Going Indie: Month 2

Finding my pitch

February was a blur for me.

I had author events of one kind or another every weekend, trying to build my visibility and keep up connections, while still working my day job, doing my part in keeping our household afloat, keeping up with social media and marketing work, and progressing on the next book.

I did this to myself on purpose, but it was still quite a ride. I worry a little whether I have the stamina I’m going to need for this.

If you’d like to start at the beginning of this story, you can read my Month 1 update here: Going Indie: Month One

The plan in broad terms is to take my writing life more fully into my own hands and raise it from an occasionally mildly profitable hobby to something that pays my bills. To get started down that track, I wrote three short romance novels which I’m indie-publishing in April, May, and June of 2026.

My GenX romances

I chose romance quite intentionally for both business and personal reasons.

On the personal side, I wanted to write something light and escapist. Like a lot of people, I’m finding it difficult to keep heart in the current political and social environment in the United States and I found it healing to write stories where nice people fall in love. Writing was first something I did for myself, and even though I do it with an audience in mind now, self-expression is still paramount in what I write and why I write it.

I settled on GenX Romances in particular because I’m a GenXer myself and because my best known work to this point is my Menopausal Superheroes series which also centers “women of a certain age.” So, even though Romance is a new genre for me, there’s some connection to my previous work and some of my existing readers are likely to give them a try. That’s sort of business and personal, I suppose.

Also, I read and blurbed a how-to book about writing romance for older characters (Write and Sell a Well-Seasoned Romance by Stella Fosse) and it sparked an interest in me to explore love stories for women in their 40s and 50s. I’m a sucker for a good prompt, which is probably how I ended up doing so much short-story writing for anthologies. So, Stella, these three books are probably your fault.

On the purely business side of things, well, romance sells. Romance readers are voracious! That’s a good reason to try writing it if I’m serious about making a living from my words. Romance with older characters looks like it might be a niche that’s building momentum, too. I keep finding more in the sub-genre the more I look for it.

Contemporary romance was the top subgenre in the U.S., with 32% of unit sales in 2023 (Publishers Weekly)

As I wrote these books, I found that the alternating point-of-view structure and clear genre and trope expectations meant that I could write more quickly than I have written my other books. (3-6 months for the first draft of each instead of 1-2 years).

When February rolled around, I had already seen all three books through editing (hired) and formatting (did it myself in Vellum) and gotten two of them into the system at Ingram. I was only awaiting the cover for the third book. I detailed my spending for the first book in my previous post in more detail, but I spent just over $700 producing each book, so I’m starting this experiment $2100-ish in the hole and we’ll see how long it takes me to “earn out.”

Even though I don’t plan to release these books until April, May, and June, I went ahead and ordered copies of both Not Too Late and Acid Reign with plans to hand sell them at my February events. They cost me between $4 and $5 a copy and I’m selling them for $15 each.

I know from past experience that selling your books in person is one of the best ways to learn how to sell your books. It gives you a chance to pitch hundreds of people and see what lands and doesn’t land with audiences. What tag line or approach makes someone pick up the book and read the back? What makes them decide to actually part with their hard-earned dollars and buy it?

More people picked up Not Too Late than Acid Reign to look at, which may have to with the bright colors and the appeal of 80s themed retro designs at the moment. Though my pitch for Acid Reign was pretty well received: “a punk princess falls for a politician; it’s complicated.” I haven’t landed on how to quickly pitch Not Too Late yet.

In February, I took these books (along with my others books—the Menopausal Superheroes series and some short horror collections—to two small local brewery events and a bigger book fair at a larger brewery with a Valentine’s theme. I’ll take them to a local horror film festival this weekend. That last one might seem odd, but, as a multi-genre author, I generally take at least some of all my books when I do an event. Sometimes which things sell where is unpredictable. So we’ll see if horror fans also buy romance or not.

In marketing work, I also finished my one month NetGalley co-op rental for Not Too Late and started a second one for Acid Reign, working under the theory that having reviews lined up on publication day will help me with online sales. I’ll have to wait until April to see if that proves true, but it has already given me some pull quotes and reviews I can link to for social media promotion.

• As of this writing, 127 people requested Not Too Late, 114 people downloaded it before my NetGalley offer archived, and so far, 15 have reviewed on NetGalley, and 10 have posted their reviews to Goodreads. This might still collect more reviews ongoing.

• For Acid Reign, I’ve had 53 requests so far (it’s still open for another few days if you want in), 45 downloads, 7 reviews on NetGalley, and 4 reviews on Goodreads. While I feel like the cover of Acid Reign is right for the book, I wonder if the darker colors and less playful design have something to do with the lower number of requests.

• I’m starting a NetGalley offer for Ready or Not next week, which also has a brighter, lighter cover (with a dog!) and we’ll see how that plays.

Additionally, I devoted some time reaching out to bookstores to see if they’ll host me or sell my books, setting up consignment arrangements with a few places, and pursuing media coverage (with very little success).

I’m also working with an audiobook narrator on Not Too Late, and I LOVE Maggie’s voice and how she’s interpreting my characters so far.

And I made some pretty good progress on The Architect and the Heir, my next project. It’s a Gothic romance, so another new genre for me, but it does let me use some of what I’ve learned writing horror and romance and tap into a lifelong love of Gothic settings and trappings. I grew up on Universal Monsters, Dark Shadows, and Daphne du Maurier, among other things, after all.

I wrote 7,000 or so new words on the project and revised 9,000 or so. I’m bad at guessing how long it will take me to finish things, but it feels like I’m in the final third, so I’m hoping to finish a full draft by the end of March and get started on the revision.

And I approved the cover design!

I tried out a service for this one, since I ran across a good deal and you can opt out of the use of AI in the creation of your cover. The process wasn’t as much fun as working with the indie artist on the romances, so I don’t know if I’ll go this route again, even though I am pleased with the design and it was less expensive.

I am the stubborn girl who is going to try and make it as a romance writer without putting her books in KU because I disapprove of how the Big River site does business, so obviously I don’t make all my decisions just on what makes the most business sense. Sometimes, it’s about what feels right, and this cover company feels a little too slick.

Ethics versus profits, huh? Tale as old as time.