Random House?
“Thank you, Giovanni—this is important. I’ll call him back now.” Jolene was already a little flustered. She didn’t even bother picking up the book off the floor. She took the phone number Giovanni had written down and dialed back.
The call was picked up quickly.
“Hello, this is Jolene Bell. I believe you called earlier?” Jolene asked, her heart pounding with anxiety.
Please, don’t let this be a rejection over the phone—who even rejects someone by phone?
“Ah, hello. I’m Brian Cecil, an editor at Random House. I noticed you’re currently in San Francisco, while I’m in New York. There are a few things I need to discuss with you in advance.”
“Go ahead, I’m listening.” Jolene’s heart was racing, but her voice remained calm.
She wasn’t a real newcomer after all—she’d weathered storms in her past life and had even been burned by some publishers before. So she knew that getting a publication offer didn’t automatically mean money—it could also lead her into a trap.
“Here’s the thing: I’m the only one at our publishing house who thinks this novel is worth publishing. Our editor-in-chief is still hesitating. I had to push hard to convince them to even negotiate with you. As you know, this kind of novel is a risk for us, so we have to tread carefully…” The editor started by laying out how poorly her work was viewed.
Jolene remained unmoved. She just wanted to hear what he’d say next. It was the same as haggling—you talk down the product first, then negotiate the price.
“I’m the only one who thinks this subject matter is fresh, very rare, and of course highly relatable. That’s why I recommended it to the editor-in-chief. However, this type of novel has never been published before, and we have no idea how it’ll perform. So the best we can offer you is the minimum royalty rate for new authors—no advance. The first print run will be only 20,000 copies, and we’ll decide later whether to reprint based on sales. What do you think?”
The catch always came after the “however.” Jolene didn’t have many options right now, and she figured the price wouldn’t be easy to negotiate—but she had to try.
“So what exactly is the royalty rate?” Jolene asked.
“3%,” the man on the other end replied directly.
Maybe he thought his earlier buildup had made the conditions easier to accept.
Jolene wasn’t surprised. From what she knew, the standard royalty rate for mass-market paperbacks by new authors was usually between 2% and 4%. Hardcovers could be 10%–15%. Established bestsellers obviously commanded much higher rates.
But Jolene had been rejected left and right, and right now she didn’t have many choices. Even if her first book didn’t make money, she still needed to build her name. A published author and an unpublished one started from completely different places.
There was also the concept of an advance—prepaid royalties paid to the author before publication. Jolene didn’t expect that.
“Does the print rights belong to me?” Jolene asked.
That was what she truly cared about.
“No, the print rights for this book belong to Random House. You cannot authorize any other publisher to print it,” the man stated firmly.
Jolene: “…” That was a hard pill to swallow.
“I’ll need to wait for replies from other publishers first. Once I have their terms, I’ll call you back,” Jolene said decisively.
She didn’t outright refuse, but she wasn’t about to sound eager either. Not only would she make no money under those terms, she wouldn’t even own the print rights—so what would be the point?
Jolene did the math in her head: under Random House’s offer, 3% royalty on 20,000 copies would earn her $600. Subtract the $150 in costs, and she’d be left with $450—and that was assuming all 20,000 copies sold.
Oh, and she’d have to pay taxes too…
So she’d be slaving away every day—handwriting, revising, recopying—working like crazy for two months, only to make maybe a couple hundred dollars, while risking insomnia and nerve damage?
Wasn’t this just self-torture?
She took a moment to calm down, pushing aside the excitement she’d felt earlier. Her face was perfectly composed. She decided to act as if she’d never gotten that call—and just wait a few more days.
In the afternoon, she picked up the kids and took them to the park for a while to soak up some sun, then walked Ben to piano class.
Last week, Ben had noticed that chocolate chip cookies didn’t sell well, so he decided to focus solely on lemonade. He even started adding raspberry bits to make it look more appealing—but he only sold it during swim class, since the piano kids weren’t that thirsty.
Ben had nearly recouped his startup costs by now, and he still had money left over from buying ingredients. Jolene always went over the ledger with him carefully, and Ben was feeling pretty proud of himself.
After piano class, the three of them headed home.
July 3rd was Ben’s birthday. Jolene and Giovanni discussed making a birthday cake for him. The mother-daughter pair made a special trip to have Raymond pick Ben up from swim class, so they could rush home and prepare the gift while Ben wasn’t around.
It was great having a professional chef in the house—you could make just about anything you wanted. But Jolene still felt she should give the kid a present—a little surprise.
After discussing it with Emma, they decided to make a small handmade gift for Ben.
This task fell on Jolene, since Emma had just started school and was too young to have done any crafts before.
Jolene racked her brain for handicrafts she knew. As a kid, she’d made kites with her brother using old newspapers. But back then, they had zero teamwork—she’d hold up the kite, he’d run forward, and she’d always let go 0.01 seconds too late. They’d wrecked several kites that way, and her brother had yelled at her so many times that he never flew kites with her again.
Other crafts like origami or pottery were too complicated. So Jolene shared her idea with Emma.
Emma had no idea what a kite even was—she’d never seen one before.
Since this was a gift from both of them, Emma had to participate in making it—it was important that Ben know they’d both put thought into his birthday.
So Jolene said, “Alright. Mommy will make a simple kite out of white paper, and Emma will be in charge of decorating it—drawing pretty, colorful patterns on it. Does that sound good?”
Emma nodded vigorously. “Okay! I’ll help Mommy make it.”
After gluing two sheets of paper together, Jolene let Emma draw her patterns first.
Emma took her colored markers and, based on her own imagination, drew a tall, handsome Ben in a white short-sleeved shirt and blue shorts.
But since she hadn’t learned to draw yet, the Ben she drew was naturally exaggerated and out of proportion—crooked clothes, but with golden hair sticking straight up. Well, in a child’s eyes, Ben probably did look pretty cool!
For an adult, it was hard to draw like a kid. But as children grow up, they naturally learn to draw like adults. So maybe a child’s drawings were truly priceless.
“Not bad! The Ben in this drawing is tall, handsome, and really dashing—like a superhero!” Jolene said with a straight face, praising Emma seriously.
Emma beamed with happiness, feeling like she’d helped her mom—and that Ben’s gift had her contribution too.
Jolene cut the paper into a diamond shape, crossed two thin wooden sticks and glued them onto the diamond, tied yarn to the sticks, and attached a very long piece of yarn to the other end as the kite string.
“Alright, our gift is ready! Let’s hide it first, and let Ben find it himself when he gets home, okay?” Jolene whispered to Emma.
With everything prepared, Jolene also wrote a simple birthday card.
When Ben and Mr. Raymond got home, Ben looked a little grumpy.
“Jolene, my brother didn’t bring me home to make lemonade today! My classmates asked why I didn’t have any!” Ben had gotten used to selling lemonade at swim class and had been dying to tell his brother that he’d already recouped his startup costs. But his brother had insisted they skip selling today and took him out to play instead.
“Hahaha, Ben, it’s your birthday today—didn’t you know?” Jolene asked with a laugh.
“Birthday?” Lots of young kids don’t have a concept of their birth date—it’s not until they’re a bit older that they figure out exactly when they were born.
“Yes! So, do you want to see what kind of cake Uncle Giovanni made for you?” Jolene tilted her head, a big grin on her face.
Ben instantly forgot his earlier frustration and ran over to see what Giovanni had baked.
Giovanni brought out a chocolate fruit cake and set it on the dining table. The two kids quickly gathered around.
No child could resist the allure of sweet cream, chocolate, and fruit.
“Ha! Emma and I also prepared a gift for you. But—you’ll have to wait until after dinner to find it yourself somewhere in the house!” Jolene said mysteriously.
During dinner and cake time, Ben couldn’t stop thinking about his present. They sang him “Happy Birthday,” he made a wish, and then he devoured his cake and started searching everywhere for his gift.
Finally, he found a handmade kite on the bookshelf in his study.
He took it down, frowned at the cartoon character drawn on it, and—knowing Emma was the only one in the family who’d draw like that—said disdainfully, “It’s so ugly!”
Jolene: “…” Ugly? “Ugly where? Look at this boy’s legs—so long! His hair sticks straight up—super handsome! And this outfit—very cool! Wait a minute… I don’t think this cool kid is Ben, because why would Ben call himself ugly?”
Ben’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re lying! That’s me! Where am I ugly?”
Emma covered her mouth and giggled. Her mom had praised her, so she didn’t care that her brother said her drawing was ugly.
But Ben frowned and asked, “How do you play with this kite, though? I’ve never flown one!”
Jolene snapped her fingers. “No problem! We’ll go fly it this weekend!”
Ben: “Whoohoo!”
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