Author Liwen Ho

Behind the Scenes of My New Release: A Single Spark

In the midst of editing hubby’s sci-fi book last year, I got the itch to start planning a new romance series. The inspiration came one morning after I’d dropped the munchkins off at school. As usual, I had the radio on and happened upon the morning talk show of a top 40 station. The deejay had been sharing how she’d received a mistaken text from a man, a man she got very curious about.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

She did some Googling and located his Facebook profile. That’s when she pulled up his handsome photo and began spinning a wonderful romance in her mind. Guy texts girl by accident. Girl texts guy back. They strike up a conversation. One thing leads to another and bam!—they live happily ever after. Great, right? Except for the part where said guy is married. Oh, the disappointment! I really felt for the deejay as she shared her experience. It would’ve been such a great story if it all had worked out, right?

Right!

That’s when the wheels in my head began spinning out of control, leading me to come up with a story based on this very premise, and subsequently a whole series based on a family of five brothers.

Whoa baby!

It was my first time plotting out a whole series from beginning to end before I started writing. And boy, was it fun! I began searching for images I could use for the covers, and found five that worked perfectly. From there, I began coming up with character names, personalities and professions. Then I did some matchmaking and paired up each unsuspecting brother with a woman who would complement him well. I also had to figure out the obstacles to their happily ever afters and make sure they fell in line with some popular romance tropes. Here are some of the storylines you can expect in this series: frenemies to lovers, opposites attract, and marriage of convenience. I’m the most excited about this last one since it’ll be my first attempt at writing such a story.

This is also the first time I’m doing my marketing for a new release differently (thanks to the amazing advice of The Writing Gals!—if you’re an author, you gotta check them out). I won’t bore you with the details, but if you want them, feel free to ask!. Let me just say that each new book is another opportunity to learn what to do and what not to do, and this time around I’m a tad bit wiser and more patient. I actually sat on this book for a few months before I released it (I had another deadline to meet), and took my time getting the story “just right”. With feedback from my awesome beta readers, I spent hours fixing the beginning of chapter one and another few days making the last chapter believable and satisfying. I’ll admit I got frustrated a few times (or a lot!) in the process and wanted to throw in the towel more than once. But when I finally finished, I was thoroughly proud of myself and my stubbornness. Yay me! Haha.

I hope you’ll check out big brother Aiden’s story in A Single Spark. It’s at a special release price of 99¢ for a limited time!

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