An Important Note From RWchat

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We have an announcement. This was a big decision and not one we came to lightly, but we wanted to let you all know as early as we could.

We have decided to retire RWchat at the end of the month.

Running this chat and providing this space every Sunday evening for the past four years has truly been a joy.

However, our personal and career obligations have increased, and we can no longer continue the behind the scenes tasks that go into maintaining RWchat.

The last RWchat will be on January 27th, one week before the 4 year anniversary.

To everyone who has ever participated, you have our heartfelt thanks for helping to make this space and community so wonderful. We couldn’t have done it without you.

You all have our deepest gratitude.

With love,
Alexis, CL, Kim, and Robin

P.S. We still have three more chats this month! All are 7pmET/4pmPT.

  • Sunday January 13th: Managing Your Creative Self 
  • Sunday January 20th: Writing Motivation
  • Sunday January 27th: The Final Chat

Coming August . . .

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We’ve got a bunch of fantastic new topics planned for this month!

August 5th Pacing

August 12th What Love Can’t Heal

August 19th Interior Life of Characters

August 26th Ruining the Mood

We’ll see you there, 7pm ET / 4pm PT on #rwchat!

Coming in July… Romance Subgenres

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We’re devoting the month of July to chatting about the myriad of subgenres in the romance genre. We don’t have enough weeks for all of them, but here are the ones we’re going to chat about this month:

July 1st Paranormal

July 8th Contemporary

July 15th Suspense

July 22st Historical

July 29th Science Fiction & Fantasy

Come let us know about your experiences writing different subgenres, whether you’ve written in that subgenre, have thought about writing in that subgenre or would never write in that subgenre ever… join us Sundays at 4pm PST/ 7pm EST.

Coming June 24th… Promoting Backlist

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Publishing a book is a huge achievement, but we don’t stop writing once we’ve got a book out there. We keep going, which means publishing more books. We often hear phrases like “nothing sells a backlist like a front list” or “backlist is where writers make their money.” How do we get to the point where we have a backlist? What does that look like? And how do you keep selling your backlist even as you’re writing other books? 

Join us to talk about it, Sunday at 4pm PST / 7pm EST.

Coming June 10th… Feedback & Critique

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Goodreads. Amazon. Twitter. Your aunt Linda while passing the potato salad at Thanksgiving. Once your book is out there, people are going to tell you what they think about it. Sometimes it’s soaring praise that gives you a special glow all day/week. Sometimes it’s soul crushing criticism that makes you question if you should even be doing this. Sometimes it’s uninformed bullshit that makes you want to fire back with a storm of facts (probably don’t do that).

Learning how to receive feedback and critique graciously, and how to corral the feelings associated to their proper place, is a necessity for a career in publishing. Join us on Sunday, June 10th at 4pm PT | 7pm ET to discuss how we handle it, and how we could handle it better.

Coming June 3rd…Keeping It Fresh

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Romance Writers chat topic for June 3 Keeping It Fresh

Writing kissing and sex scenes over and over has the potential to become stale or boring. How many different ways can you say, “They kissed”? What do you do when you’ve used the words “lips,” “tongues,” and “mouths” too many times in the same scene? Have you ever used the phrase, “Their tongues battled for dominance”? And really, how often do your characters need to “look” at each other? Let’s talk about how to keep it fresh in your relationship–with words–and how to get through those sexy scenes without repeating the same old words and phrases. Join us Sunday, June 3rd, at 7pm EST/4pm PST.

Guest Post: Making Promo Fun

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It’s May Marketing Month, and we’ve got a post from Michelle Hazen with some advice on how important it is to have find some enjoyment in book promo!

Marketing plan: if you’re like most authors, these are your least favorite words. They always put me in mind of a very wise saying I like to apply to marketing: the healthiest kind of exercise is the one you’ll actually do.

If promoting your book makes you feel like this:

Mad Cleaning Person Continue reading →

Coming May 27th. . . Making Promo Fun

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RWchat 18 (3)

It’s the last week of Marketing Month, and we’re talking about how to be motivated to do all this promo stuff. 

For most authors selling themselves (and their books) is a special kind of nightmare, but promoting your work doesn’t have to be so hard. Figuring out where your strengths are and implementing a few well placed hacks can revolutionize the way you think about promo and maybe, possibly, even make it…fun?

Join us on Sunday, May 27 to find out if we’re for real or BIG FAT LIARS WHO LIE.