Picoult: The thing is, my husband and I have this fantastic mutual admiration society going on, because by him choosing to stay home and work with me to do the child care, he has really allowed me to do things in my career that I wouldn't otherwise have been able to do, such as leave for three months on a book tour without even having to leave behind a note. That's really a gift and he's amazing and I love him for it; he really does put my career first a lot of the time. He loves me because I have given him the opportunity to start his own business in a field he has always loved. He's an antiques dealer now. He goes to auctions either at night when I'm home or on weekends or when the kids are in school, and then he sells his stuff at different antiques markets around New England. He knows tons and he's incredibly good at it.

Bankrate: Have the two of you discussed college planning for your kids?

Picoult: Yes, we have. We have a financial adviser and we have set up not only college plans but trusts, you name it. We have really organized our finances, not only for the short term, which I think of as college, but for the long term as well.

Bankrate: Do you have 529 plans?

Picoult: We do have 529s for them, yep.

Bankrate: Are you hands-on with the finances at your house?

Picoult: (Laughs) No, I can't. Honestly, I say to my husband, "You've gotta do this, I can't do it." And the funny thing is, I used to work at Salomon Brothers before I was a writer, so you'd think I might have a little interest, but it's too much for my head to handle. Even when we talk with our advisers and they talk about what they want to invest our money in and go through all the companies, I'm like OK, that sounds real cool. Nestlé, I love chocolate. That's about as far as I get. But I think when it comes to financial planning, it's about finding someone who you really trust who has your life goals in mind. We are very fortunate to have found a company in Gloucester, Mass., that we're really happy with.

Bankrate: Writers face some unusual challenges when it comes to taxes, right?

Picoult: Oh, you definitely do. Probably one of the biggest financial crises to begin with are taxes, because we're supposed to be psychic and predict what we'll make, and there's no way you can do that, it's just not the nature of royalty checks. So we're constantly on auto-protect and paying ahead of time on speculative taxes, basically on a quarterly basis, and that's really difficult, too. Having a good tax accountant is really important because a lot of normal accountants would have no idea what to do with an author's income.