We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Poppy Kuroki. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Poppy below.

Alright, Poppy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I was freelance editing for a while, then fell into ghostwriting completely by accident. I was editing someone’s book and gave her writing advice which she then promised to pass on to her ghostwriter. I decided to give it a go myself, and decided I’d be happy with one client a month. It soon snowballed, however, and I ended up with far more ghostwriting work than editing work.

Being a ghostwriter helped me to get used to writing thousands of words a day, meet deadlines, and be flexible and to think on my feet. I also had practice fixing things like plot holes and other story-related problems. So when I wrote my debut, Gate to Kagoshima, I had the practice and discipline to bring my idea to a full-length novel, even while having a baby in the same time period!

I had queried novels before and with some encouragement, queried Gate to Kagoshima. I met my agent in March 2023 and it was published in the UK in June 2024 and the US in January 2025.

Poppy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been writing my whole life and always wanted to be an author. I went to university and worked part time and full time jobs, moving to Japan after graduation, but still loved books and writing. I was in self-publishing for a while and after getting into ghostwriting, gained the discipline and experience needed to start writing seriously for myself again.

I still ghostwrite and edit a bit on the side now, but at the moment my main focus is writing the next Ancestor Memories book, as well as some other projects I’m excited to share in the coming months.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I started out editing with word of mouth sales, but it was an occasional thing, not enough to earn any serious money. I used the freelance website Fiverr for my ghostwriting work initially, starting with low prices until I had several reviews. Now I charge literally ten times as much as I initially did, and it’s still a nice side income, though right now my main focus is my own books in my new career as a traditionally published author.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

In the early days it was feast or famine. Often I took on a lot of work at once because I was worried turning too many people away would make me run out of work. So at one point I was doing seven or eight projects at once for very little pay. It was definitely a few years of paying dues and doing work for peanuts to build a reputation. This was before I had my son – after he was born it was even trickier to balance life with projects and meet deadlines (though I’ve never missed a deadline), but thankfully by then I had more breathing space as I was charging more.

I was luckily in a position where I could do that for a year or two, as I was also working part time as a teacher and living with my partner.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @kurokibooks
• Twitter: @kurokibooks
• Other: TikTok and Threads: @kurokibooks

Image Credits

Oktavianti Nila for headshots