Before the interview officially began, they needed to set up lighting and other equipment.
So, Lin Feng followed the editor-in-chief to the editorial department's break room to rest and discuss the future release of Demon Slayer's collected volumes.
"Thank you, Teacher Lin Feng, for taking the time to attend this interview amidst your busy schedule. I believe Editor Full Moon has already discussed the details with you beforehand."
After arranging tea and snacks for Lin Feng in the break room, the middle-aged editor-in-chief sat down on the sofa opposite him and spoke with a smile.
"It's not that busy, I just happened to be free, so I came. As for the interview questions, I'm pretty clear on the specifics."
Lin Feng also nodded with a smile.
Perhaps in the eyes of others, updating two chapters of the manga every week, with an average of over ten drawings per day, was indeed quite a busy schedule.
But for Lin Feng now, he could easily produce five drawings in an hour.
The daily tasks could usually be finished within two hours, leaving him with extra time to do other things.
If we're just talking about drawing speed, many authors could probably reach Lin Feng's current level.
But that's assuming they already know the plot they need to draw.
If they were creating a completely original story, they might be lucky to finish one drawing in an hour.
So, the difficulty of original content, which other authors struggled with, was nothing for Lin Feng, who had the Super Manga System. His speed naturally increased.
School during the day, drawing at home in the evening.
This kind of life was actually quite fulfilling.
"That's good. Regarding this, the editor in charge of Full Moon invited you, Lin Feng, to participate in this interview. You should have been told that your work, Demon Slayer, has been at the top of our popularity charts for three consecutive weeks, right?"
"Mr. Lin Feng, I wonder if you have any requests or constructive suggestions regarding the future release of this work's collected volumes?"
With Demon Slayer's current popularity, the release of collected volumes is an absolute certainty.
Therefore, the middle-aged editor-in-chief chose to be direct with Lin Feng, steering the conversation towards a more important topic for today.
That is, the issue of publishing Demon Slayer's collected volumes.
It's important to remember that this is a significant matter for both the publisher and the author.
Once a work is published in collected volumes, its commercial value far surpasses its current level.
To better cater to a specific readership and fan base, publishing collected volumes for a good work is absolutely essential.
Furthermore, once the collected volumes are published, the original contract terms between the author and the publisher will all need to be renegotiated.
Because single-volume books are different from multi-element manga magazines like Weekly Shonen.
Generally, being able to release a single-volume book means the author has reached a certain level and can create popular works that the public enjoys.
Therefore, his page rate and royalties also need to be further adjusted.
You have to feed the horse if you want it to run.
The publishing house understands that to keep those authors firmly tied to their towering tree, they must provide them with generous treatment and irrefutable reasons.
Otherwise, other publishing houses might take advantage and poach them with high prices or tempting contracts.
This is definitely a situation the original publishing house doesn't want to see.
So, this interview is actually You Rong Publishing's way of using this opportunity to gauge Lin Feng's thoughts.
Even though You Rong Publishing was a relatively influential and large publisher in Tokyo, it's not impossible that other publishing houses were also getting restless.
In this era of economic recession, whoever had the hottest properties and excellent works could dominate and forge ahead in the face of the economic crisis.
And Demon Slayer, this dark horse that suddenly broke through, was definitely the focus of attention for various publishing houses and industry insiders.
In other words, Lin Feng, single-handedly saved You Rong Publishing from the overall decline in sales of Weekly Shonen in recent years. He was definitely an author of great merit.
No publishing house would easily offend an excellent author like him, and they would even treat him as an honored guest.
But Lin Feng was, after all, a new author. There were simply too many uncertainties about him. What if, before the release of the collected volumes, he was poached by an editor from another publishing house? You Rong Publishing would definitely suffer a huge loss.
That's why they were so eager, and they rushed to find Lin Feng to discuss the future of the collected volumes when Demon Slayer was only up to its sixth chapter.
This was probably also to sign a new contract with Lin Feng as soon as possible, securely binding him to You Rong Publishing.
Lin Feng could roughly guess at this.
Well, it could only be said that fate was different.
Who would have thought that a third-rate manga artist from his previous life, who could barely survive on website subsidies, would now be a hot commodity everyone wanted to snatch up?
"Hmm... As for me, I don't really have any suggestions. After all, I'm also a newbie. As for the matter of publishing the single volumes later, you can decide internally."
"As for requests, I do have a small one."
After hearing the middle-aged editor-in-chief's words, Lin Feng pondered for a moment before raising his head and speaking to him with a smile.
"Oh? No problem at all!"
"As long as we can meet your request, we will definitely do our best!"
Hearing that Lin Feng hadn't made any unrealistic suggestions, a look of pleased surprise appeared on the middle-aged editor-in-chief's face.
As the editor-in-chief, he dreaded dealing with authors during contract negotiations, especially when they made unreasonable demands or suggestions.
The most crucial part was that they couldn't always reject them outright.
Some authors had truly peculiar personalities, and there wasn't much you could do about it.
After all, the publishing house depended on their works for serialization and sales, so the relationship between publishers and contributing authors wasn't always as harmonious as it seemed.
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