Script Writing System In Modern Family

Chapter 14: Book Publishing (Part 1)

After the incident with Claire, things clearly cooled off between everyone, and Ryan spent a fun morning at the Dunphy household.
Phil even brought some card magic out, allowing Ryan to become closer to Phil.
The morning passed away and soon came lunchtime. Ryan unexpectedly got an invite to stay for lunch from Claire, but Ryan denied it.
It was not that he didn't want to say it, just that his mom had already made him lunch, and he didn't want to waste food.
He pointed this point out to Claire and told her maybe next time before graciously taking a leave.
At home, Ryan, who had already studied in the morning, decided to sleep for a while after lunch.
Then woke up at noon to continue writing the Sherlock Holmes book. He then spends the rest of the weekend writing and exercising.
Time quickly turned its gears and the day came to Monday, two days prior to the start of episode two.
In preparation, he had already started taking his bicycle out for a ride every day before the weekend ended.
So that a sudden encounter on a bicycle doesn't seem so strange. In fact, Ryan even met the Dunphy's once on a ride outside.
He even thought maybe the plot had started, but clearly, he was mistaken as upon asking the system, he received the info that all plots take place with a gap of a week.
So that plot can be consistent, it doesn't just become the host trying to continuously chase down the ever-ongoing plot.
The system also stated that the day can change depending on the situation. Making the gap between each plot even more than a week, but this was rare.
As this kind of episode would have a specific day mentioned in the episode, such as that it was a weekend or weekday.
Then to remain consistent, the plot would happen on the specified day, but it still would be in more than a week's gap.
The original purpose of a week's gap between each plot episode is to serve as a breakpoint where the host can write or work on his scripts.
Spending 400 points for more specific info seems worthwhile to Ryan as he learned new things that can come in handy one day.
The main reason Ryan didn't feel any distress was that even after spending those 400 points, he still had 14,600 points.
That right, he got 5,000 points for spending the morning at the Dunphy's house, which showed how hard it was to earn points in a non-plot situation.
Anyway, the reason today was noteworthy was that through his father's connections, he had managed to finally register the copyright of "A study in scarlet."
He had just finished the book yesterday and was able to get the copyright in a day was only due to his father.
He planned to finally publish the book through a traditional publisher he found online.
As his father didn't have a connection with publishing houses, Ryan had to take the matter into his own hands.
To be honest, it wasn't that difficult. All Ryan had to do was look up top publishers that accept unsolicited content.
Then he could directly find the publisher's email address on their website and send out a specific mail with his book attached in a PDF format.
Ryan wrote an email to many different publishing firms and expected that he would receive a reply after a week.
Ryan emailed in the morning before going to school and surprisingly received many replies by night. Meaning many publishers actually responded to him in less than 24 hours.
Ryan didn't know who to thank for this tremendous work rate. For a second, there Ryan even had an illusion that maybe he was a protagonist of some novel.
Ryan quickly halted his distracting thoughts and glanced at the various offers by different publishers.
All the offers had a base payout range of 100,000 to 235,000 with different royalty rates and were up for further negotiation.
The one that Ryan found interesting was an offer from Felony and Mayhem Press.
It gave him a payout of 150,000 divided into two halves, one on the spot and one after publishing the book.
He would then get a 6% royalty of the retail price until 50,000 books are sold. Then an 8% royalty until 125,000 copies are sold, and if he sold over half a million, he would get a 10% royalty.
Ryan clearly saw that it wasn't a rookie contract in terms of the royalty percentage offered, so he felt the offer was quite sincere.
He felt it was one of the best possible offers. Not to mention he could still negotiate the payout amount, making it an offer Ryan didn't want to refuse.
So Ryan replied to three different publishing firms stating that he would like to engage in further negotiations, whether through phone or a meeting.
Most book publishing firms are in New York, but he was currently staying in Los Angeles. So he knew, being a rookie, he would probably fax them a signed contract.
As for why he wrote to three different firms, it is simple what if he was not satisfied or someone made a better offer? So he kept two backups as insurance in case of a dispute.
After replying to the email with his dad, Nathan congratulated his son on successfully being able to sell another work.
At this point, Nathan didn't even feel surprised that his 13-year-old son had written a book. By now, he had gotten used to his son giving him all kinds of surprises.
The only thing Ryan hoped was that he would receive a reply for a meeting tomorrow itself, as the sooner it is done, the better.
After all, he didn't want to miss out on plot episodes due to some silly meeting. This was the only thing he feared.
As he couldn't think of a reason as to how he would convince his dad that he couldn't have the meeting on a Wednesday.
Without a valid reason, his dad might find his behavior weird and suspect that something is wrong.
At times, all this hiding and double thinking before any actions made Ryan feel he was living undercover.