I just want to quietly draw manga

"The date's been set October 20."

"That's just a week away!"

Haruka gave a small nod. "Right. To tie in with the release of the first volumes, . Echo Shroud and Kazanami are organizing a fan meet and signing event. I'm here not just to collect this week's chapters, but also to talk to you about the event. Let me know if you can make time that day."

"October 20… that's a Wednesday," Haruki murmured, thinking it over.

"Yeah, I can do it. I'll get ahead on my drawing to cover both series."

Then he hesitated. "Still… what if no one shows up? That'd be kind of embarrassing."

Haruka stared at him, exasperated.

"What are you talking about? You really have no sense of your own popularity, do you? You're currently the second most popular author in Shroud Line's entire roster."

"And with Natsume being such a hit among female readers, there's no way a signing event would be empty."

She paused, then added with a smirk, "Actually, there's more. The publisher looked at projections based on similar titles, and they're printing 400,000 copies for each of the first three volumes. That's 1.2 million copies total, right out of the gate. They're clearly confident, and you're here worrying no one will come?"

"Wait, that many people would actually show up to a signing just for some manga volume?" Haruki frowned.

He couldn't relate. Even if his favorite manga author held an event right next door, he doubted he'd go. That kind of thing just wasn't his style.

Still… 400,000 per volume? That got his attention.

After all, that meant serious money.

And now with so much cash tied up in the anime production, he was nearly broke.

"So… based on previous releases, what do you think Natsume's volumes will actually sell?" Haruki asked, trying to sound casual.

Haruka gave him a long look. "Finally asking something a normal manga artist would care about."

"Assuming the quality stays consistent, sales can be projected with some confidence. For hits like this, the eventual total tends to be around three times the first-week sales."

"For Natsume, even our most conservative estimates say it'll clear a million in total. Could be more we just don't know the ceiling yet. That's why we're starting with 400,000 per volume, and we'll scale based on performance."

Haruki mentally did the math.

In the parallel world's Japanese manga market, the absolute ceiling for print runs belonged to juggernauts like One Piece, which had reached 4 million copies per volume. But aside from a few exceptional cases, most top-tier series topped out around 2 million.

That was the upper limit.

In this world, though, the market scale was larger. A top-tier manga could sell more.

Take Dream World, for instance Airi Tanaka had serialized that for three years. Thirteen volumes had been released. The series had sold over 31 million copies.

That kind of performance would rank her among the all-time greats in Japan.

Here? It was just enough to put her among the current top-tier artists.

And that didn't even include the legends who'd retired.

Still, for Natsume's, even the conservative projection looked promising.

Haruki calculated quickly. If he could serialize enough for five volumes a year, and each sold around a million copies, that would mean 5 million volumes annually.

At 500 yen per volume and a 10% royalty, that was 50 yen per copy—meaning 250 million yen a year, just from volume sales.

That, plus his magazine payments and bonuses, would ease the financial strain from the anime project.

And that was just the baseline. If the anime aired alongside the volumes, the numbers could jump even higher.

The show was set to air next April. Only six months to go.

If everything stayed on track, the anime could boost volume sales even more after broadcast.

"Anyway," Haruka said, breaking his train of thought, "you better prepare yourself. Right now you're worried no one will come but I think you're going to be overwhelmed. Your hand might fall off from all the signing."

She gave a dry laugh. "Airi did just one of these a few years back. Ever since, she's flat-out refused to attend any fan events. Says she'd rather stay up all night drawing than deal with that again."

"You're exaggerating," Haruki muttered.

"I'm not. You'll see."

With that, she gathered the draft pages and left, leaving Haruki alone with his thoughts.

He let out a breath.

Fan events like this were about connecting with readers. If he agreed, it would be only his second public appearance since debut.

The first was when he received the Aurora Manga Award.

He'd avoided the spotlight ever since, mostly out of habit but also because he didn't want people around him recognizing him. He liked keeping his life separate from his work.

Still… this was a joint event from Kazanami and Echo Shroud. Skipping it would be rude.

They were helping him make money it wouldn't be right to play the recluse now.

"Whatever," he sighed. "I doubt anyone's coming just to see me. If it's quiet, all the better. Just go, get it done, and move on."

Feeling slightly reassured, he got back to work.

(TL:- if you want even more content, check out p-atreon.com/Alioth23 for 55+ advanced chapters)