Lindsay - April 23, 2020This week, we’re joined by clean romance author Rachael Anderson who started out with a traditional publishing contract and later shifted to self-publishing. She’s a rarity in that she puts her books together inexpensively (DIY covers and editing swaps with other authors), even though she sells very well. We asked her about all that as well as the state of clean romance and how hard marketing is in the various romance subgenres.
Here are some of our specific questions:
- It looks like you’ve been publishing for more than ten years. Can you tell us about your path from traditional publishing to indie?
- Which book has been your most successful so far? What do you credit that success to?
- You’ve been involved in collaborative projects. How much effort did they require, and were they worth that effort?
- What advice do you have for authors who would like to go that route?
- You’ve got an agent (Bookcase Literary Agency) and have sold foreign rights. How did that come about as an indie?
- What are your thoughts on the state of clean romance in 2020? Up and coming or already here? Is there a lot of demand from readers right now?
- Amazon has a clean romance category, but since that could include anything from historical viking romance to futuristic space romance, it doesn’t seem like how readers would find books. How do you find your clean romance readers?
- You transitioned from writing standalone books to series. What prompted that transition and how has it gone?
- We’ve heard of people doing a clean or “sweet” version of a spicier romance as a second release, just using strategic edits to fade out or close the door on the more explicit scenes. Do you think that’s an effective tactic for reaching another market?
- In your experience, do readers of clean romance have specific expectations for their books? Does a romance have to be constructed as clean from the start or risk getting dinged in the reviews?
- You’ve had several BookBub features over the years. What sort of things do you think have helped you get featured?
- You’ve mostly been in Kindle Unlimited during your author career. How has that treated you, and have you ever needed to come up with a plan for what you would do if you ever had to go wide?
- You’ve mentioned that having a fan base with expectations for certain kinds of books can make it harder to pivot or branch out into something new. Any more thoughts on that?
- It looks like you’ve written in a few of different subgenres of romance (comedy, YA, regency). Any thoughts on which was easiest to market?
- It’s a popular conception that romance readers tend to be ravenous consumers of books, whereas epic fantasy or sci-fi readers are more likely to stick with a small circle of authors and only buy a book once in a while. Has it been your experience that romance readers tend to read more frequently? And if so, how does that affect pricing?
- You and Andrea swap manuscripts for editing purposes. What is the editing process you go through for each book? Do you have any advice to newer authors who’d like to find someone to swap with?
- We usually advise people to hire cover designers, but if that’s not an option or they have a background in design, then they may be doing their own. Do you have any tips for success?
- She mentioned Steve Novak as someone who does affordable book covers.
- Naturally, different people will have different knacks when it comes to handling aspects of production themselves. Are there any aspects that you would recommend are more important to get right and thus more reasonable to hire someone for? Conversely, are there aspects of book production that you feel are easier than people think and more people could benefit from tackling them personally?
You can find Rachael at her website or check out her books on Amazon, where’s she is currently exclusive. If you want to try one of her novels, you can pick up The Fall of Lord Drayson, Book 1 in her popular Tanglewood series.
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