Lyrical Souls [h.s]

5.2 - Rewards - Paperback

After a week or so of sending my book to publishers, I finally got an answer from one of them asking for a meeting. I got to the location I was sent, I went into one of the offices where three men were waiting for me.

'It's nice to meet you, Miss Miller! I'm John Daniels, this is Thomas Woods and Dennis Rowe. We'll be responsible for everything related to your book.'

'It's nice to meet you all too! Thank you for giving me this opportunity!'

'We read your book, and honestly, we loved it. I think it's going to be very popular if we play our cards right.' Thomas said.

'We already sent it to our editors, we need to settle a few points, and sign the contract and then you'll discuss the very few changes we'd like to do.'

'Okay, no problem! What are the issues? If I may ask?' I politely questioned the men.

'It's nothing we'd just like to add a few more descriptive parts here and there, there's one or two section that needs to be rewritten, nothing major so you can relax. And we wouldn't do any changes you don't approve of. It's your book, we're just helping you get it out there in the best image possible.' Dennis explained.

'Oh alright then, thank you for this!'

After discussing financial details and signing the contract, they showed me to the office where I'd be working with the editors over the next two days to go over the changes and approve of them. This process wasn't as frustrating as I thought it would be. They were very easy to cooperate with, and they always made sure that my vision is the one being written. We went over the editing and I rewrote several parts here and there until we all thought it couldn't get any better than this.

Next step was the cover design. I met with the illustrators.

'Hello, Cassie! Nice to meet you! I'm Remy and this is Marc! We'll be the one designing the cover for your book.' We all greeted each other with hugs. They were quite friendly, about my age, and I felt comfortable enough around them. After talking a little, getting to know each other, forgetting we actually have work to do, we started collectively brainstorming ideas for the cover of the book.

'So since it's a romantic story, it would be better to put the couple on the cover. Covers with people on them attract readers more than plain covers.' Remy suggested before Marc continued.

'True, plus when this becomes a movie we can release a new cover with the actors posing instead of the drawing!'

'"When"? There are already talks of making a movie? The book is not even released yet!' I asked.

'Well, we don't know much but we've heard something about discussing the movie rights of the book. This company already released many books that were turned into a movie so it has strong connections with at least two production companies. So they might be talking to them. But nothing is final until we see the response of the book after its release.' Marc explained and I nodded before he resumed proposing ideas for the cover.

'So how about a little shadow game. We'd only see the silhouette of the couple. Give it a bit of a mysterious vibe.'

'Yeah, and the background could be from one of the scenes at the beginning of the book, Cassie what do you think? Maybe one of the firsts one-on-one between them?' Remy suggested

'Well, that would be the stargazing scene. But wouldn't it be too dark? I mean it's not the happiest story out there, but it would be better with lighter colours for the cover.'

'Right... What about when you stayed up all night and watched the sunrise together? It's dawn, enough light to make it happy and enough dark to show that it's also sad. Perfect balance and totally romantic!' he blurted.

'You mean the characters in the book... not me... but yeah that sounds good, maybe we can do different covers, two or three?'

'Well, the leading lady in the book is basically you! You can't deny that, can you? Everyone heard the rumours about you and Harry Styles and everyone is gonna wonder if that's him you're writing about in your book.' but before I could answer, Marc, sensing me getting uncomfortable, tried to change the subject.

'Well, for a first release we can work with two covers. Then after the movie, we'll do a second release using the movie's poster as cover.

'Okay, so the first cover can be the scene at dawn like we discussed only the form of the couple can be seen. What about the second one?' I replied, giving Marc a thankful look.

'We can put some L.A. scenery since the story starts there.' Remy suggested.

'But the story is not entirely set in L.A.' Marc argued.

'It starts and ends there though...' I added.

'Venice beach boardwalk? It's where "They" met the first time no? We can put the couple in the middle with their back turned, keeping the mystery.' Remy offered.

After all the details were worked out, I met with the publishers again.

'Hello, Mr Daniels, Mr Woods, and Mr Rowe, Nice to see you again.'

'Nice to see you too Miss Miller. How did everything go? Hopefully, it wasn't too difficult?' John asked me.

'No everyone was so nice and cooperative! It was very enjoyable. Thank you again for this chance.'

'It's our pleasure. We went over everything and we're setting the date for the release of your book in two weeks on the 2nd of November. You'll have a few book signing events around London that week. And since we're collaborating with our sister company in Paris, you'll be going there the week after that. We're arranging all the reservations, flights, hotel everything you only need to worry about showing up. And when you come back, we'll sign the contract for the movie rights. We have two production companies lined up, we'll settle that once you'll be back from Paris. Sounds good?'

'Yeah! it sounds amazing! Thank you so much!'