For her 5th author anniversary, Zee Irwin revisits the advice Merry Farmer, Caroline Lee & Kate Sadler gave her in year one — and how it built 50 books and 5 years later.
This year marks five years since I hit publish for the first time — and while digging through my YouTube channel, I found buried treasure: three interviews I hosted in my very first year as an author, back when I was running a little writing sprint group and nervously asking established authors how any of this worked. Watching them now is surreal. I was taking notes then. I'm still using the advice at 50+ books. Here's what each of them taught me — and what five years of small towns, billionaires, and hockey hotties have proven true.
Read on for a few highlights from each interview.
Watch all three on my YouTube interview playlist.
Merry Farmer: "You write alone, but you market as a group."
Merry Farmer writes historical romance — Victorian, Regency, westerns, and more — and had 100+ books out when we talked, nearly all of them connected. Three things she told me that became load-bearing walls of my career:
- "You write alone, but you need to market as a group." Five years later: my author friendships, sprint groups, and plot calls are the reason I'm still standing. This advice is the whole ballgame.
- Pick a highway, not a lane. Merry built a literal bridge series to walk her western readers into Victorian England. If you've ever wondered why all my small towns connect on a Road Trip map — now you know who planted that seed.
- "You either are a writer or you're not. And if you're a writer, write." Advice given to young Merry by an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter — yes, from THOSE Gyllenhaals — and passed down to me. It still gives me chills.
Merry also plots so thoroughly she writes 8,000 words before 10 a.m., which I mention only so you understand what the rest of us are dealing with.
Watch the entire Merry Farmer interview on YouTube.
Visit her on the web at www.merryfarmer.net/
Caroline Lee: "You might already be living your goal."
Caroline Lee had 78 books out when we talked — sweet westerns, steamy Scottish romance (her words: "we heard you like sex, well, let me show you these books"), and some of the biggest multi-author projects in romance, including a 65-book series that accidentally ended up with four heroes named Jack. What she taught me:
- Always write the next book. One book can't carry a career — readers take three months' work and read it in a day, bless them. The backlist is the business.
- Collaborations are borrowed wings. Join projects with authors bigger than you, tie your book to your own series, and their readers become yours. Generosity as strategy — and it works.
- "You might already be living your goal." Caroline chased money milestones until her uncle pointed out the RV trips with her kids WERE the goal. I think about this one on deadline weeks, usually around 11 p.m.
Watch the Caroline Lee interview here on YouTube.
Visit her on the web at: www.carolineleeromance.com
Katharine Sadler explains the Jane Austen Toast Theory
Katharine Sadler writes urban fantasy (her Fairy Files series is set in a martini bar, with titles like Fairy on the Rocks and Fairy-tini — I remain jealous) and small town romance. Ours was the quietest conversation of the three, and it left me with some of the most practical wisdom:
- The Jane Austen Toast Theory: Austen wrote her novels in the years when her only household duty was making breakfast toast. Writing needs quiet space — and in a world that won't give us any, we have to build it on purpose. Kate uses meditation; I use my car. Same church.
- Keep a series bible from book one. By book five you WILL be asking yourself what you named the high school. (Fifty books in: I can confirm. Aunt Minnie's Pie Shop, please don't ever change.)
- A prequel is "just a chapter that happens before the book started." The single best cure for freebie-writing paralysis I've ever heard.
Watch the Katharine Sadler interview on YouTube.
Visit her on the web at www.KatharineSadler.com.
Five years, 50 books, and eight small towns later, the through-line is obvious: none of this happens alone. Every one of these authors was generous with a newbie holding a webcam and a list of nervous questions back in 2021 — and that generosity is the real secret of the romance author community. (And yes... I've been thinking about dusting off the interview mic. Stay tuned.)
Want the reader version of what all that advice built? Start your trip through my small towns right here, or join Zee's VIPs for a free ebook and weekly book news.
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