Chapter 69: Pack for Committee
The first page measured attention; the contract would live or die on everything buried after it.
At Tuesday's committee-pack review, SOCIAL REACH occupied the top half of the opening summary in oversized type.
My verified, completed preorders appeared on page four beneath two publicity charts.
Paid reading completion sat on page six, shop commitments on seven and returns exposure on nine.
The visual order made the loudest and easiest measure look like the governing one.
The published pilot-to-print MOU had fixed the weighting before either project launched or gathered attention.
Paid completion, qualified shop demand and returns risk carried substantially more combined weight than social attention.
No one had formally changed the formula, thresholds, cut-off date or eligible data.
The summary design had changed how a hurried committee would encounter and remember the evidence.
I asked the secretary to display the signed weighting schedule beside the pack.
Every displayed coefficient matched the signed pre-launch record and its archived hash.
The governing numbers were present but arranged like supporting evidence for the wrong commercial headline.
North Quay's analyst called the sequence a standard communications template rather than a changed model.
Communication was part of a real decision when committee members had twenty minutes and eighty pages.
I requested a page order that followed the agreed weights.
The correction had to apply to both projects simultaneously, not only Saltmere because I had noticed it.
The committee secretary opened identical, time-limited source-review windows for each team and logged access separately.
I could challenge Saltmere's classifications, dates, eligible totals and calculations from records I was authorised to inspect.
Oliver and Pippa could challenge the same categories in their own confidential project file without contacting me.
Neither side could see, copy, challenge or edit the other's underlying customer and contract data.
The eventual shared categories would reveal only matching methodology, public thresholds and approved aggregate outcomes.
I found one Saltmere preorder group described as London-led despite the signed regional amendment and source summary.
The source record placed those paid completions in the south-west.
The analyst corrected the regional label without increasing, deleting or reclassifying a single paid completion.
I also required the Irish intention to retain its capped-returns warning.
Nine hundred provisional Irish copies could not be displayed as unrestricted firm demand with no return exposure.
The secretary logged both corrections and sent the opposing team its own confirmation window.
Their status changed to REVIEW COMPLETE without revealing whether or what they had queried in private.
At 14:25, the committee pack was rebuilt in weighted order.
Verified paid completion came first, with its method and cut-off printed beside the number.
Qualified shop and distributor evidence followed, separated from projected publicity reach.
Returns, freight and buyer-concentration risk appeared before social reach, mentions or press interest.
The legacy-resource audit remained a pass-or-fail eligibility boundary, not a weighted popularity measure.
Both projects showed zero authorised use of the shared old brand.
The first-look carve-outs appeared beside the contract value they qualified.
The two independent model outputs then ran under the same weights, cut-off and rounding rules.
I approved my corrected source labels.
I did not approve Larkspur's private inputs, see its source pages or infer what its review had changed.
The secretary locked the pack against further edits.
Its new hash, source table, correction log and two separate access logs entered the committee archive.
After freezing, no favourable weekend post, interview or campaign could enlarge either recommendation.
No payment cancellation or shop withdrawal could be hidden if it had occurred before the stated cut-off.
Attention had become one weighted input instead of the first-page verdict.
That was the fair outcome I had requested.
It was also more frightening than the flattering summary.
The model calculated Saltmere's recommended opening quantity from completion, demand and risk.
My private planning ceiling had been 12,000 copies.
The frozen result displayed 18,000.
It was an evidence-based recommendation, not authority to print, paper commitment or a warehouse total.
On Wednesday, I would have to decide whether to carry six thousand more chances to be returned.