thousand copies despite many doubts about the new edition of ”Little Prince.”]

Nowadays, mass media skips the time-consuming paper publishing process.

Some efficient electronic media’s web articles can update the report within 30 minutes from reporters’ submission to website app release.

”Little Prince” is the biggest publication of this Easter holiday.

In the past few hours, almost all of the UK’s book media covered the purchasing spectacle on Oxford Street.

Even the Moonlight News’s evening culture section couldn’t help but sarcastically mention ”The success of first-day sales might not rely on the illustration quality but rather the textual content as the focus.”

President Osborne does not care.

Sales taking off is taking off, and no snide sarcasm can overshadow the explosive first-day sales of ”Little Prince.”

Even he did not expect,

that this new edition book project would deliver such a perfect report on its first day.

Osborne is now waiting for a call.