URA HELLO WORK CHAPTER 3 :3 – PUBLISHING BROKER (出版ブローカ：SHUPPAN BUROOKA)
What is Shinya Kusaka’s URA HELLO WORK?
Where can I buy it?
RISK: ***
SALARY:***
HARD LABOR: ****
ILLEGALITY: *
Japan is in the middle of a record-breaking boom in the jihi shuppan (自費出版, literally: ‘own-expenses publish’) industry.
(ed. Note: Jihishuppan is like the Western ‘vanity press’: they publish worthless books, and make the client pay all the publishing costs. There is one important difference: classical ‘vanity press’ houses make their money on exhorbitant printing costs, whereas Japanese jihishuppan companies rely on sales for their profits, making the client promise to pre-order a certain amount before taking the contract).
They say that in the space of one year, Japan publishes 60,000 different titles! And among those, fully half are jihishuppan. But that doesn’t mean that just anyone can get their book published, even if they pay for it themselves. Some prospective customers get turned down. And Mr. Mountainside (48, not his real name), who is a ‘publishing broker’, has a job helping just those types of customers.
WE SPECIALIZE IN PYRAMID-SCHEME COMPANIES AND CULTS.
“Our firm’s customers are primarily cults and ‘multi-businesses’ (pyamid-scheme companies like Amway). They want to publish promotional materials but most kikakubon (企画本: ‘legit’ publishing houses) won’t touch them. You might think that, since vanity-press publishers（jihi shuppan）have no financial risk, they’d publish anything. But in fact, it’s not a money problem. You see, many jihi shuppan don’t want the reputation of being “cult printers” or “pyramid scam printers,” so they turn down those clients anyway. It’s all up to the publisher’s personal judgement. There’s not many of us willing to take a black eye, just to make a profit.
“Of course that means more money for us, but there’s a lot of odd people in those religious groups. They’ll call us obsessively, or bring some missionaries around to our offices at all times of day. The pyramid-scam clients are just as pushy – constantly inviting us to their “motivational seminars.” They seem to lack the common sense to see that we are at work.”
Mr. Mountainside is in business to help these groups publish. But it seems he spends less time publishing, and more time fending off the brainwashing attempts of his clients! The trick is to respond to them without making fun of them or making a mean face.
“I run a publishing house with five employees, including myself. We used to publish the kind of high-class photo-books that get displayed in stores with the full cover showing (not just the spine). But then the recession hit, and I couldn’t compete. So, three years ago I changed my busness strategy, and changed my clientele.
“In practice, this is what my work consists of: We go to all kinds of businesses and ask them, ‘Would you like to publish a book?’ We actually get a warm reception at most businesses! Whether it’s a cult, a pyramid company, or a pundit, they all want to show the world that they are the best, the top guy! Yeah, they yearn to show the masses their brilliant ideas. But most book companies don’t see things that way! So when I show up at their door, they think, ‘Here’s my chance!’”
“But, the really big cults like (redacted) (redacted) and of course (redacted) all have their own in-house publishers. They don’t need us! So when it comes to making our pitch – we target the smaller cults. But even off-brand, never-heard-of’em cults sometimes have a huge number of members – they’ll sign a contract for a shockingly large run of books.”
So what’s the biggest run you’ve done so far?
“There’s one group in Nagoya, right? They have a lot of disciples – I should say ‘had,’ because they’re kind of in trouble with the law these days! Anyway, the first edition was 100,000 books! 90% of that was direct sales – whooom! Out the door! The other 10% was sent to bookstores, but even those sold out. There were two more reprints, for a total of, about 200,000 volumes. The actual text was just total blithering clichés, though. The cult-leader does nothing but complain, on and on and on. It was only 80 pages, so we used really thick paper-stock and hard-cover binding to make it seem substantial. That way we could retail it for $18.
“We sold ‘em to the cult for half-price ($9), and after our expenses, cleared about a million dollars. I guess you could say that nobody lost money on that particular deal. The cult made money, and the cult members got a new bible for less than $20!”!
“In this age, anything over 100,000 copies is a best-seller. In order to reach that status for their bible, some cult members bought 100 copies, just to show their devotion. Really, the cult’s power is frightening! But that’s an exceptional case. In today’s jihishuppan business, 7,000 copies for a first edition with a total print run of 10,000 is normal,
“Before, when I ran a legitimate publishing company, my biggest hit in 20 years was 80,000 copies. Looking back on it, man, I was stupid! If you want to make a living, you have to sell 10,000 copies. Which normally means you have to find 10,000 customers. But, in this business, you can find one crazy customer who will buy all 10,000 copies himself! And boom, you’re done. In fact, I don’t consider my current business to be ‘publishing’ anymore! But business is sure good. When you compare it to my old, ‘advance culture and the arts with books’ phase, it’s a million miles away, isn’t it?”
THOU ART SATAAANN!!!
On the other hand, if you associate with cults, you sometimes get caught up in their troubles.
“Trouble! Yes, I’ve had my share. Nowadays, I’ve learned certain tricks for finding out if potential clients have skeletons in their closet, BEFORE I do business with them. But in the beginning, I’d work with just anybody! The biggest shock was when I almost got imprisoned at a cult compound! I had made an appointment to go to their headquarters, deep in the mountains of Musashino. That whole area has a very spooky atmosphere. There were a few sturdy-looking prefab buildings, and they invited me in. I started to make my presentation, but there had been a mix-up: they thought my company was kikakubon – that we were going to pay for everything. When I explained that we were a vanity press, they got really indignant, and suddenly things changed.
“I was just talking to the receptionist, when she yelled, “Everyone, please come!” Suddenly, from upstairs, four or five scary dudes come and surrounded me. I just stood there: I had no clue what to do! It is eerie, getting stared at by crazy dudes whose cold eyes show no emotion! Next, the receptionist pointed at me dramatically, and announced ‘Thou art Satannnn!!’ I was dumbfounded. I didn’t understand how I could so suddenly become Satan! The lady then started having a hysteric fit, while continuing to say, ‘You’re human now but, hurry up and change to your true form!’ Next, the cold, dead eyes of the cult’s enforcers began to gleam with dazzling hostility.
“The receptionist was now shrieking in a voice that sounded like it had been squeezed from the bottom of her guts. I was afraid for my life, but it looked difficult to escape: I was surrounded. I couldn’t make my legs move, in any case! I sat down on the sofa, afraid to raise my eyes. The receptionist, accompanied by one of the enforcers, went off somewhere. The rest of them stood guard over me, their eyes not blinking even once – I’ve never seen anything more eerie than that.
“After three or four hours of this, suddenly I was released. Someone somewhere had decided. ‘Go home, go home,’ the cult members chanted in unison. It was the moment I’d been praying for, and I was out of there in a hurry!”
After such an incident, didn’t you consider quitting your job?
“I sure did! I quit for two or three months, in fact. But in the end, I had to feed my family. Now I don’t go to any meetings without a male co-worker backing me up!”
Does that kind of trouble happen often?
“Not so often. For some reason, it’s usually the more well-adjusted, worldly cult-members that come to the meetings. People from prestigious schools; people who you’d never guess they were a cult member unless they told you. Compared to the nutters, it’s easier for me to deal with these kinds of ‘smooth operators.’ On the other hand, they drive a hard bargain! (We don’t have set rates in this business – we try to lowball every client and see how far we can haggle with them) On the other hand, there are other would-be clients that don’t know how to negotiate, and get weird on us. It’s best to let them down gently: I tell them, ‘Let’s go back to our respective offices and think about the numbers more, shall we?’ Then, when I’m safely out of their reach, I’ll telephone them and decline to publish their work.”
IS THE BESTSELLER LIST RIGGED?
Working with cults and such demands considerable wisdom. Mr. Mountainside doesn’t really believe in the gods, but he studied religion in college.
“I was very passionate about studying religions at that time! You can apply religious teachings in politics and wars – it makes you open-minded. With such a background, I can usually understand what my clients are talking about. It’s really been an indispensable part of my work. Most of the new Japanese cults combine their favorite parts of Christianity and Buddhism, and a lot add the Islamic emphasis on charity.
“And if they grow, becoming big religions, that’s good for business too. So I try to get clients whose prospects look good. We can enjoy our partnership that way!”
Finally, Mr. Mountainside introduced me to the gimmick used in producing the ‘bestseller lists’ :
“The lists are not based on every single bookstore. The TV companies and newspapers have these lists of ‘selected’ bookstores which are surveyed about what they’re selling – I used to help produce the lists at one time, so I knew which stores were ‘selected’. If I had a client who wanted his book to be a best-seller, I’d get on the phone with some of these bookstores and tell them, ‘If you buy 100, I promise that my guy will send his cult-members round to buy them all.’ And sure enough, the book gets on the list. Religious books always climb towards the top of the charts, don’t they? That’s how! Sometimes you’ll have a small bookstore, (which HAS been ‘selected’ for the bestseller list) which sells 100 copies, but right next door is a huge bookstore (not ‘selected’) that doesn’t sell even one. No surprise, since I didn’t ask them to order any!
“And of course once it’s on the list, even non-members will get curious and buy it, so the list pays off two ways at once! Japanese have a weakness for rankings – they’ll buy the book without knowing it’s by a cult. Some of them wind up joining, of course. It’s so effective that some of our local cults are trying this trick in other countries as well!
“But, when it comes to this business, there’s no one more obedient than cult members, I think. Day after day, coming back to the store and buying exactly two copies. If the leader promises they’ll buy xxxx amount, it always happens, without exception. That kind of obedience is kind of scary if you think about it, though!”
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Hey I think that’s the best URA Hello Work so far!
Yes, this was really great. Thank you!
Great stuff as usual, but what’s with all of the exclamation points? Do the interviewees really end half of their sentences with ‘!’, or is there something exclamatory in Japanese (like part of these guys’ style of speech) that you could only translate that way?