That concludes volume 2! How was it?
I heard that GC Novels has reached its eighth anniversary. Being a long-running company isn’t its only feat—their headliner, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, is a very popular work, and they’ve produced hit after hit from web novels. I feel it has been eight years of steady advances and explosive growth as a label. I’m sure it wasn’t a smooth road, but congratulations, nonetheless.
Writing this reminded me that it’s been about six years since I started working with Micro Magazine. Man, that’s a long time. Thinking back on these past six to eight years brings up tons of memories of past industry news. It fills me with emotion.
Recent years have entered us into the fast-paced era of online novel publishing, not to mention e-book adaptations. Scenery really does change, doesn’t it?
Back then, not many web novels would get to be published, so money couldn’t be made from them. But recently, there’s been a rise of ad revenue restoration sites. So maybe one day someone could make more than a few million yen with promotional videos alone, don’t you think? Seeing authors and their works have that kind of momentum really makes me feel the generation change. Maybe in the future, authors will be able to make a living just by publishing online, even if the physical release gets canceled. I’ve seen for myself that different publishing sites have different popular works at the top, so even if a work is good, it might not climb the rankings on its specific site. It’s so interesting...you can completely miss a good novel depending on what site it’s on. It must be the same logic as print novels and comic imprints getting popular for different genres each.
Now that I think about it, when society switched from flip phones to smartphones, within just six to eight years, suddenly everyone had smartphones. Five or ten years really is enough time for an entire era to end.
Writing about being nostalgic for the past and surprised at the present really makes me sound like an old geezer, doesn’t it? When it comes to work, I believe it’s always important to be young at heart, so no matter how old my body gets, I’d like to challenge myself with many things, intent on progress and experimentation.
On that note, I’ve recently been challenging myself by drafting webtoon stories, fighting every day with my editors over this and that. I’ve also been writing the scripts for comic adaptations of my works, and even completely remaking scripts for scenarios of mine that ended up getting novelized. So, if any of you are wondering, “What ever happened to that Arata Shiraishi guy from the web novel sphere?” please check me out on Twitter (now X) to see what I’ve been up to! I’m hoping to keep working in the entertainment business from here on as well, so let’s just say I’ve been studying a lot and coming up with different strategies. It’s been an almost decade-long journey for me. Sometimes I feel like I have to go back and learn the basics from scratch and fix my scenarios to keep up with the times, as if I’m an amateur again.
GC Novels hitting eight years made me reflect on the past and look forward to the future, so I wrote down what came to mind.
Lastly, my thanks.
My illustrator Yuunagi—thank you very much for the beautiful illustrations in this volume as well. For me personally, seeing Mr. Mikagami’s design for his debut in this volume made me extremely excited. I couldn’t help but squeal, “Yuunagi is so talented!”
And my editor. At this point, we’ve been working together for a long time, haven’t we? Thank you very much for everything until now, and I’m in your care from here on out as well.