Chapter 72: Word of Mouth Spreads
New JerseyA Private Home — Evening
The living room had that particular quality of a gathering that had started as dinner and turned into something more engaged — the food cleared away, drinks in hand, a conversation that had found its own momentum.
"The world-building alone is extraordinary," someone was saying. "The pathways, the sequences — each one is a different professional progression. You advance through the ranks of your own chosen path. It's elegant and it's logical and nothing else I've read does it quite the same way."
"The Cthulhu elements work because they're not decorative," said another. "The cosmic horror is structural. The madness isn't atmosphere, it's a consequence of actually knowing things. The more you understand, the more dangerous you are to yourself."
"We are guardians, and also a group of pitiful creatures constantly fighting danger and madness." Someone quoted it from memory. "That's the whole Night Watchman philosophy in two clauses."
"Klein's final scene in this volume — the Joker meeting Melissa and Benson — I didn't see it coming and then once it happened it felt completely inevitable."
"That's the Serpent pathway. Serpents are supposed to influence fate, but the whole point of the first volume is that Klein himself is a clown in someone else's game. He's powerful and he still doesn't control any of it."
"Second volume goes to Backlund?"
"Has to."
"Will Klein and Audrey actually meet? In person, not just the Tarot meetings?"
"I think eventually, but not romantically. Klein is becoming something more than human. Audrey is more saint than anything else. A saint can revere something without being loved back the same way."
"Theological implications aside, can we acknowledge the tax-exempt status question? Because the novel does raise it."
"It's a fantasy novel. The IRS can't audit a fictional deity."
"Speaking of which—" someone leaned forward — "Tarot Club. Real life version. Who wants to claim a card?"
Laughter around the room.
"That's too much."
"I'll be the Hanged Man."
"Sun."
"I'm taking the Hermit."
"Justice!"
The last voice was small and entirely unexpected. Everyone turned.
A girl of about nine or ten was standing in the corner near the curtains, a golden retriever sitting obediently beside her, both of them having apparently been there for some time.
"Annie!" Gerald called.
The girl looked at her father with the expression of someone caught but not particularly sorry about it.
Gerald looked at the room apologetically. "She's been obsessed with Susie ever since she found the book in my study. We actually bought her a golden retriever and named it Susie, which she's now apparently attempting to train to talk." He shook his head with the fond exasperation of a father who had already lost this particular battle. "She must have slipped in when I wasn't watching."
"She's perfect," someone said. "Dark-haired little girl with a golden retriever named Susie — she looks exactly like I imagined the young Audrey."
"Give it fifteen years," someone else offered. "She'll be the right age when they adapt it."
"Will they adapt it?" The mood shifted slightly. "I looked it up — there's almost no promotion on this book. Nothing in the trades, nothing in the book sections, no interviews. It's getting attention entirely by word of mouth. That's fragile. If the publisher decides not to support a second volume—"
"It's Random House," Gerald said. "I know Jack Cerf. Let me make a call."
Kate, his wife, gave him a look that combined mild exasperation with complete confidence. Gerald was a lawyer. Kate was an actress. Between them they knew approximately everyone they needed to know.
Gerald picked up the phone.
Random House — Editor's Office
Jack Cerf hung up and sat with his thoughts for a moment.
He pressed the intercom. "Linda, bring me the Lord of the Hidden sales numbers. And the reader correspondence."
Linda returned with a stack that was larger than he'd been expecting.
He looked at the correspondence first. Letters — genuine handwritten letters, which readers didn't send unless they meant it. Praise, requests for information about the second volume, a few dramatic expressions of feeling that bordered on threatening if the story wasn't continued. In Cerf's experience, that last category was actually the most reliable indicator of a loyal readership.
Then the sales report.
Two months. No promotion. No placement, no reviews, no advertising. He'd ensured the book sat quietly on the shelves of their distribution network with the minimum possible support, waiting for Adam to feel the pressure and come back to renegotiate.
9,696 copies sold.
The first print run was essentially gone.
The growth curve over those two months was not flat. It was accelerating.
Cerf set the papers down.
"I should have gotten the full rights," he said to his empty office.
He said it once, acknowledged it as true, and let it go. Nora had been involved, which meant certain decisions were off the table regardless. And now Rick and his group — professionals, well-connected people whose reading recommendations actually moved other well-connected people — had called to say they were fans and wanted to meet the author.
Word of mouth from that demographic was worth more than a full-page ad.
Cerf called the number Adam had left.
Random House — The Next Morning
Jack Cerf met Adam at the elevator with the warmth of a man who had made a business decision and had emotionally committed to it.
"Adam. Good to see you. Come in."
The office had the same furniture, the same view, the same everything — but the atmosphere was completely different from two months ago.
"A second printing of a hundred thousand copies," Cerf said, settling behind his desk. "Royalty increased to ten percent. And we'd like to put proper promotional resources behind it this time — review copies, placement, advertising."
Adam looked at him.
He'd expected something like this. Not this quickly, perhaps — the sales curve must have moved faster than he'd anticipated even without promotion.
In his memory, the original work had built a readership that numbered in the hundreds of thousands of legitimate subscribers, with pirated readers multiplying that figure severalfold. Ten thousand copies and a hundred thousand copies were both modest numbers relative to what the material was capable of, given the right conditions.
"Tell me what you're thinking," Adam said.
Cerf told him.
Adam listened carefully, said nothing for a moment, and then began to respond.
End of Chapter 72
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