“Just like you wanted,” he says with a warm smile.
“Just like I wanted,” I agree. “And then one day, I was in a position to commission new work myself.”
“Like you could make a contract with an author?” he asks.
“Well, the president of the company almost always approves buys,” I tell him. “And there’s a lawyer who writes the contract.”
“Okay,” Roan says, nodding along.
“There was a book fair right after I was promoted,” I tell him. “Not the kind we used to have back in elementary school, where kids buy books. The publishing kind, where authors and their agents meet with publishers and sell rights.”
“That sounds right up your alley,” he tells me.
“It was heaven on earth,” I remember. “And that’s when I found it.”
“A book?” he asks.
“Thebook,” I tell him. “The young adult book I thought would become a cultural phenomenon. The book I thought would catapult Wish Tree Press into bigger territory.”
“Wow,” he says.
“Now, you have to understand,” I continue. “What most publishers want is a book that is guaranteed to sell. And in young adult literature, that normally means a romance, the kind that has a girl in a gown on the cover and an angsty description.”
“Oh yeah,” he says, nodding. “Meg’s read some of those.”
“This wasn’t that,” I tell him.
“What was it?” he asks.
“It was about unicorns at an academy for space cadets,” I tell him, looking down at my hands.
Here it comes. If I can just get through the rest of this story, I’ll find out what Roan really thinks of me, one way or the other.
11
ROAN
“Unicorns training to be space cadets?” I echo, just to be sure I really heard what I thought she said.
Taylor nods, still looking at her hands. But because I’m getting to know her better, I’m willing to bet that there are tears welling in her eyes and she’s about two seconds from hurling herself into the back room, claiming she has a few more books to shelve.
“That’s awesome,” I tell her honestly.
That snaps her eyes up to meet mine, and I see the tears I suspected in her beautiful brown eyes.
I immediately want to burn down the world of anyone who would make her feel that way.
“I think it sounds really cool,” I tell her honestly. “I’m tired of having to skim through fairytale retellings to see if they’re appropriate for my ten-year-old—and plenty of them aren’t. Bring on the space unicorns.”
“Really?” she asks, sniffling a little.
“Absolutely,” I tell her. “And besides, didn’t the president of your company have to sign off on this? They must have thought it was a good idea.”
“Well, he was traveling,” she says, looking unhappy again. “He was wrapped up and didn’t want to hear a book pitch. He told me that if I loved it, I should buy it. And he told the lawyer to write up whatever I wanted.”
“He really believed in you,” I say, nodding.
“I’d found some commercially successful titles for him already,” she says, nodding. “Anyway, I sat down with the author and her agent and bought it all—ebook, print, audio, translations, film and TV rights, everything. I just knew this was going to be the next big thing, and if Wish Tree Press was really going to backStarhoof, then we needed to know we had everything we needed to bring it to the world in every possible format, and earn back our investment.”
