Don't Move Your Desk: Chapter Nineteen
In which Keaton, poor boy, doesn't know whether he's coming or going
A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: TikTok shop books are live!; Chapter Nineteen of Don’t Move Your Desk; and the progress report with an update on my week-on-week sales and writing progress.
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Okay, so… I did it!
Deep breath…
I put my books up on TikTok shop!
Okay, so, not all of them. Just Crowhill Cove. Putting my whole back catalogue onto TikTok is going to be a huge undertaking and will also require the kind of stock control that means I’d have to order in a bunch of the copies and have them ready to go. With just five books on sale, I know I can get the copies here within 24 hours and make sure the buyer doesn’t have any delay in me signing them and shipping them out, so we’re good to go at this level.
I haven’t gone for special editions - yet. I figured the cost is going to be too prohibitive for me to start it up at this stage, but I didn’t want to miss out on what I can see is a growing wave of sales of books. For now, you can buy the normal paperback editions of the books, with one addition: I will sign them and add a personalised message for you before sending them out.
The options are to buy each individual book alone or the whole five-book set in one go. The link to my shop is here (I don’t think it actually works on PC, but should work on mobile. When you visit my profile, click the ‘shop’ link under my intro but above the videos). Note: I am still figuring out how all this works, so if something isn’t looking right to you, please let me know and I’ll try to fix it!
I hope this is the beginning of an exciting new chapter (pun intended). If I’m seeing a decent volume of sales from the shop, I’ll be able to justify investing in some special editions - let’s say if I sell 10-15 of the current edition, I’ll buy some extra goodies to put in the packages; and if I sell 20 or more, I’ll invest in the first run of special editions of the first book. That seems a reasonable goal.
I’m excited not just to see if I make some money from this, but also to be able to have something new to share with you guys in this grand old publishing experiment! I hope to answer the question: is it worthwhile to get on TikTok shop for any random author, and is it worthwhile specifically for queer romance titles?
Of course, if you have no interest in TikTok, the books are all still for sale on Amazon. Head to the books page of my Substack to find the universal links for all of them.
As an aside, this has had an interesting side effect: signing up for the shop as a seller actually opened it up to me as a creator as well. I wish I had known this before I spent months building up to 950+ followers, thinking I needed to get to 1k before I could enter the program. Ah, well. Anyway, I’m now able to request free samples from other sellers in order to help promote their products, and my first five (yes, five) books arrived a couple of days ago. My plan to take over the world via the sheer size of my personal library is certainly underway. I’m not sure what the step between amassing as many books as possible and actual world domination is, but I figure I’ll work it out as I go.
I also spent an unnecessary amount of time this week rearranging my bookshelves. Books which are housed on shelves I don’t even like and want to replace as soon as possible. Books which are sure to need moving around again at least twice a week, because that’s how fast I’m reading new ones at the moment. I’m sure this was a useful way to spend my time.
As a quick reminder: this chapter will go behind the paywall 60 days after publication. Don’t miss the chance to read the next chapter for free by subscribing for email updates!
Okay, that’s it! On with the chapter!
Keaton
All day long, one question played over and over in my head.
Had Mr. Harvey just asked me out on a date?
It wouldn’t have even crossed my mind a week ago – before Ace told me what he told me. But now I couldn’t help myself. It was all I could think about.
He’d asked me to dinner.
Like, dinner, dinner?
And even if I was reading things wrong, just doing a whole lot of wishful thinking, I couldn’t resist staying to find out.
I had spent a whole weekend working myself up, talking things over with Clara, and deciding that the job wasn’t right for me. The risk of getting caught. The fact that I had almost gotten into a lot of trouble almost immediately after deciding to secretly film the office – and the fact that I hadn’t even been brave enough to film anything since. None of this was furthering my career as a filmmaker. On paper, the job was useless to me except as a quick paycheck, and there were other places I could get that.
It wasn’t a good idea for me to work for someone that I found so attractive, either. I was red-faced and stumbling, tripping over things because I couldn’t stop staring into his eyes. And even if this all wore off – every single secretary he’d ever had had been chased off by his work ethic and his attitude. What made me think I was stronger than any of them?
No – I was better off quitting now and taking some other kind of low-paid work that I could use to pay the bills. It would give me more free time and flexibility to work on documentary and script ideas. I should have been working towards my real dream, not fighting just to stay close to someone who was so far out of my league it was unreal. He probably majorly disapproved of workplace romances, too. He seemed like a stickler for those kinds of rules.
So, I had decided. Clara had even helped me write up a frankly stunning letter of resignation, apologizing for the fact I had only been working there a short time and expressing my need to pursue my real career. A sort of last-ditch attempt to get him to ask about my filmmaking and maybe see my portfolio, just in case he was in the market for someone to hold a camera.
But then he had shredded it up, just like that.
The way I had argued with him ought to have been enough to get me fired in the first place. But then, he had seemed… almost amused? Like he enjoyed seeing me get worked up and say something genuine?
Who knew what was going on inside Oliver Harvey’s head. Certainly not me.
“Alright,” he said. It was already past the time we should have left the building on a normal day – not that there seemed to be too many ‘normal’ days at the Harvey Agency. Everyone else would have gone home, I knew, except maybe a few of the more dedicated senior agents. Ace was probably still working overtime on the Ridley Angus thing. There had been enough goodwill interviews and press appearances over the weekend to fill a whole news program. “We should get going. I don’t want to keep Coleman waiting.”
And just like that, my heart sank.
Coleman.
Of course.
I had been right with my suspicions.
We were going to have dinner with Coleman.
“Wait,” I blurted out. “You want me to go on a date with you and your boyfriend?”
Mr. Harvey stared at me for a very long and very uncomfortable moment.
I tried disappearing into the fabric of my chair seat, but for some ungodly reason, it refused to open up and swallow me.
“Caleb Coleman is my boyfriend?” he asked.
I resisted the urge to retort that he ought to know the answer to that better than me.
“Isn’t he?” I asked instead.
All the signs had been there. He was gay. He and Coleman had their strange little way of communicating via their eyes. Coleman had hinted about Brody Driver and landed his own employee in trouble. And there was the shiftiness when he’d come into the office and realized that I wasn’t leaving. Now they were having dinner after hours, in a secret meeting that was concealed by a code even on Mr. Harvey’s own calendar.
I watched Mr. Harvey. For a second I thought his face would crack open like thunder and he would yell at me to leave. That I would get my wish after all and be fired.
But then the strangest thing yet happened.
The corners of his mouth – they moved.
Lifted.
Oliver Harvey smiled at me.
No – grinned.
“Just wait and see,” he said, and his expression sobered back to the normal blank mask he so carefully wore.
Wait and see?
Didn’t he know how impossible that was?
But, still, I waited. I put on my coat and grabbed my bag and waited for Mr. Harvey to put on his own coat – a great swirling, swishing overcoat that probably cost more than my car and looked better, too. I waited in the elevator next to him as we traveled down to the parking lot under the building. I waited in the passenger seat of his flashy sports car as he drove us to some unknown location for this dinner with Coleman.
I waited. But patiently?
Not in the least.
My leg jiggled up and down so much on the car ride over that eventually, Mr. Harvey reached across and clamped one huge hand onto my knee.
“Stop that,” he intoned. “I’m driving.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Was I distracting you?”
“I don’t want to crash with you in the passenger seat,” he said, checking his mirrors carefully before pulling out at an intersection. “You are the only person with IT access to my contact book and calendar. There would be no one to cancel my meetings.”
“Is that the only reason you don’t want to crash the car with me in it?” I asked him incredulously.
It happened again.
The corner of his mouth – it quirked upwards. Then it disappeared again, leaving me staring at him and wondering if I had seen it at all.
But I had seen it. Three times, now. And god, that was making me want to try so hard to make it happen again. And again.
Could I make him beam? Chuckle? Laugh?
I tried to picture him crying with laughter, tears rolling down smiling cheeks, and I couldn’t even formulate one part of the picture – let alone the whole thing.
I looked back at the road. It had seemed endless – but we were outside of the city now, and Mr. Harvey was slowing down to take a turn. Before I knew it, we were on what looked like an access road for maybe a single property – a thought that was proven to be true when a gate materialized at the end of it.
We idled outside for maybe five seconds and the gates swung inwards. I couldn’t see or hear anyone involved in the process – maybe they scanned the license plate or a camera with a motion sensor was connected up somewhere in the house – but they opened and let us through. I turned to look through the rear window as the gates swung neatly shut behind us.
When I turned back around, a house was emerging out of the shelter of a grove of trees, swelling up from the gravel roadway: a house that looked fancier than my wildest dreams. It was big – maybe the size of the bottom two floors of the office – but more than anything, it was grand.
We parked beside a range of luxury cars and Mr. Harvey almost leaped out of the driver’s seat. Within seconds he was calling something out and rushing across the gravel to the front door. I scrambled to undo my seatbelt and follow him – and only when I was standing outside of the car could I see the woman framed in the doorway of the house.
Behind her, Caleb Coleman was grinning with his arms folded across his chest. He didn’t look awkward or scary or imposing – he looked like he was happy to see Mr. Harvey.
“Olly!” the woman at the door exclaimed, holding out her arms for a hug. She was tall and beautiful, with short black hair twisted and styled on top of her head. To my utter shock, he obliged her, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around her in return. “It’s been a month. Far too long.”
“Aubrey,” he said, stepping back with a genuine smile. It opened up his face in ways I couldn’t even have imagined. “You know I couldn’t survive too long without your cooking.”
Aubrey?
The name and the face triggered something, a memory that resurfaced from the research I had done into the job.
Aubrey Coleman?
How could I have been so stupid as to forget that I’d seen a few photos of her online – Caleb Coleman’s wife?
This complicated my theory immensely. If Coleman was married – to a woman, no less – then he couldn’t have been dating Mr. Harvey. Or could he? But if he was, then would Aubrey be so calm about greeting him?
Did she… know? Approve?
Was this some kind of a throuple situation?
Mr. Harvey stepped back and allowed the Colemans a clear view of me standing behind him, stretching out an arm to gesture toward me. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ve brought a guest.”
Caleb looked at me warily, but in front of him, his wife gave me a much more appraising look. Her gaze traveled from my shoes up to my hair and back down to my face. “Who’s this?” she asked. There was almost a purr in her voice like she was expecting a particular answer.
“My secretary,” Mr. Harvey said, prompting her expression to slide into a confused frown. “Let’s go inside.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Wouldn’t want you to get cold out here.”
She stepped back and led the way inside, Caleb and then Mr. Harvey walking behind her. I brought up the rear, trailing along behind a group I did not know how to fit into.
This was getting stranger and stranger, and I didn’t know what to make of any of it.
“So, when did you tell him?” Caleb asked, shooting a glance over his shoulder at me – but the question was clearly for Mr. Harvey.
He smirked. “I haven’t.”
Caleb looked back at me again, this time with a shade of pity. “Are you going to tell him soon? The poor boy looks like he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going.”
I bristled. Something about this whole situation – about being made to think this was a date and how embarrassed I was by how fast and loud my heart raced for a moment; about this strange relationship and having no idea what it all meant; about being kept in the dark by my boss, who refused to let me quit and apparently found it amusing to torment me…
All of it put together made me bold and fearless.
What was he going to do if I was rude? Fire me?
“Okay,” I said. I stopped dead in the hall, even though the three of them ahead of me were entering a richly-decorated dining room where three elegant places were already set. It took a beat, but when Mr. Harvey realized I wasn’t following, he stopped and looked back. Aubrey and Caleb soon did the same. “That’s enough. Firstly, I’m not a boy, I’m thirty-one years old. Secondly, what’s going on here? You need to tell me, now, or I’m calling a taxi and going home.”
Mr. Harvey grinned at me – actually grinned, though I didn’t like the look of this particular smile at all because it made me want to find a pair of stilts so I could punch him in the face – and spread his arms wide to indicate the room around him. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like a joke at my expense,” I said, stomping my foot and then immediately regretting how much of a child it made me seem. “And I don’t particularly like being the punchline. Mr. Harvey? I gave you until the end of the work day like I promised. I quit.”
And I turned on my heel, back towards the door and the driveway, where I hoped and prayed I would be able to get enough signal to call someone to pick me up.
Here ends this week’s chapter! What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below. I really appreciate your comments - what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see next.
If you don’t have the energy to leave a comment today, please hit the heart button below and show me that you like what you’re reading. And if you want to really, seriously help out, hitting the reshare button is an incredible boost that will get this story in front of more eyeballs, for which you will have my undying gratitude.
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Progress Report
Note: Changes are in bold.
TOTAL SALES:
Don’t Move Out: ebook - 739, paperback - 7, KU pages read - 333,070 (238 pages = 1,399 equivalent full-book reads), free downloads - 2,324
Don’t Go Outside: ebook - 92, paperback - 6, KU pages read - 126,926 (222 pages = 571 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Fly Home: ebook - 53, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 79,730 (224 pages = 355 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Leave Town: ebook - 59, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 55,539 (299 pages = 185 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Check Out: ebook - 50, paperback - 2, KU pages read - 31,108 (192 pages = 162 equivalent full-book reads)
CC 1-5 Boxset: KU pages read - 12,145 (1,068 pages = 11 equivalent full-set reads)
Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 483, paperback/hardback - 68, KU pages read - 365,546, free downloads - 546
Big oof this week. No reads at all on the last two books, nor the boxset, nor any SI books. My plans are: keep trying for new BookBub feature; push TikTok shop for additional sales; get preorders up earlier than planned to remind Amazon’s algorithm I exist.
WRITING:
Don’t Move Your Desk - written and edited fully, serialisation underway, all chapters queued up ready (7 ‘spare’ chapters with no set date), planning to launch ebook preorder very soon
Kiss The Cook cover revealed, ebook ready, planning to launch preorder very soon
Cook Up A Storm: full plot done, 15k words written - slow progress as I’ve had client work this week, but still progress
(Books 8+): 8 covers, themes, and titles done, Crowhill Kitchen release schedule and titles announced, all Kitchen characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up
Subscribers: free - 56, paid - 2 plus 1 temp comp - hi new friend!
Followers: 213
By the way, please like this post if you enjoyed it and would like to see more! This helps me decide what to do for future content.
XO Rhiannon
You did not disappoint!!!! Whoa, go, Keaton, go! I loved that he finally spoke up and that the whole situation took a huge turn. I'm really looking forward to the next installment! Why can't I read it now? <sigh> Just on a personal reading kind of input note, I'd have bought the ebook at any point after reading the first two chapters. I'd still buy it this far into the story, if it meant that I could read the rest of the story right now. However, once I've read the whole story here, there is no incentive for me to buy the book. I am a huge fan, but I guess not that kind of fan. :) Since you collect such good data, I hope that my reading habits add to the knowledge. ;)
I just checked out Crowhill Cove on Amazon. They look good, but I was surprised that they are the same characters but meeting in different ways. How did that come about? And if someone were to purchase, would you want it to be on Amazon or TikTok, if they are there in the same way. (I've never purchased anything on TT but am game to try.)