Justin Luke Zirilli is the president of the New York-based gay nightlife company BoiParty, which he then co-owned with his business partner Alan Picus. He was also the creator of “Gorgeous, Gay and Twenty-Something,” a private international Facebook group now archived that once comprised of over 8,000 members. Besides The Gay Gospel, Zirilli has authored the bestselling gay novels Gulliver Takes Manhattan and Gulliver Takes Five.

1. You have a ton of projects going on right now. What would you say is your primary project right now?

My primary project? That’s tough to say. I’d have to say I have two primary projects. One would be my newest website, DearestTwitter.com, which, luckily for me, doesn’t take much time to work on every day. Just some searching and curating on Twitter. The other major project is revising my gay YA novel, Gulliver Travels, which I have been posting as a first draft on gullivertravels.tumblr.com.

2. Do you have a day job too?

I sure do, I am a Digital Producer for a pharmaceutical communications company. What this means, basically, is that I work with clients to brainstorm fun ideas, and then I put on my hardhat and treat a team of programmers and designers like sleigh dogs, making sure that we can actually produce – on time and on budget – what I helped the client think up.

3. You also own your own business. How do you successfully manage the two?

To be honest, my “own” business has sort of taken a back seat. What it has become is the occasional freelance consulting gig, which is easy to do since it only takes a few hours when I’m engaged. I would love to get my company back off the ground, but something will have to give from my plethora of projects, or I’d have to stop playing so much Super Mario Galaxy 2. Neither of which I’m open to doing right now.

4. You work as a club promoter. What advice can you give to people who want to go into that line of work?

Be lucky? I’m kidding. I have a friend named Austin Helms who saw me promoting, said he wanted to try it, and then started a company with his friend, Robert Maril. If you know enough people who know enough people, all you have to do is approach a bar and ask them if they’re interested in trying you on for size. What you negotiate is up to you – a percentage of the bar, a cover charge, whatever. I on the other hand, was QUITE lucky and sort of fell backwards into promoting without ever wanting to, or even thinking I’d get into it. So you’ve got two ideas there: start from the ground up, or sell yourself to a nightlife luminary. Good luck either way!

5. Would you say that club promoters are usually a fiscally responsible group?

Sure, I think so. All the ones I know also have day jobs, or additional night jobs. As a caveat, allow me to admit that I know only a handful of nightlife promoters. But the ones I know, for them, promoting is a side job for extra cash, not a true life calling. And so they work their day jobs for the cash, and do their promoting for the extra fun, stardom, and booze.

6. What got you into promotion in the first place?

I met Chris Ryan, a staple of the gay NY scene almost 2 years ago when I had him as a guest on a (now-deceased) blog that I used to run. I started helping him with parties, at one of those parties I met Alan Picus who runs BoiParty.com. Alan took a shine to the videos I would shoot at his parties, edit, and put on YouTube. From there I parlayed this occasional video work into basically running BoiParty’s social media empire – I pilot their fan pages, create events, and grow their audience. Alan also turns to me for consultation on ways to use the internet to boost participation and party attendance. It’s fun and it pays in cash (and rather generously). Plus, the free drinks and entry are pretty nice too.

7. Do you have any tips on how to have a night on the town on the cheap?

There are a number of ways, sure. One: pre-game. All bars are over-priced. A bottle of top shelf liquor is cheaper than two well drinks with tip. Do the math. Have friends over and get your drink on right there. Then go to a party where there is no cover charge and maybe have another one if you feel the need. Also, get to know a promoter, bartender, or nightlife VIP. They can always hook you up with a free drink. I’ll give NYC this much credit: a majority of their parties do not charge cover. This is a good thing. Take advantage of it.

8. Do you have a retirement plan?

My mom would kill me for admitting that I do not. I do have a very sizable savings account that I forcibly push money into every week from my checking account. According to some leaflet I saw in a bank, I have more money in savings than they recommend for someone twice my age, which is comforting. I also consider this account off-limits. When my checking is near the red, I am poor. It doesn’t matter that I have a lot in savings. Also, I am about to start taking advantage of the 401K here at my new job (I had to wait 6 months of employment for this opportunity).

9. Which would prefer more: accessibility or cheap rent?

Accessibility. Cheap rent means nothing if you have to pay for travel to any place where you have fun. For example, I recently moved to Hell’s Kitchen. The rent on my apartment is $500 more, yet I crunched the numbers and discovered that it would actually be cheaper for me to live here. This is because I no longer require a monthly metrocard (as I can walk to work and anywhere else I’d like to go, only using transport sparingly) and because I no longer need to spend ANY money on cabs. Accessibility, in its own way, makes living cheaper.

10. You’re known as a social media master. How many jobs in that field are in your opinion well paying?

I would say that social media is a great paying job because you can cobble together numerous jobs from a freelance perspective. You can manage 10 twitter accounts, write for 5 blogs, and run 8 Facebook pages, each at a price you name paid every week. On the corporate side, just about every company is looking for a social media player – so you’ll find a lot of gigs out there on Craigslist and the like. And because companies are running scared and have no idea what they are doing, they are willing to pay top dollar to bring in someone who knows the playing field.