A. M. Robinson grew up in Indiana, but now lives in New York City, where she works in the publishing industry. Vampire Crush is her first book.

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How did you balance your career in publishing with your work on Vampire Crush? Where did you find time for writing?

Vampire Crush was published in December 2010—it took me about a year and a half to write and edit. I tended to work on it in spurts, when work was slow or on writing retreats with a sci-fi critique group who never minded outsiders tagging along. I got into the habit of staying late at the office most weeknights and telling myself I could go home after 800 words, a goal that really seemed to work for awhile. (I still remain way more productive on my “work” computer than my personal one).

I put it through one major edit before I had an agent, and then it sold pretty quickly. The sale was so easy compared to a lot of writer’s stories about getting published that I used to think that a piano would fall on my head just to even stuff out in the universe.

Then the editorial letter happened. It was pretty intense—good intense, because my editor is awesome—but intense. Because of fancy scheduling, I had about a month to turn the edits in. I managed to convince myself that I could do it over my publishing house’s winter holiday, which can be stretched to about two weeks with savvy use of vacation days. Oh man. This did not happen. I missed my deadline for edits twice, and I had to do the bulk of the edits after the New Year. I was going into the office from 9-5, drinking energy drinks, and then writing from about 7pm – 3am. I burned through a lot of my new vacation days and became a social hermit.

Finally, they were done, but I was burnt out on writing, and I had to spend the next few months making up for the dent it made in my day-job performance and reassuring friends that I did, indeed, still like them. I didn’t really write anything new for 6 months, and told myself that was okay because I was busy getting things ready to promote the new book, like getting a website up and starting to Twitter, etc.

How important do you feel the twitter and author blog have been to the success of your book?

I don’t think they have sold many books for me in the long run, although I should note that I haven’t been incredibly active. I’ve run a few contests and blogged a few times, but I haven’t made it a daily habit. I feel like it can have a modest positive effect for authors who really make a commitment and actively use social networking to make connections, but it requires a substantial amount of effort and time. However, I do think that it’s important to have an online presence, even if it’s a small one, just so dedicated readers can find you. I owe a lot of the good blogger word-of-mouth to bloggers who contacted me via my website or Goodreads author page and asked if they could have a review copy.

When people ask what you do for a living, what do you tell them?

Sometimes it feels like I spend more time worrying about my writing career than writing, and then I worry about that. I don’t think working in publishing helps, because I am surrounded all the time by discussions about authors’ careers, and what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, and then I can’t help but apply that to my own. For a while I tried to think of other jobs that might leave me with more free nights and weekends, but I feel disingenuous applying for something that I really just want as a way to pay the bills until I can quit. If asked right now, I would probably say that I work in publishing, as that’s what I devote most of my time to.

How soon after you publish a book does that clock start on “OK but what have you done lately?” How does the pressure compare after your book comes out?

After the book came out there was about a month where I just rode the high of having a book and dealing with some of the buzz. People mostly liked it! It was selling okay! People wanted a sequel! . . .

That’s when my clock really started ticking and I entered into a general state of panic “Oh no,” I thought. “If I turn plans for a sequel in now, it can’t be published until at least a year and a half after the first book and who is going to remember it, ahhhhhh&&^%$$#$.”

What are you working on now?

Right now my agent wants sample chapters and a synopsis, and HarperCollins has hinted that they’d like to see pages. In theory, this should be less daunting than writing a whole manuscript, but for some reason it is feeling SO MUCH HARDER than it did the first time. For one thing, I’ve gotten more responsibility at my day job and I have a lot more work to take home. I’m reading 3-4 manuscripts a week, and writing more reports, which cuts into my willpower to write my own stuff even while it makes me want to write my own stuff more. It has led to an intense period of Limbo Freakout, where I obsess over the fact that I really want to write full time, but I don’t make enough to quit my day job. BUT the more I work/advance at my day job, the less time I have for my writing.

When I do make time to write—which is only a couple hours a week as of late—I have this overwhelming sense that it HAS TO BE PERFECT, because who knows when I will get the chance to revise. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. I recently showed pages of my sample to a friend who was a big fan of the first, and her critical take sent me into a sort of embarrassing tailspin because I couldn’t even imagine when I would have time to rewrite this scene.

Are there things you’ve learned in the process of publishing your book that you wish you’d known before? Is there anything you wish had gone differently?

I think the number one thing that I’ve learned is that, once you have that book contract, it’s never too soon to start working on the next step. The publishing process is such an odd one—taking at least one, often two years for a project to make it from contract to finished book—that it’s easy to feel like you have a ton of time before you need to worry about the next thing, but it sneaks up on you. (Also, I wish I had worked on coming up with a very concise plot summary of Vampire Crush early—I don’t know how many times someone would say “I hear you have a book on the way. What’s it about?” and I would have a few “Der” moments before coming up with something that wasn’t entirely selling!)