Okay so it looks like I fell off the planet. Promise - I'm still here. The last four years have been ... hard. There's no other word for it. Everything is fine. I'm fine, but I've been the caregiver of my mom who has Dementia. Between her needs, work, etc I seem to have lost control of my time. I am still writing and am trying hard to get back to my blog.

In case you weren't aware Phaze and HSWF which where under the Mundania Umbrella have closed. I was smart enough to get my titles back before all this happened. I'm happy to say the three books I sold to HSWF have been picked up by Melange Books and are available through their Satin Books imprint. I have even sold a new title to them called Magical Quest due out in 2022

I have also been lucky enough to find a publisher for my Vespian Way series. I'm now with Blushing Books under the name of Bethany Drake. I have five titles out with them right now and am close to submitting two more. There's Desire's Destiny, Desire's Duty and Desire's Promise. Then there is two in my werewolf series, Tears of the Queen and Legend of the Tears. I have just finished the rough draft of the third book in the series and have plans for a fourth one the moment I submit it.

I'll probably still be sporadic here on the blog. Unless I win the lottery and can hire someone to help me I can't avoid it, but know I'm still here still working hard in the background and am hoping to do better at keeping my blog alive.

Barb:)



Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Random Thoughts: Is Paranormal Romance dead?

I was going to pull another handout to write about then someone said something to me that made me start thinking. I've been writing for a long time. I Joined RWA in 1993 and published in 2001 and since I joined RWA I have heard that Paranormal stories were dead. That publishers weren't buying them anymore. Twenty years later and many books later I still hear it.

There's only one problem - I don't believe it.

First I want to explain my definition of a paranormal. It is anything out of the ordinary. From shapeshifters and vampires, to science fiction and futuristic stories, to stories about psychic abilities and ghosts.

Since I started writing I've seen the run of vampire books saturate the market, and werewolf/shapeshifter books have been making the rounds recently. Time travel was big for a while. I love reading them and have written two of my own. There's been books about witches, physics, superheros. Then there's the movies and TV shows.

I thought paranormal was dead.

I've been writing in the paranormal field since I started writing. I don't write it because it sells but because it's what moves me. It's the way my mind works. Most writers who write what I write are the same way. We have that weird what if question that pops up every time we start a story.

I wrote paranormal when they said the market was dead. It's one of the reasons I went the electronic publishing route. I didn't want to write what the big pubs said was hot, I wanted to write what was in my heart. Electronic publishers are willing to publish a good story. It doesn't have to fit what they thought would sell.

I just find it funny that "they" keep saying the same thing year after year yet it seems to be what people want to read.

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