For this episode I sat down with two steamy romance writers: Madison Michael and Ashley Kay. They both came out with books recently and have things in common to talk about as well as differences in their approaches to writing and marketing. They’re also part of the Creative Writing Community!
Ashley Kay just came out with Trusting You, A Hadley Falls Novel and plans to release the next novel in June of 2022. Get her novel here.
Madison Michael has redone her first series, with Bedazzled: A Beguiling Bachelor Romance out now (get it here) and the others all coming out soon in 2022. Madison mentioned CreateIfWriting on the podcast.
If you would like to know more about the Creative Writing Community, check it out here.
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TRANSCRIPT BEGINS
Kat (00:51)
This is Pencils and Lipstick. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Pencils and Lipstick podcast today as I recorded the intro. It is March 5, I believe, and we are recording the 121st episode. I have something special for you today. We’re going to be talking with two people. So I’ll be talking to two different romance writers, Madison Michael and Ashley Kay. They are both in the creative writing community. They both come out with two books this spring and plan to come out with more in the coming months. And so I just wanted you guys to hear from them what they are planning to do on their sort of rapid release, what that means, why they sort of chose the path that they chose and a little bit from them on what we do at the creative writing community. I’ve heard from a couple of people that they don’t really understand writing sprints. They think that the word sprint sort of means a movement towards how many work did you get done? Almost like it’s a hustle. It sort of, I guess, conjures up this idea of I’ve come to type really fast sprint. We’re running fast. And I can completely understand that.
Kat (02:20)
What’s interesting about writing sprints is it’s basically a moment in which you are really trying to focus only on writing. That’s what we mean by it. So we are going to change the vocabulary, I guess, around writing sprints. We’re going to call them writing sessions because really it’s okay if you don’t get 5000 words written in these writing sessions. That is not the idea. Now, I personally like to have word goals per day. It just shows me a measurement really, of where I’m going and how much I got done in my book that day. It’s okay if you don’t do it like that. Honestly, the sessions that we have, which we have eight plus every week. In fact, I am recording this on Saturday, and we are getting ready to have a writing session today. It’s really just a time for you to come with other people online and write. And it gives us that space to tell people no, this is my writing time. And for whatever reason, right or wrong, as humans have this ability to defend something when it’s not just about us. And I don’t know why that is. So if it’s because a lot of us are getting together to write.
Kat (03:45)
It’s almost easier to defend that that is your writing time. I also think that it helps you focus. It helps me focus to see everyone else they are writing, and I’m not going to waste my time. For some reason, it works psychologically. So I encourage you, if you want to check out writing sessions with us, a place where you can come and write and get some words down, get your research done for your book, get your editing done. Not everybody measures their progress in their projects by words like I do. Some people just come to make sure that they are spending the time. Some people measure by pages. Some people just don’t. They’re getting further along than they would have. And so we even talk a little bit about that with Ashley and Madison. Before I get into the show with them, I want to make sure that you know that all the links that they talk about are in the Show Notes. Wherever you’re listening to the podcast, you just have to go to where the details of the podcasts are, and you will be able to link over to Madison Michael’s webpage or Ashley Kay’s web page or their books, et cetera, whatever they’re talking about.
Kat (04:57)
You could also find the transcript of the show over at Pencils and Lipstick, all spelled Out.com. You can also find out more information about writing sessions and the creative writingcommunity@catcalldwell.com. And of course, all those links are in the Show Notes. If you want to support the Pencils and Lipstick podcast, I would completely appreciate it because it takes quite a bit of time and energy and a little bit of money to put the show together. I enjoy it immensely. I plan to continue with this podcast. I need to catch up to the Creative Pen podcast like 600 episodes and still going. So clearly there’s no catching up there no, but I’m having a really good time and I plan on continuing with the podcast. But if you would like to support it to make sure that I am caffeinated and my editor, Christie is Caffeinated over@sheedits.com. Please head on over to Patreon. Compencilsick and be a part of the show. We’ll give you a shout out. You can start out as little as $3 a month or a one time gift. That’s perfectly fine with us. We just appreciate you listening and supporting the show. Please think about reviewing the show.
Kat (06:23)
We talk about reviews on books, but if you would review the show as well, that would always help the algorithm and share the show with all the other writers that, you know, aspiring writers or readers because we talk a lot about books here and now let’s get into the show. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast. Today we are recording a 121st episode and I’m really excited to have two people on. This is the very first time I’ve had three auffle. Is that something. Ashley, I have Ashley Kaye with me and Madison Michael, and they’re both romance authors. So we will probably talk in romance tropes the entire time that we talk. Hello, You two. How are you doing?
Maddy (07:10)
Good.
Ashley (07:11)
How are you?
Maddy (07:12)
Hey, Kat
Kat (07:14)
All right. Let’s start with Ashley Kay. You are newly published author. So tell us a little bit about who you are, where you’re from and what you are writing.
Ashley (07:26)
Hi, everybody. I’m Ashley Kay. I am from the Southwest. I live in Nevada. I am a mom to a very rambunctious little girl. I write contemporary human romance, and I love every bit of it. I just released Trusting You. It’s on Amazon, and I just can’t wait to see what’s next.
Kat (07:48)
Yes. I’m so excited for you. All right, Madison Michael. Right.
Ashley (07:53)
And where are you from?
Maddy (07:54)
I am Madison Michael. Call me Maddie. I am just outside Chicago, and I’m in the process of re publishing my very first series, which is a billionaire series. I write steamy contemporary romance like Ashley, but my heroes tend to be billionaires and occasionally my heroines tend to be billionaires.
Kat (08:20)
I love that because we get to talk about all of the things that are so expensive in the world.
Ashley (08:25)
Exactly.
Kat (08:27)
It gives us an excuse to Google what is the most expensive pair of sunglasses. You can have that in your buck. Oh, my gosh. So as we talk today, I want to talk a little bit about writing life. Of course, Ashley is a new author, and Maddie has quite a few books, but she is revamping. So we’re going to talk about that as well. But Ashley, first, can you tell us a little bit about Trusting You and where you see that book going and what might be coming down the line in 2022?
Ashley (09:00)
So Trusting You is the first book in my very first series, the Hadley Fall Series. And it’s centered around four friends that each get their shot at love because what else do romance wrath about the love.
Kat (09:14)
Exactly.
Ashley (09:15)
So Trusting You is about Katie Hart. She is the Baker, pretty much renowned Baker for the city of Hadley Falls. And if you’ve been in any city, you know how it is. Right? You may live in a city, but when you work on, like, a main street, everybody knows your business. So you kind of get to see all these little different side characters. But Katie gets dumped on her birthday, and that’s a great way to start your birthday. Right. And her best friend comes to the rescue and drags her to a bar. She meets a really hot guy, and it goes on from there. And I am super excited. The next book, Trusting Me, is coming out in June of this year. And that will follow another friend and Katie’s brother. So it was really exciting story, and I cannot wait. I don’t want to give too much away because you got to read the first one first.
Kat (10:09)
Yeah, of course. No, you have to leave some of it. Then, of course, we will have links in the show notes because, of course, as good in the authors go, both of these ladies have little tidbits that you can get for free when you sign up for their newsletter. So we’ll talk about that a little bit at the end. And I want to talk about series and how we get to that. But let’s first hear from Maddie about what you just rereleased as well.
Maddy (10:35)
So I swear, Ashley, I’m not copying you, but I just rereleased a completely reedited and revamped version of my very first book, which is called Bedazzled. It is part of a series called The Beguiling Bachelor’s. It is about four highly entitled and successful men who fall in love and learn that money can’t buy love and they have to jump through some Hoops. But they all have happy endings. And I’m now working on a second series, a twelve book series also built around friends called Alt Crazy in Love. And the Crazy is a reference to a group of friends who are in their 30s but have been friends since they were eight years old. And they call themselves the Crazy Eight. So that’s what I’m working on.
Kat (11:37)
I love the concept that you guys have for both for all of the series and all of the ideas, because I know Ashley also has two other series in her brain as well. So what is the strategy?
Maddy (11:50)
A little bit.
Kat (11:50)
You’re both contemporary romance writers. You’re both writing series. Is that something that is typical for romance?
Maddy (11:58)
Well, I can go first. I did not set out to write a series originally. I set out to write one story about a wealthy Bachelor and a young jewelry designer who have a wonderful meet in an elevator that I will not give away. But I needed my Bachelor, Wyatt. I needed him to have people to talk to. And I gave him three friends that he meets regularly for drinks that he could have conversations with so that you could find out what he was thinking.
Kat (12:34)
Right.
Maddy (12:35)
And they were my secondary characters. But as the book progressed, they became interesting in their own right. And I realized I had the making of a series if I just told the stories of each of the four bachelors. So that was not an intentional series. My next series is an intentional series. And part of the reason is that romance readers read a lot. They read a lot of books. And so if they like your book, they’re going to come back and look for more books by the same author. And as an author, you want to give your readers what they want.
Kat (13:15)
Yeah, that makes sense. Is that your same thing, Ashley, did you set off to write a series?
Ashley (13:20)
Yes. So I write a little bit different series than Madison writes. I believe Madison writes series that are stand alone. I write interconnected theories.
Kat (13:31)
Okay.
Ashley (13:32)
So I grew up being that kid that always wanted to know what happened later, like what happened to that dude’s cousin or what happened to that side character. I was that kid, and I think I was like 18 or 19 when I found that there’s actually, like, authors and romance that do this. They write a series and then they write a spin off series based on these people’s brothers. And I became ravenous for that. And when I started plotting, trusting you, it kind of just took over. And I noticed that I fell in love with these side characters. And so then I started doing the same thing where it was like, oh, well, I have four, but now I’m going to do this and this. And it’s the same. I mean, readers love the series, so you have to kind of give them what they want.
Kat (14:22)
Yeah. And as a selling point, do you think it’s helpful to have, like, is that part of it at all to have a series where people can pick up on a different character.
Ashley (14:33)
Having a vacation, somebody can go to you build this world that people love, and it’s a place for them to check out into. And as you keep building it, it’s just more opportunities for them to fall back into it.
Maddy (14:45)
And also, as you get further into a series, even if the characters are different, the lead characters are different. When you get to book three or book four, you’re still revisiting a little bit. Those primary characters that kicked off your series. And people feel like they know them more. They get more in depth opportunities to learn about them and see them come and go within the other stories until they’re really invested. It’s really no different than Leechild’s writing about Jack Reacher. People feel like they know Jack Reacher and they want to read more Jack Reacher because they feel like they know him, they feel invested in him. And that’s thrillers, right? That’s mysteries and thrillers. That’s not romance, but it’s really about feeling like you’re more deeply involved, whether it’s Star Wars or Jack Reacher or the Hadley Fall series or the beginning Bachelors.
Kat (15:47)
Right. So basically you have them fall in love with the main characters and then it’s like, oh, but you want to see the friends, like, in real life, we want to see our friends meet people. Right. And get married and be happy. And so your idea, I guess, as a romance author, is to get them to care about the side characters as much as they care about.
Ashley (16:08)
And sometimes your readers will surprise you and like a character that you had no intention of giving around. And then they’re like, oh, wait, you wanted them.
Maddy (16:18)
I just had that happen. And I mentioned a younger brother in passing in my Big Island Bachelor series, and now he’s become the hero in one of my crazy Ace Books, because people said, well, what happened to Ethan? So I brought back Ethan. So you never know. But really, your readers will tell you what they want.
Kat (16:40)
That’s interesting. So you both talk about your readers telling you, how do you do that as an author? How do you get feedback from your readers? What strategies have you guys used to tap into that? Ashley, do you want to go first?
Maddy (16:56)
Sure.
Ashley (16:56)
So I first utilized Facebook. I have a Facebook group. That’s what I started first, and it’s Ashley K readers. But I have my core group of my ride or die people in there first, and I just asked them questions like, what do you want to do this? And this. And now I’m developing my newsletter, your story Origin, which is an amazing writer tool for you writers out there listening, and I can ask questions in my email and I get responses back or I can send them polls. And they just literally this week told me that they want family trees. I let them pick between four freebies they want to see and they want family trees. So it was really cool to hear their insights on what they like. Cool.
Kat (17:40)
So they like seeing that. What about you, Madison?
Maddy (17:42)
I do twice a month, I do an email newsletter and I ask questions. I do polls. But most of the time, amazingly, I get completely unsolicited emails from people who read a book and say, I’m really curious about why this happened, or can we see more of this? It happened a tremendous amount when I wrote my second book, which is called Beholden. It gets confusing. Be dazzled beholden. And my revamped Beholden is coming out this month. So when I did Beholden, people started sending me emails like crazy, saying, I really love this character. Whatever you do, don’t let him disappear. Or do you see more of this or what happens to so and so or my favorite, can you write a whole book about where they are five or ten years later? Oh, sure.
Kat (18:38)
I can definitely.
Maddy (18:39)
I’ll just drop everything and do that right now. And the temptation is to want to do that, to drop everything and give them what they want. But I do get unsolicited emails and I do like Ashley, do polls, and I also do. I have a Facebook group, but also I have beta readers. I don’t know how an author survives without beta readers. So the first people who read my book are invited to give me as much honest, down and dirty feedback as they can. And a lot of the time, what they’ll say is beef up this character and then write a book about them because they’re really interesting.
Kat (19:20)
Do you as a writer, find it interesting or I guess more interesting or easier to write in a series, like to return back to the characters? Or do you sometimes kind of wish that you could just write stand alone. I don’t know. I write standalone, so I’m not really sure how you do series.
Ashley (19:43)
I don’t really know how to not write. So my brain tangents really well. And just in random conversation, like, I’ll get sparks or ideas for things. So anytime I’ve said I’m going to do this story, for instance, I have a story I’m working on and literally was only going to work on that story, and I already have an idea for a spin off that was not intentional. So my brain just doesn’t. That’s just how your brain constantly just goes. And I have a really good memory, so it’s really easy for me to remember the story details and the randomness most of the time.
Maddy (20:17)
And you never sleep.
Ashley (20:18)
Yeah, that too.
Kat (20:23)
Do girls keep like Excel files or notes on what happened or do you write them so quickly?
Maddy (20:30)
They call it a series Bible and I can’t live without mine. I’ve actually boxed myself into a corner with my new All Scratzian Love series, but I keep a series Bible where you say everybody’s name and where they interact with each other. And if you reference their niece, what their niece’s name is, and if you reference their sister, what their sister’s name is, if they went to College, where you said they went to College. So that when you get further down in the series, you make sure that you’re consistent with what you said three books ago. But my new series, All Crazy in Love, happens in the same time frame. So if a conversation happens in book one between two characters, then when I get to the book about the second character, that same conversation has to happen in both, but from a different point of view. And if I had realized how difficult that was going to be, I would never have gotten myself in this situation.
Kat (21:29)
I feel like a writer say this a lot if I knew I would. But we just have to write our books. So I want to focus a little bit on two different aspects that you guys are not similar in. So, Ashley, first you’re up. You are a mum. She’s like three, right? She’s four at that. Four, like, super cute. But of course, kids take a lot of time. You also work a full time job sometimes. Have to see your husband, maybe, I don’t know. He’s around somewhere. You keep up with writing. How has life and writing? Do you have any tips on balance or just encouragement for how people can do the same thing?
Ashley (22:19)
Yes. So my biggest tip is don’t compare yourself as a whole. People tend to compare themselves to other people. Or you compare where you’re starting to someone’s middle. You can’t do that at all. And I will say I’ve had plans for things. I finished trusting you by the end of 2019 and was fully prepared to have it published by 2020 and in August. Well, Besides Covent happening in 2020. My daughter in August of 2020 was diagnosed with autism, and it wasn’t handled very well, in my opinion. I was literally just told that so much was going to have to happen. And I was literally, like, buried. And I felt like I was never going to get out of it. And writing was done. And then I kind of kicked myself in the butt and wiped myself off and found this amazing community of women in the beginning of 2021, I believe. And I had to get on a schedule and just force myself to show up every day. We tend to get into this thing of it’s not making money, so it’s not a big deal or it’s not earning me money. So work is harder or work needs to come first.
Ashley (23:36)
But the truth of the matter is, if you put the effort in, it would be making you money. And if you did it, it would be bringing in everything you want. And I can say that because I just published in February and I’ve already seen the fruits of my labor. So just calendar block your day and just do it. That’s all I can say. And as long as honestly, if you have a goal of 2000 words and your kid is screaming at you and life gets in the way, it’s okay. If you only got 200 words in because you made progress. If you only got five words in, you made progress. That’s all that matters. And trust me, this is coming from a mom who literally gets up at two to 03:00 a.m. Midnight sometimes and has to work a full day and doesn’t get to go back to bed until ten. I know how hard it is, but you just keep going, and that’s all you can do and give yourself Grace.
Kat (24:30)
And I think you were smart to not try to add one more thing to your plate after a diagnosis like that when they’re probably saying, you got to go to this therapist and you got to make an appointment with this person and you’re working at the same time. And I think we try to force ourselves to continue down the road that we were on literally the day before. Like, well, I’m still going to publish my book, but the progress you’ve made this month because you took the time to find a moment in which you could do it right. I mean, you’ve gotten so many sales already. It’s really great. So many page reads. I don’t know if that would happen if you were just like, oh, just press, publish so that it’s done. I got to go look at my daughter now. Do you think that it would have been the same?
Ashley (25:20)
No. I could honestly say if I hadn’t taken the time that I had taken, it wouldn’t be the same. But there would be reviews that say that it sucks that it’s not ended right and that I didn’t take my time with it. I can be honest. The cover alone has changed. The original cover that I had done because I’m a graphic designer as well by day has changed dramatically in the year from what I had originally had to publish to what is on the published product. It’s leaps and bounds over what it started up. And had I rushed and hit and hit go, I would have a logo I’m not happy with. I would have brand colors I’m not really in love with. And the cover, I just think, is pretty, but it’s not like breathtaking, and I’m not even shooting my own Horn. I literally look at my cover and I love it. It gives me joy. It is beautiful. Thank you. But the other one didn’t give me that joy, and this one does. So I know I made the right decision, even if it delayed my time, because it may have delayed my time, but I still have my goal, so that’s all that matters.
Kat (26:29)
And when you hit publish, what we don’t know sometimes. Speaking of, if I knew what I do now, I mean, I always talk about when you hit publish, if you don’t have a strategy behind the publish. Like I didn’t in 2017, nothing happens. So your book just sits there and your second one is coming out already because it’s almost finished. Do you think that will help you like having that sort of timeline where you come out with your first one and then your second one only a few minutes later?
Ashley (26:59)
Yeah, I think it’s really going to help the momentum. And I will say, had I pushed publish in 2020, when I was ready, the second book would not be coming out till now. So instead of I think we’re going from February to March or February to a June release, we would have had 2020 to a 2022 release. That’s a big gap in time. So it definitely helps, right?
Kat (27:25)
Like keeping those readers following you? It’s possible, but it’s way more.
Ashley (27:31)
So much more work. Because not only then do you have to focus on your writing, your content for your social media and what you put in your newsletter has to go far and above what you would have had had you waited, because you have to keep them engaged. But you don’t really have anything to engage them completely with. It’s one thing to build a newsletter for six months because you have this going on. And in certain genres, that’s expected. In romance genre, that is not expected. Romance readers are gluttonous for more books. Like, they just want it. You could not even be done with a book. And they’re like, can I have it? I just want it. Can I get to get it now? I need the story. I still like that with books. But yeah, it’s really help.
Kat (28:25)
That is cool. I like that strategy. I wish somebody had told me that in 2017. But Maddie, you are republishing books. And this has actually come up in a couple of different Twitter conversations because, yes, I waste time on Twitter sometimes of people deciding whether to revamp a book because we don’t know what we don’t know when we’re writing our first book. I went back and redid my first book. So what made you decide that you wanted to change some things or what is it that you changed and why did you decide to revamp it and republish it instead of just, I guess, moving on to your 1200 book series of the KPA.
Maddy (29:08)
1200, please. Actually, I had some outside help and I agonized over it, to be perfectly honest, because it was a very expensive proposition. But at the beginning of the pandemic, I shut down. I felt like there was so much going on in the world that there was no place for writing romance novels. It felt frivolous to me and I could not write new content. And I knew this about myself. So I started looking at what I already had and how I could keep a hand in the game while I struggled with this whole creativity issue. And I was following Kirsten Alphant, who does a podcast of her own. I think she used to do a podcast, but I’m sure it’s still available called Create If Writing. And she is a marvelous book marketing coach. And she was offering a very inexpensive I’ll take a look at one book that you’ve written from a marketing perspective. I’ll look at your website, I’ll look at your Amazon book description, I’ll look at your cover, I’ll look at your look inside. And she gave me some tough love, some very tough love. She said, you really need to focus on your writing craft because the book I gave her was my very first book.
Maddy (30:35)
And she wasn’t wrong. We all get better the more we write. And I’m no different. So she said, you need to focus on your writing craft. And I dug deep because I was not selling books, because I was not writing books. And I paid for an editor. And I gave my books, all four of the Big Island Bachelor books, to a professional editor, a marvelous editor named Nicole from Emerald Edits. And she tore them apart in some places and she kind of reassured me in others. And now I have the same story told differently, told better. And I was going to first only have her do the first book because if I could sell the first book, maybe I could entice people to read the whole series. But she did such a great job on the first book that I gave her the whole series. Now I have a better book, a better product, and I’m really excited to release it. It’s the same story. So someone who’s read it already is going to say it reads a little smoother or the characters are a little better. And it gave me also a chance to take in the reviews good and bad and adjust my characters a little bit based on reader feedback, which was really fun to do.
Maddy (32:07)
But that’s what I did. I could have either tossed it aside and lost a year completely, or I could invest in my writing for a year and come back when the year was over and I was ready to start being creative again. So that’s what I did.
Kat (32:20)
I think that’s a fabulous idea because we all sort of have these stories in our head and writing them, it’s hard work, but we don’t, again, know what we don’t know. And storytelling isn’t. There is a craft to it, which honestly, I didn’t look into for the longest time. So that is what Editors bring to the table. And sometimes I always tell people it’s a hard thing. And you can either go with an editor or you can do a course, which will take time and money can read a lot of books. And it just sort of depends on how you learn and how you react to the Editors, I guess, how you respond to learning.
(33:07)
Right.
Kat (33:08)
But an editor, in your case, was able to show you what you did great, what needed improvement, how to keep the same book. And now you have four books that do you have added confidence to going out there and selling them.
Maddy (33:23)
I’m prouder of them.
Kat (33:24)
Yeah.
Maddy (33:24)
That’s cool, because when I first wrote a book, I just had a story to tell. And when I got to book five, book six, book seven, I started to want to put really good books out there, not just stories. I wanted to be proud of my work. In some respects, it’s my legacy. I don’t have children. I don’t think my cat counts. And so my books will be my legacy. They will be there when I’m no longer here. And I wanted them to be something I was proud of. And so now, thanks to great editing, I think that they are books I’m proud of. So definitely good.
Kat (34:10)
Yeah. And it’s easier to pay for marketing and push out a book if it’s really something that you’re confident. And it doesn’t mean that somebody out there is going to not like your book.
Maddy (34:22)
Because we all get can’t please all the people all the time.
Kat (34:27)
Oh, my gosh. I sometimes have to remind myself, no, you did get that book edited just because that person. But you know, when I was talking to Desiree Holt, who has over 300 books, if you guys didn’t hear that interview that’s in January and she said she went back and she revamped some of her books because we all get better. And I think you just have to make that decision whether you sort of move on, because I’ve heard other authors just take them off sale because they remove them if they’re not super happy with them or if you revamp them? I think they’re both valid ideas. I would rather have something out there.
Ashley (35:04)
I’m all for rebuilding money. You see that all the time, especially in romance. You’ll revamp a cover because you have to you have to revamp your covers in this game. Things change so often, especially in romance. Two years ago, I would say, Matty, you can correct me if I’m wrong on the date wise, but two years ago, you couldn’t look up romance and not see a half naked man on the cover with everything and just a super hot cover. Now, if you look at romance, you could pick up a book with an illustrated cover and get ten pages in and be like, Whoa, where did this come from? You have no idea. And I love that because it’s empowering women to pick up what they want to read and not care what time they cover and not care what’s inside the pages or reading what we want to read because we want to read it.
Maddy (35:56)
And I love that it really has changed. I mean, the half naked, six pack, ABS, totally tattooed guy has given way to a cover like Ashley’s, which is stunningly beautiful flowers.
Ashley (36:13)
Thank you.
Kat (36:14)
Yeah. Do you think that has to do with catching a new market or just like things changed and you might as well change the cover?
Maddy (36:27)
I think the one thing that’s a problem for romance writers is one of the first things you have to communicate to your readers is the level of heat inside your book, which is the level of sexual description. Description. Thank you. There’s sweet and clean romance all the way to erotica and every level in between. And your cover has to, somehow or other, tell a reader, don’t pick this up. If you don’t want to know things in explicit detail or do pick this up, it’s going to be funny. It’s a rom.com, and your cover needs to portray that. And so traditionally, what you did was you put a naked man or close to naked man as close to naked as you could get with Amazon on your cover to say, this is a sexy, steamy romance, and you did an illustrated, cutesy cover saying, this is a clean, sweet, funny romance. But what’s happened is that they’ve kind of blurred those lines. And I’m not sure how readers are responding to it, but authors really are. Ashley said they’re embracing it. They want the freedom to make the cover that they want to make for their money.
Maddy (37:51)
Right?
Kat (37:52)
Yeah. I do love that about Indy. Like, the indie industry changes, and it gives us an opportunity to change with it. And like Ashley said, it really empowers us, especially as female authors, to be like, yeah. And female readers. I don’t know how many people disparage romance around me. And I’m like, you have no idea how much romance writers know. They know so much stuff.
Maddy (38:15)
I will tell you, I have a philosophy about romance, that there is a romance book for every reader. And I’m not saying every female reader, every reader, because romance. You can read a romantic suspense. If you love mystery, you can read a romantic thriller. If you love thrillers, you can read paranormal romance. You can read horror romance. You can read steamy, erotica romance, everything you can think of.
Ashley (38:48)
They even have Star Trek romance as well. That whole to the space version of romance.
Maddy (38:53)
There is something.
Ashley (38:55)
I saw one the other day that was a good title, and now I’m not going to think of it now.
Kat (39:01)
You’re in the spot.
Ashley (39:02)
It was like Barbarian Icelanders or something. And I was like, the cover is awesome. It’s like all blue and ice. I saw it on Instagram, but I just thought, that’s so cool. This is why I love romance. This is another world. Like, where am I going to go today? Take your adventure.
Maddy (39:21)
Ashley and I have set out to convince the world that they want to read romance.
Ashley (39:27)
Oh, yeah.
Kat (39:28)
Well, and it’s funny because I’ve picked up a couple of different thrillers throughout my life where I was like, Whoa, well, look at that. That’s what we’re doing now. Sex is a part of life. I guess if you don’t want to read it, like, even in thrillers or whatever, I don’t know what to tell you. Go find clean. I have no idea.
Maddy (39:54)
If you want clean and wholesome.
Kat (39:57)
It doesn’t really hold. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the writing or the storytelling, though, is what the main point. Just because it has steam in it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a story and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a theme and there isn’t progression and there aren’t deep characters. That’s what people who don’t read romance or disparage romance don’t really know. And as in life, you should check it out before you make a decision maker adjustment.
Ashley (40:29)
I actually know an author who writes everything but the steamy scenes first, so she just really holds the steamy scenes and writes the plot and everything else out and then goes back in and writes the theme. Oh, look, Maddie. Does that know too.
Maddy (40:45)
Well.
Kat (40:45)
Maddie, during our writing sprints, you always talk about how you’ll write it later. Do you write them now?
Maddy (40:51)
Are you comfortable? Just yesterday on our writing sprint, I was doing a fill in sex scene on one of my books that had a big red hold here for sex. So the pages of my book is it’s sitting on my giant monitor and having a bold red statement that says, hold here for sex. Because to me, I have to be in a different frame of mind to write sex than I do to write story, just general story. And so I am one of those people who comes back and writes my sexy insulator.
Kat (41:30)
Oh, that’s interesting. Ashley, do you write them in sequence?
Ashley (41:33)
Yeah, I pretty much write in sequence. The only thing I have a tendency to write out of sequence are emotional things. So, like, if someone gets killed or something really emotional, those have a really weird habit of kind of, like, shower ideas. Like, they just pop into my head out of nowhere, and I have to grab something and write it down, like, right then and there, because they’ll go away and I refuse. That the third book in the series I’m writing. I already have the opening theme written and done, and it was just one of those that just kind of came to my head one day. And then I went, okay, you’re going to sit for three years because you’re not needed for anything whatsoever.
Kat (42:13)
I don’t have time to write the other two first, so I don’t even know how. We’ve known each other for a year now, right? It’s March. Somehow we met each other, Maddie. I think we were on a writing sprint.
Maddy (42:28)
It was just the two of us, and it was supposed to be a writing sprint, and we wrote not one word. We just talked. All it took for me to know I wanted to work with you.
Kat (42:42)
So what’s interesting is when I was starting out, I say this all the time, but for anybody listening who’s new in 2017, I had moved. It was, like, one year into our move in Dallas. And of course, I didn’t know anyone, because moving is rough. And I was trying to finish my book, and I was like, this is so hard. There are so many things that I don’t know and I don’t know how to do. And so that was one of the reasons why I was like, I need to find a community. And I couldn’t find a community, so I just made a community. Why not? So somehow I found you ladies, which is awesome. What were you guys looking for when you found the creative writing community? And could you tell people a little bit about what we do? Because it always comes better from you all than from me.
Ashley (43:30)
Well, I found you. I bought, like, a pack in the Christmas time of 2020, and it said in there, like, writing Springs, and you were just starting them. And I was like, well, why not? The community I was in was closing, and I was really sad. So I figured, what do I have to lose? And I’m pretty sure I was on that. Like, we had a spare or we didn’t type anything at all either. When we first started. You guys are not giving me a chance. I mean, now we do forever. But when we first started getting to know each other, it was so awesome. I just kind of knew, like, you guys were my place, and everybody got along. And even though we don’t all write the same genre, having that accountability to show up. And I didn’t want to let you guys down. I have to show up to let you guys down. And even further along, when I was procrastinating out of fear of getting my book finished, I had a lovely person that’s on this podcast over here, call me and say, what do I have to do? What do I have to do to help you get this out?
Ashley (44:40)
And I know that I would have gotten it out, but I don’t know without that push if it would have come out exactly when it did, because having you guys, I don’t want to not show up for you guys because I promise I’d show up for you guys. So it’s like that added accountability. I love it.
Kat (44:59)
That is one of the things that I thought about. I think that when you’re frustrated, there’s somebody that you can talk to. And when you have a win that you need to celebrate, there’s somebody that is around to celebrate because they understand when that only other writers will get honest here.
Ashley (45:19)
There are so many wins that happen in your writing world that the people that do not write will look at you and be like, okay, am I supposed to clap? What do you want me to do here?
Kat (45:30)
Yeah, that is very true. What about you, Maddie?
Maddy (45:34)
Well, I found you the exact same way that Ashley did. I bought a pack, and there you were in it, and you did a little mini course, and I loved your course. And so at the bottom of it, you offered a sprint. And I thought, well, this is a woman who has information that I need. She knows her business in ways that I don’t know my business. And I think that there’s synergy here. So I signed up for the sprint, and of course, by the end of 45 minutes, we were friends. At least I thought we were friends. And I do have to say I joined this for accountability, but what I found was half a dozen to a dozen best friends. I don’t sprint usually on the weekends, although I know you guys do. Sometimes I miss not seeing it. I miss people on the weekends when I don’t see you guys. It is so supportive. I came for the accountability, and it works that way. If I call in for a two hour sprint and we say, start the clock now, we’re going to write for 45 minutes. For 45 minutes, I write, but I come also for the camaraderie, the advice, the love, the support, the love and support that this group gives.
Maddy (46:56)
And Ashley said, we don’t all write the same genre. It doesn’t matter. I can talk to someone who lives half a world away and writes children’s books, and they will teach me things that I don’t know, and hopefully I will teach them things that they don’t know as well in just those few minutes that we chat between the writing sprints. But I ride a solid three to 4 hours every day now thanks to these Sprints. And I can honestly say I didn’t do that before.
Ashley (47:30)
Yeah.
Kat (47:30)
I think if somebody’s listening, like three to 4 hours a day. Because once you have a book out, literally, you have to have what? A newsletter, a blog, social media, Pinterest, plus the new book.
Ashley (47:45)
There’s a lot that comes included.
Kat (47:47)
Yeah.
Ashley (47:47)
There’s so much writing to have your plan set up and ready to go for the next one. That was my thing. I put trusting you out with the intention of trusting me coming out in six months and from the sales and the interest that I saw, given that I worked in marketing as a regular basis, I knew no, I have a window and I need to capitalize on it. But I would not be able to have put my plan in place, stick to my plan and have confidence that my plan is going to happen if it wasn’t for the community. Because I know sharing that plan with you guys, you’ll check in with me on those days. All I have to do is post that I have those days. And I know somebody’s going to ask me if I did it. So it’s nice.
Kat (48:32)
Yeah. And I don’t feel as much overwhelmed, like I don’t have to know everything as a one person business. Basically all of us are. Because I can come to you guys and be like, what do we do? What should I talk about in my newsletter? How do you do Pinterest? Because I don’t know.
Maddy (48:55)
One of the marvelous things is we all come with some expertise.
Kat (48:58)
Yeah.
Maddy (48:59)
And it’s not the same expertise.
Kat (49:01)
Exactly.
Maddy (49:01)
And we share expertise because that’s the marvelous thing about authors. When you talk about community is that authors understand that helping each other doesn’t take away from their own success. There’s enough to go around.
Kat (49:16)
Yes. I love that about the India author world. It actually helps you if you collaborate with others. It’s a lot better than other artistic circles, or so I’ve heard.
Maddy (49:30)
And I will put in a pitch, as Ashley did, for a story origin, because it is a great tool for collaboration with other authors.
Kat (49:39)
Very true. Yes. We rave about story origin all the time. If you guys haven’t heard, Evan was on the podcast the end of January. I should have all these podcast episodes memorized, but I don’t. So put the links in the show notes before we go. Can you guys Maddie first and then Ashley tell people where they can find you and sign up for your newsletter? Because you guys have nice little freebies in there where they can find your book and anything else that you think is important.
Maddy (50:07)
Okay. My books are all on Amazon.com or on Kindle Unlimited, and I have one historical romance standalone, and the rest are the series that I discussed. And you can get signed up for my newsletter@madisonmichael.net and you will get a prequel to the B Island Bachelor series and if you like steamy romance, I can also make available a steamy little Nobela. It is my pleasure and you will get my newsletter every other week with updates on upcoming books and what’s happening in the area and just stuff that I like to share. Nice.
Ashley (50:53)
How about you Ashley Kay so all my books are my one book. Trusting you is live on Kindle Unlimited and Amazon. You can find me@ashleykautor.com. All of my social handles are at Ashleyk Author so you can find me on Instagram or Facebook through those. If you are looking to join the super fun reading group on Facebook, Ashley K Readers is a great place. We do some fun things and if you go on my website there’s a newsletter sign up available on there and you actually get the first three chapters free of trusting you so you get to kind of sample it out before you dive in.
Kat (51:38)
Nice. And I know both of your newsletters are constantly collaborating with other romance writers and recommendations on what you guys are reading. So if you are a romance reader or you’re feeling like you should be because we said that you should try it out, I recommend you get on their newsletters and read their books as well. Thank you Madison and Ashley, I’m so excited to have you guys on and I’m so excited for your books as well.
Maddy (52:05)
Thank you Kat.
Ashley (52:06)
Thank you Kat.
Kat (52:21)
Hey you’re still listening since you are, could you do me a favor and head over to the app that you’re listening to this episode on and hit the subscribe button and then rate and review the show. It would really help the Pencils Olympic podcast get out into the world and if you’re enjoying the podcast, well then there might be more people out there who would enjoy it as well. If you want to find out more about me you can head over to Catcallwell.com. I have my story over there, my books, my interactive journals, my one on one coaching information and information on my creative writing community membership group. If you’re looking to write a book or you are a writer and you just want to find out more about how to write, how to publish, how to format, how to market and all the things that go into being an author these days, check out the membership group. There is a 14 three day trial that you can try it out, get into the masterminds, find out all the goodies that we are talking about in the group. I would love to see you there.