I could not be more thrilled to welcome this week’s guest, Kirstin Chen, to the debutante ball! Kirstin Chen’s second novel, Bury What We Cannot Take, was named a best book of the year by Entropy, Popsugar, and Book Bub, and a top pick of the season by Electric Literature, The Millions, The Rumpus, Harper’s Bazaar, and InStyle. She is also the author of Soy Sauce for Beginners. She has received awards from the Steinbeck Fellows Program, Sewanee, Hedgebrook, the…
Writing Finances
I am not a finance person. When I think of the words “financial” and “realities” in the same sentence, my brain tries to make a little symbolic dive under a sofa. All I can do with this post is just lay it out there and be honest. I have no problem telling everyone exactly what my book finances have been so far, because I think it’s important…
What’s in your non-negotia-bowl?
Devi Laskar said it best: “It’s tax season and this is a perfect time to remember that unless your last name is GRISHAM or KING, it is difficult to make a living writing books. Don’t let it deter you.” I recently read a wonderful article about how to find a rewarding career path that utilized this graph to help you understand what you really want out of your life: According…
Be Your Own Patron
Being a writer is a great way to make money! …if you don’t need that money at any particular time. For example: I sold my second book on proposal in January. It’s April going on May and still haven’t gotten my first advance payment yet (though it should be arriving this week). There are the contract negotiations, the back and forth to get the thing signed, waiting for the money…
Attacus Atlas & Other Inventions: on money and madness
Aloha: It’s tax season and this is a perfect time to remember that unless your last name is GRISHAM or KING, it is difficult to make a living writing books. Don’t let it deter you: creating a writing life is a noble calling, it just doesn’t pay well for the aspiring or newbie writers. It doesn’t pay well for poets. You should know that it’s madness in a way, to…
The Financial Reality of Being an Author or Don’t Quit Your Dayjob
I just finished doing my taxes this past weekend, so this week’s topic about the financial reality of being an author is especially appropriate. Once you’ve stuck a proverbial toe into the publishing world, either as a new author or if you’ve just started querying, you quickly realize that the bestsellers and millionaires that get splashed across headlines and festivals are the exceptions that prove the rule. Nobody sane writes…
[News Flash] April 14, 2019
Thank you so much to yesterday’s guest, Maria Kuznetsova! If you haven’t already, enter the #DebBallGiveaway to win a copy of Oksana, Behave! You can enter by sharing our post on Facebook and/or retweeting the following tweet (make sure you follow @DebutanteBall on Twitter too!): This week, we spoke with Maria Kuznetsova, author of the delightful debut Oksana, Behave! RT and follow us at @DebutanteBall for a chance to win…
Interview with Maria Kuznetsova & Giveaway of Oksana, Behave!
This week, we are welcoming Maria Kuznetsova to the Debutante Ball. Maria is a debut novelist whose lovely book Oksana, Behave! will immediately become your newest favorite. I first became aware of her work in 2018 after I picked up a copy of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and read an excerpt of the book, which I was delighted to see would be published the following year. Today, Oksana, Behave! has only…
You Say It’s Your Birthday…
…It’s my birthday, too. On Tuesday this week, when my book officially came out, I also turned forty-four years old. Now, I am not a person who believes in signs or astrology or anything like that, but I am sort of a neat freak. I like it when things line up. So this little coincidence really does please me no end. I’ve received many wonderful and thoughtful birthday gifts…
Dream potions, far-away places & loss: Martine Fournier-Watson’s Dream Peddler
Look out everyone — it’s another book birthday! At the Debutante Ball, we are happily celebrating the publication of Martine Fournier-Watson’s THE DREAM PEDDLER! Reading Martine’s blog posts over the past few months has been such a delight for me. From her clever insights on the pitfalls of building a social media platform (“When I think of branding, I think of cattle”) to her lovely ruminations about how selling her…
