That was good for the book. But it was bad for normal and polite human functioning. Immersed inside his story, he’d lost track of other obligations, commitments, and important tasks.
Travis picked up his pace as he crossed the high street. Veering east along the busy shopping route, he paused to check the map again to avoid taking a wrong turn. As he tapped the phone screen, he accidentally hit the wrong icon, pulling up a social media app by mistake.
Before he could shut it down again, he caught sight of a string of notifications popping up. Wincing when they quickly reached three digits, Travis felt a bolt of anxiety flash through him. Why were there so many unopened notifications?
In order to focus on writing his books, Travis paid a freelance assistant to help with the social media aspects of his author marketing. In an ideal world, he’d be able to write his books and also deal with all the marketing tasks himself, but there were only twenty-four hours in each day and he couldn’t do everything.
Since the Maura Shaw series became a commercial success, the interactions on his social media platforms had skyrocketed. While all the posts he made there were written by him and he enjoyed posting regular updates and snippets about his books, which he knew his readers appreciated, it was impossible to respond to all the comments on those posts, many of which ran into the hundreds. Although he’d tried for a long time to do everything himself, it wasn’t sustainable, not if he wanted to keep writing books, which was, after all, what his readers expected him to do.
A year ago, he’d admitted defeat and hired an assistant to help deal with social media content—liking comments posted by readers, responding where necessary, and ensuring Travis saw any relevant comments he might want to respond to himself. His assistant, Ruth, also helped deal with the increasing volumes of email he received from readers, and other important author business tasks.
The arrangement had worked fine so far. There had been a few teething problems, but they’d sorted those out and Ruth had soon proved worth the money he paid her. Freed from having to trawl through social media notification alerts to make sure nothing was missed, Travis was able to focus not just on writing books but on using his limited time to create social media posts he knew his readers would actually enjoy seeing, secure in the knowledge that his assistant would deal with the comments ‘housekeeping’ work.
Travis still dipped into the comments when he had a free moment and interacted directly, and he was upfront with his readers about having help from an assistant to make sure their comments weren’t missed. The readers, a sensible lot for the most part, appreciated not only his honesty but his desire to focus on writing new books for them to devour rather than faffing around on social media for hours each day.
His assistant checked his social media author profiles daily, and the allotted time he paid her for her work meant the notifications should never pile up like apparently had, judging by the app he’d accidentally opened. There were over four hundred unseen notifications, which was ahugenumber.
Why hadn’t Ruth dealt with at least some of those today already?
Curious and anxious now, Travis tapped on another social media app. When it loaded, the notifications popped up automatically. There were two hundred unseen notifications, and even more flashed up while the app remained opened.
This wasn’t right. What was going on? Was Ruth ill? Had there been some sort of emergency that had stopped her from working as usual?
Travis flicked through to his call log, wondering if he’d missed a call from Ruth while working this morning. Perhapsshe’d tried to get in touch to tell him she was having some kind of problem?
But he saw no missed calls from her, nor any messages. When he quickly dipped into his email app and selected the private account he used for communicating with her, there were no unopened emails from her, either.
Travis blinked, realising he was lingering on the street and scrolling on his phone when he was supposed to be hurrying towards the library. Whatever was going on with his assistant’s failure to deal with his social media tasks, he couldn’t think about it right now. The book club people were still waiting for him while he was standing around in bafflement.
Sighing, he brought up the map app and rechecked his route, and then got moving again. Despite telling himself not to think about all those unopened social media notifications that were piling up, he couldn’t help it.
How long had some of those notifications been there for? His readers might be a decent bunch of people in the round, but he knew from bitter experience that some folk got upset if you failed to at least acknowledge or ‘like’ the comments they’d taken the time to write. Keeping fans on side was crucial, which was why he’d hired an assistant in the first place.
Between forgetting about the book club talk he’d agreed to take part in and now realising there was something awfully wrong with his social media upkeep, Travis felt suddenly overwhelmed.
All he wanted to do was write books and tell stories. But there was so much more to being an author than he could have ever realised, and sometimes he wondered if he was up to the job at all. He couldn’t keep up with everything and too often he felt like he was letting his readers down—not writing new books fast enough, not interacting on social media enough, not turning up to enough in-person events…
Travis realised he’d reached the market square where the library was located. Glancing across the sunny tree-lined space, he saw the quaint library on the other side. He checked his watch and saw it was almost one-twenty-five, which made him almost half an hour late.
Self-recriminations rang through his head once more, but he ignored them as he barrelled towards the library, pausing only to catch his breath before hurrying inside. Right now, all that mattered was honouring the commitment he’d made to the local book club and, of course, apologising for being so late.
Concerns about what on earth was going on with his social media content and why his assistant had let all those notifications pile up—well, those would have to wait until later.
He could only put out one fire at a time.
Travis took a deep breath and straightened his blazer, grateful for the boost of confidence the smart jacket gave him. He might feel like a wreck thanks to the morning’s developments, but the readers he was about to meet didn’t need to know what was going on inside his head. They wanted to meet the author of the Maura Shaw series and hear more about his clever and formidable fictional sleuth, so that’s what he’d give them.
He pushed through the library doors and pasted on a smile for the book club folks who were waiting for him.
9
“Mr Stone,please have some more of my lemon drizzle cake. I insist!”
Travis glanced at the paper plate in his hands, which was already laden with an enormous slice of Victoria sponge that he hadn’t even started eating yet. He’d only just finished the last mouthful of the first piece of lemon drizzle cake he’d been served when the book club ladies had begun competing to ply him with more. If they had their way, his plate would be overflowing with chocolate brownies, fruit scones, apple pie, and who knew how many other delicious home-baked goodies.
Grateful though he was for the generous treats, Travis was relieved when the librarian, a sweet woman around his own age named Ellie, stepped in to prevent the enthusiastic book lovers from forcing any more tasty confections upon him as they’d dished out the goodies during the Q&A. Not wanting to answer their questions with his mouth stuffed full with cake, his progress through the home-baking had been slow. But now that the question session was over, the women were keen to make sure he ate his fill.
“Perhaps I could wrap up a slice of the lemon drizzle cake and take it home with me for later?” Travis suggested to the smiling lady.
