If you currently follow me on Instagram and don’t want to see a LOT of dedicated romance novel marketing in the coming weeks/months… you should probably mute me now. Fair warning. Because I have decided to self-publish an open-door (that means on-page sex scenes, family) romance novel on August 1st, 2024.
Let’s back up.
So since I began my romance novel reading sprint in early 2022, then my romance writing sprint not long after, I’ve returned to my prose roots with a vengeance. I’ve written five complete manuscripts, including the subject of this post, entitled Rehabbing the Billionaire. I spent a little over a year querying (that’s reaching out to potential literary agents) my first manuscript, Pulling Focus, and after that resulted in the same number of meetings as the first time I tried querying a novel back in college (zero), I remembered something important.
I’m an indie filmmaker! My primary sources of income at this point in my life revolve around my understanding of how to make movies for nothing, with no permission needed, and getting them in front of audiences! Did I, or did I not, make a short film about my experiences with anxiety and asexuality that still gets views seven years later and has racked up over 160k in that time?? So what am I doing, depending entirely on the gatekept publishing industry when I’ve got stories to share now?
Obviously it’s not that simple, but in some ways, it’s more simple. Do I want to yet again become a one woman hype team, harassing everyone within eyeline to consume a thing I’ve made? Not particularly. But I’m also tremendously proud of the book I wrote, and I think it’s a good fit for “the market” based on the 800+ romance novels I’ve ready since 2022. So while I continue to revise and go about things “the right way” with other manuscripts, I decided in late 2023 I wanted to do an experiment.
Operation Amazon Chum
My first manuscript, Pulling Focus, is precious to me in a lot of ways. I’m not ruling out an eventual self publishing opportunity with it, depending on how everything cracks out, but I knew early on when noodling about taking matters into my own hands with my creative endeavors that I needed a sacrificial lamb to experiment on.
I will make many mistakes over the course of this self publishing process, which is an accepted part of the scientific method and is something I have made my peace with. However, if I was going to take big risks and swings, I wanted a book I cared less about. Something that I conceived specifically with the intention of self-publishing, that would feel at home on Kindle Unlimited, that I could market using the lessons I’ve learned from other authors I follow as a reader, that I wouldn’t mind flopping.
So ahead of National Novel Writing Month 2023, I designed what my husband and I started referring to as my Amazon Chum novel. It would be trope-forward so I could make one of those arrow trope Canva graphics for Instagram, it would involve archetypes I usually lean away from (billionaires! virgin assistants! oh my!), it would be simpler in narrative construction, and it would look, smell, and taste like one of the hundreds of other breezy contemporary romances I’ve enjoyed and observed in the current indie publishing marketplace. It would be a book just unlike me enough that I wouldn’t take it personally if things didn’t pan out, and I only sell a handful of eBooks to those in my life brave enough to read their asexual friend’s erotic imaginings.
Reader: I failed.
I failed to write a book I didn’t care about. Two chapters in, I was obsessed with my messy billionaire, Nick Hartshorn, and delighted in writing him some truly awful dialogue. I was endeared with my hyper-organized heroine, Ellie Kerr, and her passion for her work and her determination to not get bulldozed by her boss (outside of bed, at least, WINK WINK WINK WINK preorder my book here).
Anyone who knows me will not be surprised by this failure, because how could I possibly dedicate the time and energy to a story and not, a little bit, fall in love with it? Writing is an inherently vulnerable, intimate process, especially when writing a genre that’s so character- and relationship-forward. Romance is the genre of people, and god help me, but I love people. As my friend Christine Cherry once said, I am viscerally excited by other people, even if my introvert tendencies mask that to strangers. Of course I wasn’t able to keep an academic distance.
However, the operational design of this experiment remained, despite the higher stakes. I just couldn’t subject myself to another querying adventure right away, especially not for a book that, despite my surprising love, isn’t really the kind of book I want to write again. It’s third person past tense, unlike my preferred first person dual POV; it’s about a billionaire (a demographic of people who should not exist); it takes place in a corporate world and a medical setting (two environments I’m not super comfortable writing and uninterested in returning to). This book is special to me, but it’s not “on brand”. So despite loving it, and caring about it, it’s still the best suited vehicle for the learning process of indie publishing.
Thus, here we are! I’ve commissioned a cover designer (shout out to the amazing Vida!), built a conditionally formatted spreadsheet to lay out my marketing plan, designed an unhinged number of graphics based on research I’ve done on similar authors, learned about scary things like ISBN numbers and copyright, and bit the bullet.
Rehabbing the Billionaire: a boss/assistant marriage of convenience romance, coming to an eReader near you August 1, 2024
How can you help? I’m so glad you asked!
Pre-order a copy of my book! I’m only releasing it digitally, because dealing with physical deliverables gives me hives and also that sounds like more work than I’m interested in putting into what’s very much still an experiment. Will I do a small batch printing eventually? Perhaps. I’ve got the ISBN number for a paperback version. But not now.
Leave me a review! If you have a book review social account or blog, email me (brianna.castellini@gmail.com) for an ARC! If you’re just a casual reader, but have a Goodreads or Amazon account, leave one there! Reviews are the #1 way authors can get in front of new potential readers.
Tell a friend! Know someone who loves romance? I’ve prepped some language for you to share:
Hey- you’re a fan of those billionaire romance novels, right? My friend Bri is self-publishing one! It’s called Rehabbing the Billionaire, and is a sexy marriage-of-convenience story set in the world of physical therapy. You can pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1RWK2WS
You like romance novels? My friend Bri has one coming out soon called Rehabbing the Billionaire, about a CEO in need of a more wholesome image and his anti-billionaire assistant who needs money to finish her physical therapy degree. They get married to solve both their problems at once, but NOT because they intend to fall in love. You can pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1RWK2WS
