Page 71 of What If I See You

“Because?”

“Because it allows me to be creative in a way I never imagined I would ever be able to do. Because it allows me to dream a little.” She pauses, considering what to say next. “Writing allows me to literally make up a story about two people who fall in love and live happily ever after and who doesn’t love a fun love story?”

“So, you really are a hopeless romantic at heart.”

The corners of her pretty pink lips turn up. “Isn’t every woman even if she doesn’t want to admit it?”

“I suppose you could be right. Do you have a lot of readers? I mean…you’ve already published a few books, right?”

“Yep. There are three out there in the world with my name on them.”

“Three books,” I mutter, amazed. “That’s an incredible thing, you know? You literally wrote three books.Youwrote them. They’reyourwords. And people will read them…I don’t know,” I shrug, “until the end of time maybe.”

The thought makes her smile.

“Maybe,” she murmurs.

I roll over and mirror her posture, propping myself up on my elbow too. I’m fascinated by this part of her life.

“So, your readers, are there a lot of them? Do you have some sort of groupies? The Hobb-Goblins or something like that?”

“The Hobb-Goblins?” She snorts and it’s the cutest fucking sound in the world. “That’s a very creative play on my last name. Why didn’t I think of that?”

I laugh with her. “Well? Do you? Are they like crazy fans?”

“Nah.” She reclines back on her pillow so I can’t see her face anymore. “I’m pretty much a nobody right now. I mean I get sales here and there, but no. No crazy fan club yet.”

That’s the second time she’s referred to herself as a nobody today or that she’s unimportant. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.

“Are you saying those actually exist though? Crazy fan clubs?”

“Oh, hell yeah! Never underestimate romance readers,” she says. “When they love an author and their books, they love hard and fast. I’ve seen it happen many times.”

“How do you get people to know all about you? How do they even know you write books?”

“It’s all social media,” she answers with a heavy sigh. “It’s a long, arduous job making sure I post about them every day to as many social media outlets as possible. It’s a lot of graphic making and ad creation. I have a small email newsletter that I try to send out on a semi-regular basis.”

“A newsletter,” he repeats. “And what do you talk about in a newsletter?”

“Everything from snippets of my personal life in hopes that readers will relate to me, to a little behind the scenes look at my writing process, or short snippets of whatever I’m working on.”

“And you do all that on your own?”

“Yep,” I sigh.

“Why don’t you hire an assistant?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense to hire an assistant if my books aren’t making enough money to actually pay for an assistant. If and when the time comes that I can reinvest my royalties back into the business, then I can think about an assistant. But until then, it’s just me.”

“Damn…”

“Yeah,” she says before she blows out a breath. “It’s a lot. But it’s what I have to do if I want to stay relevant to readers. If I don’t stick with it, they forget who I am and then it’s like starting all over again every time I release a new book.”

“So, the trick is to build momentum. One book into the next?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

Wow.

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