We have said it in many ways an with many words over the past few days, but the 2008 Debutantes (Gail Konop Baker, Jenny Gardiner, Lisa Daily, Danielle Younge-Ullman, Jess Riley and Eileen Cook!) would like to thank you, our readers and community here, for a wonderful year. We have experienced untold support and generosity from so many of you and had a wonderful time sharing our debut year(s) with…
You know how at the beginning of a night out dancing, you head out onto the dance floor and do that subdued side-to-side move because you don’t want to look like a dork? And then, by the end of the night, fortified with a few tequila shooters or a bottle of Veuve, you’ve kicked off your shoes, begged the DJ to play Oh, What a Night or Dancing Queen or…
As many of you know, Fifteen Minutes of Shame was published in the strangest of ways and I miraculously (insanely? stupidly?) sold it with no novel-writing experience whatsoever. So, check and deadline looming, I sat down and attempted to actually produce a novel. Something I wasn’t exactly sure how to do. Here’s the gist of the story: America’s favorite TV dating expert Darby Vaughn finds out her husband Will is…
Announcing the Debutante Ball Class of 2009 We are most excited to announce the 2009 Debs, who will take over the Debutante Ball on September 1, 2008. We had so many extremely talented authors from which to choose, all with exciting books debuting next year, and narrowing it down to five was no easy task. Without further ado, our 2009 Debutantes are: Eve Brown-Waite, author of the memoir First Comes…
The year is 1986. Every weekend my friends and I tell our parents we’re going to the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This buys us a pass for a few curfew bonus hours, until at least 2:30 in the morning. Sometimes we actually go. Our little group of prepsters and jocks don our garters, party hats and freakwear, sneaking rice and water guns into the theater downtown….
When I grew up, we went water skiing every Fourth of July with the Curtis family, and then we’d lie exhausted on the beach, eating cold fried chicken and my mother’s fabulous top secret potato salad. (It’s the ingredients that are top secret, not the salad itself) — this paper plate will self destruct in five seconds… When we got home, we’d get cleaned up, eat some more and then,…
I was wracking my brain for some clever beauty secret to share with all of you, and I could not stop flashing back to an early episode of the Oprah show I watched in my teens: A very attractive woman in her forties claimed the secret to keeping her model-perfect skin so smooth, youthful and beautiful was to slather it with a big ‘ol glob of spermicide. Yes. Every night…
Deb News: This week, Deb Jess was interviewed by the PKD Foundation as well as her alma mater, UW-Oshkosh. Driving Sideways made its debut as a Target Break-Out book this week as well. Also, Deb Jess will be doing her first book signing next Saturday, June 28 at Creekside Books in Cedarburg, Wisconsin from 12-2 pm. Stop by and say hi! Cedarburg is celebrating Strawberry Festival that day, so Jess…
How to Kill Your Writing Career. We’ve all heard stories on how lackluster book sales can slowly leech the life out of your publishing career. But why wait for the returns? This guy is an innovator in killing one’s publishing career in one spectacularly insane gesture: From Publishers Weekly: “A few weeks ago John Mitzel, proprietor of Calamus Books in Boston, was surprised to open his mail and discover he’d…
The business of publishing can really knock the wind out of you. There are dozens of people involved in turning a big stack of paper into a book — the writer, agents, editors, publicists, marketing people, print managers, sales people and tons of support staff. But sometimes it feels like the loneliest gig in the world. If it’s your first book, you probably won’t go on tour. You probably won’t…
