Reason #3: Your characters aren't (obviously) yummy

6 Reasons Your Book Isn't Selling--and How Universal Fantasy Can Solve Them

I’m a huge fan of a Beauty and the Beast trope. Give me a book with characters in this situation, and if I have the time, I’ll read about those characters in my favorite situation.

But give me a wounded beast who avenges his father by kidnapping the sister of his enemy—therefore ripping her out of her ill-fitting world, then forget about having the time, I will MAKE the time.

“What are you doing?” my husband asked one morning in February when he found me sitting in a chair in our bedroom, hunched over my phone.

We were in lockdown in a beautiful villa in Barbados with nothing to do but swim and work while our kids were in zoom school. Just as they’d logged in, I’d lamented about my fast-approaching pre-order deadline, then told him I was going upstairs to take a shower before I began my writing day. But that had been a couple of hours ago, and here I was, unshowered and glued to my Kindle app.

So, you can imagine my guilty face when I answered, “Reading a Sophie Lark book.”

Yes, I was supposed to be working on my behind-schedule book, but in my defense, the novel’s star character, Mikolaj, was, like, coated with UF butter.

Massive wound that can only be healed by love and/or marriage? Check! His kidnappee’s family killed Mikolaj’s adoptive father in a big ol’ clash of the mafia clans. Throughout both real-world and romance novel history, this has been the kind of feud that could only be reconciled with a wound-salving marriage that joins warring fams.

Obsessed prince? Check! Sure, of a Polish mafia dynasty, but a prince is a prince—especially if he’s obsessed.

Fixer-upper? Get this: Fixer-upper dude’s got a decrepit mansion in need of even more fixing upping! Double-check!

The Beauty and the Beast situation drew me in, but the buttery hero made me forget to shower…or work…or tell my husband I wouldn’t be doing either until I finished this romance.

And it was all because Sophie Lark let me know with her book description and her exceedingly grabby opening chapters that this hero was a buttery BEAST.

We don’t all write beast heroes—how boring would that be?

But whether the main character is….

A Dream Boss who will make your cynical heart BELIEVE….

A New Bestie (or two) who’s down to live out a true-crime podcast fantasy with you….

OR

A Best Friend Mr. Right you should be with instead of Your Current Boyfriend Mr. Wrong….

Writers help themselves when they help us understand what makes their main character so yummy from the start—in the description and/or within the first few minutes of consumption.

ASSIGNMENT: Visit the book with the main character your readers love the most. Break down that main character’s UF butter and make sure at least a dab or two features in your book description. Mmm!

Note: If you don’t feel like clicking the links, I’ve put all the shows with yummy main characters in the comments. Let me know how many you guessed right!

And read the other reasons your books might not be selling….