Chapter 43: Genius?

"Yes... I have no doubt" Evelyn nodded after a few seconds, then looked at Christian and spoke seriously "We want to distribute this novel and its entire saga."

"Smiling with delight inside, Christian adjusted his position a bit and spoke calmly "I'm glad you like it, but.... what are you offering?"

..." Thinking for a few minutes, Evelyn looks at Christian and speaks "As you'll notice, my publishing house is not going through a good time, I know it's something I shouldn't say in front of a potential writer , but it's the truth."

"I'll let you say what you're looking for and I'll tell you what we can offer you."

Nodding at the woman's attitude, Christian thought for a moment, then looked up and spoke earnestly, something quite nice for a boy "Mrs. Evelyn, I'll be straightforward. I'm looking for 25% of the revenue from each novel. Initially, I thought I would do the typical bidding, going up to 35%, where you tell me that is too much, I would go down to 30% and very reluctantly go down to my 25% limit, but you treated me with respect and sincerity, so I will respond with the same."

"I understand it's a lot even for a famous author, but understand that my novel is complete, edited without flaws, I have the illustrations, I even have different covers for each volume, all this makes your job just to publicize the book, plus distribute it. I can also do the job of translating, believe it or not, I can speak 4 languages, my mother tongue plus Japanese, Russian and French, something that would help to sell the novel abroad... I also have the option of learning more languages if the books are sold to other countries".

"For all this, I can't afford less than 25%, because I'd rather my stories never get published than be denied what I'm really worth."

"As for the years of the contract, I can leave it at 10 years with no problem, and if I then continue with this publisher, it will depend on how our relations get along."

"Now on the future trajectory, I want 40% of whatever is earned from selling the book digitally, it may not be something that is used a lot now, but I have every faith that digital will be the future, and considering that books won't have to be printed, I find that a fair price"

"I may be a kid, but I have my education in fields of what I like and because of that, I have an idea of how this industry works"

"..."

As she finished speaking, the entire room fell silent.

Eva could not believe how her child spoke so seriously, although she did not understand why he talked so much about percentages and values in books, she understood that maybe her child's work would be sent abroad, something that made her very happy.

Evelyn, meanwhile, looked at the books with a frown on her face, seriously reflecting on all that had been said.

The publishers did not comment on anything, since their boss is the one who is handling the contract issue, they do not have the need, so they dedicated themselves to reading the novel book and verifying the boy's words, while Mia took the illustration booklet and looked through them thoroughly.

After a few tense minutes, Evelyn sighed "I'll bet on you Christian, but I can't give you 25% on your first novel, as the bet puts my publishing house at risk"

"I can offer you 18% on your first novel, if it is successful and needs continuation, we will talk about 25%, but on the condition that, if the first novel is successful, the whole continuation will continue with my publishing house"

"As for digital... we haven't seen that issue yet as a publisher, I only know what I researched, and I don't think it has much of a future, but if you think it can be successful, we will add it as a bonus clause in your contract"

"But at the same time, that percentage will be given to you once we confirm that your book has no flaws and that the covers and illustrations are viable."

"What do you think?"

"..." Biting his thumb slightly, Christian reflected 'I'm surprised she accepted 25%... I can't complain about 18% on the first work, it's more than the original author of the book has, not counting that this is just starting and the risk is quite a lot... I also accept my 40% for the digital books, surely she will regret it in the future since Amazon was charging 30%, that means I will earn more than they do'

'May we have a good working relationship' Smiled Christian towards Evelyn, while inwardly letting out a sigh of relief 'If all goes well, money won't be a concern...'

'*Sigh* I don't know what they feed kids these days' Smiling bitterly, Evelyn leaned back in her seat "We will need your contact information, as the contract has to be created by our lawyer... you will understand that we can't sign with you, because you are a child, but your mother can be your representative in this case"

"The contract should be ready in about a week, we will call you when you need to come in to review it and sign the agreement"

"I will also ask you to let me have the books so I can read them and see their trajectory"

"I can't do that" Shaking his head quickly, Christian declined.

"Why?" frowning, Evelyn replied.

"I only have the first book registered in my name, the others I haven't registered yet"

"I see... the first one will do for now, since that's the one we should focus on."

"If so, I have no problem" Standing up a little, Christian stretched, taking all the notebooks on the table, taking some out of the publisher's hand, leaving only the one with the illustrations and the patented book there.

"Okay, Isabelle, bring me a formula to fill in the information for them to leave their contacts please"

"Right away"

Everything else went on as normal, Eva filled in her contact information and left the room with Christian, leaving only the publishers and her boss in it.

"Are you sure about this, boss?" With some concern, Mia asked.

"No... it's impossible to be sure" Shaking her head, Evelyn looked up at the ceiling in a daze "That kid claimed to speak 4 languages, write thousands of pages in 7 months, even claimed to have done those illustrations and covers... it would be crazy to be sure it's all true without proof"

"Then why did you give him such favorable treatment?"

"It's because we have no choice... I saw in the kid's eyes that he wouldn't accept less, and in a way, if he can do everything he said, I wouldn't accept less either if I were him"

"Since we received the criticism by the Detroit News, everything has gone downhill, the other local papers uploaded news about the alleged fraud on the writers, even newspapers in other states touched on it"

"And even though everything was settled and they were forced to remove those fake news stories, the damage was already done, the writers stopped trusting us"

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"We haven't received decent work for weeks now, all that comes in is dead-end garbage by newbies"

"At this rate, my publishing house will close in a few months, and the only thing keeping us afloat are the 3 Best Sellers we have in circulation by Sarah Jones, that girl is what keeps us afloat even after this rough patch...we can't keep holding on with one foot"

"We need another potential writer and Christian falls into that category...he is only 9 years old and can already write better than most adults, his illustrations are good for what he wants to write, now whether he speaks another language or not is something we can confirm in the future"

"The point of giving him a good deal is that I want him to stay with the publisher... even if he doesn't succeed in this novel of his, he can succeed in others... he is only 9 years old and he already wrote 7 novels, a whole saga, all in a world with different laws and different creatures... it's not something a child can do without being a genius, and from how that child acted... there is no doubt that he is a genius"

"I was also thinking about introducing Sarah to that kid, she's been having a terrible block lately with her history, maybe that kid can help her, but we'll see..."

"At the end of it all, I'm not betting on your novel... I'm betting on him"

"But we'll see... *sigh*"

Leaning back in her chair, Evelyn closed her eyes, thinking bitterly about her plight.

...

"*Sigh* Finally" Stretching lazily, Christian smiled.

"What were you talking about with Evelyn?" asked Eva hesitantly, not knowing why the books had so many percentages in them.

"..." Pursing his lips, Christian turns to his mother "It's a surprise."

"Tsk" Clicking her tongue, Eva grabbed Christian's hand "So much time talking about boring stuff made me hungry, let's find Hailie and Alan and go home."

Smiling to himself, Christian felt as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders, knowing that his mother would no longer have to take care of all the expenses alone.

...

"Christian, look what I just did!"

Excitedly, Emily pointed to her computer.

Stopping reading the English-Spanish dictionary, Christian looked at the girl.

"That's..." Frowning slightly, Christian gets up from his seat and walks over to the girl, his eyes widening at what he sees "Y-you.... how did you do that?"

Proudly, Emily puffed out her small chest a little and said, "It was simple, I just took advantage of a very obvious exploit in this game, I was bored of waiting hours for my crops to grow."

Unable to believe his eyes, Christian blinked in a daze.

A few weeks ago, Emily came in with a game she discovered at home, nothing earth-shattering, the typical game of growing and raising a farm, where everything takes a long time to grow and you end up paying money to advance faster.

But now looking at the computer screen, Christian sees that the girl has billions in each resource.

"Y-you did this?"

"Yeah, I found some old books in the house, turns out they were mom's, she left them when she went to buy cigarettes."

"You read computer books, how did you do that...I just taught you the alphabet and some words..."

"What a silly thing to say" Smiling Emily, pulled a book out of her backpack and handed it to Christian, looking in disbelief at the coverless book with at least 3000 gigantic pages, unbelievable that even the girl could carry that shit in her arms.

"This is mom's book, I don't know what computer science is, but here it's almost all numbers... no need to read too much."

Christian took the book carefully, put it down on the table and opened it, finding something that confirmed what Emma said.

The book had almost no words, it was full of codes all over the place, and a few words explaining its basics, with words so simple, that this book could have the perfect title of 'Programming for Dummies'. The book had no cover or author, and everything seemed to be handwritten, which caused Christian's eyes to sparkle for a moment.

"Emily... doesn't your father ever talk about your mother?"

"No... although sometimes when she drinks too much of that yellow liquid from the bottles, she talks weird stuff... I once heard her say that mom's a cunt for leaving him, but I don't know what that means..."

Biting his thumb as he turns the pages, Christian turns his gaze back to Emily and asks, "How do you know it's an exploit?"

"It's on page number 8" Holding up 8 fingers, Emily smiles.

Quickly turning the pages, Christian finds something like a computer dictionary, where you can find at least hundreds of words with their meaning on the side "Exploits: opening windows in software left by stupid"

Christian raises his eyebrows and looks up. "Did you learn what exploits are from this?"

"Yes, further on it explains that a software is like a house, so it's simple to find windows in a house... or something like that."

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