Inside A Steamy Bestseller With Romance Writer Noel Stark

Romance fiction is dominating the chart. It's also redefining how stories are told and sold.

In this episode, I sit down with author and industry veteran  Noel  Stark to talk about why happy endings aren’t clichés. 

They’re promises. We dig into how a genre once brushed off as “women’s fiction” built one of publishing’s most loyal and profitable audiences.

Noelle takes us from the secret paperbacks she once hid in her backpack to the binge that launched her writing career. 

Along the way, she breaks down what makes romance work: authentic voice, emotional honesty, and that feeling of safety that keeps readers coming back for more.

We also talk shop: how the “happily ever after” or “happy for now” acts as a contract with the reader, what happens when writers break that trust, and how gatekeepers like Harlequin shaped the genre’s evolution. 

Noelle shares her own journey through Pitch Wars, agent rejections, the long wait on submissions, and finally landing her first book deal. It’s a reminder that persistence and mentorship can change everything.

We also  compare traditional and indie publishing, discuss how to handle your own marketing, when to hire a publicist, and why podcasts and newsletters still move the needle.

If you love romance, storytelling, or the business side of publishing, this episode is full of hard-earned lessons, humor, and practical takeaways.

You can connect with Noel through her website here.

Chapters

• 0:05 Industry Reckoning And Streaming Woes
• 0:41 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:45 Why Write Steamy Romance
• 5:12 Stigma And The Case For Romance
• 10:11 HEA, Gatekeepers, And Genre Rules
• 14:14 Querying, Pitch Wars, And The Long Sell
• 19:07 Choosing Traditional Vs Self Publishing
• 21:47 TV’s Broken Model And Audience Shifts
• 23:34 AI In Writing: Tool Or Shortcut
• 27:59 Craft, Voice, And The Messy First Draft
• 30:09 Marketing Reality And Hiring A Publicist
• 34:15 Reader Reactions And Handling Reviews
• 36:08 Time Travel Romance And New Projects
• 38:00 Self Publishing Playbook And TikTok Shop

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

You know, labor practices is in the space of streaming because streaming was really taking advantage of the actors and the writers. So that slowed the industry down. And then the other thing is that the upcoming generations, like Jen Z and Jen Alpha, they don't watch TV. They don't watch films. They are on their phones. So there's a huge market that's left. So the whole business is under a huge reckoning of its viability right now.

SPEAKER_02: 0:41

Hi friends. This is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines, and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journey. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode with Read and Write with Natasha. So today I have Noel Stark, who is the author of Love Camera Action. She has worked in almost every position in the film TV industry, in both in front and behind the camera. She's Canadian and she lives in LA with her young son, and she's desperately missing winter. Hi Noel. Hi, thank you for joining me today. I am excited to talk about the art of writing steamy romances. So buckle up. Thank you. I'm really excited to be on. Ah, good, good. So, Noel, uh lately, romances and specifically Steamy romances, I think say Ramas and others, have been really topping the charts. So why did you choose? Is that the reason you chose to write a steamy romance? Or how did you get into that genre?

SPEAKER_01: 2:05

Yeah, I, you know, I actually, okay, when I was quite young, uh my sister used to read romances, like the old school bodice ripping ones that were historical romances. And I would steal them from her, uh, because I had to steal them from her, because if she saw me reading one, I'd catch it. But I would steal one from her and uh, you know, sneak away and read, read them and read the steamy scenes. So I kind of uh was introduced to them, maybe a little too young, but was introduced to them when I was young. And then, you know, maybe I'm gonna say 10 years ago, I was going through a hard time in my life. And I saw a romance book in one of those little library book box things, you know, that people have outside of their houses. And I was like, yeah, and I was like, I want that. I want that romance. And I grabbed it and it turned into this crazy obsession where I was reading a book every other day. I was reading like 300 in a year, I was reading every kind of, I was crazy. It was every romance you could possibly get. I was reading them while I was stirring a pot over the stove, while I was walking the dog. I was just constantly reading them. And so while I was doing that, and I I was reading so many of them because I needed to kind of figure out what was going on in my life, and I needed a separate space kind of to work that out in my mind. So, but while I was reading them, I just thought, you know what, maybe I should try writing one of these. They're really, they're really fun, they're really sexy. People love them. Even if they pretend that they don't love them or if they pretend that they don't read them, they secretly, if they do read them, they do love them because they're they're fun, they're exciting, they're funny, they can go over any genre. They can be sci-fi or fantasy or contemporary or or really anything. And I just wanted to have some fun writing it. Now, that was very naive because it wasn't fun at all. It was very hard. And it took me a long time, but here I am.

SPEAKER_02: 4:18

Uh now. So, what what was the book that you picked from the Letter Free Library? I'm just curious. That started all Oh, you know what?

SPEAKER_01: 4:24

And that's what's funny is I completely forget. I forget the name of that one. I just I I moved through it so fast, and then I started reading so many of them that then I started keeping track of I started keeping track of which I was uh what I was writing and or reading and you know what their names were. But yeah, you no one's asked me that question. So very good, Natasha. I I'm very embarrassed that I've forgotten what it was, but it was a historical romance, that's what I thought was okay.

SPEAKER_02: 4:55

Oh, it's okay. All right, I warned you, I'm a journalist, so I I I dig deep. Yeah, you do all right. So um the I'm gonna just kind of dig deep on the on the jungle itself. So yeah, it topped the charts, and you have people like Sarah Mask, Colleen Hoover, and others, uh Emily Henry, and so now they're I think other uh writers are probably jealous of them because like every book that they write is is a bestseller. But uh maybe this kind of changed, but there was some sort of uh stigma against romance writers that they're not serious writers. And I remember I was in a writing group like 10 years ago, and one guy we're talking about our instructor, and the guy was like, Come on, she just writes romance, like that you should not consider her a real author because she just writes romance. So, what would be your response to people who would still have that kind of mentality about romance not being a serious genre?

SPEAKER_01: 6:07

I think I think that's been true for a very, very long time. And I think the reason why there is a stigma, and this is not not this isn't just my opinion, lots of people weighed in on this. People, there's a stigma about romance saying that it's not serious, because, first of all, they always end in happy endings, and we are trained to think that happy endings are no good. Like they're not, that's not real literature, but also because it's women's fiction. It's fiction about women, it's fiction about women who are safely navigating the world and independently trying to get what they want. Like there's there's a stigma because it's like, oh, do women only want romance? And from a psychological perspective, what what what romance is is like trying to find completion, trying to find um that vulnerability that's holding you back, stopping it so that you can grow. Like that's actually what romance is about. It's not hooking up with a guy. But there's uh there's there's a safety in that for women that they don't get in other places. They don't like when you're reading literary fiction or you're reading a murder mystery or you're reading sci-fi and you see a female character, you're almost terrified to know what's gonna happen to that character because often they're killed or they're raped or they're put in some sort of terrible situation. You don't get that in a romance. You get a woman who is independent and smart and funny and not reaping any repercussions from that. They actually get what they want in the end. And so I would say it's kind of like a sexist backlash. If you say that romances aren't real literature because it's a it's a template, it's a it ends up always the same. What are murder mysteries? Murder mysteries are all the same, they all end the same. You find the killer. What are spy novels? You know, they're all they're not considered not uh they're not considered not to be literature because they're generally male writing forms. So uh that's what I would say to someone. And what's really fascinating is that romance has completely changed from when I started when I was young. People used to hide romance books in other books, right? They hide it in front so they wouldn't people wouldn't think that they were reading it. Now women are really just saying, you know, I don't care. I'm reading this. This is awesome. It's steamy, it's fun, and I don't care what you think. And through all this, like I know I'm throwing a lot of information at you, because I'm very interested in this subject. So you you've asked me the wrong question in a in a way, because I'm really I'm really fired up about it. Is romance has kept the lights on in publishing for decades. Romance, even 30, 40 years ago, was 30% of the market share because people buy romance. So murder mysteries, sci-fi, literary fiction was all being subsidized by romance. So now I think women are really taking it up and saying we've got money to spend and we want to spend it on that, and we don't care what you think. And I think that's a remarkable change.

SPEAKER_02: 9:31

And why does it always have to end in a happy ending? Like if if somebody writes a romance book that does not end in a happy ending, this does not qualify as as romance. What? And who sets these and who sets these rules?

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

No, no, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_02: 9:47

I don't know who I can self-publish now a novel and you know, a love story, and then maybe it's like Romeo and Juliet and the end. You don't think Romeo and Juliet was a romance?

SPEAKER_01: 9:59

Well, it's you have to qualify it. It's a tragic romance, right?

SPEAKER_02: 10:04

Yeah, well, but like who is like the the romance gatekeepers that you know that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01: 10:11

I think probably the romance gatekeepers were Mills and Boone, which were a publishing house out of uh England in the 60s, and then Harlequin, which was came out of Mills and Boons, and I think I'm I don't quite know my dates, but they really came into their own in the 70s, and that's a Canadian company, and they very formulaic. You know exactly what's gonna happen on page 50, and you know exactly what's gonna happen on page 75, and the ending has to be good, or it's not qualified as a romance because that's what people are buying. They are buying a happy ending. So if you don't have a happy ending, or if you at least don't have what they call it, like usually it's called a happily ever after, if it doesn't have a happily ever after, or a happily for now, which is an HFN, happy for now, then it's not considered a romance. So you do get romances where the people are together, but maybe they didn't get married. Yeah. Or the people, you know, that you feel like they're gonna continue dating. Okay. So that's a happy for now. Okay. And so if you have a bad ending, then it's really considered literary fiction or women's fiction, it's not a romance.

SPEAKER_02: 11:19

But like now we can all bend the rules because of self-publishing, and especially when it comes to romance and like uh sci-fi and erotica and other genres, uh, it's self-publishing is huge, and they sell more than traditional publishing because of the fan base. And if I self-publish, what if I like I can do whatever I want to?

SPEAKER_01: 11:43

You can do whatever you want to. I would suggest though, that or I would I would warn you that you'll get a lot of really, really angry people if they think it's a romance and it doesn't work out, people get furious. Furious. Interesting. So you just have to be ready for the backlash. That's up to you. You can do that if you want.

SPEAKER_02: 12:57

But okay. So I I want to talk a bit about your publishing journey. So, did you have to find an agent? Did you self-publish, traditionally published? What was your publishing journey like?

SPEAKER_01: 13:08

Yeah, it was it was long and arduous. Uh, I finished kind of the second draft of a manuscript and I I put it into a program that was called Pitch Wars, which at that time is no longer around, but it was a program that was run by volunteers but was very well regarded within the community. And what it was is that you put in your manuscript uh to get a mentor who would edit, help you edit your script and help you navigate the world of publishing. So I very happily got into that program. It was very competitive. And I had a mentor who did so much great work on my manuscript, and then they give you a showcase at the end of it that introduced you to tons of different agents through your work. Now I didn't get an agent from that showcase, but because I could put on my query letters that I was part of pitch wars, that kind of got me through a few doors because it was clear that my manuscript had been vetted, that it wasn't just, you know, I wasn't just off the turnip truck. Other people had looked at it and it had gone through, you know, a process of editing so they they trusted it more. And so they would ask for fulls or halves or partials.

SPEAKER_03: 14:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:24

So um after that, I queried probably 45 agents over a six-month period until I got uh an interview and got the agent that I had at the time. Okay. And I was wondering, like, I mean, I was very busy in the film industry at the same time, so I wasn't overly worried about this process. I had agents for different things. Like I was an actress, I was a director, I had all these agents. So I wasn't overly worried about the process because I knew it took a long time. But I was curious by around the 40 mark, you know, is my book not something that can sell in a traditional marketplace. But then I got feedback of people saying if uh it's 70 or 80 queries, once you hit the 80 queries mark, then you should probably rethink your manuscript because it's not going to get picked up by an agent. This is all not have it doesn't have anything to do with self-publishing, right? This is just traditional. So I got an agent and Navy Games began submitting. And after about a year, he decided that he didn't want to be an agent anymore. Okay. And so he said, Don't worry, I won't leave you high and dry. I'll introduce you to other agents at the agencies. And while he was introducing me to other agents, the book sold. Oh. So he and he had it took a very long submission process. I think his submission process, which was much longer than most people's. But the book sold, and then I got another agent, and then it took a year and a half for me for for the book to come out. So that was a very, very long process.

SPEAKER_02: 16:03

Okay. And if you want to do it again, would you still follow the same route or would you try something different?

SPEAKER_01: 16:11

Well, I think, you know, while that was all happening, I started another book. And that I finished that book, and it is now on submission with publishers as we speak. Okay. With my new agent. So that is on the traditional publishing route. But then, you know, I got I got an idea for another series. It's more on the like even steamier side, it's more on the erotica side. And my agent actually told me that erotica does better self-publishing. So now I'm on the route of self-publishing. And I think that's what a lot of authors try to do is have some traditional publishing and some self-publishing. Like, I mean, it depends what your road is. Some people think that traditional publishing gives you a little bit more cachet. I don't know if that's true anymore. Like, I think the self-publishing world is really, really boomed. Like it's certainly, it certainly tells you that a certain part of the population is finds your work valid.

SPEAKER_03: 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:16

So that's helpful. But you know, on the self-publishing side, you get there's not as many gatekeepers. You certainly make a lot more money, assuming you sell, you know, like because uh obviously you can publish independently and you know, not reach an audience. So it's it's it's so hard no matter which road you take. So hard. And it doesn't really mean you're a bad writer, it just means, you know, all sorts there's all sorts of variables.

SPEAKER_02: 17:44

So are you still working in um like the TV industry or are you still doing that?

SPEAKER_01: 17:50

Uh ostensibly, the TV industry is another conversation because it's actually in a really bad spot right now. TV and filming is in a really bad spot. So um because of streaming, the streaming economic model is not a valid economic model. Okay. And what happened is that a lot of studios lost a lot of money in the streaming wars. And because there were no commercials involved, they lost, they didn't have a really good source of revenue. So the whole economic model was broken from a streamer perspective. Then also, you know, you had the actor strike and the writer strike, where they were just trying to get, you know, labor practices is in the space of streaming, because because streaming was really taking advantage of the actors and the writers. So that slowed the industry down. And then the other thing is that the the upcoming generations like Gen Z, oh sorry, Gen Z. Sorry, I'm kidding. Gen Z. Gen Z. Gen Z and Gen Alpha, they don't watch TV. Yeah, they don't watch films, they are on their phones. So there's a huge market that's left. So the whole business is under a huge reckoning of its viability right now.

SPEAKER_02: 19:09

So I've been in and out of what about AI and how is that affecting the TV industry and also the book industry?

SPEAKER_01: 19:17

Um Yeah, I mean, you might know more than me. I know AI is really affecting the book industry uh in negative ways. Uh I'm very fascinated with the negative feedback of people when they find out that AI has been used on books. Uh I think it's very secretive what people are trying to do with AI in the book industry. And I think when they're found out, people are really furious about it. And they can get blacklisted quite quickly. I don't know. Have you found that?

SPEAKER_02: 19:51

Well, there are very few people who are vocal about their use of AI in books and in fiction. I personally have no issue with it. And in terms of it's just another tool that we can use that can help us. So it can be like using grammarly to fix your grammar or having a beta reader, right? You have a beta. Why aren't people furious that you hire a beta reader? And this is what AI can do as well. That's one. Or if you can hire an editor as well before you stop pitching your book, you can use AI for that and save you some money, uh, especially if you're a self-published author. So people might be furious if the AI actually writes the scenes, but it's it's very easy to tell that it's it's not written uh by you because AI is trained on cliche, and AI is still not smart enough to create new innovative terms. They actually use the terms that are already cliched, so you can tell. And a good author or a good writer knows that this is bad writing. So, regardless of that author uses AI or not, the writing is not gonna be good. And if you have the combination of a good author and the tools that AI provides, you would be unstoppable, honestly.

SPEAKER_01: 21:24

Yeah, I I agree with that. I think it's really good as a research tool. I think it's really good in terms of, you know, grammarly, like that sort of idea. I think what people are finding, and I'm just seeing this anecdotally on TikTok and Instagram, is that you know, some independent authors are publishing books and they're using AI to write the scenes, and they're getting caught because they're forgetting to take the prompts out.

SPEAKER_02: 21:52

That's bad editing. That's bad editing. That's that AI. And there's like the M-dashes, everyone says, like, if you use an M dash, but I mean that's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:04

So that's just bad. But I think it's I think it's interesting in terms of voice, like, and I think that's what you were speaking of, is that AI's voice is very cliche, and we like to hear people's specific perspectives. That's what that is what draws us to reading or film or TV, anyways, is their specific voice. So I think that will get more honed as we go forward.

SPEAKER_02: 22:29

But like, for example, I'll give you an idea, and I'm gonna play the devil's advocate.

SPEAKER_01: 22:34

So I'm exciting.

SPEAKER_02: 22:37

Yeah, I'm gonna turn this into a mystery. No, but okay. Hopefully, not a murder mystery. But anyways, so there's okay, so I have a manuscript, right? And there I'm struggling with like a chapter, and I go to you and Noel, can you read this chapter and tell me what do you think should happen to this? And you're my friend, right? And you tell me, yeah, I think maybe the it's better if the guy like breaks up with his girlfriend and then maybe he joins the RME or whatever. I was like, Oh, you know what? I think you I like your ending, I might try it. And I did that. Is there any ethical do you think I did something wrong if my friend advised me? Okay, so instead I went to AI and I said, Hey, what do you think of this chapter? How do you think I should end it? And then the AI gave me a really good ending, which probably, yeah, he should leave his girlfriend and join the army. Yeah, what is the yeah, and and and for us somehow we are willing to take feedback from blood, from blood and you know, and and flesh and blood, but not from AI or from a machine, although we use machines all the time to do all sorts of things for us.

SPEAKER_01: 23:48

Yeah, you know, I think I I don't see the problem of taking advice from AI because if it's gonna jar a creative idea out of your head, like I can give you advice on how to fix your book all day long, right? Yes as a as a blood and flesh person. And AI can do the same thing, but you're the person that's gonna have to put in the work. Correct. You're the person that's gonna have to make it work, yeah. And so an idea is is really nothing. Like when people say, Oh, I have this great idea for something, I'm always like, okay, go do it. Like, go bring it to life. Like an idea isn't that important in a way, it's the execution of the idea. And so if you're taking advice from AI in terms of your story, and you give put that plot point in there, it's up to you to make it good. It's up to you to make it that cliche. Yeah. So in that ending, it is your voice because you are making that ending your own. Like there's so many stories that are so the same. Like romances all follow a certain template. It's the voice of the particular author that brings it to life.

SPEAKER_02: 25:02

So, one way, if you can speak, I mean, I've never done this, but uh, you know, attempted to experiment with it is, or maybe people can do it, is if you can ask AI to, let's say, write a scene, and then your job is to uncliche it and add your voice to it. And this way you kind of become more productive and you get rid of the fear of the empty page, right? Yeah, the procrastination. Because if you go to the page and everything is empty and you don't know what to do, but an AI can give you, you know, a start that will prompt you to continue.

SPEAKER_01: 25:38

And yeah, I mean, I'm not a big fan of it going that far, and I'll tell you why. Is because you can get an AI to write you a scene and it'll write you a scene, and you can go in and edit it. Okay, and make it your own. But that it's very important to make something really terrible. It's really important as a writer to start and make something shitty because you're making it. And it's your job then to think it through. And you like with AI coming up with something, you're skipping a very valuable and uncomfortable step. The uncomfortable thing, this is what happens in first drafts, right? Is that you sit in front of the blank page and you think, okay, I've got this character, what am I gonna do? And you have to figure out where to start, what they're gonna say, what they're gonna do. Like if you want, you can say to AI, okay, give me five bullet points of what might happen in this scene. Sure. And then pick one. But as a creative person, as the with the creative process, it's unbelievably valuable to start from scratch because you learn from the mistakes. You come back and you look at that scene and you say, Okay, that's that's not good enough. I need to do it better. Or you send it to your friend, or you send it to AI and you say, Okay, what's wrong with this scene? And then you pick and choose what you think is important. Getting AI to start just makes you lazy. And it won't help you get creative, it will not help your creative process from my perspective. That's my opinion. It's important to sit in the muck and to make the muck better because that's what leads to your voice.

SPEAKER_02: 27:25

Yeah, I mean, that's that's a valid point, but who knows if if people will follow it. We we shall see. Yeah. All right, I'm gonna pivot a bit and talk about marketing, which is um kind of the bane of existence for many authors.

SPEAKER_01: 27:40

Oh my god, it's the worst.

SPEAKER_02: 27:42

Yeah, exactly. So so obviously you you've been doing podcasts. I've you know, uh, I you know, I I do similar stuff for my books as well. But what else have you been doing in terms of marketing? And what do you think was the thing that really moved the needle the most when it came to your book sales?

SPEAKER_01: 28:05

Yeah, I think well, because I'm with a traditional publisher, uh, it's a bit different. I don't have so much control over the book sales because they're they do it as well, you know? So I think it's very important for an author to learn how to market their book because even if you do go through traditional publishing, you have no idea how much they're gonna do for you. Yeah. So what I did is I actually hired a publicist because I'm not good at marketing. I that's not my strong suit.

SPEAKER_02: 28:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 28:36

And I'm already learning how to write books. I don't want to learn how to do something else. Now, through the process of a publicist, I have learned more about marketing. Now, she got me into newspapers, she helped me with events, she helped me get onto I I've been on so many podcasts, which has been an amazing learning, um, like a learning whatever. Ah, learning my words. Thank you. Learning experience, a learning experience that I would never have had. Because she, I think there's something very valuable about hiring people who know how to do these jobs and get you to a certain place so that you can understand not only what it takes, but what you can then do yourself as you go forward and then how you can work with people who know how to do that. I think it's the same as like hiring editors. It's important to hire someone professional to look at your book. You should not just get your friends or beta readers to look at your book. You need a professional to look at it. And so that costs money, though, right? All these things cost money. So then what do you do when you don't have the money to spend on these things? You have to learn it yourself. You have to go into social media, you have to learn all the take all the free classes that people offer. Like there's a ton of people out there that will offer you the moon. I will get your book sold or I will make you this and that person on social media. And it's very hard to know who's who. So for me, getting the needle moved in a marketing situation, like I was looking at this book as a foundation. I don't, it's I think it's very hard for your first first book to really explode out there and to make a bunch of sales. I think you need a foundation. So now a lot of people know who Noelle Stark is. A lot of people know this book that I would not have been able to do myself. Yeah. And that's what's so hard about independent publishing is that you have to do everything. It's so hard. And the people who can do it, I'm amazed at. I am just enthralled over people who can do that because that is a ton of. Of work and knowledge. But we're kind of moving towards that economy where you kind of have to be the one-man band, you know, to make any money. So for me, marketing, that's what really pushed the needle was getting my own publicist not depending on traditional publishing marketing and not depending on just the market finding my book.

SPEAKER_02: 31:09

And what was the reaction of the readers? Um, the good and the bad.

SPEAKER_01: 31:14

The good and bad. Well, I, you know, uh, it's been interesting. That's it's been fairly well received. Like a lot of people have liked it. And uh I've I've swung what's been really interesting is that people were uh attracted to the book because it was uh about the film industry. So I had all these people who were interested in the film industry who had never read romance, and I had a lot of people not in my demographic, like a lot of guys reading romance for the first time, which was really fascinating. It was really fascinating to see them, you know, discover this new art form. And so uh it's you know, it it there's been critics, there's been people who didn't like it, and I've listened to kind of what they had to say, and that's been very interesting as well. I've been very slow at reading critical responses because I'm a delicate new author. Yeah, and I didn't want to break my little heart yet. So there was a time. Part of the process. Part of the process, but I was like, let's just break it a little bit at a time. Because honestly, I read I went on net alley when it was on neck galay, and I didn't read any of the good reviews. I went straight to the worst review, and it screwed me up for a week. I was so sad for a week, and I was like, okay, I can't.

SPEAKER_00: 32:38

I have things to do, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_01: 32:40

So um I've I've looked at the negative reviews slowly but surely because I think they're it's very important to look at negative reviews, even to look at people who just like don't know what they're talking about, like those people where you're like, wow, did you read the book? Because I'm pretty sure none of that happened.

SPEAKER_02: 32:59

Yeah, yeah. One star review is the rite of passage for for any for any of that that uh especially on good especially on Goodreads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh so what's your next book about?

SPEAKER_01: 33:14

So the one that's on submission right now is a time travel book where a regency guy from the regency period shows up in a woman, um, a woman's closet who lives in West Hollywood and hijinks, hijinks and Zeus. Which has been a lot of fun. Because then I had to, I, you know, it was funny because I thought, I want to write a time travel book. And then as I was getting into it, I was realizing, oh God, I have to like learn about some I have to understand how this works.

SPEAKER_00: 33:48

And it was horrible.

SPEAKER_01: 33:50

But I did it. And so that's on submission right now. That's a lot of fun. And then I'm working right now, I'm working on a kind of why choose erotica that's got a paranormal hit to it.

SPEAKER_02: 34:01

Oh, nice. Okay. And you're gonna self-publish that or I think so.

SPEAKER_01: 34:05

I think so. Because I think it's it's a better place to do the um because it's more on the erotic side. I think it's a better place to self-publish. Uh, plus, I kind of want to find out, like I want to try the self-publishing fruit to see what it's like. I'm a little bit scared. I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little bit scared because of the amount of work that's involved in marketing. Like, how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02: 34:30

I have a team. So I have an editor and I have a book designer and I have a typesetter.

SPEAKER_03: 34:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 34:37

And so I do the writing and the marketing myself. And yeah, I I like it uh because I have like all the control. And for example, now I'm selling um my novel, is my new one here, Karma and Rish. I'm selling it on the TikTok shop. Okay. And the tick the TikTok shop, like if you're traditionally published, I don't think they would allow you to do it yourself. I'm not sure. So I publish under my uh LLC, my company. So my company is has an imprint. And so I created a shop on the TikTok shop, and then it's funny, I put one video and I read from it, and like after two minutes, somebody, I love this, I bought it. I was like, what? Like immediately from the TikTok shop.

SPEAKER_01: 35:28

Wow, that's amazing!

SPEAKER_02: 35:31

Yeah, and then I've been um watching some YouTubes and uh YouTube videos, and then many independent authors now are working with affiliates. And the idea is you send copies of the book to the affiliates, and then they set they make videos about them, and if they and people buy it from their shop, and then they get a commission and you get the rest. Oh, that's interesting. So that so that's my new experiment. I will actually have a couple of books I need to mail now because two um people and yeah, that's a downside is that you have to do the fulfillment yourself. Uh so like I have to do the packaging and go to the post office and all of that. But it's it's an experiment. I mean, I have nothing to lose, you know, except for the postage and uh and my time and buying the books, and I'm just joking. But uh it's a lot, it's a lot, but it's but the can like I'm always creative in how I can do this, and there's nobody stopping me. Maybe it's a bad thing that nobody stops my craziness, but uh yeah, and I can I check my sales every day on KDP, because it's on KDP, and when I had the publisher for my first book, I didn't know anything, and it drove me crazy, honestly. And so for me, it's really the control over the whole process. And when you have a team, you're confident that somebody else vetted it. And when you have I have uh, you know, uh uh like a good following, not you know, not huge, like um like 3,000 subscribers on my newsletter and um yeah, and like maybe 10,000 followers on Twitter or whatever, but that's nothing compared to you know some authors, but uh this way I can sell to them directly. I can even sell it on my website without even using Amazon, for example, without even Amazon taking their cut. So there are like so many ways you can be creative, especially when it comes to to being a self-published author, and I like that. But to and I, as you said, yeah, I had to learn a lot about the process, but I I did not mind it because now I teach it. So it's another way you can also monetize the skills that you learn through the process, is another way you can kind of fund your art by monetizing your knowledge.

SPEAKER_01: 38:17

So that's another way, but uh that's cool, that's really interesting to hear all that, and it is really fascinating to hear the different ways you can get your products out there. The, you know, one of the reasons why I started writing novels in the first place was because I found the film and TV industry so hard to manage because you had to talk so many different people into the validity of your project. Yeah, and because they're so expensive to make, they're so complicated to make, you had to really sell your sell your idea to so many different people. And so I just really wanted the control over creative um project myself.

SPEAKER_02: 38:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, uh Noel, this this has been uh fascinating and um thank you for joining me. So, how can people reach you, buy your book, uh, you know, do I get in touch with you? What's the best way to reach you?

SPEAKER_01: 39:13

Well, I'm on NoelStark.com on IG and TikTok. I'm a Noelle Stark author, and uh you can buy the book anywhere you buy books, Barnes and Noble, uh Amazon, your indie bookstore. It's got an um, it's got an ebook, it's got an audiobook. You can buy it in Canada at chapters, so anywhere you buy or consume books, it's there.

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

And it's love camera. Audible. Do you have it on Audible as well? Is it on Audible? Yeah, they can listen to I agree. Because people like I notice as well, people these days. We have a book, I have a book club, and the majority of the members of the book club, they listen now. They they're most of them are busy moms, so they're uh they they listen, uh, which is that's an another way of consuming these days, which is great. Yeah. Well, no well, I wish you the best of luck. Thank you. And for anyone who's listening or watching, or or even watching live now, now the new thing is is uh I'm experimenting with live streaming. And thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha, and until we meet again. Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Tines. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time.