Romance Weekly – #LoveChatWrite

It’s Romance Weekly time! A between-the-sheets look at upcoming romance books and the kick ass authors who write them. If you’re visiting from Leslie Hachtel’s site, thanks for being here!

Before we get started, don’t forget there’s a big six-month Romance Weekly anniversary giveaway brewing! We’ve got loads of paperback and e-books, a fifty dollar Amazon gift card, and a 7” Kindle Fire pre-loaded with one heck of a starter library to give away July 29th. The rafflecopter entry is below so be sure you get signed up.

Now onto the questions, given to us this week by Victoria Barbour.

Have you always written romance?

You mean there’s something else out there besides romance?

I say that jokingly, but romance really is a “fix” for me. Life is stressful. Ripe with conflict. Reading romance helps me balance that because I’m guaranteed it’ll have a happily ever after. They say to write what you know and what you love, and I love romance. So, yep…only romance for me.

How do you deal with critiques about the romance genre?

You know, the first twenty or so times I said out loud, “I write romance,” I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes and blushed about fifty shades of red. I’ve learned to keep my chin up these days and have a bit of a twinkle in my eye when I say it, but I still brace for a negative reaction.

I still remember the first time I told some guys at work I wrote romance. They started ripping at imaginary bodices and swooning. One of them even launched into a Scarlett O’Hara imitation. (Which sucked, by the way.)

Those reactions still happen, but these days I just smirk and point out that romance outsells every other fiction genre, so someone somewhere must enjoy it…whether they admit it or not. And it doesn’t outsell by just a little bit. It’s A LOT. I won’t swear by these numbers since I didn’t do the research, but at a recent conference, an agent said romance sold over four billion dollars last year. That’s with a B, people. (RWA says 1.4, so maybe I’d be smart to quote that one.) Either way, the next closest? Six-hundred million for mysteries and thrillers.

So, there.

What’s the one thing about our genre you’d like people to know?

Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.

There’s gotta be something to those numbers above. Something that appeals to people. I tend to think romance is a representation of how we’d like for things to work out. The ideal character traits we want in a man or woman, or the people we’d like to be.

Shoot, maybe guys should give them a go as an instruction manual.

Oh, wait.  They don’t read instructions. I forgot.

So, those are my answers. Hop over to Dani Jace’s site to see how she answers, and while you’re there, check out an excerpt to her soon-to-be-published novel, Hot as Blazes.

But before you go—use the rafflecopter below to get yourself entered in the big giveaway on July 29^th!

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway