Julianna Keyes's Blog - Posts Tagged "bad-princess"
Bad Princess is available for preorder!
My brand new royal novella, Bad Princess, comes out on November 27, 2017, and you can preorder it now for $2.99!
Bad Princess is a contemporary romance that clocks in at 39,500 words, and it's super fun, super sexy, and seriously empowering. I hope you check it out!
There's an excerpt on my website if you like to try before you buy: www.juliannakeyes.com/bad-princess.html
And it's available to request on NetGalley for the next month: https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/boo...
Enjoy!
JK
Bad Princess is a contemporary romance that clocks in at 39,500 words, and it's super fun, super sexy, and seriously empowering. I hope you check it out!
There's an excerpt on my website if you like to try before you buy: www.juliannakeyes.com/bad-princess.html
And it's available to request on NetGalley for the next month: https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/boo...
Enjoy!
JK
"Bad Princess" Teaser 4!
It’s the last #TeaserTuesday before release day! I’m so excited November 27 is almost here. I’ve made my final changes to the manuscript and uploaded the files to the distributors; prepared all the Book Blitz materials and submitted them; written drafts of 4 of my 5 release week posts (I’m still trying to come up with a great idea for the last one); and received one of the prize items I’m gathering for the newsletter giveaway. Once I get the other one I’ll take a picture so you can see what one lucky winner (and careful reader) might win… If no one is lucky (or careful) I will be the winner. heh heh
I’ve seen lots of writers on Twitter sharing mosaics/collages of images that help tell the story for their book, but when I tried, it looked horrible. I am not crafty and there will be no collage. It’s for the best, I’ve decided. Why bother, when I can embarrass myself in so many other ways? ;)
One of the last steps on my dwindling to-do list is to collect quotes from positive reviews that I can share and link to on my website, but that’s such a tricky proposition because I really do try not to read them so they don’t get in my head. I’ve been pretty fortunate that the people who @ me on Twitter are just doing it when they have something nice to say, so that’s kind of my safety net for finding things. If I google my name, I mostly just get pirate site results and sometimes a picture that doesn’t make sense.
Anyway, enjoy this last teaser, and thank you for reading along with me! I’ll be posting every day next week (*prematurely faints from social media exhaustion*) so feel free to join in the conversation!
Until then :)
Amazon https://goo.gl/DCq6Rm
Barnes & Noble https://goo.gl/AzWSeg
iBooks https://goo.gl/fxx7yC
Kobo https://goo.gl/xpxVH4
Add to Goodreads https://goo.gl/KQPNbB
Info & excerpt: www.juliannakeyes.com
RELEASE WEEK POST 1
MY, WHAT A NOVEL-LA IDEA
I’ve explained that I decided to write a novella as part of an anthology call for royal novellas. Before that, I’d never even considered writing a novella—I’ve read some, but not many, and I’m definitely far too wordy a writer to pack an entire story into half the space I’d normally use. But seeing the call sparked an idea, something that shaped itself into “Bad Princess,” and had the unexpected effect of convincing me that not only could I write a novella, I could write it quickly, because it was short!
Ha!
Ha!
Ha.
So, I did write it fairly quickly, but that’s mostly because it was one of those blessed occasions where the story just flowed. It definitely wasn’t any easier than writing a full-length story, because you still have to make sure you have a solid structure and an interesting plot and unique characters and sizzling chemistry and believable dialogue and all the things that make a book, regardless of length, worth reading.
When the anthology didn’t go ahead as planned, I knew I loved this story and wanted to publish it regardless. And for a brief moment, I considered beefing it up a bit, adding more scenes, more chapters, more words—my favourite—and making it a bit more substantial than a novella. But here’s the thing: I wrote a novella. Not a book that was missing pieces, but a complete story, in 40,000 words.
I thought maybe I could add the wedding scene, but I really didn’t want to. Or insert a chapter before they’re caught kissing—but that would be filler. Or I could change to a more omniscient POV and show other characters’ thoughts and activities, but that would just be different angles on the same plot points, not new information. Or maybe I could create an entire subplot to generate another 30,000 words—but…but I didn’t need to. I’d told a story, and the word count was right for it, so I left it as it was.
Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write, and other times it’s hard to determine what *not* to write. It’s always a balancing act, and whether or not you strike the right balance is entirely subjective. This post is meant to give you the overall perspective I had while writing the novella, and a couple of the posts coming later in the week will discuss some of those decisions in more detail. Until then, thanks for reading! 😘
BUY LINKS:
AZ https://goo.gl/DCq6Rm
BN https://goo.gl/AzWSeg
iBooks https://goo.gl/fxx7yC
Kobo https://goo.gl/xpxVH4
I’ve explained that I decided to write a novella as part of an anthology call for royal novellas. Before that, I’d never even considered writing a novella—I’ve read some, but not many, and I’m definitely far too wordy a writer to pack an entire story into half the space I’d normally use. But seeing the call sparked an idea, something that shaped itself into “Bad Princess,” and had the unexpected effect of convincing me that not only could I write a novella, I could write it quickly, because it was short!
Ha!
Ha!
Ha.
So, I did write it fairly quickly, but that’s mostly because it was one of those blessed occasions where the story just flowed. It definitely wasn’t any easier than writing a full-length story, because you still have to make sure you have a solid structure and an interesting plot and unique characters and sizzling chemistry and believable dialogue and all the things that make a book, regardless of length, worth reading.
When the anthology didn’t go ahead as planned, I knew I loved this story and wanted to publish it regardless. And for a brief moment, I considered beefing it up a bit, adding more scenes, more chapters, more words—my favourite—and making it a bit more substantial than a novella. But here’s the thing: I wrote a novella. Not a book that was missing pieces, but a complete story, in 40,000 words.
I thought maybe I could add the wedding scene, but I really didn’t want to. Or insert a chapter before they’re caught kissing—but that would be filler. Or I could change to a more omniscient POV and show other characters’ thoughts and activities, but that would just be different angles on the same plot points, not new information. Or maybe I could create an entire subplot to generate another 30,000 words—but…but I didn’t need to. I’d told a story, and the word count was right for it, so I left it as it was.
Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write, and other times it’s hard to determine what *not* to write. It’s always a balancing act, and whether or not you strike the right balance is entirely subjective. This post is meant to give you the overall perspective I had while writing the novella, and a couple of the posts coming later in the week will discuss some of those decisions in more detail. Until then, thanks for reading! 😘
BUY LINKS:
AZ https://goo.gl/DCq6Rm
BN https://goo.gl/AzWSeg
iBooks https://goo.gl/fxx7yC
Kobo https://goo.gl/xpxVH4
RELEASE WEEK POST 2!
Thank you to Brenda for her question!
Q: I find a lot of romance novels today obsessed with overtly rogue dominant masculinity and power. Titles like The Bad Billionaire, The Bad Boy Player Billionaire, The Prince Who Seduced Me, and so on, seem to suggest this idea. You have chosen a princess to be in the lead or least in the main title of the book. The synopsis also seems to suggest that the female is in the driver’s seat of where this novella is going or at least has the more executive point of view. Do you feel that feminism makes it across in your books in the way you choose to write?
A: This is a really thoughtful question and I appreciate you asking! To address the first part, overly masculine titles—I think that’s a marketing technique. It’s on trend and it doesn’t require any real effort to deduce what the story’s about. (Would “Time Served” have sold more copies if I’d called it “The Ex-Con Ex-Boyfriend Who Re-Seduced Me”? Hmm…maybe. It certainly rolls off the tongue.)
In “Bad Princess,” the heroine is definitely the protagonist and it’s her actions and her willpower that determine the course of the story. (It’s also told in third person, from Brinley’s POV only.) For me “feminism” in romance isn’t necessarily a declarative statement from a character that says “I’m a strong, independent woman, dammit!” It’s in her actions, and that’s why I always try to make sure that my characters’ actions speak just as loudly as their words. Brinley has lived her whole life—quite comfortably—in the shadow of her perfect older sister, Elle, but when Elle abdicates and the spotlight is suddenly on Brinley, the expectation is that she’ll undergo one of those movie makeovers and learn how to be better. I didn’t want to tell that story, because I’d seen it before. Instead I wanted a story that suggested we re-write the definition of what type of behavior suited a “good” woman, and to send the message that it’s possible to be good enough, just the way you are.
To me, feminism isn’t about being pretty and perfect, or even stubborn and strong. It’s being yourself and having the courage to accept it, and the determination to surround yourself with people who accept it, too. Brinley didn’t need Finn to tell her it’s okay to be herself—she was always going to be that way, no matter what. But she’s happy to have an ally, and I was more than happy to give her one. After all, a bad princess can get in twice as much trouble with a second set of hands.
What do you guys think? Is it important to you to have a more expressly stated position of female strength in novels, or does subtle work?
Q: I find a lot of romance novels today obsessed with overtly rogue dominant masculinity and power. Titles like The Bad Billionaire, The Bad Boy Player Billionaire, The Prince Who Seduced Me, and so on, seem to suggest this idea. You have chosen a princess to be in the lead or least in the main title of the book. The synopsis also seems to suggest that the female is in the driver’s seat of where this novella is going or at least has the more executive point of view. Do you feel that feminism makes it across in your books in the way you choose to write?
A: This is a really thoughtful question and I appreciate you asking! To address the first part, overly masculine titles—I think that’s a marketing technique. It’s on trend and it doesn’t require any real effort to deduce what the story’s about. (Would “Time Served” have sold more copies if I’d called it “The Ex-Con Ex-Boyfriend Who Re-Seduced Me”? Hmm…maybe. It certainly rolls off the tongue.)
In “Bad Princess,” the heroine is definitely the protagonist and it’s her actions and her willpower that determine the course of the story. (It’s also told in third person, from Brinley’s POV only.) For me “feminism” in romance isn’t necessarily a declarative statement from a character that says “I’m a strong, independent woman, dammit!” It’s in her actions, and that’s why I always try to make sure that my characters’ actions speak just as loudly as their words. Brinley has lived her whole life—quite comfortably—in the shadow of her perfect older sister, Elle, but when Elle abdicates and the spotlight is suddenly on Brinley, the expectation is that she’ll undergo one of those movie makeovers and learn how to be better. I didn’t want to tell that story, because I’d seen it before. Instead I wanted a story that suggested we re-write the definition of what type of behavior suited a “good” woman, and to send the message that it’s possible to be good enough, just the way you are.
To me, feminism isn’t about being pretty and perfect, or even stubborn and strong. It’s being yourself and having the courage to accept it, and the determination to surround yourself with people who accept it, too. Brinley didn’t need Finn to tell her it’s okay to be herself—she was always going to be that way, no matter what. But she’s happy to have an ally, and I was more than happy to give her one. After all, a bad princess can get in twice as much trouble with a second set of hands.
What do you guys think? Is it important to you to have a more expressly stated position of female strength in novels, or does subtle work?
