Vanessa Chan

My record is nine days notice

I got 68 requests this yr & I’m not even a famous author. I’m a random debut. They were not distributed evenly - all the reqs came between May-Aug. I had to decline 50 books & there’s 3 mths more to 2025

Anyways all this to say: 1) ask early 2) a decline is almost always capacity issue. Godspeed

I, a childless full time author, have time to read about 4 books a month. Let’s say I can allocate a half that number to blurbs - 2 per month, excluding holiday months/travel (~3m). That means 2x9=18 blurbed books a year AT MOST.

But like yall. Why do I get blurb requests with 2 weeks notice?? It tells me two things - your team is not organized, and/or I am a last min tier 5 request blurber. Both of those things aren’t great.

I am not one of those who’s against blurbs. I think they’re useful, readers pay attention to them. And yes they’re problematic bc they have that same letter of rec “who you know” vibe. But look, until there’s a better system for reccing books, it’s what we have. It’s also how we pay it forward

The jam is so good!!!

I miss the days when we used to fall in love with random people on twitter. Just their aura, tweet vibes, extensive flirty DMs… and absolutely zero intention to meet irl

Can’t wait to hug you and turn off performance mode after Friday!!!

don't get me wrong, i loved pub year and touring for it, but one of the things that happens when your brain is just on exhausted-performance-mode all the time is you don't have time or energy for loved ones. 2025 is my year for locking back in with friends. come at your girl! see you at awp friends

making my awp friend date plans and so happy about it

I used to be funny of these kinds of text based social media apps. Now I feel like idk what hits anymore... anyway here i am logging back in after three months and having to reset my password thrice hello

thank you Daryl!!!! Thrilled you read it.

thank you for getting my dumb little easter egg to myself hahaha (and thank you so much for reading and sharing!)

That dr odyssey show is unbelievably bad and I love it so

Phew thank god for the whisper network so we know which residencies are racist and unsafe (even when the authors have to post nice hashtag blessed posts on social)

My book year is coming to a close. I cannot WAIT for it to be 2025 when I can just cheer other people’s books on, read for pleasure, attend events without speaking. And most importantly WRITE - focus almost entirely on the writer part of my job and leave the author part behind till the next time!

A quick reminder that today is the last day to vote! My book The Storm We Made is nominated in two categories for the Goodreads Choice Awards and I’d be so grateful for your votes in:

Historical fiction: www.goodreads.com/choiceawards...

Debut novel: www.goodreads.com/choiceawards...

A few days ago I learned Percival Everett gave Cord Jefferson the rights to his novel Erasure for 6 months FOR FREE to write a script just bc Cord asked and the award-winning film American Fiction was born. It made me question everything I know abt Hollywood (not much). Also I guess, my DMs open lol

MUG!!!!!!

Every couple days I wake up and look around and can’t believe it. Somehow we did it. Somehow we’re living the bookish life we (me and baby me) diarized, and sketched out, and late night dreamed about but was too afraid to say out loud. It’s strange to be happy in an unhappy world but wow, I am.

Very healing to have non-literary friends totally outside the book biz industrial complex bc when I say “I’m so emotionally tired it’s Best of List season & I want it to be over” they’re like (earnestly), “WHY IS THERE A BEST OF LIZ SEASON THAT SEEMS UNFAIR TO FOCUS ONLY ON LIZ-ES”

The paradox of with being an unserious person with a serious book

Are you guys actually on here