Golf balls roll on a half-meter-wide artificial turf,

Osborne stretches and gently swings his club, the chrome trim on the club reflecting the light of the glass chandelier in his office.

When I was an MBA student at Stanford Graduate School of Business,

Textbooks like to refer to the Scholastic conglomerate as Empire, describing their influence as a giant in the world.

Osborne loved this statement,

Scholastic's turnover last year exceeded the GDP of many small African countries combined, and it is well deserved to be called an independent business empire.

Every time he stood in his president's office on the 41st floor of London's Financial Street Tower, looking out at the busy crowds of people on the streets below, a huge sense of power filled his heart.

If Scholastic is compared to an independent kingdom such as the Holy Roman Empire,

It took Osborne half his life, and the help from the Elena family in the early days, to evolve from a hard-working but ordinary "industrious bee" in the crowd downstairs to an Elector who can say everything about the business of the whole European region.

This quaint office with an indoor golf course and crystal chandeliers is his private palace.

Even in a few years, when the old CEO retires, he may be qualified to take the helm of the entire group.

The premise of all this wonderful vision is,

Osborne had to give the board of directors an impressive answer to the main business in Europe.

however

At least judging by his resume for the past year and a half in office.

Osborne felt that in the eyes of the board, his performance should be somewhere between qualified and good, probably not excellent, and even less relevant to adjectives like amazing.

"Million sales, millions of sales...... SHIT, those nerd accountants who only read statements in the office, really think that it is so easy to make a million-selling bestseller! That's a fucking million. ”

Jingle Bell~

Osborne was annoyed, the shot was not well controlled, and the golf ball bounced off the ground and smashed into the metal medal on the decorative tree at the door of the office, and the metal medal collided with a ding-dong sound.

He threw his golf club onto the couch, walked over and bent down to pick up the small white ball, and stood in front of the ornamental tree.

[No.01 "Memoirs of the Second World War", Winston Churchill]

[No.02 "The Grand Bazaar of Trains", Paul Soroux】

【No.03……】

……

[No.57 "The Wilderness of Elephant Singing", Graham Meyer]

This small pine tree, covered with small decorations like Christmas gifts, is a permanent decoration in the private office of any senior management member of the company.

"Million Milestones" Memorial Tree,

Every time the Scholastic Group publishes a best-selling book that sells more than one million copies a year, a new commemorative plaque is hung on the tree.

Today, there are exactly fifty-seven commemorative plaques.

Fifty-seven epic bestsellers have formed the cornerstone of the Group's vast business landscape over the past seven decades.

As Vice President of Publishing and Sales, Osborne leads the total annual sales of printed books in Europe that are no worse than those of his predecessors.

However, he lacked enough bright punch works.

What Osborne needed was a work that would climb the memorial tree.

Since he took office,

The best-selling book is tennis king Federer's new autobiography "Green, Clay, Grand Slam", which sold a total of 820,000 copies last year.

This is already a super bestseller in the publishing industry, but it is not enough for Osborne's ambitions.

This pales in comparison to the two blockbuster books released in North America last year – a memoir of a former president that sold 1.3 million copies a year, and the 1.57 million copies of the illustrated picture book "The Wilderness of Elephant Howling" by children's author Meyer.

After the former president retired, he relied on the custom of publishing books to fight the Yankees, and the publishing house was willing to spend a lot of resources to push it, and the society liked to buy it, so it is not surprising that it can sell millions of copies.

And "The Wilderness of Elephant Singing" is a model of strong joint publishing with good writing and good illustrations.

The New York Times Book Review commented that it is "timeless in words, warm in illustrations, and profound in ideas, a classic that makes children laugh when they read it, and adults cry when they read it." ”

It even topped the North American book sales chart for 62 consecutive weeks on New Year's Eve.

Last year, the group's board of directors provided year-end bonuses to the North American project team responsible for the publication of "Wild Elephant Howling", which is usually only seen on horse racing tickets.

"No.58 "The Little Prince", how beautiful it sounds......"

Osborne muttered a word to the Million Milestone memorial tree, then shook his head and smiled.

He knew it wasn't possible.

Although "The Little Prince" has been selling for a long time, the total annual sales in Europe are around one million copies.

And

There are also translations from different publishing companies that compete with each other in the market.

The Group's projected print run for the new edition of The Little Prince is in the millions, but that is the total sales volume of the entire sales cycle in the future, not a one-year task.

When the project was first launched, the board of directors expected Scholastic to capture around 30 percent of the market share in the first year.

That is, the new edition of "The Little Prince" sold about 300,000 copies, which is probably among the top 200 in the book printing market in Europe.

That's a lot of numbers.

Even...... In Osborne's opinion, it was a little too high.

In the past five years, especially since he took over the project, the traditional print book market has been shrinking due to the impact of the epidemic and Amazon's e-books.

The economic situation throughout Europe is average, and fewer and fewer people are willing to pay high prices for such archival books.

Moreover, although "The Little Prince" is a bestseller, the market is not endless, hundreds of millions of copies have been sold, and the total annual sales cake is also getting smaller.

Osborne thinks that selling 100,000 to 150,000 copies in the first year is actually a successful bestseller.

pity

The board's original annual sales target of 300,000 copies remains unchanged.

This made him feel so stressed that he even wanted to give up on himself.

He was prepared for the failure of the book.

This is also the reason why Osborne is determined to agree to Anna's request.

If this is really a book that has a chance to hit millions of copies a year - Osborne is not willing to hand over such an important project to an online illustrator, even if he owes the Elena family a favor.

Even so,

The decision to include Detective Cat in this book project also caused Osborne a lot of controversy in the group.

"Mr. Director? Mr. Director? Sorry, you can't go in right now. ”

Suddenly, the secretary's voice came from the door.

The next second,

No one rang the doorbell, and Osborne's office door was pushed open very roughly.

“ No，no，no！”

A man with a goatee on his chin and a pair of Gucci gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose walked into his office in a rage.

The man shook his fingers as he pushed the secretary to the side, his eyes were full of anger, and he looked like an angry bull.

"Osborne, I don't understand the company's decision at all. You definitely can't get around me and hire some goddamn detective cat. I would like to lodge a formal protest with the Board. ”

Osman frowned.

He waved his hand to stand at the door of his office, and the secretary, who was in a dilemma, withdrew.

"Director Charlie, what's going on?"

Charlie Oliver is one of the core leaders of the group who have the right to take the VIP elevator to the 41st floor of the building without making an appointment.

He is the head of the group's art department in Europe and the art director of the publishing house.

"I'm angry that you don't respect me!"

The art director felt as if he had been greatly insulted.

He stood in front of Osborne, staring into Osborne's eyes, snorting at the vice president's face.

"There must be some misunderstanding......

"Don't fucking play stupid here, Osborne, I'm talking about The Little Prince."

The art director pulled his phone out of his pocket, opened the group's official account, and pulled up the new tweet it had just published.

"I'm the art director of Scholastic, so why did I have to scroll through Twitter to find out that the Little Prince project had been entrusted to a cheap online artist."

"Don't fucking say you didn't do it. Osborne, are you insulting my IQ? FUCK, is that bitch your mistress or your illegitimate daughter. It's ridiculous to have a web artist involved in such an important project. ”

He has been with the group for so many years.

Even though Scholastic has some outsourcing projects and collaborates with various world-renowned illustrators, this is the first time he has met a non-mainstream online artist.

Osborne took a step back, avoiding the art director's spit on his face.

Director Charlie and he are not strictly in a subordinate relationship.

The other party is indeed slightly lower than him in the position, but Osborne is only the vice president of Europe after all, and Charlie is the direct general of the president of the European Hill.

The Department of Fine Arts is also highly independent.

Basically, Director Charlie belonged to the king of his own one-third of an acre of land, and he didn't have much respect for Osborne.

Office politics has always been serious in such large corporations.

"She's been hot lately, have you heard the new podcast of Detective Cat and Mr. Sloth? Even Curator Tonks recognizes Detective Cat's professionalism. ”

Osborne pretended to be nothing.

He knew that for a blockbuster project like "The Little Prince", he privately decided to hand it over to a certain online artist without the consent of the art director, which was a big problem in the process.

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

If a formal office document is issued, Director Charlie will definitely not sign it. Osborne could only choose to cut first and then play.

Mr. Sloth's podcast was a bonus.

He was still frustrated that he couldn't come up with an excuse about it, but Anna shared an art podcast with him in the early hours of the morning.

The detective cat not only performed well on it, but was well received by the audience, and even won the recognition and respect of the director of the Taylor National Gallery Tonks.

This is more or less a reason for further cooperation.

"So what? At this level of network painting, I have a lot of hands under my hands. ”

Director Charlie didn't eat this set.

He was the head of the Fine Arts Department, and he himself had a strong opinion about the Scholastic Group's behavior of favoring the fertile water of external artists to flow to outsiders for a major project like the Scholastic Group.

This is equivalent to giving the most delicious fat meat in the territory of Lion King Charlie to the alien wild lions.

If the goatee had a choice, he would definitely not be happy.

It's just that the illustrators who can usually make the Scholastic cooperative group are not easy to match.

Charlie pounced, he may not be able to bite people,

He didn't have a good time saying anything.

But the detective cat ...... This is not a majestic alien lion, at most it is a sick wild cat, and she also deserves to eat with Lao Tzu?

"Grab a handful? You've probably watched Mr. Hyperion's video, are you sure you grab a handful? Director Charlie, you need to be able to find an illustrator who is similar to Jane Arnold. I immediately didn't say a word and handed over "The Little Prince" to your art department. As long as you can guarantee to meet the annual sales target set by the board of directors. ”

Charlie opened his mouth and tried several times, but he couldn't get a word "good" out of his mind.

In front of a legendary artist like Jane Arnaud or Andy Warhol, Charlie didn't even have the courage to lift his claws.

He knew that at this time, Osborne would definitely give up "The Little Prince" to Charlie.

But then what?

He knew the group's target of 300,000 copies, and if he didn't reach the target sales, Osborne would definitely not hesitate to put the on his head.

"If I can't reach it, the detective cat can reach it? Even if Jane Arnaud turned down our invitation to cooperate, if you want to hire Detective Cat, it is better to let the original plan of the Villerhein studio do it, we have already worked together several times, and we have negotiated a contract of intent with the other party. ”

Charlie was reluctant to give up such a large order easily.

"Illustration Studio Wehrrheain...... Hmm, I heard, you have a good relationship with the boss there? ”

Osborne is a bit of a yin and yang freak.

"Bullshit, Osborne, be careful that I sue you for slander."

Charlie took a wary step back.

The painting circle is a network society,

Just as Anna was able to call Osborne, Director Charlie has some indescribable friendship with the current first-line illustration studio, Willein Studio.

Depending on the company's rules, some publishers' art directors will even blatantly hand over all the contracts to their own-owned studios.

With the Scholastic Group's relatively strict rules and regulations and internal audits.

Director Charlie's swaggering swagger in some studios is certainly not daring, but the existence of an exchange of interests is unavoidable.

The boiled duck flew away,

This is also the reason why Director Charlie was so angry when he found out that Osborne had given "The Little Prince" to an online illustrator to do it.

"In this way, it's a trial contract anyway, let the detective cat send a sample first? If we really can't draw it, we will only draw a few small still scenery paintings and give them to the detective cat. The main drawings were still handed over to Vellein, and it was not without precedent for several artists to complete a single set of works at the same time. ”

This is the safest idea that Osborne has come up with so far, without delay, with equal benefits, and he has also explained to Anna.

Of course

The premise is that the detective cat at least draws a general can say the past.

"But ......"

"Don't overdo it Charlie, I'm the one in charge of this project."

"Well, you are the boss."

Director Charlie was silent for a few seconds, he felt that it was not difficult for him to find fault with the test draft questions, so he said stupidly: "But if there is a problem with the detective cat's drawing, you are also responsible." ”

(End of chapter)