Chapter 134: Six Thousand More
Six thousand more copies began with paid orders, not a screenshot of a chart.
On Friday, North Quay's distribution committee displayed the locked preorder report in its production room.
I attended for Saltmere only.
The report separated settled customer payments, confirmed shop orders, cancellations, failed payments and bookplate reservations.
It showed the twelve-per-cent margin above the agreed reprint trigger.
No weekly ranking or social-media post entered the decision pack.
The first print run had not completed a full returns cycle, so the committee could not treat current demand as permanent.
Finance therefore modelled three outcomes: ordinary returns, a higher seasonal return and a severe regional return.
The six-thousand-copy proposal remained viable in the first two and exposed a clear loss in the third.
My editor called the risk manageable.
I asked which accounts would receive the added stock.
The first allocation draft favoured two national wholesalers because a single delivery cost less.
It left the smaller shops that had preserved my regional route waiting behind them.
The twelve protected shops were not decoration for my launch history. Their orders carried dates, account references and payment terms.
Neither were Lantern & Tide's later-delivery reservations.
I requested a minimum independent-bookshop allocation before approving the print order.
Distribution placed the confirmed small-shop orders, replenishment requests and Bristol reservation queue back into the model.
Those quantities became a protected allocation rather than a hopeful note, with replenishment priority visible in the signed schedule.
The remaining copies could follow ordinary wholesale demand.
No book was pulled from the existing eighteen-thousand-copy account to make the new figures look immediate.
Production confirmed that the same print-ready files, cover version and ISBN would be used.
This was a replenishment, not a new edition.
It created no new rights, author credit or marketing permission.
The scratched copies at Lantern & Tide remained under their transport claim and did not count as demand.
The committee also preserved the agreed reserve against returns.
It applied only under my contract's existing post-recoupment royalty terms and did not alter any advance instalment.
I did not negotiate old royalties or Marian Crowe rights in the room.
Those records belonged elsewhere.
At 10.52, the committee approved an additional print run of six thousand.
The production manager issued the instruction only after the independent allocation appeared in the signed schedule.
I signed the author approval against quantity, files and allocation.
The printer acknowledged the order and supplied a paper reservation date.
Distribution recorded the new stock as pending production, not available inventory.
No shop could sell it twice or promise dispatch before warehouse receipt.
The preorder page changed from limited replenishment to reprint ordered, with no claim of bestseller status.
Lantern & Tide's one hundred and sixty bookplate reservations retained their fulfilment priority after quality checking.
The twelve independent accounts retained their quantities.
The wholesalers received the balance under the ordinary returns model.
Success had acquired paper cost, storage cost and the possibility of coming back in boxes.
I accepted those costs because the orders were real enough to carry them.
The committee stored the report, model, approval, allocation schedule, source totals and printer acknowledgement in the production system.
I received my project's complete record and nothing about Larkspur's private sales.
As the meeting closed, two notices reached my secure inbox.
The first came from the neutral contract administrator.
North Quay's final Marian Crowe archive inventory had passed dual review.
My verified copies and personal drafts could be transferred on 24 April; the joint originals would remain sealed.
The second notice came from Alistair's independent press.
He still held the annotated proposal I had authorised him to read during my first Saltmere pitch.
He requested the same handover appointment to return it and certify deletion of his working copy.
The reprint had given my new book more paper; the next appointment would decide which old pages I was allowed to take away.