Pyeong (1)
58.
I had finally managed to come up with the title Pyeong, the name that had given me the most trouble.
After that, everything flowed with the satisfying ease of a channel opened at last. The critique of Yoo Yong-mi’s Carbondated Bubbles, as well as brief one-line comments and reviews on the short stories in the independent magazine, all of it was wrapped up quickly. The next step was editing and design, and since Yoo Kyeong-min was already under my supervision, I decided to hand him the job first.
“S-Sir, is it all right for me to do the proofreading and copyediting?” He looked at me with the expression of someone thinking, How dare a mere intern like me? “I’ll be checking the final version anyway. Just catch the typos and awkward phrasing.”
“Ah... yes! I’ll do my best!”
Yoo Kyeong-min spent several days with nothing but the manuscript for Pyeong.
From the look of things, he even took it home to proofread.
I almost told him he didn’t need to work himself that hard, but stopped myself.
Just by looking at him, I could tell he was the sort of person who couldn’t rest until he’d satisfied himself.
So he really had been born an office worker, the former assistant said. Extremely satisfying.
A few days later, when he brought back his revised copyediting, I couldn’t help saying, “...You did very well.” It was better than I’d expected.
In truth, my manuscripts rarely had any typos to begin with.
That kind of text was actually harder to proofread, because it made people let their guard down.
And yet Yoo Kyeong-min had corrected even the smallest marks and particles as if he were a machine. “Thank you!”
He bowed deeply.
“Actually, when I was in graduate school, Editor-in-Chief, you made your debut. It caused a huge sensation among my classmates. I’ve read every single thing you’ve written since then without missing a piece, and, anyway, I’m so honored to be working with you. I really, um, I’ll keep working even harder from now on!”
“...Ah.”
I was the one who had been caught off guard by the sudden declaration of loyalty.
It was one thing to hear someone address me so openly as Editor-in-Chief, and another to realize that, before I knew it, I had already cultivated these younger colleagues of mine. Come to think of it, it had been almost a year and a half since I came to Gyeongseong Publishing. Time really did have a way of making a person feel detached from himself.
Only then did I truly realize it.
I was no longer the youngest one around.
That made me feel, strangely enough, both a little wistful and a little proud.
Still, I understood one thing clearly.
I couldn’t afford to be awkward about acting like a senior anymore.
I was good at reading reality, after all. “Thank you. Let’s do well from here on.”
“Yes, sir!”
With that, Yoo Kyeong-min left the conference room, his face still flushed with excitement.
“Now then... if we finish the editing like this, the only thing left is the cover design, I suppose.”
In fact, a draft for the cover design had already been prepared.
A publishing house’s quarterly magazine cover wasn’t usually anything especially elaborate.
It was text-heavy rather than image-heavy, with a monochrome background in most cases.
And more than color, the texture of the paper mattered.
The feel of a book, after all, came unexpectedly from the touch of it in your hands. The paper I had requested was mashi paper, a stock with a rough surface and a somewhat stiff feel.
Its color was also a little muted.
But it had several advantages: it was light, plain, and affordable. In short, I had chosen a paper that would be easy to carry around.
That way, anyone could pick it up and flip through it whenever they wanted,
and toss it into their bag without a second thought.
A quarterly magazine had, at most, the lifespan of a single season.
To get read widely in that short window, it needed mobility.
“Let’s have a look.”
With that, I examined the cover draft for Pyeong, printed on mashi paper.
The background was a warm ivory. The text was all green.
In the upper left corner, the title Pyeong stood in large letters,
and beneath it was the table of contents in smaller type. Clean. Very clean, in fact.
But... something still felt missing.
“I think I could do a little more with it.”
Creak.
I crossed my arms and sank deep into the chair.
Let’s think about this coldly, from the perspective of a third party. Who exactly would read this?
First, let’s acknowledge the obvious.
People who liked a critic named Mok Hyunsun would read it.
But readers were colder than most people assumed.
They might buy the first issue, but if it didn’t suit their taste, they wouldn’t bother with the second.
Then there were general literature readers.
Their logic was no different.
The conclusion was simple.
Relying only on people who liked Mok Hyunsun or literature was far too naive.
I needed to expand the market somehow. In other words, I had to target not just people who would “enjoy” criticism, but people who actually “needed” a collection of criticism.
Those who wanted to scan the short-story landscape of Korean literature itself. “In that case... this isn’t a bad direction.”
I picked up a marker.
Then I added, in large letters beside Pyeong: critique.
I narrowed my eyes and stared at the cover.
“...Good. Perfect.”
The feeling was right. Let’s go with this.
─┼
And then, a few days later.
I went up to the representative’s office to report the final dummy proof to the executives. This wasn’t a review of the manuscript itself, like an editorial meeting, but rather a process for judging the product’s commercial viability.
It was, you might say, the final quality inspection every book from Gyeongseong Publishing had to pass.
Even if it seemed weak in terms of sales potential, Pyeong would still be released.
Still, if it received a good score here, its visibility in bookstores would change. People in the industry called it “laying the book down” or “standing it up.”
When you went into a bookstore, new releases and bestsellers were laid flat on display tables.
That was how you exposed the more marketable books to customers and increased sales through sheer visibility.
By contrast, books left standing upright on shelves lost exposure almost immediately.
Unless someone came in specifically looking for that title, it could end up languishing in the warehouse without ever being opened.
And those table spots where books could be laid flat... more often than not, the publisher paid to rent them.
In the end, if you wanted a book to stay laid out where people could see it, the publisher had to push it from the start.
Ding.
The elevator stopped, and I stepped out on the top floor.
I crossed the now-familiar hallway and entered the representative’s office. But what on earth was this? I had expected only Representative Moon, Editor-in-Chief Im, and at most Team Leader Kim from the Korean Literature Department.
Instead, the office sofa was full.
Representative Moon and Editor-in-Chief Im, of course, but also Editor Yoon from the Korean Literature Department and Editor Ryu from the Foreign Literature Department.
...Had all the editors of Gyeongseong Publishing gathered here?
I didn’t show my surprise and greeted them calmly.
Representative Moon, seated in the place of honor, said, “Publishing a quarterly magazine is a very important business decision for a publishing house, so I wanted to hear every editor’s opinion. That all right?”
What could I say if it wasn’t?
“Yes. Of course.”
“I do feel a little worried, though. Selling books requires commercial instinct more than people think. It’s a different matter from writing.”
Editor Yoon from the Korean Literature Department spoke to me. “Well, surely Critic Mok handled it well enough. Let’s take a look at the manuscript first.”
Editor Ryu from the Foreign Literature Department seemed eager to get straight to the point.
That comment—surely he handled it well enough—didn’t sound like blind faith so much as, let’s look at it before we talk.
“Yes. Please have a look.”
“How many copies did you bring?” Editor Im asked.
“Exactly four.”
“You knew all of us would be here?”
“No. After showing it to the representative today, I planned to bring copies directly to each editor on my way back.”
There were two meanings in my answer.
First, that I had intended to take care of the editors first.
Second, that even if they asked for revisions... I wouldn’t necessarily accept them.
In any case, if I was the editor-in-chief, the thing called a “final manuscript” was something I decided on myself.
“Ho ho. Interesting. Let’s see it, then.”
Representative Moon chuckled and gestured for me to hand it over.
I distributed the four thin dummy proofs.
The title was Pyeong_critique.
They’d probably finish reading it quickly. After all, reading was their job.
And my job now was... to wait.
“Pyeong, huh...”
Editor Im’s murmur was the last thing said before silence settled over the office.
Rustle, rustle, rustle...
In the suffocating quiet, the only sound was the turning of pages.
If this had been an editorial meeting, I might have been tense. But not today.
Whatever they said... the quarterly magazine would be published.
All I wanted was for Pyeong to be laid out in the place I wanted.
After a while, they set down the proofs.
“Hah.”
The first to exhale in admiration was Editor Yoon from the Korean Literature Department.
“I’ve only received Park Jeong-shin’s manuscript for Ordan and haven’t read it yet, but... this, um... how should I put it? I’m glad I came here without reading it first. It’s made me want to rush back and read Ordan right away. And honestly, you chose the works beautifully.”
“Thank you.”
“No, no. I’m not just saying that. Korean fiction mostly follows the lineage of realism, doesn’t it? It depicts real life in a realistic way. On the other hand, stories set in imaginary worlds tend to be weak both in fiction and in criticism. In that sense... this feels new.”
New.
I seized the word and pressed further. “Then may I interpret that as meaning there is market value here?”
“...Hm. Yes. If people who love literature bought Pyeong, they’d be captivated by this new approach to criticism. Then they’d buy the second issue as well.”
“Photographic Memory is quite good too, though.”
This time it was Editor Ryu from the Foreign Literature Department.
Before he could go any further, I asked him, “Have you read Photographic Memory?”
“No, I haven’t.”
Perfect.
Photographic Memory was a mystery.
The key to its pleasure was the catharsis of identifying the culprit.
So I had intended it that way.
A critique that remained enjoyable even if the reader didn’t know the culprit.
The result seemed to depend on Editor Ryu’s answer.
“When you work in Foreign Literature, you end up reading a lot of mysteries. Britain, the United States, and in Asia, Japan is really the center of the mystery boom. Korean mysteries, by contrast... because the market is small, works with real impact are rare. Isn’t that right, Editor Yoon?”
“That’s true enough. Korea has been trying to do something with thrillers, but Japan has practically swallowed the whole market for horror and mystery.”
“In that sense, tackling a mystery feels like a huge challenge. I don’t even know how you found a piece like this. And the content is deep. Reading a mystery in first person... it’s not just handling the detective element, but giving it literary theory—that technique is extraordinary. I really need to read Photographic Memory now and see whether it truly deserves a critique like this or not.”
He went on and on with his praise.
But the point I had been waiting for still hadn’t come.
“So, did you enjoy it?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m asking whether you found the piece enjoyable in and of itself.”
“!”
Editor Ryu straightened his face and answered, “I’ve just spent the last few minutes explaining, in every possible way, that I did.”
How could I possibly keep from smiling at that moment?
I had just heard the highest praise I needed.
Next was Editor Im.
“The manuscript’s content isn’t something we need to interfere with, so let’s set that aside. What I checked was whether this new quarterly magazine differentiated itself from the existing Gyeongseong Geul.”
“Hmm—what do you think?” Representative Moon asked.
“It passes. In terms of planning, and in terms of length. Critiquing genre fiction like mysteries in Gyeongseong Geul would be difficult enough, and even if we were to run criticism of Ordan, it couldn’t be this long.”
His tone was dry, but the meaning was clear.
Representative Moon thought about it for a moment. “Everyone seems to like it. Then it makes sense to back it. It may be something of a gamble, but... all right. Let’s do it. We’ll keep it on the tables at the three major bookstore chains for two weeks.”
Two weeks was half the run of Gyeongseong Geul. Not bad.
“The smaller bookstores... hmm, those are a bit of a mixed bag.”
I could practically see the numbers spinning in his head.
It was probably because of the table rental fees and all the Gyeongseong Publishing new releases already waiting in line.
That was when I cut in lightly. “Even if we give up the small and mid-sized bookstore displays, there’s one store I’d like us to target.”
“A store you’d like to target? Which one?”
I glanced at the dummy proof.
The place most fitting for the title Pyeong_critique.
“The bookstore display at Incheon International Airport.”
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