Walking Through a Bookstore

I walked through a TSUTAYA that was co-located with an Autobacs.
A vast number of manga were crowded together.
Literature was also crowded together.
Many authors write, it gets edited, printed, shelved, advertised, and read:
There is more than one way to engage with books.
I was overwhelmed imagining the work of each professional.

I am reminded of Shinya Tanaka's words: "Of all the first-class things in the world, books are the only ones you can get for a few hundred yen."
Everyone does first-class work, and it reaches the reader's hands. I try to accept that fact by idealizing it like a miracle.

It is common for a single work to have a print run of about 5,000 copies to sell out.
My lack of a sense for numbers makes me vaguely think that is a small amount. That is because I think of it in terms of "selling 5,000 snacks or food items." If you try to sell 5,000 items in one day, assuming an 8-hour workday, you would need to sell 625 per hour, or 10 per minute. If there is a profit of 100 yen per item, that is a profit of 500,000 yen. For a self-employed person, achieving that in a month would be a great success. That is 166 per day, 8 per hour, though that is without days off.

Selling out, becoming a topic of conversation, getting reprinted, and selling again. Performing that cycle in many different ways is the work of a professional.

While my eyes are drawn to the wonderful role books play in changing lives, it is a accumulation of steady, diligent work.
Moreover, it is called a sunset industry, and the market has fallen to 70% of its peak. Even if it is a sunset industry, it does not mean the appeal of books has disappeared. Options other than books have increased, and they have become accessible more cheaply. It is not that the appeal of books has vanished; rather, it is precisely because their value is being re-evaluated now that there are people supporting the book industry and people writing. Thanks to them, we are able to read books.
If we do not call this abundance of choices wealth, what should we call it?