If you haven't watched my YouTube videos, there's a ton of content there that builds on Romance Your Brand, and it's where I'm pre-testing some of the content that will be in Romance Your Plan.

Here's my channel: www.youtube.com/ZoeYorkWrites

And specific to this list, here is the Romance Your Brand playlist! There are 14 videos on it so far:

Romance Your Brand YouTube playlist

Every Tuesday I upload a Trope Tuesday video, which digs into a trope list project I started (and even have a website for, at www.thetropeproject.com)!

I also like to answer viewer questions, so if you have a topic you would like me to cover, please reply and let me know. See below for an example of a question (and answer) that I covered in yesterday's upload.

I get a lot of questions about how to do DIY cover design, and my first answer is, you don't need to do this if you aren't naturally drawn to doing it. But if this is a skill you want to improve on, but you know that the covers you build don't look like the ones on Amazon's top 100 list, here's a trick: talk about what you see. Sometimes the difference is in image size and placement, but often it's about the text on the page. GET MORE FAMILIAR WITH TYPOGRAPHY.

Five questions I'd ask about other covers that could help you better design your own:

1. What adjectives would you use to describe the title font(s)?

2. Where is the author’s name on the cover?

3. Is the author’s name in serif or sans serif fonts? What letters are capitalized?

4. Does any of the typography on the cover have a shadow or shading behind it to help it stand out? How could that technique be achieved?

5. Are all the words the same size, or have they been shifted a bit to better fit against each other or around the background image?

And of course, the book is also available in ebook and paperback.

Get it in ebook at Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Google Play! Or if you prefer paperback, get Romance Your Brand in print from Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and BookDepository.com!

As I did with the first Romance Your Brand newsletter, I need to start with some administrative business: you might not know why you're receiving this email! 

1. You might be an Ainsley Booth reader (that's my alter-ego). If you subscribed to my Ainsley newsletter at some point, you may have accidentally signed up for this list at the same time, because I keep them on the same MailerLite servers. You can update your preferences by clicking on the link at the bottom of this email. But if you have any interest in writing genre fiction, feel free to stick around, this email might be relevant to you!

2. You might be an author who signed up YEARS ago when I floated the idea of teaching Romance Your Brand as a course...and then never did. HEY, THANKS FOR OPENING THIS EMAIL!

3. You're a new-to-the-list author, and you already know about the Romance Your Brand book. Excellent, welcome.

My goal for this newsletter is to share a bit of monthly writing or publishing or marketing advice for writers of genre fiction. First and foremost, I am a writer myself. I'm not cut out for coaching or teaching long-running courses, but I love doing in-person workshops, and I see publishing these How To books as an extension of that. The best part of any workshop is the Q&A at the end, so please feel free to reply to this or any of my emails with your questions. If they're relevant to the group at large, I'll share highlights in subsequent newsletters.

~ Zoe