The story of how a planner that wasn't selling at all became a massive hit thanks to a single post

Two years ago, I created a planner.

It is called the "Deadline Planner for Editors."

The reason I made it was simple: I wanted to be able to keep my deadlines. The job of an editor involves many projects running in parallel, and it is necessary to manage them properly.

However, I couldn't find a planner that was just right for that. So, I thought, "If that's the case, I'll just make one myself," and that is how this planner was born.

It was truly a planner I made for myself as an editor.

We made it ourselves, sold it ourselves, and it almost completely sold out.

Since it was my first time doing "product sales," I was very enthusiastic.

The print run was 2,000 copies.

"If it doesn't sell, it'll be a huge loss!" So, there was a sense of tension.

I asked a popular designer to work on it, had many discussions with the printing and binding companies, made prototypes over and over, and created the best possible book.

In terms of sales, I had a cool special website (the one above) made, and we sold it on Amazon and BASE. I also wrote about the behind-the-scenes of the production and the appeal of the planner on note to spread the word.

When an order came in, I would print the address on a label, stick it on an envelope, and pack the planners one by one. Every day, I would take them to the post office to be shipped.

In this way, the "Deadline Planner" sold steadily, and by spring, it was almost completely sold out.

Complacency in the second year

Feeling good about that, I got carried away.

"I'm going to get the 2025 version to even more people!" I thought.

I wanted it to be available in bookstores and stationery shops, too. But we didn't have a distribution network. So, I approached a publisher called "Discover 21" and decided to entrust them with the sales.

The print run was about 3,000 copies. We decided to wholesale almost all of them to Discover and have them sell them for us.

However... it didn't sell as well as I had hoped.

Movement was particularly slow in physical stores like bookstores and stationery shops.

Personally, I thought it would sell a bit better in stores, but for people who didn't know me and didn't know the story behind it, it must have been a product they just didn't understand.

I also feel that labeling it as "for editors" backfired.I think people in stores subconsciously decided it wasn't for them and just passed it by.

Because I had told the whole story in the first year, I couldn't come up with effective promotional tactics on social media. I think there was also a sense of complacency because I had outsourced the sales that year.

Discover 21 also did a lot for us, including in-store promotions, creating POP displays and banners, and running giveaway campaigns.

But the situation just wouldn't change.

I had no choice but to ask for help honestly...

In any case, it wasn't selling.

After the new year, Discover 21 started telling me, "If things continue like this, we're going to have to return a large quantity."

That was bad.

They offered various sales strategies, and one of them was a price reduction. As expected, price reductions do get a certain amount of reaction.

"A price reduction would be a burden on our end, so we'd like WORDS to cover part of it as well." That was also brought up.

We had originally agreed on the wholesale price, so any further burden was unexpected for us. Besides, it was something we worked hard to create with the designer, the printing house, and the bindery, so I didn't want to lower the price unnecessarily.

That's when I thought, "I have no choice but to be honest and ask everyone for help," and I made a single post.

"Please, buy it!"

It was a simple request.

I thought, "If this sells even one or two copies..."

But when I looked away from my phone for a moment and checked X again, for some reason, the number of likes was increasing. As I wondered, "Huh? What's going on?" I saw this quote repost from someone named Miyu.

This post had gone more viral than my own.

"This is 'for editors,' but I discovered it's actually perfect for 'ota-katsu' (fan activities)." That was the content.

"I see! So there's that way to use it too!"

I was surprised. Of course, I thought it was a planner that could be used by people other than editors who have projects running in parallel, but I never imagined it could be used for fan activities or supporting one's favorite idols.

Following this post, there was a flood of reactions from people involved in fan activities, such as "This is great!" and "I want to try it!"

↑ You can see what it was like at that time here.

People who received the product also made posts saying things like, "This is how I'm using it!" or "It might be good to use it this way."

As a result, at one point it reached around 40th place overall in the Amazon rankings, achieving a "smash hit." There were even days when over 100 copies were sold in a single day.

Thank you so, so much!!

So, what I want to say is,

thank you to Miyu-san, of course, and to everyone who reacted, spread the word, and bought it!!

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I also found a few points to reflect on regarding this matter.

One is that "for editors" was a bit too narrow. I thought that by narrowing the target to some extent to differentiate and characterize it, it would become a topic of conversation, but it was being overlooked in the first place. So, I'm thinking of changing it to something like "devised by an editor" next year.

So, thank you so much. However, there is still stock left, so I would be happy if you could recommend it to those around you as well 🙏 (You can use it for a full year until March 2026.)

Let's change our lives starting in April with the Deadline Planner!!