Kiss N’ Tell

Posted byjenniferannerainesPosted inUncategorizedTags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Spark your dreams, Fan your passion, Ignite your story  was the motto for the Romance Writers of New Zealand 2026 Conference. And it was a fabulous affair.

Unfortunately I missed the Friday workshops, but the reports I heard were glowing. Jennifer Hilt, author and creator of The Trope Thesaurus: An Author Resource on The Emotional Blueprint: How Tropes Create Character, Conflict and Chemistry delivered the keynote. James Blatch, a director of Self Publishing Formula Limited, an online course provider for independent authors and co-host of the weekly SPF podcast spoke about Book Visibility in the Age of AI. Participants were buzzing as the conference proper started on Saturday morning.

T L Swan, a best-selling, award-winning  author of “addictive, heart-pounding romances with witty banter, emotional depth and swoon-worthy heroes” gave Saturday’s keynote. For me her key takeaways were:

  • nail the brief—that’s title, cover, blurb—when a book’s not selling rebrand. T did 9 rebrands on 6 of her books, that’s changing the covers and blurbs until they hit the reader sweet spot
  • don’t sell on tropes, satisfy on emotions
  • you need to know the major conflict and how it ends
  • give ARCs away like water—you want readers
  • chapter analysis—3 things should happen, you should leave 3 clues for later and end on a cliff hanger
  • first chapter and blurb are critical (that’s your selling sample on Amazon)
  • understand how KU and Amazon work and use that to work for you.

Sarah Young, Executive Agent at the Nancy Yost Literary Agency represents authors across romance, women’s fiction, and commercial fiction. Sarah love love loves her job and talked about what an agent can do for indie, trad or hybrid authors, specifically in protecting your contract rights. These days rights can cover print, e-book, audio, film, foreign, translation, performance, serialisation, computer/app games, manga/graphic novels and merchandising and may be sold separately.

Sarah is embedded in the publishing industry and can provide professional and editorial guidance. Sarah emphasised the importance of an author knowing what they want from their career and agent. You interview the agent as much as the agent interviews you. Sarah took pitches at the conference and there were some very happy new authors after their 1:1 meetings with her.

A session on covers appealed, so I attended Holly Dunn’s Covers and Comp Titles: Maximising Market Success. As an illustrator and author Holly has particular insight into what an author needs for their book PLUS she reads the manuscripts she illustrates and usually hand letters her covers. What more could you ask for! She suggests that:

  • your cover sets up a promise that your book delivers on
  • you want to fit in more than stand out, to have LEGS—be legible, eye-catching, genre specific and story relevant. Typology can indicate genre
  • she’s interested in your ideal reader, although readers are on a continuum eg. protagonist age range, reality of world, no magic to magic, time period, tone, place of romance in the story, level of mystery etc
  • colours should be consistent with genre

Sunday morning started with a bang. Jenny Nagle, CEO NZ Society of Authors talked about what an authors’ society has to offer authors, including romance authors, and it’s a lot—like minded people and craft courses for a start.

New Zealand’s own Nalini Singh, “internationally bestselling author of the iconic Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter series of paranormal romances was the Sunday keynote. She also writes fun, contemporary romances and atmospheric NZ-set thrillers. Nalini’s sold over eight million copies worldwide and been translated into more than twenty languages. Nalini’s a generous, knowledgeable speaker who shared insights into how to thrive in the current market. She outlined key areas of focus:

  • mindset and personal goals—commit to the long term, it’s important to keep growing, know what you want long term and what you enjoy doing
  • creative foundations—write a good book, be careful of hyper-contemporary cultural references, don’t be scared of being a distinctive voice, keep your promise to the reader, the HEA
  • capacity to pivot—eg. genres, indie to trad or vice versa, length of manuscript
  • understand your bundle of author rights, what you give away and what you retain in specific contracts
  • understand your contract—not just rights, but AI clauses, reversion clauses, audit clauses, accounting (joint or separate) and ability to negotiate
  • financial literacy—you might be paying taxes
  • manage your business, time, inputs as you grow, delegate, use contractors where it works for you
  • take care: Give yourself grace eg. schedule 4 days a week, leaving a day free for unforeseen circumstances, use out-of-office messages when you need a break
  • develop positive professional relationships
  • look after your readers—don’t get a reputation for not finishing your series
  • direct communication with readers—social media is useful but shouldn’t be your primary communication with readers; use newsletter—check if subscribers want to stay
  • maintain a presence even in quiet publishing times eg. regular newsletter

And to blow your mind, the workshop on AI: risk, resilience and writing the future by Jenny Nagle and Daniel Watterson talked about what’s happening around the world to protect authors’ intellectual property as generative AI grows. The speed of change is supersonic. What’s needed are:

  • legislation—ensure transparency, labelling and enforcement
  • litigation— solving yesterday’s problems tomorrow; distinguishing types of copyright infringement—ChatGPTiseatingtheworld.com
  • licensing—need a new infrastructure for licencing

Authors can join the Human Authored program and use their logo on their works. At this stage this is limited to members of the UK Society of Authors, but they have been working with the Authors Guild in the US to launch the scheme.

The SPA Girls Session with Trudi Jaye, Cheryl Phipps, Wendy Vella and Shar Barratt was an engaging way to bring the focus back to me as an author, by taking questions and talking about how the SPA Girls maintain a successful author mindset:

  • most mindset problems are symptoms—imposter syndrome, perfectionism and self-sabotage usually trace back to a deeper root—not feeling worthy, safe or deserving. Work on the root, not just the symptom
  • comparisonitis is a career killer—someone else’s launch, rank or income report tells you nothing about your path. Stay in your own lane
  • words have power—listen to your negative self-talk—you can’t fix a story you haven’t noticed you’re telling yourself
  • find your people—a supportive writer tribe and positive accountability will carry you through the hard patches.

The final session of the day when energy is running low, I lucked out with the multi-talented Shannon Curtis and her session Use Theme Like a Queen. Shannon also operates Want2Write which provides resources for creative writers. The essential question for an author is what message do you want to convey. That’s your theme—”something that is threaded through the story, and we convey through plot events, character actions, motivations etc. This should be stated clearly, early in the book, potentially by a secondary character.” Examples of themes include:

  • trust
  • betrayal
  • forgiveness
  • caring
  • confidence
  • love
  • revenge
  • dealing with grief

Nalini Singh summed it up for me. You need to be patient with yourself and trust your voice.

This blog is for me as much as you because I wanted to keep the energy flowing after a wonderful and informative weekend. I can go back and reread it, plus I hope it inspires anyone thinking of joining me on this writing journey.

What’s on the horizon for me:

I’m writing a companion book to Lela’s Choice, You remember the outline:

Lela Vella’s teenage niece has fled to Malta. Terrified by what she might find, Lela chases her, only to be met by her father’s newest hitman, Hamish McGregor, a lawyer intent on reaching her niece first. Despite mutual suspicion, attraction smoulders. In the race to find Lela’s niece first, will they choose compromise or walk away from love?

My work in progress (WIP) is about the niece, Sophie. And Sophie’s had a few ups and downs since we last met the soon-to-be eighteen year old runaway.

I’m also appearing at the Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA)’s annual A Romantic Rendezvous events in March 2027 in Sydney and Canberra. The special guests have been announced. Amy Andrews, multi-published spicy romance author and Ilona Andrews, the husband and wife team writing urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Keep up to date on developments by joining ARRA’s Facebook page.

A prompt: you can unsubscribe from my newsletter at any time. Don’t clutter up your email, if you’re too busy or no longer interested.

Find me on:

  • Diana Kathryn Penn’s Indie Reads Aloud podcast has recordings of me reading the opening 20 mins of my books:
    • Betrayal—Choosing Family Book 3 (episode 212)
    • Quinn, by design—Choosing Family Book 2 (episode 208)
    • Masquerade—Choosing Family Book 1 (episode 188)
    • Lela’s Choice (episode 143)
    • Planting Hope (episode 101)

You can also contact me directly via the contact page on my website if you have any other questions.

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