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thing. Well, maybe Grace was right, but the rest of the evening proved otherwise. Kate and Mac spent the dinner planning their strategy. Since this was Mac’s book, he was keen on being involved in every aspect of the promotion. There was a lot to do, starting with flying out to Seattle to meet the author in the coming weeks.
    Kate could hardly believe her luck. That night, she had a hard time getting to sleep. The Continued Promise as her book. It would be her ticket to better authors, better books, and the respect she yearned for. Maybe now her career was finally going to take a turn for the better.

Chapter Ten

    Kate arrived earlier in the office than usual. No one else was there except Edward, who was on a conference call behind his semi-closed door, no doubt haggling with MD’s French division about lack of sales in the European market.
    In an average year, Kate worked on around one hundred books, all of them written by authors eager to see success beyond their wildest dreams. Given the number of books published each day, it was often a full time job just managing an author’s expectations. These days, many of the MD books got a “stock” publicity campaign, which generally wasn’t what Kate would have prescribed. But, in most cases, she didn’t have a choice. Kate supported three of MD’s editors: Mac, Tracy Sloan, and Bernard Gould. Bernard, or Bernie as he preferred to be called, was known to get the bottom of the book barrel. Although he never referred to himself as a bottom-dweller, he insisted he got the best of the ones no one else wanted. His books often got little if any publicity, but when they did, Bernie treated each of them like they were his own personal kingdoms. Lavishing attention on the authors, spoiling them rotten, and mismanaging their expectations to the point that when Kate finally got a hold of them, they were so starry-eyed it took her weeks and several reality checks to bring them back down to earth.
    She tried talking to Bernie about this, but he’d never listen. He was just thrilled to have the authors, as dysfunctional as they might be. When he would hand Kate another book that warranted more of her attention than just a book review mailing, he would smile and say, “Our publishing cup runneth over.” Bernie’s line was legendary at MD, but not in a good way. He was the kind of man who thought he was more significant in publishing than he really was. If there was an event around a publishing launch, book party, or chic author event, you could count on Bernie being there. At parties, he would be talking to one guest while scanning the crowd for some other, more significant person he needed to sidle up to.
    Most of the other staff dismissed Bernie, assuming he must be some distant relative of Edward Sherman or someone who knew where all the skeletons were buried. Sensing this subtle dismissal by his peers made Bernie work even harder to garner the respect of his co-workers. At fifty-four, balding, and still single (rumors persisted that he was gay), he lived for any kind of professional validation.
    Kate’s plate was full this week thanks to a new “Bernie book” as they were called. This title was as far towards what Kate considered the bottom of the barrel as they could get, based on a twenty-five year old television show called Thugs . The book did not have success written all over it, but Bernie wanted every ounce of her muscle put behind it.
Airing in the mid-seventies, Thugs was based on a married couple that had spent their lives à la Bonnie and Clyde with a list of small, petty crimes on their record. One day, they turned state’s evidence after witnessing a murder of a high-profile crime boss and were later recruited to join the police force. They teamed up for five seasons, fighting crime as well as their sordid past. At the end of what everyone thought was the run of the series, the show’s creator, Phil Janssen, decided to kill off the husband, thereby ending the