Page 11 of Jessica Beam is a Hot Mess
When Summer finishes up with the excellent joke I wrote about the difference between Flickr and Pinterest, I don’t quite know whether to feel pissed off that I didn’t get my chance to speak or pleased that Valentina doesn’t seem to have noticed the hiccup.
I give Summer a ‘What the hell?’ look when she sits back down, but she doesn’t seem to see me, just smiles serenely at Valentina.
‘Great,’ Valentina enthuses, tucking a golden-blonde lock behind her ear. ‘You’ve clearly got a handle on your audience. And your retail relationships are todiefor.’
‘Thanks!’ Summer smiles. ‘It’s something I’ve taken super seriously.’
‘Jess, we’ve not heard from you yet.’ Valentina turns to me. ‘Traditionally a lifestyle book like this is meant for the coffee table. But us old publishing stalwarts have to think about the exciting new digital revolution. How doyouthink aSummer in the Citybook would flourish as a digital entity?’
I stand up, my knees all wibbly. Shit. We didn’t prepare for this question, though it seems so obvious now that we should have. I give Summer a look of terror. She shrugs discreetly.
Fuck.
‘Well, um … ’ I cough and push my glasses up my sweaty nose. ‘I … I think the best thing to do would be to transfer ideas from the book into all mediums.’ I reach down for my glass of water and take a huge gulp, not quite sure where I’m going with this. ‘Er, as you heard from Summer, we already have quite a good social media following. We could up our YouTube content with spoken extracts from the book or podcast interviews with the designers and establishments we feature?’
Valentina nods, her eyes slightly narrowed. OK. She’s not trying to kick me out of the room yet.
‘With an e-book, we would—’ I start.
‘ I know sooo many amazing Manchester-based business owners that would be up for featuring,’ Summer interrupts. ‘They’re good friends of mine − it’s a reallyconnectedscene. I could call them up and ask—’
‘Oh, I don’t think Jess was quite finished,’ Valentina says with a polite smile. I risk a glance at Summer. She’s gone ruby red. Shit. I clear my throat and pause for a second before continuing.
‘Um, well, with an e-book we would have the capacity to make the book interactive on a tablet device.’
‘Interactive? Super!’ Valentina tilts her head encouragingly. I lift my chin.
‘We could embed retail details in the images. Link to video content or even run it from directly inside the book. We could have Facebook comments working as an app through the chapters. Ooh, or we could entitle the chapters with hashtags, so that people who are reading the same bits of the book can have a natter about it on Twitter. Could the images be turned into gifs, do you think? Our audience on Tumblr really love gifs! And we could run snippets of music by the bands we mention. Summer knows loads of bands. Let’s allow the readers to instantly see and hear and buy exactly what it is we’re talking about!’
I stop, aware that I’m getting overexcited and might not be fully making sense.
Valentina Smith clasps her hands together and gives me a wide grin.
‘Fantastic ideas, Jess. Well done, lovely energy there. Kudos!’
I give Summer a look as if to say ‘Phew’, but she’s gone pale and is staring at me, her mouth gaping open.
‘You know … ’ Valentina says thoughtfully. ‘We’re having a launch tonight for Davis Arthur Montblanc’s fabulous new novel. Why don’t you girls come along? Meet a few of the Southbank team?’
We nod eagerly. Wow. Davis Arthur Montblanc’s party!
‘Of course, I can’tpromiseanything yet,’ Valentina continues, ‘but … ’ and then she looks straight at me. ‘I think you’d fit in very well here. Very well indeed.’
Aw yeeeah.
