I Like Corn, But Not That Much
Why I Choose Indie Romance
So, if you’ve been reading this Substack for a minute, you know that I’ve been gorging on mostly romance novels this year. At the time of writing this, I’ve read 24 books 🤯!
But not just any romance—indie published romance. 🫶🏾😘🤌🏾
Actually, I prefer indie published romance novels over traditionally published ones. Granted, I’ve only read a few traditionally published romance novels, and many are on my TBR list. But from the cartoon covers, witty synopses, to the overexplained prose, the trad-pub romances I’ve tried tend to feel very corny and rom-comy 😬.
And no shade! I love rom-coms. But on screen. Not in a novel.
For instance, a few years ago, I read It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey with my college book club. I enjoyed it and rated it 4 stars on Goodreads. But, when I tried to read book two in the series, Hook, Line, and Sinker, I DNFed after 35%. ☹️ Specifically, I said,
Could not get into it. Every time I went to read it, I fell asleep. Hannah and Fox didn’t “hook” me like Piper and Brendan. Plus, Fox constantly thinking he was worthless was a tiring and irritating thread so far and I wasn’t interested on hoping he’d see himself differently. – my review on Goodreads
I just didn’t care—and care and love are the main emotions in romance fiction. But when you don’t care about the novel—when you’re not hooked, you don’t read it. 🪝 That goes for anything you read!
On the other hand, the indie romance novels feel more real, not corny.
I’ve found that indie romance novels are usually much longer (which I actually prefer) than traditionally published ones that stick to industry constraints like tight word counts.
I want to get to know characters better so that I can care about them. And with extra room, conversations have space to breathe so characters can sit in their feelings, banter, and be messy. I want to feel like I’m a fly on the wall, watching two people fall in love in real time. 😍 It’s not too clean or polished. It’s sometimes funny as hell. But it’s always human.
Indie romance authors clearly have more freedom and room to tell the stories they want the way they want to tell it. So, more variety, more authenticity, more heart, more rawness—cheers 🥂🥰.
And that’s what I want in my romance: connection that feels real.
— Josie ✍🏾💻
🤔 What differences do you notice in how indie novels of any genre are written compared to trad pub books?
And if you have some romance novels you wanna plug, drop ‘em in the comments. I’m always down for recs 🤩.
Speaking of, I can send you a personalized reading list when you fill out my FREE Book Matchmaking Form!
👇🏾 Before you go . . .
🗣️ Take the New Reader Survey – Help shape this newsletter by letting me know what can make it better. Appreciate you!
🙏🏾 Further Support the Notes – Toss me a tip if you like what I got going on here.