Writing a Romance Readers Love, with Danika Bloom
Links in this Episode:
Danika Bloom
Author Ever After
Mother Teresa’s Advice for Jilted Lovers
Romance Writers of America
Writing a Romance Readers Love, with Danika Bloom [Full Transcript]
Intro:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to the Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page.
This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state.
Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community. In this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. bWe're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome rider, I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.
Rhonda:
Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas, and I'm here with Danica Bloom. Welcome, Danica. Yay. Let me introduce Danica to you.
So Danica Bloom is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance. Her stories have been called Laugh Out Loud, Keep You Up Late, Emotional Roller Coasters, which is what we all love. She's a former ghostwriter for progressive not-for-profit organizations. and she lives in a tiny village in British Columbia. She's also a two-term Romance Writers of America volunteer, I believe. We have a Vice President. Wow. Vice President.
Danika:
It was so much fun.
Rhonda:
Was it awesome? Okay, cool. And she runs a community called Author Ever After, which supports romance writers to learn the skills needed to become earning romance writers, right? So, and helping them to get into indie publishing and indie publish their their first book in particular. So we're going to talk about all of it.
And I'm so excited to talk to you because I think you're the first romance author I've had. Oh, true. I had Paula Judith Johnson on earlier, but I haven’t talked to a lot of romance authors.
Danika:
I don't know why you don't, cause we're just like everywhere.
Rhonda:
Right? And also, and also I love reading romance. So, I was really excited to talk to you. When you wrote your first romance, the first one, was your first book?
Danika:
Well, no. Oh, no. Well, my first romance is not my first published book. My first published book is one of those books that is a unicorn, which we think is so fabulous as we're writing it because it's the book of our heart. can never find a place on a bookshelf because they're a mashup of so many different things.
So yeah, my very first book I published is called Mother Teresa's Advice for Jilted Lovers. And it is not a romance, although it does have a romantic element, but it's more of a, honestly, I guess it's really women's fiction. Imagine if like two women developed – it's like The Secret meets. um, you know, uh, meets Dexter.
Rhonda:
Oh, killers.. So how and why did you end up diving into romance?
Danika:
Because of the Romance Writers of America – they were the only group in town, the only writers group. And I do not thrive by myself. I need community. And so as I was working on my first book. I wrote a draft and realized that I needed people around me and they were warm and welcoming and accepted me even though I wasn't writing in their genre. They elected me to the board even though I wasn't writing in their genre at the time.
And then romance came along. I wrote my first romance just before shutdown in 2020 because I had just found myself in communities with romance authors and I freaking love romance authors. And I started reading romance novels where I hadn't read it before.
I came from one of those houses where romance was looked on as lesser than. We had fiction books. We had books, you know, in our library that you would be proud to show, not, you know…. unless my mom was hiding them, but I don't think she was. I'm like so envious of all those writers who say, Oh, I used to sneak my romance reads when I was babysitting at someone's house. And it's like, I never had that.
Rhonda:
Yeah, I used to do that. And also my aunt, my aunt would have all of these like, you know, the Harlequin like secretary billionaire or the bodice rippers. Yeah. My aunt, and my grandmother were crazy for these, like the bodice rippers. Yeah. So that's how I read them and, and kind of got into them as an escape.
But It's interesting. I've talked to a few writers who, including some who've gone through my First Book Finish Program who want to read romance, love romance, are writing romance, and they're kind of ashamed of it. because they're afraid people are going to judge them for it.
Danika:
And people still do, that's a problem, right? So yeah, so that is why it's so lovely to have a community of people who you know you can show up and just be yourself with, or I can just be myself with. So that is how I came to write romance.
Rhonda:
Right, and how many do you have out now?
Danika:
I have five full-length novels, three novellas, and I also have two coloring books, romance-themed coloring books and a journal for readers of romance. Yeah, I just kind of, I like to play.
Rhonda:
That's so fun. So, do you write – now I understand this is really important in the romance genre, especially in indie publishing. Do you write steamy or clean? Or is there something in between? What are all these categories? What do they all mean?
Danika:
Yeah, interesting. I do write steamy. So that means open door. I don't write and this is interesting – I do not think I write spicy and spicy is a term that came out. with the big TikTok, you know, starting to really push romance. It used to be, you know, so spicy would be a little bit steamy and like, you know, we can see them having sex? Yeah, I'm gonna maybe have pushback because there's no like, there's no dictionary definition, but yes, steamy is yes, open door sex for sure. Spicy might be a little kinkier. You know, I have I have one scene in one book that I've had readers tell me that's a little bit too far.
Rhonda:
I love that. So spicy is a little bit kinkier. What about like sex with werewolves? Where's that on the spectrum? Because that's a thing. I know.
Danika:
And sex with blue aliens who have giant appendages that are ribbed. That's very, I mean, honestly, you know, like a whole other category. Honestly, I do not know. I would hope it's, I'm blushing now, I would hope it's a different category. I don't know. Gosh, but clean, like people are very, like clean is basically at the end they kiss. You will.
So there's clean, which is a really challenging term for me because it suggests that sex is dirty. And I really, I think, I mean, this is something that I really wanna. I mean, I come from a nonprofit background, right? So my career before doing this has been working in social justice. So I kind of get on a little bit of a not on a pedestal, but a soap box here.
Sex romance writers do a really great job. Unlike the romance that your grandma read, where sex was often non-consensual as romance writers, we are actually educators, right? And like, when you have sex on the page, if it's respectful and if it's consensual, then you're helping new to the world of sexual activity young readers and maybe little bit older readers appreciate and understand what is okay to do. It's okay if you're a woman to say no thank you and it's expected that the guy is going to say alright. And sex isn't dirty. So that's why I have a challenge with clean but it is a term that's used.
Clean and wholesome. Folsom romance is another term. And then there's inspirational, and then there's Christian. So those four all kind of fall into a mix that gets a little bit confused the same way that spicy and steamy might.
And they're just different levels of, yes, some books they will hold hands, some books there will not be any physical contact, some there's closed door romance. So that's a little bit more, like you might call that a... a three pepper because they're gonna be kissing and maybe there's a little bit of first base touching, I don't know. Anyway, it is a big challenge and it's a really big challenge for romance writers without having to go into the details but articulating that in our blurbs so that we don't attract the wrong readers because you can imagine if- The thing that matters really, it matters a lot to romance readers. the level of comfort they have with how much sex is portrayed and the kind of sex that is portrayed.
Rhonda:
Absolutely. It's the kind of thing that can just get you reamed on Amazon, on Goodreads, on the internet, right?
Danika:
Yeah. And so that's our big challenge is in that tiny little blurb to communicate this is how much you're going to get. And we can do that with covers, which is why you know, if you see a man's chest on a cover cover, you are going to expect that the bedroom door is going to be open. We're going to get to share that man's chest with that heroine, right? Assuming it's a male female, if it's a male, well heck, man chest.
Rhonda:
Yeah. No, that's fascinating. I hadn't actually twigged to that, that it is the cover that first says how much sex really gives you the hint of how much sex is inside. Wow.
Danika:
Except for this big problem that we now have, which is that rom-com, which is kind of, I lean towards the rom-com, has moved to the illustrated covers and illustrated are they look clean and wholesome and they look like all the things that would never say the four letter words.
Rhonda:
So I know that romcoms have moved to the illustrated cover in traditional publishing in the bookstore. Is it the same on Amazon?
Danika:
Yeah, for indie. Yeah, for indie published books. And now it's interesting, so Amazon being a leader as a publisher as well, like Amazon has its own publishing imprints, and there's been in the last year an interesting move towards, well, there've always been object covers. So those are also a little tricky, but the dark romance, you'll often see an object cover. And it's just title treatment. It's just really, really interesting lettering on the covers. And I actually love those.
But again, it makes it really hard for a reader to know. Yeah. So now you've got to see the back of the book and you've got to really get into it exactly. Yeah.
Rhonda:
So the other thing that I'm led to understand is that, um, so indie publishing, you're trying to get your category, right? On Amazon, that really matters. And it's also a way that readers understand, and go looking for the books that they want to read.
Danika:
Yeah, exactly. Your categories are really important, and your keywords. So, you know, we have as writers, we get to choose those seven keyword strings and making sure you've got the right words in there to get in front of people searching for the right for the thing you're writing.
Rhonda:
What was the biggest lesson that you've learned getting into indie publishing of romance? Like those, the first one, two books, what was the, like the thing that blew your mind?
Danika:
Reader expectations and making sure you meet them. So I, as I said, I didn't grow up reading romance and I started reading romance in about 2018. Like really reading it. I was reading a little bit, but I wasn't, you know – it still sounds really funny, but not only do you have to have a happily ever after that is as of today, as of early 2024, it is still almost always the case that you have to have a happily ever after. Right.
Although there are, there's now getting a little bit of pushback. Readers are saying, or some readers are saying, oh, they always end with a happily ever after. And so there's some, just this. movement of people trying to redefine romance, which is weird, but you have to have that at least in 2024. Who knows where the market is going to go in a year? And you cannot even hint that your hero in the almost requisite breakup scene.
And that's actually another thing. Sorry, that's the place where people are saying like, okay, enough with the breakup. What if you even hint that the guy looked at another woman during whatever period of time they're broken up? I learned a very hard way that is not acceptable. He cannot go to a bar after a breakup and cast a glance at another woman. So reader expectation, it was a really interesting one for me to learn.
And you learn that, I mean, you can learn it by experience or you can learn it by talking to others, having good beta readers, like I had different beta readers, I might have had someone say, Hey, you know, that doesn't feel right to me. I know. That's not cool. He's not allowed to look at her. He's in mourning.
Rhonda:
Right. Which is funny, because when I think of romance, the ultimate romance to me would be Pride and Prejudice. And there always was this idea that maybe Darcy would end up with Caroline Bingley. Yeah.
Danika:
Well, yeah. And it's funny, because like we, especially in the rom-com, I find it interesting. If rom-com on TV, rom-com movies are not the same as rom-com novels in that you think of pretty well any rom-com, there's typically another person in there. Like there's a competition for the guy's heart or the woman's heart. So it's, yeah, there are different expectations.
Rhonda:
And do you come to that from the understanding of the obligatory scene? So I'm writing a historical mystery that has a romance subplot. And there's this idea of the obligatory scene, right? So if you're writing a mystery, there must be the confrontation of the killer, right? Somebody's going to die. It's a mystery. When does it have to happen and all of that?
But I hear you saying reader expectation in a way that goes beyond obligatory scenes. Like, yes, there's a meet cute, and yes, there's maybe the first kiss and the breakup and so on. But you're saying actually there's a nuance to it. There's something deeper there around expectation. And it seems to me you've really, really got to know, as you say, being in conversation, being in community with other writers, but also be really reading in your genre.
Danika:
Yes, 100% be reading in your genre. And I think- Yeah, I mean, there are so many subgenres of romance. There are dozens of subgenres of romance and each one brings its own reader expectation, just like, you know, the mystery has got its obligatory dead body and your MacGuffins or whatever they're called, right? Your false leads and things.
Rhonda:
Yeah, yeah. Red herrings.
Danika:
Yeah, in each of the different... subgenres of romance, there are expectations that readers are going to be looking for, you know, in small town romance, the reader wants certain things to happen. There's got to be typically a community of, of friends or the neighbor who's going to be a gossip or the coffee shop where the news gets shared around town. Like there are things that readers can expect.
I love small town romance where they get into what the town looks like and all the different businesses in the town. And that's a thing, right? Like if you read a small town romance and don't have that, you're going to feel like, well, there was just something missing here.
Rhonda:
Yeah, absolutely. So, Danica, I wanted to talk to you about your community, AuthorEverAfter. How long have you been running that community? And what would you say is the biggest thing that you see new authors coming into the community struggling with when they first join?
Danika:
Right. So AuthorEverAfter I launched in August 2020, what year were we? 2022. But prior to that I was the co-founder of another writing community called the Creative Academy for writers and we launched that one in 2017.
Rhonda:
Oh I know that one.
Danika:
Yeah. So that was a community I was one of the three leaders in, and then there were four, and then now they're back down to three because I came over here to create AuthorEverAfter because I just wanted to work specifically with the romance authors.
And the thing that I find most, it's a mindset issue challenge that almost every writer comes in with. And that is where my... zone of genius, I guess, if I can call it, was when I first launched, I was hosting motivation and accountability mindset masterminds, sorry, motivation and accountability masterminds twice a week for the most part of five years in the other community. And they were always well attended.
And it was just people would come back and it's like, I have this one thing, I whatever it is that you're dealing with that week and, and it just won't leave your brain. It just won't leave you. So it was interesting, in doing them now for more than seven years, and now I'm just doing them weekly. What I came to learn working with writers is something that, like if you've studied psychology, psychologists know, we hold on to the things we screw up. We hold on to the things we don't do. We hold on to the negatives.
And so what we do in the mastermind, we start every single meeting by celebrating one thing that someone has accomplished, each person has accomplished in the week prior. And we celebrate with jazz hands or twinkle fingers or whatever it is, so that you actually can start to embed the positive feelings of what you're accomplishing week over week. And that is a huge, I mean, it makes a huge difference to mindset.
And then there's the troubleshooting of all the different things. There's a little bit of fear often, with what's the next step. Like once I get this book done, then I've decided I want to indie publish, but it feels so huge. Right. And then the last thing, which was really interesting, is again, we came out of learning after doing this for a long time, we used to set goals for the week ahead so that we would know what we would be celebrating.
And at a certain point, I don't know. how, I actually, I do remember how it happened. It was an organic thing. And it was one of those moments that was like, we're setting goals, but if you're kicking a ball at a goal and you miss it, it feels really crappy. So you're coming back next week and it's like, I missed the goal. And so rather than setting goals, we make a statement in the week ahead, it will bring me joy to do X.
Rhonda:
Oh, love that.
Danika:
And so we set the intention of joy. And then when you come back the next week, you can celebrate and whether or not you hit that exactly, you can still celebrate and have joy in what you have accomplished without having that icky feeling of I missed the goal.
Rhonda:
Oh, wow, I love that. Let's talk a little bit about community because I just don't even know that I'd have a writing life if I didn't have the community that I've had over the course of my writing life. For you, what's the biggest piece of community in terms of what it's contributed to your ability to be out in the world with, you know, as a published romance author?
Danika:
Yeah. Self-confidence, I think. Like, even though I am in my own space, the facilitator or the leader, I am in other spaces where I am using the encouragement of other writers as much as I can.
Rhonda:
Yeah, me too. Absolutely.
Danika:
Yeah. So I think, I mean, community normalizes those things that we may not realize are normal feelings that writers have. Like I've published six novels. I still feel like when I go to hit publish, I still feel sick. I still feel sick about it. It's like, oh God.
And at first when I started that first novel, Mother Teresa's Advice, I literally thought people were going to read that book and hate me. because of the way... Yes, I had this huge fear that because my characters are serial killers, they're like mind – they kill people with their minds, with their thoughts. I thought people are gonna think I'm the most horrible person and they're gonna hate me.
And even now when I publish, I don't think people are gonna hate me. I know that's not gonna be the case. But these stories that we tell, I mean... they come from our hearts. These books come from my heart. And it's like, if you don't love the book, you don't love me. There's still, I have emotional baggage around that.
Rhonda:
Yeah, we can relate our creations. Absolutely.
Danika:
So I just need to hear from other writers that, yes, even though, and you're 10 steps ahead of me, you still have that feeling. Okay, I'm good. I'm not as broken as sometimes it feels like. That's right. And also you can have that feeling, process that feeling, know that feeling is totally normal and hit. published anyway.
Rhonda:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, Danika, have you had the experience of getting a one-star review or somebody out in the wilds of the internet saying this book is no good or whatever? What was the first time that happened and how did you deal with it?
Danika:
You know, I'm glad you asked the first time because I have had one and two star reviews and now I deal with them differently. It felt incredible. 20 5-star reviews and then you get the two star review or the one star review and that will have more impact than the 25 stars.
Rhonda:
Yes, 100%.
Danika:
So I don't know, I can't remember the first one star review I got, but I know that it felt terrible and I know I probably felt like I wanted to quit because somebody didn't love me. And then you talk to other authors and they're like, yeah, that's what happens. It sucks.
Let me tell you, the person who I think does this deals with one-star reviews better than anybody, and I know other friends of mine have jumped on what she does. Lainey Davis writes really, she may go into the spicy, like she writes really steamy romance, contemporary romance, and when she gets one-star reviews that will say things like, oh my god, so much oral sex, she will actually take those one-star reviews the text from them and create Instagram posts and use them as a way to flag to the readers who will appreciate it. Right. And she just owns those one star reviews.
Rhonda:
Oh, I love it. That's so great.
Danika:
It is. You're basically saying this is the kind of book I write like so it wasn't for you, but it's going to be for somebody else because I do feel like every book is for somebody, you know, like it's a very subjective thing. Yeah. So I just I think that's great.
And guess we, you know, if you're getting one star reviews, Sky Warren, I believe is the one who taught me this. If you're not getting the one in two star reviews, you're not promoting your book hard enough. Like you're not getting it in front of enough people.
But also you have to be getting it in front of the right people. So you know, you are going to get those the wrong people are going to pick it up when you're like you get a like when you do a big promotion, a big push, some of the wrong people will pick it up. But it also will tell you, you know, go and make sure that your blurb is saying who it should be reading it. There's always something to learn from it. Right. That's where I am now.
Rhonda:
Oh, good. Wow. So can we talk a little bit about the promotion? One of the things I, you know, the indie publishing world, you become your own publisher, which means you become your own market as well. How do you deal with that side of things? Because surely it eats into this. And I'm going to indie publish a book later this year. But in my head, I'm like, Oh, how, how am I gonna spend time on marketing when what I really want to be doing is writing the next book?
Danika:
Right. Well, yeah, and it does take the time away from writing. It absolutely does. I think you have to decide, and this is, I think it's a decision with every book, the marketing and the publishing of a book, well, it does take time and it takes mental energy and it can be exhausting. And you probably aren't going to be doing a lot of writing during that time.
But if you're an author who wants to be an earning author, you're running a business and you just have to recognize, all right, I'm running a business and these are the jobs that I have in running my business. And I don't always get to do the fun stuff. Sometimes I've got to do the stuff that I don't love. And then figuring out how to enjoy as best you can the parts that aren't you know, your first choice, because you don't have to market your books.
I mean, you could like, there's no law that says you can't write your books and publish your books and then let them organically find their readers. You won't find a lot of readers organically, but you know, there, it can happen. You can have a unicorn experience and someone on TikTok might find it and promote it for you.
But I think the thing I might have veered off your question, but setting expectations in line with where you are in your career is probably the most important thing to keep it. That's interesting. You would say that in line with where you are in your career. If you're publishing your first book, don't expect to get 300 reviews in your first two weeks, right? Do the work to reach readers, but have expectations with your sales numbers that are in line with not having a readership yet, not having started to build the audience of people who are going to be going, oh, Rhonda Douglas is publishing, I'm going to pre-order now because I already know that I love her books.
Rhonda:
Right. I think that's really important because, you know, there's the old stat, I don't know how updated this is, but that, you know, the average self-published book sells fewer than 200 copies.
I always think, like, if I have those 200 people in my kitchen, well, first of all, they wouldn't fit in the kitchen. But I would be so excited, do you know what I mean? A friend sold 80 copies when she self-published and then 100 copies. And, you know, like that's huge when you're, when it first comes out and you thought, no, you know, you had days where you thought no one is going to read this book and now you sold 100 copies. Like, I think it's really important to celebrate every, every little moment.
Danika:
Absolutely. Yeah, we celebrate like when, when an author hits 50 reviews, there's, there's like chaos in our mastermind because you know it's like all the waving arms and hands. We've got 50 reviews! Because I mean I don't know about, I know there is a stat and it is very small.
But also if you go and look at indie published books, the number of reviews the majority of those books have is fewer than 10. Like it's really, and the reviews correlate in a way in some way to the number of books that have been sold, right? So if you're hitting 50 and 100 reviews, then that means people are reading your book because like what, maybe one in 10 reviews it maybe. Maybe.
Yeah. Must be like that because yeah, I'm bad. I don't review books. I should kind of get in there. It's hard as a writer, like as an author, I find it really challenging to review books. I mean, I will only review books. that I will give five stars to because I believe in karma.
Rhonda:
Yeah, absolutely. I know there's this trend on TikTok of just, you know, people coming out and saying, you know, oh, I hated this book or I hated that book or whatever, but like, why would you even waste your time? Like, what is that about?
As you know, Danica, this is The Resilient Writers Radio Show. So I'm trying to remember to ask everyone, and I wanted to get your thoughts on it: what does it mean to you to be a resilient writer?
Danika:
It means two things that are connected. And one is to embrace rejection as redirection. So it's like my first book, I wanted to be a trad published author and pitched agents. And I realized, and this is just, it's the most coherent way I can explain rejection is redirection. I pitched 55 agents, I had some requests, ultimately no offer from an agent. So the redirection is I'm going to indeed publish. And there are all kinds of forks and roads where we might think we wanna do it one way. And if it doesn't work, you just look for a different fork.
So that's part of being resilient is knowing that whatever path you've chosen, there are forks that you can take. And then the other part of that is really important. I suffered burnout last year and a lot of things contributed to it, but one part of it was made worse by having a book launch that didn't do as well as the effort I put into it. So I still after, you know, six novels, three novellas, I still had that expectation that it would do better. And then I wanted it to do better than it did. And that made the burnout even harder to recover from.
So I think part of being resilient is putting in place the self-care and part of self-care for me is having people around so that I'm not just sitting and stewing in my own self, you know, self-loathing or what I mean that sounds worse than it is. No, but self-recrimination like you should have known. Yeah. Why didn't you do this or you know. Right, you teach this, come on.
Rhonda:
Right. Recognizing that you need to take a break sometimes that you know, I've always I've always been like I know Stephen King says, write every day, you have to write every day and somebody else does his laundry – I just want to say that.
Danika:
Well, seriously, and I've always rebelled against that anyway, because my creativity doesn't come like a day job, it comes in bursts and I will go hard. I'm a binge writer, so I've always rebelled against that. But the break, sometimes you'll need a little bit longer break than you might want to take. And that's part of being resilient – recognizing that just because you're taking a break, it doesn't mean you're not doing it. You're recovering, you're thinking that, you know, yeah.
Rhonda:
Yeah, a break is not a stop. It's just a rest. Learn to rest, not quit, right? Exactly, there you go. Learn to rest, not quit. Love it. Yeah, so good.
Alright everyone, so you can connect with Danica over at danicabloom.com, check out her books and you can find them all where you get all your fun books to read. But also check out AuthorEverAfter, particularly for those of you writing romance who are feeling like, you know what, I really need community because I really do believe that it's community that keeps us going. Thanks so much for talking to me today.
Danika:
It was lovely talking to you. Thanks Rhonda.
Rhonda:
Thank you.
Outro:
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