mediabistro.com launches a new feature this week: Book Keeping is a monthly column for Avant Guild members in which we’ll talk to authors and publishing industry insiders about “the business of how authors, editors, and publishers bring book projects to life.” In the debut installment, Carmen Scheidel talks to Tom Zoellner about The Heartless Stone, his exposé of the international diamond market, which led him to do research in 16 countries:
“Basically I went into heavy, heavy debt to do all the travel. I was probably $20,000 in debt on my credit cards, which I’m still in the process of paying off. I supported myself partially off the advance from St. Martin’s, and partially off whatever sort of magazine work I could scramble together. But that didn’t cover it. What really helped was partnering with Paul Rusesabagina and doing his Hotel Rwanda book [as ghostwriter]—that certainly eased the financial pressure.”
As he explains, the debt got even more substantial when he decided to hire his own publicist and conduct a 29-city book tour. “If I can, I want to [write books] for the rest of my life, and the first book is important. And I wanted to, I guess, be established enough to do this again and again and again and again,” he explains. “So, that involves seeking as wide of an audience as possible… I wanted to take it not just to New York and Los Angeles, but I wanted to take it to places like Savannah, Georgia; Oxford, Mississippi; and Dallas.”