Occasionally, I get a wild hair and start waxing poetic on #authorlife over here. Okay, sometimes more than occasionally.
In my mind, there's a lot of meat to being an author. Independent or trade published—makes no difference. It's hard work. Yeah, I know you're busy too. We're all freaking busy. Sue me.
Anyways, in the book world, we spend 200% of our time marketing, and 100% of our time writing, editing, and missing deadlines. Yet, something else I know: THAT equals 300% and that's not really a number. Sue me again. I'm a writer not a mathematician.
So when someone says some bullshit comment to my mom like, "Oh, your daughter writes smut, porn, insert whatever slur you'd like," it really burns me the fuck up. And, yes that F BOMB was intentional. I don't even bother defending myself or all of my amazing colleagues anymore.
Romance is a huge category (chew on this: In 2013, Romance accounted for 13% of Fiction consumed and in 2016, it was a whopping 29%...NUMBERS DO NOT LIE).
As an author who straddles Women's Fiction, Coming of Age Stories & Romance, I love my romance readers. They're bold, fierce and independent. I've grown close with many, and they live for a good story. Dirty or not, they adore the journey and of course, the happy ending. The world around us can be a shitty place, so what's wrong with a little escapism?
It's what goes into all of that from our side. Countless hours running reader groups and takeovers, tweeting, Facebooking, and setting ads. Then, there are all the thankless tasks like uploading, dealing with error messages, emailing Amazon when something goes wrong, and most, most important, keeping up with an industry that changes DAILY. Trends, publishing guidelines, popular tropes...it can be endless. But we do it and LOVE it.
SO #putsomerespectonmyname and don't ever diminish what we do.
Signing OFF, RB
xoxoxo