Bronwyn Sell – Romcoms in Pandemic

Bronwyn Sell’s romantic comedy, Lovestruck, is set in an island resort run by a lovably dysfunctional family – a perfect place for tangled love and tourists seeking a tropical paradise.  Perfect that is, except when the world is in lockdown. Hi there. I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and in today’s episode of Binge Reading Bronwyn talks about the complications of writing romantic comedy in a pandemic, when you’re not even sure if your characters will be able to fly anywhere. . .  And just to keep you happy we’ve got a “Isolation Giveaway” – three laugh-out-loud paperback copies of Lovestruck for three lucky readers – just the medicine for these testing times.  Enter the draw online at The Joys of Binge Reading.com or on our Binge Reading Facebook page.  Entries close 2 May.  And remember, we always love to hear your comments on the show, so go online and talk to us. Romcom Giveaway for Lovestruck - Enter draw. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: Writing in the time of pandemicManaging a dual identity, dual genre lifeThe road from suspense to comedy Romcom authors to watchLiving - and writing - in the 'new normal'Seeing disruption as opportunity Where to find Bronwyn Sell:  Website: https://www.bronwynsell.com/ Facebook: @bronwynsellauthor Twitter: @brynnwrites Instagram: @writerbron What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny Wheeler: But now here's Bronwyn. Hello, there Bronwyn, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Bronwyn Sell: Hi Jenny. It's great to be back. Bronwyn Sell - rom com author of Lovestruck Jenny Wheeler:  Yes, you're talking about being back because you are the first person ever that we've had on a second time, and that's really a milestone for the show, partly perhaps just that we'd been going a couple of years now, but also because you have changed both your writer name and your genre. The last time we talked to you, you were Brynn Kelly and you were doing romantic suspense and winning a lot of praise and success with a four-book series called The Legionnaires. You won starred reviews and got a RITA reward, and you were going great guns with that. What made you decide to change horses, so to speak? Epic global romantic thrillers Bronwyn Sell: Well, yes, as you say it was a great start and I was very lucky as a debut author to be published by a big New York publisher, and they put the first books out hard cover, it was all looking great and they thought that I would be the next big thing.  And the genre, which is epic, global, romantic thrillers, would be the next big thing. Turned out that neither of us was.  It seemed that because we were targeting the U S market primarily, as well as Canada, the US seemed to go very insular in its reading choices when it came to romantic thrillers and my books didn't sell in the numbers that the publishers had been hoping for. There were still good sales, especially for a New Zealand author.  They were the sales, if you got that for the New Zealand published book, it would be a mega bestseller, but it wasn't enough to get me a fifth book or a new contract, a new series.   Brynn Kelly's romantic thriller series - Deception Island - Book 1