This month, we’ve got stories about measuring the courage of one’s convictions, about gay wizards and vampires in a reimagined Gilded Age NYC that doesn't discriminate against same-sex couples, and about what you’re willing to risk for love,
January 2025 Lopt & Cropt Releases
Just one this month!
The Power of Refusal by Mary Alice Alexander
This is a Pride and Prejudice variation in which Elizabeth realizes the only power she has in life is the ability to choose her husband and to refuse the men who will not make her happy. And she gets to experience FIVE increasingly terrible proposals, but comes to regret turning down only the second one (Darcy's).
Through misunderstanding, miscommunication, and missed chances, it's never the right place or the right time for Darcy and Elizabeth. But what if it finally could be? Find out on KU now!
What romance writers need to be doing in 2025
With every new year comes new resolutions, new goals, new outlooks. Even if you’re not a resolutions person (and I’m not, personally), there’s still something about a new year that’s hopeful about the ways you can change in the next 12 months.
To make 2025 a great year for you, I want to offer this piece of what is maybe tough love to keep in mind:
What you’ve been doing has to change.
Listen, I’ve said this many times before: I HATE change. I like my comfort zones. And there’s something to be said for consistency in doing the same thing over and over again, right?
Consistency is great, but there comes a point when consistency becomes stagnancy. And stagnancy means you aren’t growing. Sooooo…something’s gotta change, even if you really don't want it to.
Doing the same thing you’ve been doing in your writing career—whether that’s in your writing itself or in your marketing—is probably no longer serving you, especially if you haven’t adjusted it in a while.
And things are changing rapidly right now for romance writers. If you’ve been using TikTok, after the bait-and-switch where they almost disappear and then magically returned, I would be very wary of its continued existence and of the potential reach being limited if you say anything political. (And romance? VERY political. I won't even get into the precarious space romance is in as a target of conservative censorship with the new American administration.)
(If the TikTok social media frenzy has shown us anything, it’s that you can’t rely on platforms owned by billionaires who only care about their bottom line. Your newsletter is your direct line to your readers—cultivate that! Here are some ideas for newsletters if you need them. Also, make sure you download your list regularly in case anything goes wrong with your newsletter distributor—my friend just had a heartstopping moment where all of her accounting data disappeared because the app stopped service, so this is a good reminder to always back up info you store online!)
If you didn’t use TikTok and have been congratulating yourself for choosing Instagram instead, how will you react to an influx of TikTokkers coming onto IG and taking up more space in an already saturated platform? If you want to get seen there, you're going to have to innovate and stay on trend.
We’re going to have to learn to pivot to adjust to changes out of our control. (Which I know is a big ask when so many other things not related to romance are even more frightening and out of control.) So what can we do to be more adaptable?
It’s honestly a good time to take some risks and stretch a little outside of your comfort zone. Experiment, try something new—and stick with it for a while so you can see some actual results and whether they’re positive or negative. Don’t just try something once and say “welp, didn’t work” and go back to what you were doing before. What worked before isn’t going to work forever.
So maybe you write the story that you’ve been working yourself up to write for years. Maybe you forget all the fear and go unhinged with it. Maybe you try a new subgenre, or even a whole new pen name. Maybe you put your face out there more on the socials. Maybe you forget about the socials entirely and pour all of your focus into building your newsletter and turning your readers into lifelong fans.
What happens if it doesn’t work? Hey, at least you tried. And like I said, staying stagnant and not changing isn’t doing you any favours. You’re going to have to constantly adapt in this industry, and you have to get used to flexing that muscle so you can adapt faster.
So try something different this year. I dare you.
