A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: BBFD updates; Chapter Twenty-Two 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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Well, the BookBub Featured Deal was WILD.
That’s my book, sitting at number 23 in the ENTIRE UK free ebook chart. Across the whole of the site - all genres.
And there it is at number 28 in the US.
Australia loves me, too.
I had SUCH an exciting time watching this all happen. I couldn’t believe it! Top 30 on all three major Amazon territories (Canada apparently no longer has a top free chart, so I couldn’t see if I was anywhere on that one) is totally unprecedented for me. You may recall, last time I did a free download campaign, I was thrilled to hit number 90 in the US store. That was using three different promo sites to boost the downloads. This was achieved with only BookBub, and it happened within 12 hours.
I’m preparing a full and detailed report for my end-of-year post, as some of the impact from this deal will continue to be felt for the weeks and months to come - it will be a while before I can actually say what the results were. But since it’s already August, there actually won’t be long to wait to read it in full.
And, just in case you forget, Don’t Move Your Desk is launching as a full ebook on the 1st - that’s tomorrow, if you’re reading this on release day! Here’s your preorder link. As of today’s Progress Report, I’m tracking preorders, so get in there and help me out if you want to read the ending earlier than anyone else!
(Quick obligatory reminder - founding members will get the ebook for free, so you don’t need to order or preorder at all, unless you want to grab the paperback version when I release that. Date TBC. Your ebook will be sent directly to you on release day.)
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!
Olly
“So,” I said. The word broke the silence that had been hovering through the room. “I take it you’ve dropped this foolish idea of moving to Ace’s office.”
Keaton looked up at me. He opened his mouth and seemed for a second like he would say something else. He closed it and finally spoke with a different expression. “Yes, I’m not going to ask to work with Ace again,” he said. I couldn’t tell what that note was in his voice and in his face. Resignation? Acceptance? Amusement concealed under the surface?
I wished I could read him better than I was managing to.
“Good,” I said. Silence stretched on again. Keaton was diligently organizing the files I’d asked him to look over this morning.
I ached to talk to him. To try to get more information out of him. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted him to know everything about me.
Telling someone else about Caleb had been… liberating.
I’d spent a long time – a decade – protecting myself. Protecting my clients. My assets.
I hadn’t realized until last night that I had isolated myself somewhere along the way as well.
I refocused on my work. I needed to take the cue from Keaton’s initiative. He was a hard worker. I opened up my calendar to look at the week’s meetings.
And frowned.
“Keaton?” I asked. “What happened to my calendar?”
“Oh, I color-coded it,” he said without looking up. “It started to look like there were a lot of things on there – too many things, with all the dinners and lunches and extra meetings you have with clients this week. I thought it might be easier to read if you could see at a glance what kind of meeting you have to prepare for next.”
I ran my eyes over the colored boxes on my screen. “Red for clients,” I said. “Blue for sponsor company representatives. Green for agency staff.”
“And purple for personal events,” Keaton said. He glanced up as he clipped another file into the right place in the folder. “Not that you have any on there right now. Just thought I’d let you know what the code will be when it happens.”
I resisted the urge to sigh morosely. I didn’t have a personal life. “I don’t think you’ll find many to add.”
“Last night counts,” Keaton said. He was studiously keeping his eyes on the files now. I bored my eyes into the side of his face but he didn’t look up. “And any other times you might need to take a lunch or dinner with a friend. Or a family member. Or, you know. Your boyfriend, or whatever.”
A cold shock of water went down my spine. Twice he had mentioned it now. Caleb and now this. It wasn’t a coincidence. He knew.
I was the one keeping my eyes steadily trained on my desk this time.
“Ace told you,” I said. It wasn’t a question. There was no one else here who knew.
“Oh,” Keaton said softly. “Um. Don’t… get mad with him, or whatever. I wasn’t trying to get him in trouble. I figured you knew I knew, after what I thought about – you know, about… him.”
“You can say Caleb,” I told him. “We’re sports agents. Not secret agents. No one is listening in the walls.”
“Right,” he said. “Sorry. I mean – well, I mean, I’m sorry. About the other thing. I just… is it not okay for me to know? You said you were letting me into the inner circle, so…”
“I was,” I grunted. “Ace didn’t know that.”
I looked up at Keaton’s face. He was blanched white. “I really didn’t mean to get him in trouble,” he said. “He told me not to mention it to you. I think he was just trying to convince me to stay a bit longer, in his own way. Like if he knew we had something in common, I wouldn’t want to quit.”
I digested that information for a moment. Ace had been right. He hadn’t managed to pull it off but his instinct was the same as mine.
I sighed and put the documents I had been working on approving into my outbox. There wasn’t much I could say to Ace. I could threaten to fire him as much as I wanted. He knew I needed him.
So long as he didn’t screw things up so much that he was losing me more money than he was making.
Even then…
The inner circle was very small. I couldn’t imagine it could survive losing a member. Not even with a new one coming in.
I was tired today. I couldn’t figure out what it was exactly that was worse than usual. I had existed on barely any sleep for over a decade. Something about last night had taken more out of me than I realized. Or maybe it was this Ridley Angus thing. I needed more caffeine.
A hand reached over and placed something on my desk. Keaton’s hand. I looked up from the thoughts I had been lost in.
A coffee. He’d made me a coffee.
“I saw you finished your last one about twenty minutes ago,” he said. He was still standing in front of my desk. He must have bought a new suit over the weekend. This one actually fitted him. I wanted to take it off him. “I thought you would be about ready for another cup.”
“I was,” I said. There was more wonder in my voice than I had intended. Keaton gave me a shy but satisfied smile and pushed his glasses up his nose. He turned back to the filing.
I could see even from just a single glance that he was remaking the system. Making it more efficient. That was what he did. What he had done to everything in this office since starting.
I felt my heart drop. He had been here for only a few weeks and he was already making this place better. Making me better. Anticipating my needs.
Was I falling for my secretary?
No. I knew the answer to that in my heart immediately.
It was too late.
I had fallen for him days ago.
All the rest was just icing on the cake.
I cleared my throat.
“Has your ex been bothering you?” I asked.
Keaton looked confused for a moment. He paused with his hand hovering over the next file. “You mean Jordan?”
Jordan Muriel. I nodded lightly and tried not to let it show on my face that I had looked into the slimeball extensively. “He was bothering you the other day.”
“Oh, yeah.” Keaton looked back at the files. “Honestly, I have him on mute. It’s my own fault when I go and read his messages. I should probably block him once and for all.”
Was there still something there? “Why don’t you?”
Keaton waited a long moment and then shrugged. “I guess I like having the option to read his messages if I want to. Feels kind of good to have someone fighting for my attention, even if I don’t really want it.”
I could understand that on some level. The thought of someone out there wanting your attention.
What I couldn’t understand was wanting it from someone you didn’t want to be with anymore.
“Are you thinking about getting back together with him?” I asked.
It probably wasn’t my business. I was his boss and that was all. But… I had to know.
“No,” Keaton laughed. A wave of relief went over me like a wave. “Three years is a lot to throw away, but I know it’s the right choice. We just… don’t work. Not really.”
“Why not?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself. This wasn’t supposed to be an interrogation. I just needed to know.
What had Jordan Muriel done wrong? How had he lost Keaton? What could he have done to save their relationship?
“Like I said, he’s not out,” Keaton said. He folded his arms while he thought and looked up at the ceiling. He didn’t say anything about this being odd. Maybe he didn’t think it was. Maybe this was just two co-workers talking. I wasn’t exactly experienced in that kind of office chatter. “I just couldn’t handle that, in the end. And even if he changes his mind and decides to come out now… it wouldn’t be enough. I spent three years feeling like I wasn’t good enough for him, like he was ashamed of me, and he let me. He just sat by my side and let me feel like that. That isn’t love. I couldn’t ever be with him again and really feel like he valued me as a person after that.”
“Even if he apologized and came out in front of everyone?” I asked.
“Not even if he did it on the national news,” Keaton said with a wry smile. “I need to respect myself. That’s what Clara says – my little sister.”
I nodded. Something stirred in my memory. “The one who’s dating Fernando.”
Keaton looked at me in surprise. “You remembered.”
“Yes.” Why wouldn’t I?
Keaton smiled then.
And I knew.
This man was very dangerous. Because if he asked me to come out so that we could be together…
I would have to come out.
I would tell everyone what I had been hiding for all these years just to see that smile again.
Maybe I should have accepted his resignation. Maybe I should have sent him as far away from me as possible. But it was too late.
I was gone.
Keaton only needed to turn around and realize it – and he could make me do whatever he wanted.
I fixed my eyes on my laptop and didn’t dare try to engage him in conversation again.
Keaton Dunbar was just too dangerous to talk to.
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. Also important to note this week - KDP is having some issues with reporting ebook sales, which is then impacting the BookReport tool that I use to keep track of everything. I’m going to go with the BookReport version this week even though I have access to both, because the KDP tools are just not robust enough to filter the data in the way that I need to, and I don’t want to spend extra hours with a calculator working this all out. Hopefully, the issue will be fixed before next week.
TOTAL SALES:
Don’t Move Out: ebook - 739, paperback - 8, KU pages read - 342,226 (238 pages = 1,437 equivalent full-book reads), free downloads - 5,966 - an increase of over 3,600 free downloads!!!, top 30 all-Kindle chart in UK/US/AUS, #1 in category in UK/US/AUS/CA
Don’t Go Outside: ebook - 101, paperback - 6, KU pages read - 128,143 (222 pages = 577 equivalent full-book reads) - Broke 100 ebook sales!
Don’t Fly Home: ebook - 56, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 80,233 (224 pages = 358 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Leave Town: ebook - 59, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 55,945 (299 pages = 187 equivalent full-book reads) - I don’t know why readers skip over DLT and straight to DCO, but I’ve started noticing it more and more recently. If this is you, I would love to hear some insight on why! Unappealing cover? Don’t like the blub concept? Amazon just didn’t show you them in the right order??
Don’t Check Out: ebook - 51, paperback - 2, KU pages read - 31,140 (192 pages = 162 equivalent full-book reads)
CC 1-5 Boxset: KU pages read - 12,570 (1,068 pages = 11 equivalent full-set reads)
Don’t Move Your Desk: preorder - 4
Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 483, paperback/hardback - 68, KU pages read - 366,083, free downloads - 546
WRITING:
Don’t Move Your Desk - written and edited fully, serialisation underway, all chapters queued up ready (7 ‘spare’ chapters with no set date), ebook preorder up
Kiss The Cook cover revealed, ebook ready, planning to launch preorder very soon
Cook Up A Storm: full plot done, 38k words written - I admit to being distracted by refreshing my sales report 15 times an hour instead of writing
(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, all Club characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up
SUBSTACK:
Subscribers: free - 58, paid - 2 plus 1 temp comp - a drop of 1 this week
Followers: 227
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
Another great chapter!!! It always ends too soon. 😄
Well, apparently my payment didn’t go through… I tried it again with my settings changed. Hope it works now… Anyway, great chapter! I am soooo happy that neither are acting like they don’t actually have feelings!