I was shocked, I was in complete support of Bianca’s new publishing company until she announced the name she had in mind to run the whole thing.

  “Bianca, I’m flattered but I have enough trouble keeping Genre’s afloat. You yourself know how clueless I am about financial matters. It was just two weeks ago when you saved the entire enterprise. Besides I love working in the bookstore, I love reading. I did not love publishing. I mean if Tom Clanncy wanted me to publish his back catalog, I’d refuse. I mean if he were alive to request it, because I dislike the genre. Anyways you know what I mean. I had to edit a number of books in the military techno thriller genre, for my publishing house. They read like ads for Raytheon. Ya ya let’s kill people books.”

  “But Laura, you approved Anna to the collective, and she writes techno-thrillers.”

  “Yeah, but she writes about hackers, she doesn’t glorify the military. But that’s aside from the point, authors would be more successful under a traditional publisher, who has a big marketing budget. Social media specialists, pushing their books.”

  “Let’s say Thoreau walked into your office tomorrow and you told him that exact line about the advertising budget and the Social media specialists. What would he say?”

  “He’d say what the hell is social media and is it as bad as it sounds?”

  “Exactly Laura, if a guy without the name of Thoreau walked in with a modern equivalent of Walden would it get published by a major publishing house?”

  “Probably not, it would lose money in a print run most likely and the writer wouldn’t make a nickel, unless his agent was smart enough to get him an advance.”

  “That’s my point, there are writers who don’t do it for the money. Actually probably the majority don’t do it for the money. They do it because they love it. They could make way more money, in any other field. Plus they wouldn’t have to work so hard. But they wouldn’t have something in their hand, to document what they just created. At least say that you will think about it. Just think, Laura the next Walden, The next Lord of the Rings, The next Disc World series.”

  “I’ll think about it, Bianca, but I have to be honest, I’m leaning very very heavily towards no. I love my life, my store, what I don’t love is CEO’s and business. But I will seriously think about it. I’ll tell you my answer a week from tomorrow when I return from Woodstock.”

  “Okay Laura, that’s fair and it gives me time to dream up even more reasons why you’d be perfect in the position. Do you know who I think would make the greatest president in the world?”

  “Who?”

  “The person that really doesn’t want the job. I’ll tell you what else, I’ll think up a way to make this work without consuming your life, like a part time CEO so you’ll have time for the store, the collective and the mysteries you have been solving.”

  “No, I’m done with mysteries too, I was forced into the first one to find justice for Lachlan and myself and then for Monique and the second to make sure Faith wasn’t railroaded. I’m going to concentrate on the store and reading, no more mysteries.”

  Bianca wasn’t getting what she wanted from me, so she turned to Lucy and Willow for support.

  Bianca said, “Willow, Lucy what do you think about it?”

  Lucy piped right in, “I think it’s a great idea, first off, start off slow and small. If you want to make imprints that readers follow instead of authors, they have to be extra special. You can’t say publish everyone in the collective just because they are in the collective. Maybe have a third imprint that publishes the not groundbreaking books that ninety five percent of what gets published actually are. Still really good but not exceptional. Why not make Laura, the head of the premium fictional imprint, make Willow the head of the premium nonfiction imprint and make writers from both of the collectives that want to be involved the heads of the third imprint, and you take on the role of the publisher. You know more about business than anyone else we know and the collectives and the stores both trust you.”

  Willow responded with, “Wait, why should anyone listen to me. I’m too young to be taken seriously. If I was going to be involved, I’d want to work as Laura’s assistant. She has decades of experience in the publishing industry. I want to learn from her instead of three imprints, I’d propose two imprints, an exceptional imprint and a well above average imprint. To that end you’d need dedicated readers willing to read through a slushpile the stores could help with that voluntary slushpile readers. It would mean free books of questionable quality for our best customers, which means the stores would take a sales hit. If the readers are reading from the slush pile, they won’t have time to buy and read the books they normally would from our stores. Also at best they are amateurs so if a reader flags a book as excellent, I’d say send it to two more of the beta readers to evaluate. If both of them agree it is excellent then send it to Laura’s imprint where an experienced professional editor decides if it really is imprint material. If only one of the beta readers agrees it’s excellent then it gets sent to the well above average imprint. Lastly, if the publishing house is profitable, kickback five or ten percent to the stores to account for the hit to sales by giving our best customers free books.”

  Bianca asked, “what do you think of that, Laura. Regular or above average readers picking books would cut the requirements for paid or intern readers. We might get some intern editors from the local colleges. We get free labor, they would get an education in a real world publishing environment. When we do get ready to publish actual physical books, we use local printers and locally sourced recycled paper. Intern artists for book covers, intern marketing students for our marketing dept. We could transform the basement into a publishing house. A quick spruce up not exactly the impressive New York City publishing giant's skyscraper offices. We’ll bake into company design, that the publisher’s salary can’t exceed forty thousand dollars, the heads of the imprints thirty thousand. So the most money that management takes out of the business is one hundred thousand dollars.They only get the full one hundred thousand when total profit of the company rises above five hundred thousand. That leaves four hundred thousand to pay the authors. The question for me is how to pay the authors?”

  I followed with, “Do you go with the traditional sales route, where each author gets paid based on total sales of their books, a straight cut or do you take that pot and divide it equally among the authors. For a straight cut each author would do everything in their power to make sure that their book will sell a lot of copies. That is exactly what a traditional publisher wants to do. They want every one of their authors striving to make the maximum amount of sales netting the company and the author the maximum amount of profit. For a cut of the pie, each author will be mostly worried about sticking to their artist vision, but they still have to be flexible enough to listen to their editor when they tell them fifty pages of alien and human sexual gymnastics is too much for a two hundred page romance novel, no matter how inventive those gymnastics would wind up being. You could build that into the writers contract, yes we accept your book, if you accept our editors changes. If not, the publishing house walks away and you can submit your book elsewhere. So if I were going to go head to head with the publishing giants, I’d suggest going the completely different route, have the authors draw from a pie. Writers helping writers instead of competing with each other.”

  Willow added, “And you put that information in every book, along with an about the author page, you add an about the publisher page. Where you print the salaries of the Publishers and the heads of Imprints. One the interns will stop looking at it as slave labor and think of it as these people aren’t doing this for the money but for the love of reading. The publishing company is there to support their authors and nothing more, it’s not a money grab for money that rightfully should go to the authors, cover artists, and editors who make this all possible. So you gain reputation among readers, who rightly are cynical that every business is out to get every last bit of cash out of them as possible. While also gaining a reputation among the authors for the publisher that looks out for all of their authors equally.”

  Bianca completed her presentation with, “Laura just think about all this for a week, a two hour maximum per day commitment to the publishing firm. You will never be tasked with business decisions or money matters. The only decisions you would need to worry about as the head of an imprint would be literary decisions. If for whatever reason your decision is not economically possible the publisher will inform you and explain why and hopefully help come up with workarounds that both of you can live with. Cooperation throughout the firm is built into the design of the company, pay equality, core values of diversity, equality and cooperation.”

  ***

  That was the end of the meeting, Willow and Lucy went to the book room to continue setting it up. Lucy worked on the shelves and printing out covers and writing back cover blurbs for the classics with a modern twist, like comparing Mr Darcy to a trash talking sports hero and Elizabeth to a liberal who never knew a socially progressive conservative.

  Willow worked on making an easy to follow workflow of turning a word processor, html, or markdown file into a professional looking ebook complete with cover. Using open source software like Calibre. She wanted to get at least twenty ready to download books, completed before she drove back home.

  I stood behind the register pondering, damn Bianca making that position as beguiling as possible. She knows every one of my buttons to push but is it even practical will any author with a decent manuscript be willing to sign up for a piece of the pie. Americans are raised on the principle of personal freedom, even if that impacts negatively on others. ‘Woke’ is hated because people claim that it is infringing on their freedom of speech.

  But before the internet, didn't people self censor, not blurt out every thought that comes into their heads as they didn’t want to be seen as a bigot or a racist. I certainly self censor, perhaps not enough when I’m around religious people, but I do self censor unless I’m pushed and then it all just spills out.

  But none of that is the question, the question is in a society built on greed. Will an author who knows that they have a good manuscript agree to taking a piece of the pie. Of course just because it is good doesn’t mean that it will sell. Did Fitzgerald expect to make a ton of money off of Gatsby only to be sorely disappointed. Maybe that isn’t the question I should be asking, maybe the question you should ask is why do you want to publish something by a greedy writer. Won’t that greed be baked into their book, I mean core values are pretty hard for an author not to include. So if a writer doesn’t like the remuneration that would just be one less book on the slushpile someone would have to read. It would be the writer telling us upfront, this material is not for your publishing house and that would be a good thing.

  So I was looking at the whole question backwards. How often in life do I look at something, expect something maybe based on what has happened in the past and never examine that expectation, consider the implications. Bianca talks about starting a business and my first thought is how to make it successful. But I let society inform my idea of success. Successful would be if we managed to publish some great books, that should be the only metric that mattered. Even if the publishing company went bankrupt it would still be a success if it managed to publish some great books by authors whose values aligned with our own. I have my pension, I’m comfortable. I could spend two hours a day giving back to an industry that I have been involved with since I started working here, way back when I was in high school.

  Thoughts like this swirled through my head most of the day. A few times I even got busy in the store and at three Lis came in to do her shipping of orders even though it was a Sunday and nothing could be shipped until Monday morning. It was better to keep up with the orders then to fall behind. I think we have a duty to our customers in Woodstock to make sure that there books arrive the next day, whenever that is possible. Sunday orders won’t reach them until Tuesday, I had a great idea.

  At exactly the same time as Willow did. We brought all the boxes out to the parking lot and loaded them into Willow’s bus. She’d leave a half hour early and deliver all these packages today.

  “Laura, I just want you to know that if you decide to go ahead with the publishing venture as head of an imprint. I’d like to work as your intern. I’d like to learn more about the publishing industry and what better way than to work in it. I know being three hours away would make that more challenging and I can’t do the physical jobs like getting your tea and stuff but I’m flexible as far as work hours go. If you want to work from midnight till two am, I’m good with that.”

  “I have been seriously thinking about it. If I do decide to do it, I won’t be taking a salary, so I’ll be like an intern also. But we can talk more about it next weekend. What should we bring?”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  “Just your clothes, I’ll try and snag some free tickets to the Renaissance Festival if they are giving any out to local merchants.”

  “That would be lovely, I’d have a hard time bartering my ticket probably. Can I bring anything for your writers? Please have Pappy video order whatever mysteries he wants, on the house. It was so nice of both of you to fix my car for me. But this is the summer of barter so I owe you big time anything you need or want if I can help. I'm your girl, or old lady. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.”

  Lucy carried the last box of books out from the store. Willow hugged her vehemently, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I want to figure out a way to play more TTRPG with you. I had a great time this weekend. Escorting, escorts and the barbecue and meeting you all but I think I had the most fun playing Vaesen with you all. So Lucy we’ll have to play over Google meet or something, and I want you to come down to Woodstock for a weekend, so if you can get a ride to Albany some time, I’ll come and pick you up there. Then she hugged me hard and boarded the bus and was gone.

  “Why does she have to live so far away?”

  “I know Lucy, Willow is a special, special girl. But I’ll buy you a roundtrip bus ticket to Albany, it’ll take you around seven hours on the bus. So bring a really good book. Maybe a couple, so you have a book for the ride home.”

  I heard the bell for the video ringing. We must have a customer from Woodstock. I turned around to go answer it. But Lucy ran ahead of me, to get it.

  ***

  “You are welcome to stay here or at Amy’s house if you want.”

  “No, I’ll be fine Laura, thanks it’ll just be a little lonely, without Willow. But I’ll get used to it soon enough.”

  “Well Lucy, I want to play some more TTRPG and so does Amy so the weekend after next let’s play again. I'm sorry to be leaving you on your own next weekend, but Amy wanted this as a retirement gift, so aside from really wanting to go to a Ren Fest I want to do this for her.”

  “I hope someday I have a friend that I’m as close to as you are with Amy.”

  “You will, it’s harder when you are far apart, but Amy and I kept in touch by phone the whole time I was in New York City for work, so you and Willow are lucky you have video chats. Amy and I had to make do with phone calls. Let’s lockup and then go have supper with the writers, that will make you less lonely and when you do get home you might even appreciate the peace and quiet.”

  ***

  The rest of the week passed by smoothly, Lucy could run the store as well as I could, she was more interested in making a sale then I was. I’d rather be in the reading nook reading or rereading a book, then matching a customer to the book of their dreams. Anais arrived at noon suitcase in hand.

  “Anais, I know that you are anal about being on time but this is ridiculous even for you. You are five hours early.”

  “Laura, you are just hilarious,” she said sarcastically. “Are you sure that you don’t want me to drive? My car was just serviced, oil changed and tuned up.”

  “Good you must have talked to John, did he tell you that he offered Willow a job as a mechanic. He told me he couldn’t have done a better job installing the window himself.”

  “Yes he told me, but it doesn’t make your car any younger. At its age it might fail anytime.”

  “So might we but we’re still going to a Ren fest, aren’t we. We are going to have an adventure. No matter what happens it’ll be fun, it’ll take us out of the daily grind. Besides, Amy is packing snacks.”

  “You need to keep your eyes on the road, and your hands on the wheel.”

  “Anais, will you relax, we are driving down the Northway not entering Death Race Two Thousand.”

  “Do your safety belts in the back even work?”

  “How do I know, I’ve never sat back there.”

  “Give me your keys, I’ll go and check. We are not taking a car that doesn’t have working seat belts.”

  “It’s not locked”

  “Laura, your car should always be locked. An unlocked car is only inviting trouble.”

  “First off we live in Lake Placid, not Dallas no need to strap on your six shooter to hop into an unlocked car especially at noon time, when you can just glance in the back seat to see if the Zodiac killer is in the backseat waiting for you. Besides you want to sit in the back seat to test the belts right. If anyone is behind you then they are locked in the trunk. If you see a strange person sitting in my car, just don’t get in or ask them if they at least brought snacks.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say to that so she just let out an Ugg and walked out to test the sanctity of my backseat. One thing I can swear is that I never had sex back there. I won’t swear that my Aunt Nan didn’t, as a matter of fact she probably did. But it was her car then and if she wanted to have sex in it, that was entirely her affair.

  Anais came stomping back in with a frown on her face, which told me one thing. That the seatbelts in my backseat work flawlessly. Her last gasp effort to drive had been foiled by John my mechanic who must have been oiling the belts every year when he inspected the car.

  “Did you get gas?”

  “No, I figured we could get it on the way.”

  “I’ll go get it now.”

  “Anais we have to drive past the gas station on our way, it’ll take you fifteen or twenty minutes to save two minutes.”

  “I don’t mind, I’m on my lunch and I don’t usually eat lunch anyway. Let me have your keys.”

  “There in the car.”

  “That’s illegal, you can’t leave your keys in the ignition.”

  “They're not in the ignition, they are hidden under the sunvisor on the passenger side.”

  “How were you not murdered when you lived in New York City?”

  “First I didn’t have a car when I lived in New York, no sane person does. Second, New York is not that dangerous if you stay out of the dangerous areas. I often walked the streets of Manhattan, both during the day and night.”

  Twenty five minutes later she came and handed me my keys, which I reluctantly put in my pocket. She left her suitcase behind the counter. I didn’t want to get into yet another argument about why she just hadn’t locked it in the trunk. Was I really going to survive sharing a room with her and Amy for two nights? Amy no problem, I could share anything with Amy but Anais. I have some severe doubts.

  Well we are going to be in Woodstock, maybe I could get her some edibles. That I decided would be the height of stupidity, Anais stoned. It would undoubtedly be a bad trip. Then she’d be paranoid about overdosing on pot. Nope that will never happen. I guess the best plan is to get her to the Ren Fest and big mugs of beer.

  About four o’clock the video bell chimed and Lucy jumped to answer it, the poor girl really missed Willow.

  “Hi, Willow, how are you doing, do you have an order for us?”

  “Hi Lucy, no, no order right now. I was hoping to speak to Laura. She hasn’t left yet has she?”

  A disappointed Lucy answered, “No, she is still here, I’ll put her on.”

  Lucy and I switched places, “Hi Willow, did you think of something I can bring for you?”

  “No, Laura, I was telling Pappy all about my trip and how exciting it was to sit and watch you solve a mystery just like Agatha Christie. Well anyways, long story short. Pappy says he’s in serious trouble and he needs the kind of help that you are good at. What time do you think you’ll be getting here?”

  “Well, we are leaving at five sharp, and according to google maps it’s three hours and ten minutes to Woodstock.”

  “Five sharp, I take it Anais set the scheduled departure time.”

  “Yep, you got it. What does he need help with Willow?”

  “See, I don’t know and that is what worries me, Pappy always talks to me about anything. Anyway there is a taco place on Tinker St, just past the Rabbit Hole on the opposite side of the street. I’ll buy you all dinner if you just hear him out. I’m really worried, Laura, I’ve never seen Pappy worried about anything and I’ve known him my whole life.”

  “Willow, don’t worry, don’t worry about a thing. We’ll be there I hope between eight and eight thirty and I’ll actually be ready to go when Anais arrives. It’ll probably give her a heart attack. But don’t worry about that either. We’ll see you in a few hours.”

  Then I went up and packed enough clothes and books for a few days. Stopped in the kitchen and told Amy about Willow's phone call. I put all three of the suitcases in the trunk. Amy and I walked out the door after saying goodbye to Lucy, when Anais was still walking down the driveway.