Free No Reservations Required by Ellen Hart Page A

romantic trysts. He’d never been in love before, and Anika and the publishing house quickly became his whole world. He seemed to have endless energy, staying up late, getting up early. He never appeared to get tired those first few years.
    After they were married, they bought a little house on Colby Avenue and settled down. Anika had a degree in hotel management and worked at one of the top hotels in Marquette as an assistant food and beverage manager. Everything was going wonderfully. They were even talking about having a baby. And then the roof fell in.
    In the summer of ’99, Rick acquired a book called White Sails. It was a memoir, one man’s account of his eight months sailing the Great Lakes. The author, Whitby Armstrong Sellers, was a professor of English literature at Princeton, and a modern-day adventurer and raconteur. The book was brilliant—beautifully written and observed, hilarious and touching, full of suspense and good old-fashioned adventure. Everyone told Andy and Rick that this memoir would be huge. It would put Lostine & Gladstone on the map.
    They published the book in September of 2000. The initial print run was a modest six thousand copies, but when it sold out almost immediately, Andy okayed another five thousand copies to be printed. As soon as the major book chains got wind of the memoir’s growing popularity, orders came in from all over—in such huge numbers that Rick and Andy had to borrow money to print more books to meet the demand. This happened several times over a two-month period. Before they knew it, all their assets, both personal and professional, were in hock to White Sails. But Andy told Anika not to worry. The chains wouldn’t order such large quantities if they couldn’t sell them. These were smart businessmen. It would just take a little time.
    Thanksgiving rolled around and people began their Christmas buying. Rick and Andy expected that White Sails would sell like crazy, especially in the Midwest. Professor Sellers was supposed to be interviewed on NPR’s “Fresh Air” in early November, but due to scheduling difficulties, the interview fell through. Not to worry, said Andy. The New York Times was reviewing the book. But somehow, that never happened either.
    And then, in late February, booksellers began to return the books. It was just a trickle at first. The chains had obviously miscalculated and hadn’t sold as many copies as they’d anticipated. But there was still time. The memoir had received a great review in People magazine in late January and that was surely a magic bullet if there ever was one. That one review alone would sell thousands of copies, just as soon as people went back to the stores—or so Rick and Andy thought. Book buyers were tapped out after Christmas, but in the spring, sales would pick up. And Professor Sellers had hired himself a publicist. He felt certain he’d get on a major morning network show soon.
    But in the end, that fell through, too. By the end of March, the floodgates had opened as books poured back into Lostine & Gladstone, with very few orders going out. Of the 220,000 copies that were printed, only 40,000 sold. By May, most of the unsold copies were sitting in a warehouse gathering dust. The book that was supposed to be Lostine & Gladstone’s break-out bestseller had bankrupted them. A bigger press might have been able to absorb the loss and go on, but for a small press, the major interest from the big chain bookstores had ultimately sunk the publisher.
    The day their bankruptcy was officially finalized, Andy came home and closed the door to his study. Anika knocked several times, wanting to comfort him, but each time Andy said he needed time alone. She could hear him crying, but by then, that wasn’t new. He’d been crying a lot the last few months as he watched his dreams once again turn to ash.
    Shortly after they moved out of their little house into an efficiency apartment, Andy got a call from Bob Fabian. Bob was