Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!
It was boring for the guild.
Well, it was boring for Wendy and Yukino who had nothing to do but wait around. They had finished ALL of their work a few days ago, and while Naruto was sitting at the back of the guild hall reading some papers and taking notes, they had nothing.
'Hmmmm... we completely sold out in Magnolia AND several other cities... we are underperforming in more rural areas though.' Naruto was looking at the sales by city. In some larger cities, they had sent out their third shipment of magazines to make up the demand. There were many people who weren't just buying 1 magazine, they were buying 3 copies of it.
Stats.
"Master, what is that?"
"These are the sales stats. It shows us how many sales we're getting, the age range for a portion of the people buying the magazines, and the gender for the people. We're actually printing out our 4th shipment, after already sending our the 3rd shipment." Naruto saw a huge profit, though he would only ever personally get the smallest of portions of it. He knew that the first magazine would be a huge success in any area where Erza had visited before, or an area where she was infamous or famous.
"That's great!" Wendy was excited.
"It's great... to an extent. In some places, we haven't even finished selling our the 1st shipment. So, overall... we're about where I expected us to be." Naruto knew smaller towns wouldn't see nearly as much sales right off the bat. He was going to lower the print numbers for shipments to places where they weren't selling nearly as much. "... we shipped to over 30 cities... next month we will be boosting shipment sizes to the Top 5 cities, and reducing shipment sizes to the Bottom 10." Naruto explained as he circled some cities and crossed out others.
"... Why reduce shipment sizes?" Yukino asked Naruto.
"If they sell out, we can print more... if they don't sell everything, that was money we wasted on prints we didn't sell. We want to follow supply and demand... see how the flow goes." Naruto had both of his girls sitting on either side of him, they were reading the sales charts to the best of their ability. Naruto grabbed his magic pen, and wrote several notes in the air for them to see it easier. He showed a large arrow pointing to Magnolia, and a much smaller arrow pointing to a ? village with smaller sales. "... we can always print more, but we can't unwaste the money we already spent."
"So, how much in profits did we make?" Yukino asked with wide, excited eyes.
"... We exceeded the sales goal we needed to break even awhile back... 90% of profits earned goes to Mister Moneybaggs... and we keep 10%... I'll be investing 9% of that into the guild and other things-"
"NARUTO MY BOY!"
"Speaking of Mister Moneybaggs... to what do I owe the surprise vis-" Naruto was stunned when the old man just walked right up to him, and then kissed him on both of his cheeks. He then wrapped arms around Naruto in a huge hug, before he let go and showed Naruto the magazine that he had in his hand.
It was their first issue... signed by Erza herself... Naruto had managed to swing that for the man, but it would seem he really enjoyed it.
"My boy, my boy, MY BOY!"
"This is Mister Moneybaggs?" Yukino whispered to Wendy, before the man went up to her and he wrapped his arms around her as well. He hugged the young girl, kissed both of her cheeks, before he turned his attention to Wendy and did the same. He laughed as he swung Wendy off her feet, before he set her down and turned his attention back to Naruto.
"MY BOY!"
"Yes, I'm your guy." Naruto didn't know what was going on.
"You are a GENIUS... we incurred minimal loses in profit areas, and not only did you achieve your promise. The profits are rolling in, and you... you my boy have done excellent work." Mister Moneybaggs was very happy.
"That's great."
"Not JUST GREAT, no you did an outstanding job. Marketing was done so well, and other than some areas not earning as much as others, the magazine has needed to be reprinted multiple times. I just want you to know, you have my full support now... any hesitation I had is gone." Mister Moneybaggs had expected it to take longer before he started to see a profit. He didn't expect to see a profit right away.
Mister Moneybaggs was not his name, just to be clear.
"Glad to know you trust me."
"Trust you... I DO, you produced a work of quality art, and these sales reflect your hard work. You know, keep these profit levels up, and we might need to negotiate increasing your % of the profit." Mister Moneybaggs would feel horrible if he took 90% of everything.
Naruto smiled.
"Don't worry about it... like I said, you're funding us and taking a lot of finanicial risk. Actually, we need to start production of the next issue in a couple of days. I actually have the estimated costs for budget, equipment, and set builds..."
"Done."
"Done?" Naruto asked with a raised brow, and Mister Moneybaggs snapped his fingers.
"Done, you send me the estimates and consider the budget done. Is there anything else you think you'll need?"
"Actually, we're going to need to get in contact with a clinic. If we're going to be hiring models on a contract basis, we need to be sure to do some minor screenings, for STDs... that kind of stuff. That's about it." Naruto made what he believed to be an extremely reasonable request.
The man nodded.
"Done... and pray tell, what will the theme of the next magazine be?" Mister Moneybaggs asked.
Naruto put a finger to his lips.
"Don't you want to be surprised... I will tell you if you want, but do you really want to know?" Naruto asked the man, who put some serious thought.
He laughed.
"Nope, keep your secrets my boy. Of course, I'm also here to deliver your portions of the profits earned so far." Moneybaggs gave Naruto an envelope filled with paper money. Naruto smiled at the man and acceped the envelope, before the elder man walked out of the guild.
...
"How much is it!?" Yukino shouted once the man was gone, and Naruto opened the envelope and took out what appeared to be a small stack of paper money. That was, until you counted the actual numbers that were on the notes themselves. Naruto continued to count, before he took out several notes.
"Okay... for you Yukino, here is your pay, and Wendy... here is yours. 400,000 jewels each... Carla... 40,000 jewels." Naruto gave the smallest amount to Carla, who did very little overall, but she did help Wendy practice with the camera. Carla looked at Naruto with some surprise in her eyes, but she accepted the money with a nod.
Both girls though looked at how much money they were getting with stunned expressions, having not expected to get such a decent amount.
"Is it okay to pay us this much?" Wendy asked, feeling bad and looking like she felt bad.
"We were on a time crunch... we had to squeeze a lot of work into a short amount of time. Both you girls did a good job. Excuse me, but I've actually got to meet with Erza in a few days... so I've got to get to work." Naruto looked at the remaining profits.
Close to 80,000,000 jewels in profits total being given to him.
Meaning the magazine's profits totaled close to 800,000,000 in pure profits after all costs... which costs were kept very low due to how things went. Wendy and Yukino got their pay out of what he earned in profit, out of his cut. Once they were more skilled and able to do more, he would pay them much more. At the moment, he was giving them more than enough to easily afford to stay in their own apartments and have plenty left over if they wanted.
"Thank you Master!"
"No problem."
He wondered if Erza had good news for him when she showed up.
She was the biggest reason for the 1st issues success after all.
Chapter End!
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Total Profit: Almost 800,000,000
"Naruto's Cut": 80,000,000
What goes to the Guild/Investments: 72,000,000
What Naruto Keeps for Himself: 7,160,000
What Wendy/Yukino get Paid each: 400,000
Jewels = Dollars
100 Jewels = 1 Dollar
After all is said and done, Naruto's earned close to 71,600 dollars in personal profit, which is why Naruto was perfectly fine with only keeping 1% of the total profits to himself.