Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

Stoner was practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. "60k!"

Madge was a bit dazed, her mind trailing as she asked, "What do you mean, 60k?"

"The daily sales! Yesterday, we broke through 60k! We've smashed the record set by The Weapon back in the day! In nearly ten... no, twenty years, no book has hit these numbers!"

"Ms. Madge," he stressed each word, "your new book-it's a hit!"

Not just "hot," but "hit!"

Initially, Stoner was feeling down. He was prepared for a rocky start with the new release, but he hadn't expected it to tank this badly.

A rival editor, who had been at odds with him for ages, saw his chance to throw a jab, saying Stoner had lost his touch, that he was past it for signing the book without a second thought, despite millions of eyes watching. And what was the outcome? A colossal flop.

Stoner brushed off the mockery. He was deep in thought, trying to pinpoint where things went wrong.

He had read Madge's books, and whether it was the choice of themes or the plot itself, everything seemed impeccable, each one brimming with potential to be a hit.

This time, they even led with what they believed was her best work, yet it ended up like this...

It didn't make sense!

Was it that Madge had fallen out of favor?

had vanished from the mystery scene

were still on the charts, selling consistently well month after

She wasn't washed up!

about it, the more it didn't add up, so he decided to pull

nothing wrong with the content or Madge's reputation, the issue had to lie with the

And he was right.

marketing efforts were concentrated on youth-popular platforms like Instagram and

Madge's reader base was primarily aged

was no splash; they were targeting

to focus on

that day, with a steady climb

did it truly

half a month ago, with a post from a book

but barely scraped by in Literature-the kind of guy who'd

photos captured the blogger's dad utterly engrossed in

was

as a book blogger, he shot to fame with quirky stories

popular than

Dad," and the sight of him

search for the book title, finding it was a published