The Versatile Master Artist

The debate surrounding ”The Little Prince” was already quite heated, but it was mostly confined to the circles of art enthusiasts and literary youth.

Influenced by the acquisition deal involving Oil Painting Magazine, some financial investors have also been monitoring developments in this field.

The news from The Economic Commentator directly sparked widespread media discussion about this topic.

Many major newspapers that affect the daily lives of millions of people have eagerly reprinted and cited this story.

New York Times — [A New Hope for Universal Art Therapy? A Scientific Exploration Triggered by the Unintentional Impact of a Children’s Book]

The Times — [Saint-Exupéry’s Century-long Legacy: Can Illustrations that Make Little Girls Smile Also Bring Smiles to Millions of Autism Families?]

Le Figaro — [As April 2nd, International Autism Awareness Day approaches, let’s focus our attention on a newly released edition of a fairy tale book published in the United Kingdom.]

Other newspapers such as Berliner Zeitung and Sydney Morning Herald mentioned the quirky news about this new illustrated book to varying extents.

Generally speaking, ordinary diseases rarely attract such high levels of attention.

However, autism and Alzheimer’s disease are exceptions.

Fifty years ago, the most attention-grabbing disease was cancer; thirty years ago, it was AIDS, and in the past decade, the focus has shifted to neurological fields.

They often have high incidence rates and significant impacts.

A regular community resident will always have elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease and children with autism around them.

Even cancer has targeted drugs, yet mental illnesses frequently occur around everyone and can only be treated with external interventions.

In the past, whenever a pharmaceutical company announced its Alzheimer’s drugs entering phase three or phase four clinical trials, it often attracted widespread social attention with the company’s stock price surging.

The torment self-autism brings to families is not much less than that of Alzheimer’s.

Moreover, in the upcoming April, aside from being the Easter holiday in many European countries, April 2nd is also World Autism Day as designated by the United Nations General Assembly.

Every year, major global news media routinely publish special reports on the topic of ”autism” during this time.

Television stations often launch special programs as well.

King’s College London’s research on ”The Little Prince” illustrations happens to attract the attention of major media outlets.

Furthermore, a magical illustration with medical effects is news that naturally stimulates readers’ curiosity and fervor.

All of a sudden.

Even President Osborne, sitting in the top-floor office on London Financial Street, was staring wide-eyed at the sales statistics presented in the report, like a copper bell.

This is no longer about singing ”Country Road”.

Even with mental preparedness, President Osborne was still dumbfounded.

A non-newcomer book with certain popularity, the first-day sales are the peak of its sales career.

Sometimes it can sell 2% of the entire sales volume on the first day.

It will continue to decline thereafter.

”The Little Prince” follows this trend; by the fifth day of sales, local UK sales had dropped to 5,000 copies per day.

Negative attitudes from the critics raised the heat while indeed damping some purchasing enthusiasm.

In this regard, Osborne was originally optimistic.

The sales data was already much better than imagined.

If it stabilizes at a shipment volume of 3,000 copies per day by the end of April, dreaming of selling one million copies a year can start happily.

But reality told Osborne—what it’s like for happiness to come so suddenly.

On March 31, 2017, the sixth day of ”The Little Prince’s” release.

Maybe because it was the weekend, physical bookstores saw considerable growth, with sales figures returning to 6,300 copies.

And on the last day of this week.

April 1st, media attention gradually began to reflect on market sales, with sales data rising again to 8,100 copies.

The total sales volume for the first sales week of ”The Little Prince” was locked in at 46,721 copies.

The results were very good.

This figure annually has the opportunity to reach the top of the bestseller list.

Regretfully, this year it was overshadowed by the global gossip wave of ”Back-up.” It garnered over 75,000 weekly sales over more than a hundred days post-release.

Fortunately, ”The Little Prince” won third place, surpassing by over ten thousand copies the romance novel ”Truth,” which knocked Federer’s autobiography off the top spot last year, somewhat serving as the sweet revenge for President Osborne’s delayed frustration after more than a dozen months.

If the sales performance of forty thousand copies made Osborne feel like being gently massaged with a pulsing electrical current, both stimulating and pleasing.

Then the next week’s sales report...

It was enough to send Uncle Osborne into a euphoric frenzy, rolling his eyes in ecstasy!

On April 2nd, it entered the Easter public holiday of most European countries and genuinely began the ”Easter promotional season.”

Just like every year’s Black Friday, the Easter promotional season is also the collective massive shipment day for major book sellers.

They distribute various book voucher coupons, shopping deduction coupons.

Bookstores like Saraiva, Waterstones, and Barnes & Noble sometimes implement dynamic discount activities linked to bestseller charts.

The so-called dynamic discounts mean the in-store sales discounts during the Easter holiday period are linked to real-time book sales rankings by these bookstore operators.