Demelza Watts
Demelza Watts asked Joyce DiPastena:

Hi Joyce, I wonder if I could ask your help/ advice, please? I am a contemporary romance author, but I want to move away from streamy novels and really want to start writing clean novels and novellas. I've searched Amazon for popular categories within clean romance and I see a lot of historical/ mail order brides. Do you have any recommendations for a contemporary category within sweet/ clean romance? Thanks!

Joyce DiPastena Hi Demelza! I don't write or read contemporary romance, so I'm probably not the best one to advise you. I think I've heard that contemporary cowboy stories are really popular. Also, I'm thinking that maybe some of the categories you've been writing "steamy" in, if those themes have done well for you, could you write a sweet/clean romance with the same basic theme? (For example, there are both "hot" and "sweet/clean" contemporary cowboy romances.) I know for me, there are a lot of historical romances I would read if they were sweet/clean instead of hot, so as I reader, I wish someone would write some sweet/clean versions of those stories so I could read them. Does that make sense? I could also recommend some sweet/clean romance groups on Facebook that you could join and maybe ask for suggestions from authors who do write contemporary sweet/clean romance. Let me know if you'd like me to share those links with you. Good luck! In my opinion, the romance world needs and wants more sweet/clean romance! :-)

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