Real Talks (Part 2)

3 Things I have Learned in my first year of publishing

2. Clean Romances Can Sell

They say that sex sells and for a long time I believed it. For years on Wattpad and Ao3 I was writing steamy romances and it was not because I wanted too, but because I knew it would become the most popular reads online. It was basic science, throw in some sexy smutty scenes and people would be gobbling it up like popcorn.

There came a point in my life that I was so good at writing sex scenes that I could be penning it in a middle of a University lecture, even on the subway ride home. After a while I grew tired of it, and decided that when I become a self-publisher I wanted to experiment writing and publishing clean romances as well. It would mean not having a book cover with a hot sexy man bare chested with abs, or a steamy photo that would send young woman flocking to Amazon to buy it.

Now, do I miss writing steamy romances? Certainly, the desire is still there to produce them. At the same time I have learned (much to my satisfaction) that a slow burn has just as much fighting power. When I penned "The Tragic Tale of Teddy Woven" and "Awakening," there was a clear intent to create a slow burn where the main characters did not kiss until the very end of the novel. Why? Because I know that the reader deep down inside desires it. They can't take the sexual tension seething between the two characters and want the instant gratification of seeing them finally giving into their desires.

So, a valuable lesson I learned this year is that sex does sell, but so does a good slow burn.

Part three of Real Talks will be revealed this upcoming Saturday, so check my blog or Instagram for the latest updates.