How Opal Mehta cleaned up

Met an editor last year who said he was looking for “chicklit with a nosering in it”. He should’ve talked to Kaavya Viswanathan, who’s living every young writer’s dream–she picked up a $ 500,000 advance from Little Brown for How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got In.
“I had only vaguely thought of becoming a writer. But a book contract? From a major publisher? This is so incredibly unbelievable. It’s so hard to believe that I’m going to be able to walk into a bookstore and see something that I wrote on display there,” Viswanathan told Sun.

Not to rain on her parade or anything, but BookAngst has a cautionary tale for first-time authors with big advances. Think of it as the Cinderella story in reverse gear.