"Are you sure this is a legal publishing house?"
Facing a somewhat old and dilapidated building, Eva asked doubtfully.
"Yes" Without a second thought Christian walked in, pulling his mother's hand.
This publishing house was Christian's second choice.
The truth is, in Detroit, there are 7 publishing houses, at least in this world.
5 of them only focused on certain things, like Science, History, Poetry, Children's Stories, and Adult Stories.
In general, they only had one focus, while Christian wanted a publisher open to all literary genres so he wouldn't have to roam from one company to another with all the novels written.
Leaving only two viable options, the first was Lyon Editorial, a medium-sized company with 7 Best Sellers for sale, keeping the company running smoothly.
But the second and last option...
This publishing company is called Star Editorial, where they publish all kinds of genres of books and unlike the other companies, which only have secondary headquarters in Detroit, this company has its main headquarters in this city. The company started with high momentum, they had a dozen Best Sellers and everything seemed to be going well, but little by little the contracts ran out and the writers chose something better, leaving the company to decline over time, remaining in this state after 20 years of trajectory.
After moving 3 times due to budget, the publishing house ended up in a small two-story place, quite close to Lyon Editorial, now if this was planned or not, it doesn't matter.
"Hello good afternoon, welcome to Star Editorial. How can I help you?"
No sooner had you entered the building than a woman greeted us from the other side of a counter with a big smile.
"Hello good afternoon, I bring a book to see if there is a possibility of publishing it in this publishing house" With a more relaxed mood after a few minutes of walking with her child, Eva smiled again as she greeted.
"Of course, there is the possibility, right now our publishers are free if you would like them to review it" With the same smile, the woman pointed towards the staircase that led to the second floor "You have to go up and walk to the end, there you will find 3 rooms, enter the one with the number one please"
'The treatment is very different, you can tell they are desperate... is that or we just arrived at the exact moment when they have no more jobs left to check' Squinting slightly, Christian thought, while carefully observing the whole place 'I'm worried that they don't have a decent budget to promote the books... but it's better than nothing, let's see what happens'
"Thank you"
Thanking him, Eva walked suspiciously towards the second floor of the place, cautiously looking in all directions.
Although their suspicions are understandable, the building inside is in disrepair, looking nothing like the publishing house they visited earlier.
Arriving on the second floor, Eva is met with chaos.
Unlike the other publishing house, in this place it seems that no one has a private office, only 3 rooms can be seen in the back that seems to be a meeting area, while all the other workers, approximately 30, were talking on the phone or moving back and forth through small cubicles in the place, creating rather large noise pollution for a place where books should be worked on.
Walking awkwardly, Eva took Christian's hand with a little more strength, arriving after a few seconds to the room they were indicated.
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock* *Knock*.
Knocking on the door 3 times, not a second passed and it opened quickly, while an older woman smiled at Eva.
"Good afternoon, the receptionist notified me of your arrival, please come in"
With a frown, Christian walked in with his mother, as suspicion crept into his mind 'Is this a pirate publisher? The kind that offers you abusive contracts or the option of Co-Publishing? I understand that they are desperate, but their attitude makes me quite suspicious...'
[A/N: Co-publishing is something quite criticized within the world of authors. It's generally an agreement between the publisher and the author, where they will split the income 50/50. That sounds good, but the expenses have to be half and half, i.e. the author pays half of what it costs to publish the work and at the same time the publicity/distribution. Many pirate publishers use this to cheat writers and then offer abusive contract clauses, where without giving you time to read the contract, they make you sign a contract that puts you in debt for an abysmal amount of money. Since everything they do, they increase the price double or more, just to get more money out of the naive author, but since you signed the contract when you had the option to leave and not sign, everything is legal]
"Have a seat, we will be with you shortly."
As they entered, they found a large glass table with several seats around it, while 3 women were conversing with each other in the far corner, but as Christian and Eva entered, they stopped talking and settled into their seats.
The lady who greeted them, walked over and sat down at the head seat at the table, then smiled and spoke "Please take a seat so we can have a better conversation"
Turning her gaze to Christian, Eva raised her eyebrows, earning a shrug from the boy, as they sat down in the continuous women's seats.
"The 3 women next to me are editors at this publishing house" Pointing to the woman on her right side "This is Mia Lewis" Pointing to the one on the other left "This is Isabella Jackson" To finally point to the woman next to Isabella "Julia White"
"Finally, I introduce myself, I am Evelyn Smith, founder of this publishing company"
Raising his eyebrows at her words, Christian reflected 'For the founder to be working, things must be worse than I thought'
After they introduced themselves, an awkward silence pervaded the area, until Eva woke up and spoke with a stiff smile "Hello good morning, I'm Eva Grey"
Taking Christian in her arms, Eva pulled him out of his seat and positioned him on her lap "And this cute little boy is my son, Christian Grey"
"Nice to meet you Miss Eva" Smiling a little more softly, Evelyn turned to Christian "Hi Christian"
"Hi..." Feeling a little uncomfortable from the gaze of the 4 women, Christian settled a little closer to his mother, finding the security his mind needed.
"Well, introductions aside, I'd like to see the book you're bringing, so we can see if it has a distribution possibility" Settling into the chair, Evelyn changed her whole demeanor and took a serious approach.
Turning her gaze to Christian, Eva raises her eyebrows, receiving a nod from the boy.
Bending down slightly, Eva takes the backpack they set aside, and pulls out a notebook, then passes it to Mia, who was standing next to her.
Without opening the notebook, Mia passed it directly to Evelyn, who took some glasses from somewhere and put them on her face, and then took the book and opened it.
So the minutes passed, until 30 minutes later, the woman looked up with satisfaction, looking directly at Eva "It's a good novel, Miss Eva, although I didn't read everything, I have a brief idea of what it's about and let me tell you that it's an innovative and brilliant idea. Also, let me praise you, of all the years I've been working, your handwriting is one of the best I've been able to see"
Lowering her gaze for a few seconds, Mrs. Evelyn turned the pages, finding Christian's drawing over the Hogwarts scene drawing "These illustrations also fit perfectly, it helps you quite a bit when you want to imagine the scenes described, giving it an extra touch that will draw the reader in."
Looking up again, Evelyn asked "Do you have any ideas for creating a sequel to this novel?"
Shaking her head, Eva just smiled "I think you're making a mistake, I'm not the one who wrote that novel."
Frowning slightly, Evelyn put the notebook down on the table, passing it to Mia to review "What do you mean?"
"That book was written by my son, Christian."
Opening her eyes a little wider, Evelyn shifted her gaze to the adorable boy "You wrote this?"
"Yes..."
Turning to Eva, Evelyn asked doubtfully "Really?"
"I don't have to lie to you, I'm here because my boy said he wanted people to read what he wrote."
Still unable to believe what she hears, Evelyn turns to Christian with a smile "That's great that you're interested in writing Christian, could you tell me how long you've been writing?"
"I've been at it for about 5 months."
"5 months... that's quite a long time for a kid" Pursing her lips a little, Evelyn held her chin as she pondered for a few seconds, then looks at Christian "How old are you Christian?"
"9"
"Are the drawings yours?"
"Yes."
"How did you come up with the idea for your novel?"
"I have a lot of ideas in my mind and I'm always reading a lot of different things whenever I have time, thanks to that it wasn't too hard to come up with a magical world. Also, I find that there are very few novels that are good at recreating something I like, that's why I decided to write one."
"I see..." Nodding at the boy's words, Evelyn shifted her gaze to Mia "So? How about it?"
"At first glance this novel is perfect, I find no flaws in the writing, the grammatical structure is quite good, and every time you describe something new, you add a picture" Quickly turning the pages, Mia spoke "I read a little of the story, I also saw your synopsis, everything indicates that it would be a good book for children, but I couldn't say more than that, I still have to read it all to get a better critique"
"Do you think it can be exploited?"
"I couldn't give it a definite yes, but everything indicates that it would have a good trajectory."
"Room for sequels?"
"I've been looking at the last few pages, from the dialogue, it suggests that the story continues."
Raising her eyebrows at the woman's responses, Evelyn turned to Christian and spoke "Do you have a sequel planned?"
"..." Thinking for a moment, Christian grabbed his backpack and pulled it up on the table, pulling the entire main saga out of his backpack, while Eva looked at everything in silence, not knowing in the slightest what they were talking about.
"The truth is I have the entire sequel written, 7 more novels to be exact" Following his instincts and giving a vote of faith to the older lady, Christian moved his notebooks towards Mia, causing her to open her mouth a little wider in astonishment.
"A-are they all finished?" asked Mia, speaking for the first time to Christian.
"Yes, I drew illustrations for everyone too, plus I have more illustrations in case you don't like those" Pulling out another notebook, Christian opened it in front of everyone, showing several pages with different drawings.
Not believing her eyes, Mia pulled the novels to her side, quickly passing the novels to her colleagues and boss.
Silence fell in the room, Christian watching their reactions carefully, while Eva only knew that things were going well, causing a proud smile to spread across her face.
Time passed again, until 40 minutes later, until Isabella finished reading and spoke "This doesn't seem to be a children's story, I don't know what you read, Mia, but this sequel is a bit darker and deeper."
Raising his eyebrows, Christian saw what volume she was reading, instantly finding his answer, as he nodded to himself 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'
"This one doesn't seem to be a children's story either, it has a lot of political plot in between, and the amazing thing is that all the politics is based in the magical world, having its own laws created" Mia replied with a frown.
Rolling his eyes, Christian nodded again 'Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix, without a doubt the most tedious book to read, even writing it took me quite a while, even more so when I didn't have enough notebook pages, causing me to have to cut the cover off a new one and put them together, so as to avoid walking around with two notebooks for the same book.'
"This book is more for children, but it will be difficult for them to understand, it has many mysteries in its writing, scenes that it doesn't explain to you what they are, but it's not bad, it gives it a magical touch, I like it" Julia smiled, looking carefully at the illustrations from the novel Harriet Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Closing the book she was reading Mia looked up at Evelyn "boss, these novels have an exploitable future, I haven't read the others, but if it is as Isabella and Julia say, I have no doubt that it could be a great success in the future"
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