17-Year Old Becomes Big-Time Writer

Via the NY Sun (sub req’d), breaking news on lit by just-hatched chicks:

Kaavya Viswanathan is set on becoming an investment banker when she graduates from Harvard University in 2008, but a phone call that the 17-year-old freshman received from a literary agent might just cause a change in her plans.

The agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh of the William Morris Agency, told the Franklin Hills, N.J.-born Ms. Viswanathan that Little Brown & Company … agreed to a two-book deal with the teenager. The sum approached $500,000, a staggering amount for an unpublished writer, let alone someone who’d barely left home for college.

…Ms. Viswanathan said she’s already written more than 150 pages, or more than a third of the manuscript. [Ed's Note -- 150 pages for half a mil = about $3,000 per page.]

“It’s a little tough to do this writing and also juggle classes and the homework,” she said. “This is a big-time commitment. It’s not like writing an essay for a class.”

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.