Once Ijichi and the others had finished eating, and taking advantage of the fact that it wasn't too busy yet, Tsushima Kagami guided the three of them to observe how Sayuri's group sold the books and handled the money. Only then did they swap out Sayuri's trio so they could take a break.
"We're seriously exhausted."
Sayuri picked up a cup of water and gulped it down.
"I didn't expect there to be so many people today."
"Don't drink so much all at once, or you'll be constantly running to the bathroom when it gets busy later!"
Machida Sonoko, standing to the side, took Sayuri's water bottle, then looked toward Tsushima Kagami and said, "I didn't expect Kagami-kun to have so many female fans. You just mentioned coming in a small circle, and the crowd turned out to be so much bigger than usual."
Kosaka Akane, who had started eating a rice ball beside them, also smiled and looked at Tsushima Kagami.
"It's a good thing Kagami-kun didn't promote this online, otherwise a massive hoard of male fans would have rushed over to buy it too."
"Then there would be even more people. If we sold out and there were still a ton of people lined up, we'd have to apologize non-stop."
Hearing Kosaka Akane's words, Machida Sonoko and Sayuri both nodded in unison.
Just then, the sound of visitors conversing drifted over from the side. Since it was likely lunchtime, they all had time to start looking through the doujinshi they had bought earlier.
As it turned out, several visitors carrying various doujinshi and merchandise met up with another person, and noticed that this person was currently reading the doujinshi they had just bought from Tsushima Kagami.
"Huh? What kind of doujinshi is that? Why is it so thick?"
The group approached and saw that the doujinshi in this person's hands was several times thicker than those from other circles.
Then, the group of people huddled around and started reading it together.
Finally, they let out a collective gasp of amazement.
"This... whose doujinshi is this?"
One of the huddled visitors asked, and the visitor who had bought Tsushima Kagami's doujinshi pointed toward Tsushima Kagami's booth nearby.
"Over there, at the rouge en rouge booth. I was passing by earlier and heard someone say that Xuanyayi-sensei was selling his works here."
"I got curious and lined up for a bit, and it really was Xuanyayi-sensei!"
After saying that, the others hurriedly handed over the things they were carrying and holding to this friend, and then they all rushed over to the rouge en rouge booth and lined up.
Not long after, another large group of people made a beeline straight from the male-oriented section to the female-oriented side, then pointed at the rouge en rouge booth, which still had many people waiting in line, and said.
"Yes, yes, yes, this is the place!"
"Xuanyayi-sensei is selling his doujinshi right here!"
"Hurry up and get in line, if we're any later, it might sell out!"
With that said, another bunch of people uniformly ran to the end of the line and started queueing up.
Tsushima Kagami, Sayuri, and Machida Sonoko simultaneously looked at Kosaka Akane at this moment.
Kosaka Akane, eating her rice ball, shrank her neck back, then patted her own lips. Finally, she lightly knocked her own head with her fist, blinking and sticking her tongue out in a Fujiya Peko-chan expression.
After the group took turns resting and finishing their food, the visitors in the venue also gradually returned from their meals, and the foot traffic began to increase once again.
And as for Tsushima Kagami's booth, what was mostly girls lining up in the morning had now turned into an increasing number of boys queueing up in the back.
Tsushima Kagami, who had thought that the nine of them could finally take turns resting, ultimately had to put his mask back on and begin the mandatory sales operation for the afternoon session.
"Um, Xuanyayi-sensei, please give me two copies."
"Two copies, right? Thank you for your patronage."
Tsushima Kagami smiled and handed three doujinshi to the customer, only then pausing in surprise.
It turned out that the person who had come to buy his doujinshi was none other than Yamada Kenta.
Seeing Tsushima Kagami suddenly space out, Yamada Kenta also asked curiously.
"Xuanyayi-sensei, is something wrong?"
"Ah, it's nothing. That will be 2,000 yen. Thank you for your patronage."
Seeing that the people behind were still waiting, Tsushima Kagami, who had originally wanted to say something to Yamada Kenta, hurriedly took the money.
"Thank you."
Yamada Kenta, also not wanting to hold up the people behind him, immediately took the doujinshi Tsushima Kagami handed over and walked to the side.
Then he looked back at the masked Tsushima Kagami and scratched his head.
"Why does that voice sound familiar?"
"Whatever, when I get back to school, I'll give this doujinshi to Kagami-kun."
"He said he liked pure love, right."
"This time it's a pure love doujinshi by Xuanyayi-sensei, he'll definitely like it!"
With that, Yamada Kenta placed the doujinshi into his backpack—which was already stuffed full of doujinshi and merchandise from other creators—and slowly walked away.
"Huh, isn't that Yamada-kun?"
At this time, Ijichi Seika, who had finished her break and was getting ready to come over and take over for Tsushima Kagami, also spotted Yamada Kenta leaving after buying the doujinshi.
"That's right, it's him."
"Doesn't he know that you're the author of this...?"
Ijichi Seika wanted to say 'doujinshi' but felt too embarrassed, so she just pointed her finger at the doujinshi and then at the mask Tsushima Kagami was wearing.
"Ah, it seems I kept forgetting to tell him..."
"We apologize, but all of the doujinshi for this run have completely sold out."
"Thank you all for your support, see you at the next convention!"
At this moment, Tsushima Kagami and Kosaka Akane stood at the booth and bowed slightly to the visitors still waiting in line.
A large 'Sold Out' sign was also displayed next to them.
Hearing that it was already sold out, the visitors let out a collective sigh of lament, having no choice but to disperse in regret and blend back into the rest of the crowd.
At this point, Tsushima Kagami and the others all let out a long sigh of relief. Utterly exhausted, they all sat down on the folding chairs provided by the venue; those without folding chairs simply flattened the empty cardboard boxes on the floor to sit on, chatting as they rested.
They still had to clean up the booth later before they could leave.
At that moment, Tsushima Kagami walked over, carrying several cash boxes filled to the brim with bills and coins.
"What should we do with all this money?"
"? Senpais, just how many doujinshi did you sell? Having this many cash boxes is way too exaggerated!"
Hiroi Kikuri, watching Tsushima Kagami carry the cash boxes over one by one, asked curiously.
Sayuri also spoke up happily at this time.
"Kagami-kun had 6,000 copies, and ours had 4,000 copies. A total of 10,000 copies, completely sold out!"
Sayuri made a gesture of tossing flower petals, and everyone else followed suit with a round of applause.
Hiroi Kikuri began counting on her fingers at this point.
"6,000 x 1,000 + 4,000 x 500 = 8,000,000!"
"Eight million?!"
Hiroi Kikuri looked incredulously at Ijichi Seika and PA-san beside her.
"How long would we have to work part-time to make that?"
It was only then that Tsushima Kagami realized it did indeed seem like a bit much.
The median annual income in Japan around this time was roughly 4 million yen, and even the average was just a little over 4.6 million.
Just this single sales event had brought in what most people made in two years.
Eight million yen—if calculated by the standard 10% royalty rate of a bestselling manga artist, he would have had to sell at least 80,000 tankobon volumes, or over 100,000 bunko editions.
Yet drawing doujinshi only required selling around 10,000 copies.
No wonder so many well-known manga artists had side gigs. Any creator with even a little bit of fame could sell 5,000 to 10,000 copies of a new doujinshi a year on platforms like DMM or DLsite, and the more popular ones could even hit 30,000 to 50,000 copies.
For example, Jump manga artist Nishi Yoshiyuki-sensei—his Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation earned him 100 million yen over ten years. After that, he resolutely chose to dive into the adult industry, drawing the Fortune-Telling Witch series, which even got an anime adaptation. With 4 original volumes plus 1 compilation volume, it sold over 80,000 copies in total. With a unit price of 1,320 yen for the four volumes and 4,079 yen for the compilation, these few books earned him over 100 million yen in a short period of time.
Besides those, there were other newly released doujinshi, bringing his income far beyond what he made working himself to death serializing on Jump.
And precisely because of this, reputable creators from publishers like Shueisha and Kodansha would typically change their pen names if they ventured into adult works, so as not to be recognized. But he simply slapped an 'Ura' (Dark) in front of his name, becoming 'Ura Nishi Yoshiyuki,' as if terrified people wouldn't know it was him.
Nishi Yoshiyuki-sensei had truly and completely reaped the dividends. While other doujinshi artists tried every means possible to go mainstream, he went straight from Shueisha's Jump, pivoting into the adult industry to draw doujinshi.
Aside from him, there was also the author of The Kamui from Right Behind, who also entered the adult industry due to financial pressure. In the end, it sold quite well, and he even promoted The Kamui from Right Behind within his own doujinshi.
It truly was a case of going a year without a single sale, but making enough from one sale to feast for a year.
____
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