Romance Your Launch: Self-publishing your romance novel

Romance generates over $1.44 billion USD annually in North America alone. Indie authors lead digital sales. And somewhere in your Google Drive, there’s a romance novel that deserves to be in readers’ hands.

That’s what this course is for.

Romance Your Launch is the complete roadmap for self-publishing your romance novel—from understanding the market you’re entering, to building your author identity, to launching your book in a way that’s strategic, sustainable, and doesn’t require you to lose your mind in the process.

It was originally created as a premium 12-week live course. It’s now available exclusively to members of the Author Ever After community, so you can work through it at your own pace and get support every step of the way.

What Romance Your Launch actually is

Romance Your Launch is a practical, action-oriented course for romance writers who have a manuscript (or a manuscript in progress) and want to publish it themselves, without the guesswork.

Each lesson is designed to be read in under 15 minutes. Every lesson is built around a worksheet or template that turns the content into action. (The worksheets are available inside the Author Ever After community for paid members.) New lessons are released two to three times a week. Sign up below to get each one delivered to your inbox as it drops.

This is not a craft course. If you’re still working on your writing fundamentals, the Author Ever After community has resources for that too. This is the course you come to when the manuscript exists and you’re ready to figure out what happens next, starting with how to self-edit.

This is also not a get-rich-quick scheme. The romance market is real, the opportunity is real, and the authors building sustainable careers in it right now are doing it through strategy and consistency, not a single big launch.

What you’ll learn

Romance Your Launch is organized into modules, each covering a distinct stage of the self-publishing journey. The lessons build on each other, but every one is designed to stand on its own, So, if you need to jump ahead, jump.

Note! I am updating this series in real time, starting in May 2026. If a header below does not link out to a page, it’s still a work-in-progress. And some will link to their module home pages which will show you what’s coming up, but won’t have lessons yet. If you click the Romance Your Launch menu item in the header, you can see which module home pages have been created and the lessons within. And if that’s all too, “huh?” just pop over to the blog. That’s where the all the posted lessons live. (Phew! It’s hard building in public!)

Module 1: Understanding the romance market

Romance is the top-selling fiction genre in the English-language publishing world. Before you can position your book in it, you need to understand how it works—the size of the market, the sub-genres and their readers, where your book fits, what readers expect in 2026, and how to decide between traditional and self-publishing. Five lessons. Start here.

Module 2: Your romance author identity

Who are you as an author? Your pen name, your brand, the way you present yourself to readers—these aren’t vanity decisions, they’re business ones. This module helps you build an author identity that’s authentic and marketable. Four lessons.

Module 3: Finding your first readers

Before your book is published, you need a readership in the making. This module covers how to find your first readers, start building your email list, and create the early community that a book launch can actually lean on. Five lessons.

Module 4: Your manuscript

The focus shifts back to the manuscript itself—revision, self-editing, and getting your draft into the shape it needs to be in before it reaches the readers you’ve been building toward. There’s a difference between a manuscript that needs more work and one you’re afraid to let go of. This module helps you know the difference. Six lessons.

Module 5: Publish-ready romance

A great story, a beautiful cover, and a polished interior still won’t save a book the algorithm doesn’t know who to show it to. This module is the bridge between your finished manuscript and a book that’s actually ready to publish—metadata, ISBNs, cover design, formatting, and the final checks before anything goes live. Six lessons.

Module 6: Inbox insights

Your email list is the one reader relationship platform you own outright—no algorithm deciding who sees your posts, no platform that can disappear overnight. This module builds a fully functional, automated email system for your romance author business, from list architecture to the emails that turn subscribers into loyal readers. Nine lessons.

Module 7: Your book launch plan

A book launch is not a single day. It’s a window of intentional, coordinated activity that begins weeks—sometimes months—before your book goes live, and continues after. This module builds the right launch for your book, your goals, and your actual capacity. Seven lessons.

Module 8: Pre-publication considerations

This module is about everything that happens between “my book is finished” and “my book is available to readers everywhere it should be.” The royalty structures, the platforms, the legal foundations, the distribution decisions, the account setups. The things that don’t feel glamorous but that determine whether your book is working for you or quietly working against you from the day it goes live. Ten lessons.

Module 9: Publishing your romance

All the steps to turn your edited manuscript into a book for sale at the retailers of your choice. These lessons include important sales page optimization tasks. Don’t skip them! Six lessons.

Module 10: Building your fanbase

Romance readers don’t just find books through algorithms—they find them through other readers. This module covers where your readers actually are, how discovery works in a community-driven genre, and how to build a sustainable social presence that doesn’t eat your writing life. Eight lessons.

Module 11: The business of being an author

A short module that covers business budgets, tax talk, and a bit more on copyrights, contract and other stuff you really need to consult with a lawyer or accountnat about. Basically, it’s a some lessons with lots of questions! Three lessons.

Why I built this. And why I’m the right person to teach it

I’m Danika Bloom. I’m a USA Today bestselling author of steamy contemporary romance, and I’ve self-published over a dozen books—mostly in the romance genre.

I’ve made the mistakes. Paid for services that didn’t deliver. Pulled my hair out over cover redesigns when Facebook (pre-Meta) kept shutting down my ads. Had both mediocre and successful ARC campaigns. And spent years learning what actually works from peers who are actively publishing and marketing romance right now.

Before I wrote romance, I spent over 25 years as a ghostwriter for progressive non-profits in Canada (where I live). My supepower is that I know how to make complicated topics make sense, and even fun sometimes.

The earlier versions of this program helped many of the authors in the Author Ever After community publish their first romance novels. This version is the most complete, most current, most practical, and most free it’s ever been.

Read every lesson—free, right here

Every Romance Your Launch lesson will be published here on the blog. You don’t need an account or a membership to read them. If you want to make sure you don’t miss a lesson as it’s released, pop your email in below and I’ll send each new one straight to your inbox.

Get every lesson, starting at lesson 1 (perfect if you want to start at the beginning).

Get the lessons as they’re published, starting where we are right now (perfect if you want to catch up on the blog and get the heads up when a new lesson is published).

Want to know what lesson has most recently been published? Either click the latest module link above or pop over to the blog where all the Romance Your Launch lessons live. 

Please don’t join both tracks since you’ll get duplicate emails and if you decide to unsubscribe from one list, you’ll be entirely removed from my list and get no lesson heads-ups and no email at all from me.

Want support while you work through it?

Reading a lesson is one thing. Implementing it can be another thing entirely.

If you want a community to work through the steps with, that’s what Author Ever After is for. Members get:

• A downloadable worksheet for every lesson
• All the actual templates and tools I use in my own romance publishing business
• Direct access to me and several early career romance authors every Tuesday at office hours
• Two masterminds every Wednesday where you can get advice from a room full of romance authors who are in it with you
• Asynchronous support in the Ask for Help space, where questions get answered even when I’m still asleep (in a Circle community)

Romance Your Launch was originally delivered as a live 12-week program . It was a premium experience that guided many pre-published romance writers to indie publish their first romance novel. The community is where that level of support still lives—but on your timeline and at a much more economical price. A full year in the community is hundreds of dollars less than the 12-week program was.