Barry looked up, his expression somewhere between bewilderment and amusement.
“Are you serious?”
Christopher didn’t smile.
“I don’t know.
I don’t care whether it’s real or made up.
What I care about is that it makes people believe it’s real.”
“That kind of persuasive power—I’ve only seen it once or twice in all these years.”
“When you were reading those passages just now, wasn’t there even one moment where you felt that if you were standing in King’s Cross Station, walking straight into that wall would somehow make perfect sense?”
Barry opened his mouth, but in the end, he didn’t manage to say the word “no.”
“All right,” Barry finally said.
“Suppose I’m willing to sign it.
What terms do you want on his behalf?”
Christopher had clearly thought this through already.
He sat up straight and counted off on his fingers, one by one.
“First, the advance can’t be lower than ten thousand pounds.”
Barry sucked in a breath.
That figure wasn’t small even for an established author.
For a newcomer who hadn’t so much as left a phone number, it was enough to show just how determined Christopher was.
“Are you serious?”
“I’m serious,” Christopher said.
“This book’s potential isn’t limited to Great Britain.
Did you read those descriptions of the wizarding world?”
“Things like that don’t have borders.
A child in Tokyo reading about owls delivering letters will react the same way as a child in New York.”
“This book will sell across the world, Barry.
I’m willing to say that.”
Barry rubbed the back of his neck and sank back into his chair.
An editor’s instincts forced him to spend half a minute calming down before reacting to any piece of news.
Christopher didn’t wait for his response.
He raised a second finger.
“Second, the royalties should increase by tiers.
Twelve percent for the first five thousand copies, fifteen percent for the next ten thousand, and eighteen percent after that.”
“That’s too high, Chris.
A debut author doesn’t get that kind of rate—”
“Third,” Christopher continued before he could finish, “you’ll assign him a dedicated editor.
Not someone juggling five or six projects at the same time.”
“The prose in this book is very clean, but some of the British phrasing may need adjustment.
I don’t want it edited beyond recognition.”
Barry folded his arms and leaned back.
The chair gave a creak.
“You’re signing for him now, are you?
You’re not the author.”
“Right now, I am him,” Christopher said.
“He left a ghost of an address and no telephone number.
I’ve no way to ask whether he agrees.”
“But in my judgment, since he let the manuscript appear on my desk, he’s trusting my judgment.
And my judgment is that this book shouldn’t be treated casually.”
Barry fell silent for a long while.
He lowered his head again and flipped through the manuscript.
A moment later, he said, “An advance of ten thousand pounds.
Ten percent royalty for the first five thousand copies.
After that, we’ll follow the usual market tiers.”
“But if the later manuscript can maintain this level of quality, I can raise the tiers by two points.”
“Deal,” Christopher said crisply.
He extended his right hand, and Barry shook it.
“One more condition.”
Barry let go of his hand, opened a drawer, and took out a standard publishing contract.
“You’d better help me get in touch with this Mr.
Allen Wayne.
At the very least, before publication, he needs to give me some way to contact him.
Even a post-office box will do.”
“Otherwise, if we print the book and he disappears, with no one to collect the royalties, I won’t be able to balance the accounts.”
Christopher gave a wry smile.
“I’ll do my best.
But honestly, I suspect he’s going to be harder to find than either of us imagines.”
“Why?”
“Instinct,” Christopher said.
Barry looked at him for a few seconds, then pushed the contract over.
“Sign on his behalf for now.
Once he appears, we’ll have him complete the paperwork.”
Christopher took the fountain pen and wrote in the signature field:
Christopher Little, on behalf of Allen Wayne.
His handwriting was neat and clear.
Barry stared at the cover for a long while.
“Chris, do you think this book will become popular?”
“It’s not that I think so.”
Christopher stood and straightened the collar of his coat.
“It absolutely will.”
“You’re that certain?”
“One day, you’re going to feel that the terms I just asked for were a bargain.”
Barry smiled and shook his head.
“That confidence of yours really hasn’t changed in ten years.”
By the time Christopher returned to his own office, his assistant was already there.
The young woman hurriedly stood when she saw him come in.
“Sir, the address you asked me to check…”
Christopher took off his coat and hung it on the rack.
“Any results?”
“I checked every registered street directory in Great Britain.
Baker Street does exist in London, but there’s no definite result for Number 13.”
Christopher didn’t look especially surprised.
He walked to his desk and sat down.
“Keep an eye out for any letters or packages sent here under the name Allen Wayne.”
“Yes.
There’s one more thing.”
His assistant handed him a sticky note.
“While you were out, someone called for you.
He said he was from the printing house and asked whether you wanted an additional print run for that batch of campus novels you sent over last week.
I told him you weren’t here, and he asked me to leave a message—”
“Turn it down.”
Christopher waved a hand.
“I won’t be taking campus novels anymore.”
The assistant froze.
“Sir?”
Christopher leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling with a rare, relaxed smile.
“From now on, I’ll only take one kind of book.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that makes me unable to stop reading until midnight.”
What he didn’t know was that, at that very moment, Allen Wayne had just woken up.
A ding sounded in his mind as the system spoke.
[Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Part One has received extremely high praise from its first professional reader—literary agent Christopher Little.
It has also successfully been signed for publication.]
Allen rubbed his eyes and shot upright in bed.
“Wait.
Signed?
Who signed it?
I wasn’t even there.
Who signed my name?”
[The system completed the signing process on your behalf.
Current royalty terms are as follows: an advance of £10,000, a 10% royalty on the first 5,000 copies, with tiered increases thereafter.]
Allen counted on his fingers, trying to work out what £10,000 meant in 1991.
He’d spent the past ten days doing nothing but rushing the manuscript, so he didn’t know much about prices.
But renting this shabby room only cost ten pounds a week, and food came to less than two pounds a day.
Calculated that way, ten thousand pounds would be enough for him to live on for years.
“System,” he said, grinning, “you can even sign contracts for me?”
[The system only performs agency functions within a clearly authorized legal framework.
On the day of your transmigration, you signed all authorization agreements.]
“I signed them?”
Allen tried hard to remember.
His memories from the day he transmigrated were indeed a little blurry.
Back then, he’d only just opened his eyes, and the system had thrown a pile of terms and conditions at him, asking him to “confirm.” Half-asleep and dazed, he’d clicked through them.
“…Fine.
Not like I lost out.
Ten thousand!
In my past life, I barely got a living from writing to the bone.”
He flopped back onto the pillow, staring blankly at the cracks in the ceiling.
“Still, what was that literary agent’s name again… Christopher?
How did he react after reading the manuscript?
Was he scared senseless?”
“Whatever.
I’ve got money coming in now.
First things first—I’m going out for a proper meal!”
He sprang up from the bed and rushed out excitedly in search of food.
…
Meanwhile, on his way home, Christopher turned into a bookshop.
He stood in front of the shelves in the children’s literature section and casually pulled out a few fantasy novels from the current season.
After reading two pages, he put them back.
The prose felt as though there were a layer of glass between him and the words—clear, but utterly without warmth.
He slid the books back onto the shelf and turned to leave.
Only one thought remained in his mind:
Barry had said three months at the fastest.
He had to find a way to shorten that.
He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it, then decided he would visit Bloomsbury again tomorrow morning.
He had a feeling Barry wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight either.
Sure enough, before eight o’clock the next morning, Christopher’s telephone rang.
He had only just taken his first sip of black tea when Barry’s voice came through the receiver, carrying an irrepressible excitement that made him sound unusually amusing.
“Christopher, I couldn’t resist bringing the manuscript home last night.
My daughter is twelve, and she actually hid under the covers with a torch and read until two in the morning.”
“At breakfast today, she pushed her bowl in front of me and asked, ‘Dad, can you bring back the rest of the manuscript sooner?'”
The office fell silent for an instant.
Across the telephone line, the two older men suddenly went quiet.
It was a kind of unspoken tremor.
They both understood what it meant for a twelve-year-old child to say something like that.
“Barry,” Christopher said, breaking the silence, “you promised me you’d have your fastest printer set the type.”
“I’ll arrange it this morning.
I’ll personally lead the editorial team.
I’ve scheduled the cover design for this afternoon, and the illustrator is the one who did concept sketches for His Dark Materials.”
“Good.”
“And…”
Barry hesitated for a second, then lowered his voice slightly.
“I dreamed about Platform Nine and Three-Quarters last night.
I was actually looking for the pillar!”
“You know, I’m already fifty-two this year.”
Christopher finally laughed out loud.
“That’s the charm of the wizarding world, Barry.”
“Oh, spare me.”
Barry hung up irritably.
But just before the line cut off, Christopher heard him mutter under his breath,
“Merlin, which side was that pillar on again…”
~
Push the book forward by Adding to library and sending powerstones~!