Page 145 of Smoke and Fire
How in the world would I answer this question?
“Well that’s dumb,” I whispered, glancing at the next four Jess books that awaited on the counter.
Lizbeth had stocked me up with all twenty novels. I no longer hid my pleasure at the sheer number of pages awaiting me. The oblivion Jess offered was real.
Except, Jess wasn’t.
With a grunt, I continued to scroll through the emails. There had to be something I could do besides get rid of spam messages. This wouldn’t be as easy as I thought, and would likely necessitate me readingallthe books before I could be of real use. Or, at the least, organize this disaster.
Minutes passed while I cruised the internet and constructed a reading order list in a notebook that I’d set aside just for this. I’d have to take extensive notes.
Then I pulled together responses Bastian had sent to readers on another page, hoping to collect answers to common questions in his wording. Even that felt like busy work as I tapped out a pitiful response or two to the most minimal questions.
Oh, no.
I’d vastly underestimated the job.
A pit built up in my stomach as more emails swept past me, unanswerable.What bookstores are you available in? Do you have translations in Dutch? How many more books are you going to write?
My heart felt fluttery as I continued to scroll by the question ofhow many books will be in the series?andwhen is the next launch coming out after this one?andare you hiring a line editor? I have opinions on your adverbs and would like to offer my services.
With a deep breath, I eased the panic away and grabbed my phone. If my luck held, he’d still be in service.
Dahlia:By chance, do you have any idea how many novels will be in the series? Any anticipated launch dates?
I crossed my fingers and waited.
The question seemed easy enough to tackle without making me appear incompetent. Meanwhile, I tried not to feel like an idiot. If I didn’t havethoseanswers, what was I really going to do for him?
Not much.
He’d put all this work and expectation into my job and I’d be . . . floundering.
No, that wasn’t true. I could read all the books now. That would certainly help, at least a little. And I still had the social media accounts I could manage. The thought sent an eager thrill through me, followed by dread. How many days until the launch? Seven days. One week to read seventeen more books.
Challenge accepted.
While I waited for his response, I logged into Jess’s social media accounts. The pages populated with an endless number of comments and DM’s with no responses.
“Just heart the posts, or whatever,” he’d said with a dismissive wave.“That’s fine. Then it’ll look like I’ve seen all of them.”
“You’re kidding,” I muttered. “There’s. No. End.”
As I scrolled, the comments populated from a seemingly endless pit. Whohad this kind of popularity anyway?
Jess’s profile picture was a vague silhouette of a woman with luscious hair halfway down her back. There weren’t many images she’d posted, and the ones he had were pictures of the books that looked like they’d been supplied from a PR team, maybe with his publisher.
A few half-hearted attempts at a “real” photo were awkwardly executed. At the beginning of the summer, a picture of a coffee mug with smudges on the edges and a short update about the next book appeared. It populated over 1,000 comments alone.
It would take me ages to catch up on these posts, not to mention his messages. Besides, what was the point in “heart-ing” as he said, each comment? Some of these were months old. The commenters had moved on with their lives and probably forgotten.
Or had they?
Panic crept back in, but I pushed it away. If he wanted to pay me $30 an hour to sit around “heart-ing” comments on his social media accounts, I’d do that. Easiest money ever.
But a squeamish part of me felt like I was taking advantage of him. Clearly, Bastian knew next to nothing about this kind of reader interaction. He thought this wasn’t as important as email, but that was wrong.
Everything about this was important.
