Management - 2
There were two immediate problems standing in the way of revitalizing the bookstore.
Customer traffic and inventory.
Draw in more customers to boost sales. Renovating the place into something modern would raise accessibility, and stocking commercially appealing titles would lift revenue further—but that alone would never be enough.
The dead stock was just as big a headache.
The bookstore Dang Hwarin had inherited was the same shop her maternal grandfather had run for fifty years at a bare break-even pace. Half a century of accumulation meant the shelves were drowning in unsold books.
Fifty years of operation had turned the place into a colossal warehouse of paper.
I filled the first floor with commercially viable titles and cleared out the worst of the dead stock for resale. Even then, not everything could be disposed of.
Whatever remained had nowhere to go but the second floor.
Dang Hwarin had suggested simply using the upstairs as a warehouse, but I had a better idea—one that would turn the inventory problem itself into a magnet for new customers.
“What in the world is this place…?”
When I climbed to the second floor, a man who looked every bit the scholarly type was staring around in open astonishment. Fair enough. A layout like this was something no one in this world had ever seen before.
“I came upstairs from the bookstore and yet… this is strange. Is this still part of the shop? No—there are clearly books here.”
I followed the scholar’s curious gaze and took in the room myself.
Along the walls stood bookcases packed as tightly as any ordinary bookstore, rows upon rows of volumes filling the interior. But turn toward the windows and the atmosphere shifted completely.
Long tables lined with desks in neat rows. Soft, inviting chairs tucked into the corners. Right beside the entrance stood a long counter, and on the wall behind it waited every tool needed for brewing tea.
Books and tea.
Any modern person would recognize the place at a glance.
“This is Daseogak.”
A book café. That was the true identity of the second floor I had remodeled.
“Whoa! You’re the fellow I saw at the entrance. Are you the shop assistant?”
The scholar startled at my voice behind him, shoulders jumping before he spun around to face me.
“I’m the manager of this bookstore.”
Not a mere clerk! A manager! I introduced myself with an easy smile.
— You seem to know bookstore management better than I do, Yunho. You be the manager. I’ll just be the owner.
Was this the confidence of a landlord? Right in front of me, Dang Hwarin had declared a separation of ownership and management so clean that even a chaebol would have wept.
It felt a little absurd for a two-person start-up to already be sporting chairman and president titles, yet going from homeless barbarian Kang to bookstore manager was still one hell of a promotion.
Now when some troublemaker yelled, “Get me the manager!” I could finally answer, “I am the manager, so what?”
“Ah, the manager. I am Scholar Son, studying in the neighborhood. But Daseogak? What exactly is that?”
“It’s a tea house of the sort popular in Joseon, while also serving as a bookstore.”
“A tea house that is also a bookstore… that only confuses me further.”
“Pay only the entrance fee and you may read as many books as you like, all day long, right here in Daseogak.”
I pointed to the signboard by the entrance listing the fee and the rules.
“Impossible! For the price of a single meal I can read every book here to my heart’s content? Truly all these books? Are you hatching some sort of scheme?”
How did he know? He had somehow seen straight through my plot to make this the greatest bookstore in Yichang. Scholar Son stared at the endless shelves in disbelief.
I couldn’t blame him. In this world books were not pure luxury goods, yet neither were they mass-produced commodities.
Literacy was high enough that inns simply handed you a menu and expected you to order for yourself. Demand for reading material existed in abundance—the bottleneck was supply.
Printing presses existed but were uncommon; paper, ink, and other materials drove production costs high. Printing kept prices from becoming ruinous, yet books remained far from cheap.
Reading for pure pleasure was a hobby most people found burdensome to the purse, whatever value it held for education.
Into that world I was introducing a book café—and at a price that looked almost suspiciously low.
“Yes. Pay the entrance fee and Daseogak is yours for the day. As an opening celebration we will even admit everyone free for the first week. If there is any book you wish to read, stay as long as you like.”
The moment he heard that, Scholar Son plunged between the shelves.
“This is the work the great scholar wrote in his final years after retiring thirty years ago! And this—a poetry collection that was briefly popular two decades past. Heavens… so many books I have longed to read. Am I dreaming…?”
Exactly as expected. I watched his reaction with a quiet smile.
The books stocked in the café were dead stock in the purest sense—volumes that were interesting or worthwhile enough, yet not quite worth buying outright. To a bookstore they were permanent ballast.
But once those same books became free to read inside a café, the story changed. The white elephant transformed into the tastiest Chuncheon dak-galbi imaginable—and at a bargain price.
Malicious inventory that was too awkward to sell becomes, in an instant, the very bait that lures customers through the door.
People would come to the bookstore simply to read in Daseogak. Even a moment’s thought made it obvious that far more visitors would arrive for free reading than would ever come to purchase books.
Every one of them became a potential customer. And even if they bought nothing at all, that was fine.
Dead stock that had sat gathering dust now generated entrance-fee revenue. Without selling a single volume I had created a cash cow.
“I was told downstairs this is the place where you can read whatever you like?”
“That’s right. Welcome to Daseogak.”
“Wow, so many books! Ah! I’ve wanted to read this one!”
“To think we can simply sit and read books of this quality!”
Starting with Scholar Son, customers began streaming into the book café one after another.
Time to take my post.
Entrance was free for the week, but I fully intended to make money elsewhere.
Once people settled into seats and opened books, I headed for the counter.
“Manager, my throat’s a bit dry. Would you happen to have any water?”
The man deliberately stroking his throat in exaggerated thirst was none other than the first arrival, Scholar Son.
“Haha. No water, I’m afraid—we sell tea.”
Standing behind the counter, I pointed to the large price board mounted on the wall behind me.
“Then I’ll take some tea… Wait—what is that?”
“Which item, sir?”
“An Americano costs forty copper?! That’s more expensive than a whole bowl of hangover soup!”
Scholar Son wore the exact expression of a student who had carelessly offered to buy dessert after a free meal, only to be dragged into a franchise coffee shop and confront the menu board for the first time.
“This place is both bookstore and tea house. Still, unlike a regular tea house you are under no obligation to order anything. If the price feels burdensome, feel free to pass.”
“Then I’ll just step outside for a moment…”
“Once you leave Daseogak, you cannot re-enter for the rest of the day.”
“Urgh… What kind of rule is that?”
He glared at me in open dissatisfaction. Did he think I was running this place by digging money out of the ground? The books had cost me nothing, but every bit of the renovations had come out of my own pocket.
I hadn’t even been able to afford proper coffee gear; I had practically stolen the equipment at a rock-bottom price from the Baek Clan manor. “Consider it an opening gift,” the steward had said while his hands shook—I still felt guilty about that one.
“Mister, if you’re not buying, move. Young master, one warm Americano, please.”
“What an honor that Daseogak’s very first customer is a beauty like yourself. I’ll pull one right away.”
“Heehee. Put plenty of the young master’s heart into it.”
“Hey… we look about the same age, so why is he ‘young master’ and I’m just ‘mister’…?”
Ignoring the grumbling scholar, I began preparing my first Americano in this world.
To think I was brewing Americanos after transmigrating—the feeling was strangely fresh. Back in the old days I would have yelled “Gahl!” the moment I finished one.
Then again, this was a world that already possessed the heretical rose-tteokbokki. By comparison, an Americano was practically orthodox coffee. Yeah.
“…So the entrance fee is cheap and you make your profit on the drinks. Is this the Joseon method? Ruthless, yet I must admit the commercial logic holds. Fine. Give me an Americano as well.”
While I handed the cup to the woman customer—privately hoping no Italian martial artist was listening—Scholar Son muttered his reluctant acceptance and ordered.
“Hot or iced?”
“Ha! Obviously iced Americano even if I freeze to death.”
“Iced is an extra five copper.”
“Ugh! No scholar’s discount?”
Nope. Not a chance.
I had never intended the book café to serve only as a dumping ground for dead stock and a drinks counter.
The advantages of a book café ran far deeper than that.
“Excuse me, manager. This book—may I purchase it rather than merely read it here? I picked it up idly and found the contents surprisingly useful. I’d like to buy a copy.”
A customer rose from his seat and brought a volume to the counter. I had hoped for exactly this sort of visitor on the first day, and here he was.
“Of course. Every book displayed in Daseogak is available for purchase at a thirty-percent discount from the market price.”
“Thirty percent off? Truly?”
He glanced back and forth between the book and my face as if he could not believe it.
Believe it. These volumes had occupied shelf space for decades; every sale was pure profit.
That was precisely what I had been counting on.
Even dead-stock titles, once they passed through enough hands, would eventually catch someone’s eye. The moment they did, I could clear inventory on the spot.
Empty slots were promptly filled with second-hand books that people were already hunting for. Book sales accelerated all by themselves.
In this fashion the first floor became a modern bookstore while the second floor transformed into both a book café and a second-hand book market.
I pointed to the sign stating that all café books sold at thirty percent off, dissolving the man’s lingering doubts.
“Certainly. Shall I ring it up?”
“I’ll take it immediately. And don’t you dare ask for it back after I’ve paid.”
Of course not. It was thirty-year-old stock—just don’t come back demanding a refund.
“They’re giving thirty percent off here. Should we buy a few ourselves?”
“Let’s. I’ll take one, you take one, and we can swap. Please ring us up as well.”
“Thirty percent! Exploring the stacks just became a treasure hunt. I’m going to dig for something good.”
“Father, buy me this one!”
The instant people heard about the discount, they began snatching up the old stock without the slightest hesitation.
If sales stayed this brisk every day, the dead inventory would vanish in no time.
And there is yet another reason I put the café on the second floor.
I watched the buyers heading downstairs and allowed myself a quiet, triumphant smile.
“A book I bought upstairs—there’s a new work by the same author after twenty years!”
“I’m broke… Want to split the cost?”
“Deal!”
I had deliberately designed the longest possible path from Daseogak down to the first-floor exit. Anyone visiting the café was forced to walk past the main stock on the way up or down.
Turn dead inventory into café stock. If a customer likes a volume, sell it cheap. Even if they don’t buy a book, they still buy a drink.
And the more popular Daseogak became, the more foot traffic naturally flowed through the first floor.
A perfect virtuous cycle.
“We’ll be closing shortly.”
I looked over the thriving shop on its very first day, a warm satisfaction spreading through me.
If only the martial-arts novels I wrote could become this popular. Preparing the bookstore had kept me so busy that I still had nothing more than a bare-bones plot outline.
“Manager. Sell me this book.”
“‘The Mak Clan’s Peasant Uprising,’ is it? An excellent choice.”
I had no idea what the book was about, but the joy of quitting time made my tone light as I addressed Scholar Son.
“Oh? Have you read it?”
“I know the gist.”
Truthfully I knew nothing. Please don’t ask for details.
“A mere gist may differ from the actual contents. The Mak Clan’s Peasant Uprising deals with the revolt of fifty years past, so newer editions still appear, yet this thirty-year-old printing is special.”
“In what way?”
“A peasant uprising naturally involves plunder, banditry, and… ahem… certain other activities. This particular edition describes those matters in rather thorough detail. To find it here of all places.”
“So it’s a detailed account of true events?”
“Not true events, no.”
“But it’s a history of a real uprising—how can it not be factual?”
“The uprising and the principal figures existed, yet everything written within these pages is pure invention. And in this thirty-year-old printing, once the Mak clan seized the city, the magistrate’s wives and… heh heh…”
So he wasn’t buying a rare historical work or a classic novel—he was buying erotica.
“Surely a novel thirty years old cannot still be this filth— ahem, ahem. A scholar must of course be well-versed in the classics. Kindly wrap it up.”
With a lecherous expression Scholar Son paid for the volume, slipped it carefully into his robes so no one would notice the title, and left Daseogak.
A scholar preparing for the examinations, was he? At this rate I doubted he would ever pass. Still, it seemed even in this world faction-style historical novels had their fans.
Wait. Faction?
Hold on. If I thought about this carefully… I could use this for my own martial-arts novel.
I closed the bookstore and hurried up to the attic desk, dipping my brush in ink.
There was a surefire way to seize a reader’s attention.
Simply writing a martial-arts novel would never be enough to grab notice overnight.
Should I fall back on the beginner author’s secret weapon—title aggro?
No. Something even better.
The story I wrote would remain pure fiction.
The characters false. The plot false. But what if I used a real clan?
The eternal favorite of martial-arts novels.
The Sichuan Dang Clan.
Make the protagonist a member of the Sichuan Dang Clan.
Give him overflowing chivalry, yet keep him endlessly entangled in classic martial-arts-novel nonsense.
The mere presence of the Sichuan Dang name would draw readers like moths to a flame.
The title formed in my mind in a single flash.
A name that continued the lineage of the first novel I had written in this world while still packing pure title aggro.
My second novel, and my very first true martial-arts work.
Your name is…
“Dangga Pungun.”