something?”
Too late, Dylan realized he’d been talking out of turn, and Paul was smart enough to put things together if he said any more. “Who knows? It was just a random thought. Hey, Paul, thanks for dinner. I’ve gotta run, see you later.” Dylan threw a five on the table, and made his escape, unaware that Paul was staring after him with the light of curiosity in his eyes.
Dylan’s next stop was the other bar in town. He didn’t frequent it, since the few times he went out were spent with Paul or Alex in Jen Mackey’s bar, the Rattler. But, he had followed a beat-up Jeep with the wrong plates and a Harley from the Rattler to the other bar, the Stars and Garters, on the night Alex was taken. He’d seen the parking lot full of serious-looking bikes. And then he’d forgotten all about them in the search for her that started later the same night.
That night, he hesitated to go in, the encounter with the men who drove those vehicles too fresh to believe they wouldn’t recognize him. By now, he doubted if they’d remember him.
NINETEEN
7:15 p.m.
Alex stopped by her journalism professor’s office after her last class to discuss the extra-credit project she’d been working on. In July, a man had been found dead in the desert outside of Dodge and remained unidentified until a hunch of Dylan’s led to his identification as Rufio Mendez, Dylan’s stepdad and the father of Dylan’s half-brothers.
It led to her learning there were thousands of partial to complete human remains in the US waiting for identification and closure for their loved ones. Over a thousand of them were in the state of Arizona. Alex had decided she could make a difference, so she started a blog with an attached database of cases.
With just one case closed, she was still committed to the project and arranged for extra credit for the op-ed pieces. Her journalism professor was one of the teachers who told her to show him when it was further along, so he could decide if what she was doing met the standards of journalism.
Alex had researched several posts since then, and was eager for her professor to read them and pass judgment on her work. Her meeting proved fruitful, as her professor was impressed with the work she’d done, especially the articles she’d posted.
“This is all your work? No guest bloggers?” he asked.
“I never thought about guest bloggers,” she answered, wondering if it was too late to ask some other people to contribute.
“Well, you’ve done a fine job. How are you going to monetize it?” he asked.
“I haven’t quite figured that out.”
He laughed. “This really is a labor of love for you, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, he asked, “What’s the point unless you use your content as a draw for followers, and then advertise to them? How many followers do you have?”
“Um, I don’t know?” she said, unable to stop the last word sounding like a question.
“I’ll tell you what, Miss Ward. Use the Thanksgiving break to research how to drive traffic to your blog and then bring me a plan for how to monetize it by the end of the semester. If you’ve made enough progress, I’ll count it as your semester project. It’s quite a bit more creative than some of the project proposals I’ve had. But for it to be viable, you need readers and a way to at least support the costs, if not make a profit.”
Alex left his office wondering if she really wanted to make a profit off other people’s misery, and then realized it was very little different from what her dad’s newspaper did. The key was to balance the bad and the sensational news with good news. It gave her a better understanding of her dad’s quest to have something spectacularly bad to report. Most of what went on in Dodge was, at best, bland news, and necessarily stale because of their status as a weekly.
The discussion about monetizing the blog was pertinent, she realized. She’d been trying to get her dad to
Too late, Dylan realized he’d been talking out of turn, and Paul was smart enough to put things together if he said any more. “Who knows? It was just a random thought. Hey, Paul, thanks for dinner. I’ve gotta run, see you later.” Dylan threw a five on the table, and made his escape, unaware that Paul was staring after him with the light of curiosity in his eyes.
Dylan’s next stop was the other bar in town. He didn’t frequent it, since the few times he went out were spent with Paul or Alex in Jen Mackey’s bar, the Rattler. But, he had followed a beat-up Jeep with the wrong plates and a Harley from the Rattler to the other bar, the Stars and Garters, on the night Alex was taken. He’d seen the parking lot full of serious-looking bikes. And then he’d forgotten all about them in the search for her that started later the same night.
That night, he hesitated to go in, the encounter with the men who drove those vehicles too fresh to believe they wouldn’t recognize him. By now, he doubted if they’d remember him.
NINETEEN
7:15 p.m.
Alex stopped by her journalism professor’s office after her last class to discuss the extra-credit project she’d been working on. In July, a man had been found dead in the desert outside of Dodge and remained unidentified until a hunch of Dylan’s led to his identification as Rufio Mendez, Dylan’s stepdad and the father of Dylan’s half-brothers.
It led to her learning there were thousands of partial to complete human remains in the US waiting for identification and closure for their loved ones. Over a thousand of them were in the state of Arizona. Alex had decided she could make a difference, so she started a blog with an attached database of cases.
With just one case closed, she was still committed to the project and arranged for extra credit for the op-ed pieces. Her journalism professor was one of the teachers who told her to show him when it was further along, so he could decide if what she was doing met the standards of journalism.
Alex had researched several posts since then, and was eager for her professor to read them and pass judgment on her work. Her meeting proved fruitful, as her professor was impressed with the work she’d done, especially the articles she’d posted.
“This is all your work? No guest bloggers?” he asked.
“I never thought about guest bloggers,” she answered, wondering if it was too late to ask some other people to contribute.
“Well, you’ve done a fine job. How are you going to monetize it?” he asked.
“I haven’t quite figured that out.”
He laughed. “This really is a labor of love for you, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, he asked, “What’s the point unless you use your content as a draw for followers, and then advertise to them? How many followers do you have?”
“Um, I don’t know?” she said, unable to stop the last word sounding like a question.
“I’ll tell you what, Miss Ward. Use the Thanksgiving break to research how to drive traffic to your blog and then bring me a plan for how to monetize it by the end of the semester. If you’ve made enough progress, I’ll count it as your semester project. It’s quite a bit more creative than some of the project proposals I’ve had. But for it to be viable, you need readers and a way to at least support the costs, if not make a profit.”
Alex left his office wondering if she really wanted to make a profit off other people’s misery, and then realized it was very little different from what her dad’s newspaper did. The key was to balance the bad and the sensational news with good news. It gave her a better understanding of her dad’s quest to have something spectacularly bad to report. Most of what went on in Dodge was, at best, bland news, and necessarily stale because of their status as a weekly.
The discussion about monetizing the blog was pertinent, she realized. She’d been trying to get her dad to
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