Chapter 72: Eighteen Per Cent
Eighteen per cent was not freedom; it was a risk the orders could actually justify.
At nine on Friday morning, the recalculation cards covered North Quay's glass signing-room table beneath the deadline clock.
Each numbered card represented a channel, contractual return limit, freight responsibility or quarterly release date.
The Irish card remained amber because its 900-copy intention was conditional, capped and not yet consumer sell-through.
The twelve independent-shop cards carried lower buyer concentration but higher handling and account cost.
No honest calculation could turn that mixture into zero reserve.
The only question was how much otherwise payable royalty cash North Quay could reasonably hold after recoupment.
My advance amount and instalment dates sat in a separate locked box on the schedule.
The finance manager marked them unchanged and outside the reserve mechanism before the calculation began.
We started with the 28 per cent upper risk line from the distribution model.
Channel-specific caps reduced the portion of the authorised run exposed to ordinary unrestricted returns.
Distributor-paid Irish return freight reduced the publisher's possible cost without erasing or reclassifying returned units.
Twelve separately evidenced independent shops reduced buyer concentration but did not guarantee later consumer sell-through.
Quarterly reconciliation prevented an old estimate from becoming permanent withheld cash.
The weighted worksheet produced 18 per cent.
North Quay would temporarily retain that weighted share only from royalties otherwise payable after complete advance recoupment.
Every accounting quarter, verified actual returns by channel would replace the original estimate.
Any unused reserve would release into the next scheduled royalty payment under the ordinary statement timetable.
If actual exposure justified less, North Quay had to release the unused portion.
Verified returns at or above 18 per cent could not lift the agreed reserve above 18 per cent.
I checked the instalment paragraph again.
It required full payment on the original date without deduction, delay or clawback through the reserve.
The finance manager initialled that protected line beside my solicitor and linked it to the locked advance box.
The original 35 per cent template card remained visible in the audit packet, crossed through rather than quietly removed.
The new weighted worksheet linked every reduction to a verified channel term already preserved in the distribution file.
At 15:55, the final paper contract returned from comparison.
It carried the 18,000-copy print run already approved by committee, not a new or larger quantity.
It covered the United Kingdom and Ireland under the capped Irish condition.
Its two-book first-look retained every legacy carve-out negotiated in November.
Each wholly new proposal gave North Quay thirty calendar days and no automatic licence.
Marian Crowe, Blackwater and the unaccepted optional final volume remained excluded.
The financial schedule now said EIGHTEEN PER CENT beside the quarterly release formula.
I read the entire contract from territory through the signature block rather than trusting the automated comparison summary.
The advance box had not moved by a pound or a day.
At 16:37, my solicitor confirmed that the final hash matched the reviewed version.
I placed the pen flat once, then picked it up.
At 16:42, I signed GRACE ELLISON.
North Quay countersigned the same controlled contract without reopening the commercial terms.
The Irish publication window remained in the current season.
The two-book first-look obligation became real, narrow and separately enforceable.
So did the 18 per cent reserve after recoupment.
I had not eliminated return risk or transferred it entirely to the publisher.
I had made the withholding explainable, reviewable and temporary.
At 16:51, the electronic signing certificate entered both archives.
The controlled production system linked it to the existing 18,000-copy authorisation and current-season Irish window.
The finance system kept the agreed advance instalment outside every reserve field.
Nine minutes remained before the Irish window would have rolled forward.
I stayed in the signing room while the confirmation messages settled.
At 17:06, my solicitor opened a new proposal from Oliver's solicitor.
Its first line read MARIAN CROWE PRESENTS.