This was Crimson Maple Literature's reader survey and vote tracking system.
Nina, a long-time fan of the label, naturally knew what it was.
Even though she bought their magazines regularly, she usually found the whole process annoying and could never be bothered to use her vote. You had to log into the official site and input a serial code, and it felt like too much effort.
Only on days like this, when she ran into a story that truly struck a chord, did she bother jumping through the hoops.
First, Nina understood that a major portion of a serialized novel's performance was judged through these online votes and reader ratings. If a series stayed low for too long, and if the average score sank with it, the editorial department would force an early cancellation.
To keep Blue Spring Ride from ever landing in that danger zone, she wanted to do her part. One vote was still a vote.
Second, after completing the process, she could leave a reader comment for the author, "Shiori Takahashi," as an actual verified buyer.
"Shiori, keep going. Write well. I really like this story, and I am cheering for you."
Only after leaving that message did Nina finally feel satisfied, as if she could loosen her grip on Futaba and Kou's story for the moment and simply wait for Sunday to come.
That small, blessing-filled comment was uploaded to Crimson Maple Literature's backend.
If Haruto logged into the contracted author account the company had issued him and opened the dashboard, he would be able to see those reader messages.
More than a decade ago, light novel publishers tracked feedback through mailed letters. That method was not only slow, it was also painfully inconvenient.
Out of ten thousand readers, maybe fewer than a hundred would actually spend money on postage just to praise a series, or to send a complaint.
But the times had changed, and print publishers had changed with them.
After improving the feedback channels, and after deliberately promoting the idea of supporting authors and forming fan communities, a noticeable portion of magazine buyers began participating.
Roughly one in fifteen, sometimes as high as one in ten, would happily vote. If a story was truly exceptional, that percentage climbed even higher. It started to resemble idol fandom culture in its own way.
So from Wednesday morning at nine, when the latest issue of Fleeting Blossoms and the newest Crimson Maple went on sale across the prefecture, many editors inside Crimson Maple Literature's editorial department logged into the backend to check how the titles under their supervision were doing.
In the shared office area, a cluster of editors gathered together, chatting in good spirits.
Naturally, most of what they discussed was still the flagship magazine, Crimson Maple.
For the smaller magazines that only moved a few tens of thousands of copies, the editors did not usually pay close attention to the series running there.
"Hey, the series I handle is doing pretty well. The numbers look nice."
"Yeah… looks like Black Angel is probably getting cut. Four weeks in a row with fewer than four hundred votes, and its rating already dropped to a 4.8. That is brutal."
"The later plot collapsed, so what can you do? That is how serialization works. Most stories get scolded by readers later on. The ones that stay steady from start to finish are rare."
"But the author of Black Angel is working hard. He noticed the decline early. For the past month he has been barely sleeping, trying to patch the story and recover the reputation. I checked on him recently and he was writing while bleeding from his nose because the stress was so bad. Even so… it still did not work. Sigh."
"Effort alone is not enough. In this line of work, talent matters too. Crimson Maple is our top-tier magazine, and the readers are picky. If quality dips even slightly, the numbers fall off a cliff. We just have to learn from it. Next time, do not let an author go off the rails and casually kill off the heroine for shock value. If he had held back in chapter fourteen, the popularity would not have crashed this hard."
The editors tossed comments back and forth, one after another. It was already nearing the end of the workday, and things were relatively calm.
Then someone suddenly said, "Wait. Check the numbers for Fleeting Blossoms."
"Hm? What is up?"
The editors clicked into the backend data for Fleeting Blossoms.
After only a few seconds, everyone could tell something was off.
"No way… 9.2?"
"Blue Spring Ride has a score that high for chapter one?"
"So far the vote count is 2,045, which puts it fourth out of thirteen serialized titles in that magazine. But a 9.2 rating? What is this?"
"That is not normal. Readers are insanely picky these days. A brand-new author, first work, first chapter, and it gets a 9.2?"
"This is kind of crazy. Is this series about to explode?"
"Hold on, it is only chapter one. If it stays that high even when it ends, then we can call it legendary."
"Sure, but a strong opening is half the battle already."
"And it is not just the Blue Spring Ride. That other new one, Yesterday's Starlight, is doing well too. Vote count is 1,233, ranking seventh out of thirteen, and it is sitting at an 8.1."
"Those two high school kids actually have something."
Normally, a newly launched series, especially one by a debut author, could not compete with established writers in raw fanbase size.
So when a new serialization entered a magazine and went up against long-running titles, it usually sat at the very bottom in online votes, simply because the older series already had loyal readers.
Based on experience, a brand-new title in Fleeting Blossoms pulling two or three hundred votes for its first chapter was already considered decent.
Sometimes it did not even break a hundred.
It was not necessarily because no one liked the story. It was because the voting system worked in a specific way.
Most readers used their one vote on the single series they liked the most in that issue. A story might have plenty of readers who enjoyed it, yet if it was not their top favorite, it did not receive their vote.
To win those votes, most series needed time.
They needed the plot to unfold.
They needed that one breakthrough arc that made people desperate to support it. Only then did the numbers begin to surge. That was why the editors were momentarily stunned.
Whether it was Blue Spring Ride or Yesterday's Starlight, the results did not match the pattern they had come to expect.
Only half a day after release, Blue Spring Ride had already cleared two thousand votes and climbed to fourth among the magazine's serialized titles.
Yesterday's Starlight had broken a thousand and sat at seventh.
Of course, the official "first day" statistics were counted over a full twenty-four hours, meaning the data would be finalized at nine a.m. tomorrow.
Even so, with numbers like this, the rankings were unlikely to swing wildly overnight.
More importantly, the ratings were high too.
Reader ratings tended to be the most objective metric. If ten thousand people rated something a nine, and later a hundred thousand people read it, the score usually did not change drastically. So a 9.2 for Blue Spring Ride was frankly outrageous.
In Fleeting Blossoms, an average series hovered around a 7.0. A genuinely good series climbed past 8.0.
As for anything above 9.0, it meant that the overwhelming majority of readers who actually finished the chapter thought it was truly excellent.
Still, it was only chapter one.
If later arcs disappointed, the score could drop in an instant once the broader audience weighed in.
Even so, the combined data was fascinating.
Blue Spring Ride ranked fourth in votes, yet it was first in rating among all thirteen series.
Yesterday's Starlight ranked seventh in votes, and third in rating.
No wonder Yukino had dared to claim in the serialization meeting that Blue Spring Ride would have been more than strong enough even for Crimson Maple. And no wonder Editor-in-Chief Akira had approved Yesterday's Starlight as well.
If these results held steady, both series would likely see a sharp growth spike in popularity soon.
The office editors could not sit still anymore. Envy began to creep in, directed squarely at Yukino.
What kind of luck was that?
It just happened to be her shift at the office on the day those walk-in submissions came in, and she managed to grab two promising rookies in a single afternoon.
Why did that never happen to them?
Yukino, of course, had also seen the first-issue results for both Blue Spring Ride and Yesterday's Starlight.
To be honest, Blue Spring Ride was one thing.
She had believed in it. She expected it to do well. She just did not expect it to do this well. But Yesterday's Starlight also performed strongly…
"So readers are really this open to a romance where the male lead is literally a black cat,"
Yukino murmured, propping her pale cheek in her palm as a thoughtful glint flashed in her eyes. "I did not see that coming."
As an editor, her first instinct was not celebration. It was a strategy.
How could she help two high school authors keep these numbers stable?
Because if the later plot collapsed, everything would collapse with it. Having an excellent first issue was hard.
Keeping that excellence all the way until the final issue, and still holding those scores when the story ended, was ten times harder.
With that thought, she picked up her phone and called Haruto.
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