February 8, 2021
The List Post One
Week 6, Day 1 – The List
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Original Release Date: May 26, 2015
Second Release Date: July 5, 2019
Original Cover Design: Lyrical Press
New Cover Design: Kate L. Mary
Formats: ebook, audiobook, and paperback – grab the ebook for just $0.99 for a limited time!
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Universal
Audible
Goodreads
UK Audiobook Listeners Can Grab A Code for a FREE Audiobook HERE!
The list.
Twenty things every girl must do before she turns 20…
Body piercing
Get drunk
First kiss
But thanks to her crazy, over-protective father, Annie Roth is way behind schedule. Good thing it’s her first semester of college, because Annie is more than ready to start checking off items….
Fake ID
Skinny dipping
Road trip!
Where it gets complicated? Ryan and Chris. Best friends. Both sweet, funny, totally hot, and totally into Annie. But there are some things on the list that Annie only wants to do with Ryan….
Lose it
Get heart broken
Fall in love
Where did you get the idea for The List?
I know this isn’t one of my more popular books since it’s romance, so if you haven’t read it, I understand. It isn’t my favorite thing to write let alone read, but I do really love this book despite the way I came about writing it. Here’s the story. It’s 2013 and I’d been writing and for over a year at this point, as well as actively searching for an agent. I had a few books done and was submitting them to people but not getting any real movement in my journey to be a published author. At this point I was dead set that I had to be traditionally published. If you don’t know the difference between all the publishing stuff, here’s the rundown. You have the traditional people who have an agent and a deal with a publisher, then you have the self-published, or what we now like to be called, indie authors (independent) who do it themselves. At this time, self-publishing had become super easy thanks to Amazon and people were making a lot of money by doing it on their own, but there was still a stigma that these people weren’t real authors. That’s gone away for the most part because indie authors have really proven themselves by putting out quality work – for the most part – and some major traditional authors have even started self-publishing books themselves, which is awesome. Anyway, back to my story. One of the big things that came out of this era of self-publishing was a new category called new adult. These books center on college age characters who are in that sweet spot in life where they’re finding themselves. They’re usually pretty steamy, so they can’t be called young adult, but they’re angsty, too, – because wasn’t that time in your life full of drama and angst? – which readers who gobble up romance novels don’t typically want. People had been writing these books for a while, but publishers wanted nothing to do with them. The excuse was the usual “there’s no market” for books like that. Authors didn’t agree, so they started publishing new adult romances themselves and there was an explosion. Turns out, those publishers were dead wrong, because people loved new adult. I personally know authors who were make over $500,000 a year around this time, and a lot of the books that were put out weren’t even well edited, but it didn’t matter. It was new, it was fresh, it was different. Readers wanted more.
I read a few of these books around this time even though it wasn’t my normal genre, and while only a couple really stood out as books I could say I loved, I liked the idea of new adult. This is such a fantastic time in a person’s life! You’re away from home for the first time, you’re dating and making your own decisions, finding out who you are, making mistakes and learning in the process. It’s a great fodder for character development! Which was why I jumped on the bandwagon. Plus, because new adult was so popular, publishers were now demanding it and agents were begging people to write them, so it was the perfect chance to maybe snag an agent.
So, I wrote The List. The description makes it seem a bit more lighthearted than it is, I think, but I wasn’t the one who wrote the blurb – more on that another day – because it deals with the topic of mental illness, which was something I added probably as a bit of therapy for myself. They say know what you write, and I know what it’s like to grow up with a parent who’s severely depressed. Despite that, it’s a great story about a girl determined to find herself. I hope people will give it a try if they haven’t already, because it really is a great book.
