Things we've been up to: Writer Us

Excuse me while I jam to the last five seconds of Travis Garland's cover of "Dangerous Woman".

 
Oh, we're back? 
So it's been a loooooooong while since either of us have posted.

It is so not for a sucky reason. I(Guinevere) plan to explain over three posts what Libertad and I have been up to.

Libby and I have learned so much from blogging. We've gotten to blog about books and things very important to us, as well as random nonsense that has nothing to do with books XD

Most folks probably don't know we became published authors last year. Even though our debut was "The Mark of Noba" a YA SFF novel, we've actually dabbled in NA Romance.

We've always seen ourselves as anti-romance in our past, but I think it was based on the stigma attached to romance. There's nothing either of us have ever written that didn't have romantic tones, but based on the stigma, we'd just say it's a "coming of age" or something equally donkey balls.

I didn't know either of us would enjoy writing it so much. Take in mind, we're very untraditional, which is why I think NA has worked so well for us. Libby and I just hopped out our 20's last year, so it's hard to relate to the idea of wanting marriage and children.

NA is messy, so it gets a bad rap, but I'm 30, and my shit still ain't right XD So even though we'll probably make Adult and YA Contemporary Romances too, a part of me fells like NA will always be our favorite age category to write in.

But Libby and I had this asinine idea to release 11 titles in the year of 2016.

That is A LOT, even for a fast writer.

But it's why we haven't been as active, because between our real lives and writing, to meet that goal, it means I'm not online a whole lot. Or not nearly as much as I want. Let me tell you, it is hard to not be able to join in every Twitter chat, or convo started, or anything we just did normally.

Libby and I aren't aiming for 11 titles for any particular reason, but it wasn't until our second book dropped, that we started taking writing more seriously. We have the advantage of two people writing one story. It's not easier, because we naturally gravitate our own projects(ones we came up with the initial idea, versus the idea we're helping with). And we're shit with keeping deadlines. But we're not afraid to tell each other the other isn't pulling their weight.

Or that something is whack, or if we need to put a love project on hold, because we can't afford that project right now.

We're self published, so everything comes out of pocket. Formatting/Interior Design(interesting headers and graphic that make things look interesting)Covers, Editing, all that adds up quick. A YA project we wanted to release last year was really expensive. We went for a custom photoshoot, and it was literally in the thousands range.

Take in mind, the cover will be BEAUTIFUL. I can't be sure it'll ever make it's investment back, but it's really hard to find stock images with a Black girl and mixed race Asian guy.

I think we want to experiment with custom for books that sell well, but take in mind, we've only been out like 7 months. No one really knows us, and most people get more well known by having series', which we'll have by the end of the summer(Fans of The Mark of Noba anyone?).

But yeah, if you're curious, we're about 4 into our goal if 11. It's only April, so I think we're making great time. The rest of TMON series will be a good bulk of that, so we'll be more than half way there when those are done.

We're trying to work more men of color main characters. It hasn't been a good start for us, all our male love interests have been white(even though one has been Portuguese, technically White/Latino). We release a title at the end of this month that's a NA PNR with a Filipino love interest who's into metal and is totally based on a celeb crush Anthony Ladao(who's also Filipino).

Swoon...
But it might be a little too NA for our YA homies. But that's just been what we've been up to Writer-wise. On to Bookish Us!