romanceauthornickoleevans

  Okay, I have a hard time coming up with names for my romance characters, and sometimes, because I am too tired to look back at my old stories, I end up reusing names. Fun fact: I heard James Baldwin liked the name David, and more than one of his male characters was named that. Now, back to what I was saying. I have such a hard time. I looked up male and female names for my romance stories, wrote them down, immediately forgot them, and lost track of them. I have a lot of notebooks. But this post is about names for my characters that I won’t use for different reasons. Here I go:   Sebastian This name conjures up Harlequin Romances, and dark-haired, six-foot, bodies to die for Alpha males with a lot of problems. I want to name a romance hero Sebastian, but I just don’t have the writer’s juice to pull it off. I mean, this name inspires so many fantasies that I don’t think little old me can do it justice. So, for now I am sticking to Darren and Dudley. Declan I can’t re...

    Have you ever wondered why a person becomes a romance writer? Then I'll share the who, what, when, and why  using me as an example.   Who Am I I am Avis Yarbrough a.k.a Nickole Evans. I write short contemporary romances of about 5,000 to 7,000 words. I am also a freelance writer who writes articles, does profiles, long-form content, and short e-books. What Are My Short Romances About They are the usual kind of man meets woman, and they overcome obstacles to be together. Although with my romances, the obstacles are internal. I write short stories because it costs a lot of money to get your books edited, which I can’t afford. Truth be told, I did not edit my earlier e-books, and they are a mess. I find that my shorter romance stories are easier for me to edit. I used to write 12,000 to 20,000 e-books. I have ventured into interesting romantic comedy. I write black women and white men romances. Some of my e-books include Psychic Love and Marriage of Conven...

                                                          Here is what I have been up to. New Short Romance Story Published I published the first book in my series on Amazon. The romance story is titled “Patience, My Billionaire” and is the first book in my Virtue series. The book is priced at 0.99 cents. I will tell you why in the next section. It is a romance comedy, and I hope readers will like it. Why My Books are 0.99 cents Last time I said I was going to price my books at $2.99, but I chickened out. I also decided to put some of my older books, as well as my new story, back into Kindle Unlimited on Amazon. I am going to see if this makes a difference in getting readers interested in my work. If not, it will be priced again at $2.99 and out of Kindle Unlimited. I Have a Couple of Series Ideas I decided to try my hand at a coup...

  A romance novel series is a good way for romance readers to engage and to become interested in your books. As an indie author who just started another series and who has a couple of other romance novel series in the pipeline, I have been thinking about the art of the romance novel series. Here is what I think.   You've got to Have a Good Idea This is nothing new, but a good idea will get romance readers interested in reading your romance book(s). Whether that be a pair of billionaire brothers, nannies falling in love with single Dads, or a bunch of FBI agents who find love while tracking down criminals,   having a good idea is where to start. But how do you know if your idea is good? Do research and see what is popular and ranks well on Amazon. Whatever you choose, a good idea is the key. What if you don’t see a book that closely relates to your idea? You have to decide if you want to go further with the probability of no readers interested in reading it. The Fi...

  I decided to start a new segment titled “Pose a Question.” This time the question is, “Are romance novels porn?” If they are, they are, but if so, I need to rethink everything. How did this question come about? Well, I was reading other romance authors’ reviews, and I ran into, no less than three times, the reviewer saying they had a problem with the book because there wasn't enough sex in it. Say what? This had me thinking, “Are women and/or men getting off from reading romance novels?’ I have been reading romance novels since the age of twelve, which means I may have been consuming porn from the age of twelve, and this fills me with dread. But here is what I seriously think. I always thought that romance novels were relationship porn. The man meets the woman, and the reader is taken on a journey, while two characters fall in love with all its ups and downs. You get passion, emotional intensity, interesting dialogue, and sometimes sex, but the sex isn’t the point; it is ...

                                                                                                               Picture by Adonyi Gabor What I learned from writing romcom is that it is hard. All writing is hard, but trying to write something actually funny is on another level. I decided to try my hand at writing romcom because it is a popular sub-genre in the romance genre, and I like to think I have a sense of humor. My short romcom is the first story in my Virtue series. It is the Capital virtues I am writing about, and the first story is about patience, which is the virtue, not the name of the character who finds her patience being tested in a few ways while also finding love with a beautiful man. There were...