Page 75 of Mr. Frosty Pants
“Her stepbrother is insanely hot?” A curl of jealousy started in his gut.
“Smoking. Like ‘holy crap, how are you not a movie star?’ kind of hot.” Joel pulled back, gazed at Casey’s sweater for a minute, and then broke into a sly grin. “You’re with me, huh?”
The jealousy died, and Casey puffed out his chest. “I am. And I’m proud of it.”
“Are you ready to face the music?” Joel said, nodding toward the door.
“First I want to show you something. I was going to save it as a surprise for later, but now’s a good time. And I can keep you to myself for a few minutes longer.”
Joel followed him across the room toward the laptop resting on the desk by the window that looked out on the lake. He got Joel seated in the chair and leaned over his shoulder as he woke the computer and clicked his way to what he wanted to show him first.
“What do you think?” Casey asked. Anxiety balled up in his chest next to excitement and hope. He felt like he had as a kid in Joel’s garage, watching Joel play and hoping he’d get to stay.
“You made this? A new cover for my book?” Joel leaned a little closer to the screen. “It’s so…professional.”
“I took some digital arts classes in college and, obviously, my focus is on marketing and branding. I loved what I read of your book, but—don’t take this the wrong way—I only bought it because you wrote it. The current cover doesn’t do a great job representing what’s inside. This one is so much tighter and thrilling than what you currently have. I thought, maybe, if you were willing, you’d let me redesign all your covers for you. Make them more exciting, memorable, and marketable.”
Joel stared at the screen in silence for a long moment, and Casey had a horrifying feeling that maybe he’d overstepped. But then Joel sighed. “I don’t know what to say. I made the other cover myself with my limited skills, and I know it sucks. But I can’t afford to pay you what this kind of work is worth, no matter how much I love it.”
Casey’s heart rose. This objection he could handle. “You’d be helping me actually, if you’d let me do this—and more—for you. I have a pretty easy course load next semester, but one of my classes requires that I implement a branding and marketing effort and track the results. I was thinking of offering free help to one of the many small-time actors in New York, maybe help them get a better Facebook presence, a cool website, and a tighter resume, but that didn’t really correlate to what I want to do after I graduate. But this—you, the books, and Vreeland’s—does. And you’d be able to report back to me about any change in profits and income stream for real, dynamic data to track my results.”
“So, you’re saying you want to make new covers for me for free?”
“That and more. I’d do covers, set up a website, get you going on Facebook—”
“I hate social media.”
“A lot of creative types do, but you can’t opt out of it if you want to succeed. It’s okay if you don’t want to do it yourself. I could run it for you at first.”
“I don’t know.”
“Look.” Casey stood at Joel’s side and clicked around the Internet, showing Joel the websites and Facebook pages of indie horror authors he’d found who seemed to be pulling in a strong income, given that they’d given up their day jobs in order to write. “All of these folks have healthy social media accounts and online presence. They solicit reviews from sites and promote those reviews. They have a Twitter.”
“Hell no.”
“Look, just give me a chance. You’d be helping me more than you know. And I could do the same thing for Vreeland’s. I haven’t mocked anything up, but with some work on ads and online presence, I think we could get the store’s profitability up in six months’ time, easily.”
Joel laughed. “Says the college boy who’s never done any of this in the real world for a day in his life.”
“Tell me what you have to lose,” Casey said, turning to Joel seriously.
Joel took control of the laptop then and clicked back to the new cover Casey had made for his werewolf book. He stared at it for a few moments. “Okay. Let’s start with books. If I see an increase in profit there after a month or so, I’ll give you leave on Vreeland’s too.”
Casey grinned. “You like this cover, don’t you?”
“It’s like you read my mind. It’s what I saw in my head when I wrote the book. It’s perfect.”
Casey puffed up. “I’m going to do a great job for you. I believe in your books, Joel. And I believe in Vreeland’s. Thank you for trusting me to help you.”
“I thought I was helping you.” Joel raised a brow.
“You are. I’ve been dreading trying to find some narcissistic actor to try to spiff up. This is so much more my speed. This is the kind of thing I want todo.”
“Yeah,” Joel agreed. “I remember when you had that sketchbook full of doodles. Half of them were re-imagined ads for local businesses. You always loved thinking about this sort of thing.”
“And I love doing it.”
Joel swallowed hard. “I feel like I should offer you something, though. Like a piece of any increase of profit. Twenty-five percent.”
