Publishing with a day job
a chat with iconic cookbook author Abi Balingit
Happy Tuesday, weenies!
First, one small thing—did you find this post in your Gmail promotions folder? If so, real quick, go back and drag it into your primary inbox. Then, when prompted, hit “yes” under “do this for future messages from this sender.” I want to make sure this thing is as visible as possible.
Also, paid subscribers can expect a little treat—and a fun content schedule update—from me later this week. XOXO
~*onward to the content*~
Today is the third of four installments in my month-long interview series with artists who work outside of the ideal circumstances that propelled Wordsworth, Nabokov, Tolstoy, Twain and Thoreau to stardom. (Read: No one to cook, clean, transcribe, facilitate childcare and pay the bills for us.) If you’re new here, go back and read the other posts in the series: this post about writing with a chronic illness and this one about writing as a new parent with two kids under 4.
Q&A: Abi Balingit on publishing with a day job
I am *so psyched* about today’s spotlight: Abi Balingit, the recipe developer behind The Dusky Kitchen and author of MAYUMU: Filipino American Desserts Remixed, released this year.
Abi, 28, built a cult following during the pandemic dishing out Filipino-inspired baked goods in Brooklyn. MAYUMU features some of her most iconic concoctions (see: adobo chocolate chip cookies, ube macapuno molten lava cakes… she is a genius.) The cookbook is so beautiful (it’s on my dining room table, brag) and would make an absolutely bangin’ holiday gift for the stylish sweetie in your life. <3
Abi is one of the many creatives (dare I say… most of us??) juggling their creative ambitions with the demands of a day job to make ends meet. By day, she works in ad ops; by night, she’s out here publishing a book, growing her social media presence and developing recipes for outlets like The Washington Post EVER HEARD OF IT???
Our chat about living that ~Hannah Montana life~ (thank u Abi for the reference) was so refreshing—see below!
Oh, also: If you live in New York and want to hang with Abi, she’s leading a cookie decorating workshop this Saturday, 12/16. 🍪🍪🍪
Hi Abi! What’s your day job?
I work at a live music company called Bandsintown, and I’m an ad operations manager. So I do a lot of email marketing and execution of ad campaigns. I've been there for the last six years, which is wild for a millennial like myself.
Does your employer know about your creative work outside of work?
It’s hard to keep things under wraps when you’re like, “Please pre-order my book!” I’m very transparent with my boss and coworkers—and the nice thing is that they've all been very supportive. They’ve all shown up for me, buying the book, baking from the book. So I'm very grateful—I know that’s not very common.
You do… so much. How do you manage your time between your job and creative work?
I start the day before my 9 a.m. start time [at work]—usually going to the grocery store to source ingredients. Then around my lunch break, I’ll put my little sandwich icon on Slack, and it’s time for me to recipe test—something that doesn't require my mixer, because my roommates are on work calls, working from home.
For bakers and food people and content creators, you're kind of expected to show up in person—to go to events, to recipe test in the wild. But at the same time, you have to maintain your online presence. I’m struggling, because I’m technically working nine to five at my day job, so any free moment of time, I’m like, “Okay, I'm gonna take my lunch break and post all these things on my social media while eating my sandwich.” I have a lot on my plate. I have to strategically insert everything into the Tetris game that is my Google calendar.
We both released debut books this year, and my release COMPLETELY ZONKED MY ASS. Have you experienced any burnout?
As a debut author, I feel like I had unrealistic expectations of how much time I would have for myself to write this book uninterrupted. Book leave, for example, is only a thing for certain journalists at certain companies—I can't afford that. So I was just constantly working—through the whole manuscript, and every single part of the process, I was working full-time.
Even now, I’m almost a year into promoting the book, and every day that I have off from my day job, I’m doing something baking-related for the book. I haven’t really had a real vacation since the book came out. It’s a struggle, because I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be book tour and to go to different cities and do these events. But I’m at this point in my career and in my life where something has to give.
It feel like that part in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (editor’s note: TOBEY MAGUIRE HIVE RISE UP) where he’s in front of the train trying to keep it from crashing, and the train is stretching through the web. (Hi, sorry, another editor’s note: Here’s the video for those of you who are unfamiliar with CINEMA)
Let’s talk about the financial realities of having a book deal, shall we!!!
About 90% of my book advance went to paying for photographers, stylists, equipment and ingredients. There's really not much to live off of, even after royalties!
I always thought the book deal would be a big windfall, but it's actually not. Even though you see thousands of dollars attached to a contract, you have an agent to pay, and everything else that goes with creating a whole book.
[To work creatively full-time] I would want to have thousands of dollars in my savings—enough to survive comfortably for at least five months or so. It’s hard to save kind of money in like New York and other major cities.
In a perfect world, I would love to bake for fun. Not to say that writing a book is not fun—but I do think it's really hard sometimes creatively, as an artist and a writer. You're pushed to certain economic standards—goalposts that you're trying to reach. For example: People ask if I’d like to open my own bakery as my full-time job, but if I ever fell into money, I’d rather have my own vintage shop and then make baked goods when I wanted to. It’s really hard to have your work—your art—at the center of you.
With my full-time job, I like the work, and the people are great. I think society pushes you to choose one thing and be really good at this one thing. But I really want to challenge that.
Wow, man—I really love that. I’ll be thinking critically about my own economic motivations re: my creative practice this week. Would love to chat about it in the comments!
buy Abi’s book!!!!
Lil