Kindle Single - Pay Off: How One Millennial Eliminated Nearly $80,000 in Student Debt in Less Than Five Years

I'm excited to announce that my Kindle Single on student debt was released on Friday. Naturally, this means I've been refreshing my Amazon ranking on an hourly basis. Over the weekend, the book reached the Top 10 on several best seller lists, including Kindle Singles: Essays & Ideas and Kindle Singles: Memoir.

I'm also a little nervous about this book. It's a sensitive topic. While I hope people will find my analysis fair, I know it has the potential to attract negative comments as well. It will be interesting to see what happens as the reviews come in (so far so good)!

The other reason I'm nervous is that I write exactly how much money I made over the last five years, what my rent has been, and my SAT scores (among other things). It's scary to reveal so much personal information, but I felt it was necessary if this book is to be a candid portrait of a student debtor and a useful resource.

It has been great to work with the folks at Kindle Singles, including my editor--who recognized the appeal of a student debt success story and helped me with the tone--and the cover designer--who does amazing work. I hope that the story will be both encouraging and informative for graduates and their parents. I'd appreciate it if you could share this with any of your friends who are struggling with student debt, especially in the US.

Cover design by Hannah Perrine Mode

Pay Off: How One Millennial Eliminated Nearly $80,000 in Student Debt in Less Than Five Years
By Shannon Young

In 2009, amid the global financial crisis, 21-year-old Shannon Young graduated from college with a degree in English and more than $80,000 in student debt. Less than five years later, she was completely debt-free. This is her story – a cautionary tale with a surprisingly hopeful outcome. Filled with practical advice and personal experience, Pay Off is an invaluable resource for anyone coming into or out of student debt.

$1.99 on Amazon

Bookspotting (and a giveaway!)

It has been a while since my last bookspotting post, but I'm still keeping my eyes open. I saw a schoolboy carrying a Kindle with the same plain black cover I have down an escalator in Central. Twice this week, I've spotted the same man reading The World is Curved by David M. Smick on my morning commute. Another man had a copy of Everything to Lose in my favorite coffee shop. Recently, I've finished reading Sand by Hugh Howey (awesome) and Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (beautiful). Now I'm a little more than halfway through The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

In other news, I saw the cover for my upcoming Kindle Single on student debt this morning! I'm so excited to reveal it soon. If you'd like to be emailed when the book launches, please join my mailing list.

Finally, we are holding a Goodreads giveaway for the Dragonfruit anthology. You can enter to win one of five paperback copies before Launch Day on June 10th!

What are you up to lately? What are people reading in your town?

BABY AND A BACKPACK by my friend Jane Cornelius

I first met Jane Cornelius at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival in the spring of 2011. She was sitting in the front row at a talk for aspiring writers, wearing a huge pair of zebra patterned glasses and taking feverish notes with an oversize pen. I was a volunteer--my strategy for attending as many events as possible without having to pay for tickets--and I'd recently admitted that I was also an aspiring writer.

I don't remember everything the speaker said, but I remember Jane. She was eager to soak in as much advice as she could, asking smart questions and making it clear that she was writing actively, not just dreaming about it. At the end of the talk, the speaker suggested that members of the audience connect with each other, perhaps to form writers' groups. I ended up collecting the email addresses. When I sent out a tentative query to this bunch of strangers about possibly meeting up to talk about writing, Jane was the first to respond.

Jane, another writer named Betsy, and I met at a coffee shop at the bottom of Lan Kwai Fong that has since been replaced with another clothing store, and talked shop. Jane was nearly finished with her second manuscript, a memoir of the year she was abandoned by the father of her child and decided to travel the world with a newborn baby. As she talked about her adventures in Bali, Australia, Hawaii, California, and my home state of Arizona--all with a baby in tow and almost no money--I could hardly believe it. Hers was a life of true adventure. She had a real, high-stakes story--a story that was worth writing.

Soon, I'd get to experience the vibrant, whimsical writing style that is all her own. I'd get to see the determination with which she approached her writing career. And I'd even get to participate as we became critique partners. She asked for help with grammar mechanics and polish; I asked for help with plot and with cutting the boring stuff from my writing. It is thanks to her that my own travel memoir (forthcoming from Blacksmith Books later this year) eventually became interesting and honest enough to send to publishers. Even when Jane moved on to Shanghai, we sent chapters and encouragement back and forth.

Over time, I learned that Jane's life of adventure also had a more difficult, tragic backstory. I got to read her first manuscript, a childhood memoir of when she grew up in the English countryside with a legally insane mother, a pro-wrestler father, and a stepmother who was the Bunny Mother of the Playboy Club. When an editor suggested that Jane combine the two manuscripts, I got to read them again as she weaved her stories into one.

Now, Jane's memoir Baby and a Backpack has been published by The Five Mile Press in Australia. She's on a whirlwind tour of bookstores and media, and I couldn't be more excited for her. Baby and a Backpack is also available worldwide for Kindle, so I recently got to read the story again in its finished form. It packs the same emotional punch even after multiple reads, and I recommend it unequivocally. This is a wonderful book about motherhood, travel, and finding a home in a wild, crazy world. And through this story, you get to know the quirky, inspiring, and brave Jane Cornelius, a woman I am proud to call my friend.

Dragonfruit Anthology Cover Reveal and Blurbs!

I'm very excited to reveal the cover for the expat women in Asia anthology today! I love the vibrant feeling and the way the colors turned out. I'm so proud that this cover will showcase the stories contained in the anthology. The designer for the project was Justin Kowalczuk (you can see more of his work on the S8P website).

It is now just one month and ten days until the official release of the book. I've been working on this project for quite a while now, and I can't wait for you all to read it!

Here are what two writers whose names you might recognize had to say when they read an advance copy of the book:

"How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit is an eclectic, soulful collection of stories by badass women who have adventured far out of their comfort zones. Full of candid observations about travel, language, food, self and other, it’s a book for anyone who has ever felt peripheral, upside down, culturally shocked or inspired. In other words, a book for all of us." 
-- Rachel DeWoskin, author of Foreign Babes in Beijing, Repeat After Me, Big Girl Small, and Blind.

"A unique and inspiring collection of voices that calls up all the wonder, fascination, challenges, disorientation, and delights faced by women expats throughout Asia. I was moved by the breadth of experiences included in this anthology at the same time that I fell in love with one thread running throughout: how the expatriate journey takes us away from ourselves and then ultimately delivers us back, richer, wiser, and even more aware of how our own identities fit within our wide, wide world."
-- Tracy Slater, author of The Good Shufu: A Wife in Search of a Life Between East and West (forthcoming from Putnam, 2015)

The anthology now has an official page on the Signal 8 Press website (includes links for all the contributors) and you can also like the Facebook page for updates.

Blog Tour for Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak by Elsie Sze

This week I have the honor of kicking off the blog tour for Elsie Sze's excellent work of historical fiction, Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak. The story, set primarily in the mid-1800s and the 1960s, follows the adventures of two young men as they chase ideals, fortunes and love in the jungles of Borneo. Set in a fascinating--but largely unexplored--period of history, it contains surprises at every turn. A long-ago tragedy, a buried treasure and a harrowing guerrilla war are just part of what makes this exceptional tale a highly recommended read.

I worked on the publication of Ghost Cave, and I'm excited to share it with anyone who has an interest in the history of Malaysia, the life of Chinese immigrants in Borneo, and a touch of the supernatural.

Elsie's blog tour starts here, with the video interview we recorded when Elsie was in Hong Kong for her book launch at the FCC.

On Tuesday, you'll find a review of the book by Susan Blumberg-Kason, who has excellent taste and blogs often about the Asia Pacific region.

On Wednesday, dedicated Hong Kong book blogger and Women in Publishing Society member Laura Besley will review Ghost Cave.

Then, on Thursday, you can head back to Susan Blumberg-Kason's site for a guest post by Elsie herself, which is sure to be fascinating.

Finally, on Friday you can find a written interview with Elsie back on Laura's blog.

Visit Elsie's blog on Saturday for a full list of any links you missed, more reviews of the novel, or just to say hello!

Now, here is Elsie Sze telling us more about her writing and her family connection to the story:

You can find Ghost Cave: a novel of Sarawak in Hong Kong bookstores, online worldwide in paperback and all major e-book formats (Kobo, Nook, Apple), and of course on Amazon Kindle.

Kindle Single and Book Deal

 I've been looking forward to announcing some big news after the expat women anthology cover reveal (coming soon I promise!). Well, I now have some (arguably) bigger news, so I'll just put both things into one post.

First, my story about how I got rid of $80,000 in student debt has been accepted for publication by the Kindle Singles program. I found out about a month ago, and I have been working on the piece with my editor (!) since then. In addition to editing, the Kindle Singles program provides proofreading, cover design, and formatting, and they work very fast. Soon, I'll have a cover to show you. PAY OFF will be available on Amazon in May, just in time for graduation. Thank you so much to everyone who shared stories about their struggles with student loans with me!

Second, I've found a wonderful publisher for my travel memoir about my first year in Hong Kong. As you guys know, I followed my long distance boyfriend to Hong Kong in 2010. A month later his company sent him to London. Part love story, part coming-of-age, the memoir is a wide-eyed newcomer's account of Hong Kong that I hope will resonate with anyone who loves this city. After trying it out in the US market, receiving my fair share of rejection letters, and getting advice from a few key people, I tried it directly in the HK market. Blacksmith Books, the premier publisher of HK-focused non-fiction, has decided to publish the book. I'll have more information about release dates, events, blurbs, covers, etc. in the future. For now, I'm so grateful that the first manuscript I started working on (which looks almost nothing like the current version) has finally found a home.

It has been interesting so far to experience these two different publishing models. For the Kindle Single, I wrote the piece primarily during a coffee-fueled Christmas break. The time from when I typed the first words to when the Single will be for sale is about five months. My editor and team are located in New York City and we communicate entirely by email. PAY OFF will be an e-book-exclusive available only on Amazon.

The Hong Kong memoir has been more than three years in the making and it is the book in which I learned how to write. Although I spent a lot of time waiting to hear back from non-responsive agents in New York, ultimately the time has allowed me to make this a much better book than it was the first time I declared it "finished". Fortunately, Blacksmith moves a lot faster than a typical New York publisher, so the book will still be available a year earlier than it would have been if I signed a deal with Random Penguin et al today. The Blacksmith office, where I signed my book deal on April 22nd, is located across the street from where I lived during the events of the book, and it's actually closer to where I live now than all of my favorite coffee shops. I have the opportunity to enjoy direct, in-person communication with my publisher and, hopefully, to do all kinds of local publicity events. The book will be available on all major online retailers as a paperback and e-book and in bookstores in HK and abroad.

So far, I've had fun celebrating these developments by opening a bottle of red wine and going to my usual Tuesday night writers' group. I'm excited to share more news as it develops. If you would like to be notified when these books are out, you can sign up for my email list at shannonyoungwriter.com.

If, like me, you're a Kindle junkie, you can sign up to have Amazon notify you directly by clicking the link under Stay Up To Date on my author page.

Introducing the Expat Women in Asia Anthology

More than a year ago, 86 female writers who are or have been expatriates in East Asia submitted personal stories for inclusion in an anthology of creative non-fiction from Signal 8 Press. I had the good fortune to read these stories of displacement, love, and adventure and to select 26 for publication in the collection.

How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia will be available in paperback and e-book formats on 10 June 2014. You can follow the Facebook page here.

Now, I'm proud to introduce the 26 writers whose words made me laugh, cry, and think a little deeper about the expat experience:

Shannon Dunlap

Dorcas Cheng-Tozun

Neha Mehta

Jennifer S. Deayton

Pamela Beere Briggs

Kaitlin Solimine

Jenna Lynn Cody

Sharon Brown

Suzanne Kamata

Stephanie Han

Eva Cohen

Barbara Craven

Michelle Borok

Christine Tan

Catherine Rose Torres

Jocelyn Eikenburg

India Harris

Saffron Marchant

Philippa Ramsden

Nicola Chilton

Edna Zhou

Susan Blumberg-Kason

Leza Lowitz

Ember Swift

Coco Richter

Kathryn Hummel

I was honored to be able to work with these writers on their beautiful stories. I hope you'll take a look at their blogs and books.

Next, I'll unveil the cover design and share a few kind words about the anthology from some advance readers.