Guest Post: Romi Moondi

I'm so excited to welcome author Romi Moondi to Books Etc. today. I reviewed her hilarious and awesome novel Last-Minute Love earlier this week (review is here) as part of a CLP Blog Tour and today she is here with a guest post. Since I knew a little bit about her publishing journey I was curious to find out how it turned out compared to the vision she had in her head. Thanks to Romi for this awesome post!

Hi Kaley, thanks for letting me guest-post here, and I have to say, I love your question!

I guess the best measure of how I thought it would turn out goes back to early 2010, when I’d scored a literary agent in New York for “Year of the Chick.” After sending out all those query letters, dealing with the rejections, and finally securing representation, I could picture the next several years of my author life, and I imagined it going like this:

-Most publishers reject me, but one really loves my book and offers me a deal. The book takes off with the right publisher-aided marketing (ha!), I go to book signings in different cities, my agent sells foreign right in several countries, and I use my riches to write full-time…hooray!

And this is how it actually turned out:

-Publishers liked, or enjoyed, or “insert positive adjective” my book, but they didn’t love it.

-My agent didn’t like my second book, which was a humorous essay parody.

-I liked my essay book anyway, and I’d been hearing so much about Amazon self-publishing that I left my agent. I self-published “The Book of Awful” in spring of 2011.

-I realized how obscure you are as an author if you don’t do any advertising or promotions (crikey). So I started doing some advertising and promotions, by learning about various websites from author message boards.

-In November of 2011, I dusted off “Year of the Chick,” and after another minor re-write (owing to my “fresh writer eyes”), I went ahead and self-published it too.

-After doing a couple of free promotions for “Year of the Chick” and getting some great reviews, I realized there was an audience out there for my book, even if it’s not for everyone.

-In early 2012, I took a week off work (yes, my own vacation since I still have a full-time job!) and wrote the entire first draft for the sequel to “Year of the Chick.” That’s fifty-eight thousand words in six days, and I almost went insane doing it.

-After a gruelling re-write and stressful final edits, the sequel “Last-Minute Love” was released, and it’s been out for three months now. I’ve sold almost 2,000 copies of this book, and almost 4,000 copies across all my titles.

-I still have a full-time job, and I will self-publish another book in my series in 2013 (unless of course a publisher discovers my book on their own, and offers me a wonderful author-friendly contract I can’t pass up).

Okay…whoa, that is NOT how I thought my journey would turn out!

The real-life version has been anything but glamourous, but it’s been the most satisfying journey of my life. Every time a reader emails me to tell me how much they loved the series, or to even “thank me for writing,” (you’re thanking ME for writing? That’s insane!), it reminds me how this ONE special part of the journey I always imagined, the part where I would reach random strangers with my words…that part actually came true.

As for the rest? Well screw it! It’s a brave new world of publishing, one in which, granted, I fully support every writer who gets a literary agent and finds a publisher (let’s make that clear), but also one in which I’m fully independent as an author.

And it feels good :-)

(Thank you Amazon, Kobo, iTunes and Barnes &  Noble for the ability to self-publish!)

Romi

Author Bio:

I am Canadian, and here are some strange personal facts:

-I wore denim-top-to-bottom in high school (there is a direct inverse relationship between how much denim I wore and how few tongues were launched down my throat at school dances...or anywhere in high school at all).
-A homeless lady in New York once told me "You're just a bitch on vacation with no money!"
-I always hated those insufferable couples who would cuddle and make out on the subway...until I became half of one. But now I'm back to being none of one so I hate them again.

The thing I love most in the world is writing. When I first started publishing on Amazon it was my "crazy" humour side ("The Book of Awful," and "NOT Love Poems For Real Life"). Since then, everything has focused on my "Year of the Chick" series, because it's the most important thing to me in the world right now. I guess that would tend to happen, when your writing is inspired by real life, including all the satisfaction and risks that come from that.

My "Year of the Chick" series can be described as "edgy rom-com," which helps me account for the blunt conversations and mortifying family moments in the book ;-).

Book 3 in the "Year of the Chick" series will be written and released in 2013; until then I have some adventures to go on! 

Connect with Romi:

Facebook Author Page

Twitter
Blog

CLP Blog Tour: Last-Minute Love

I was incredibly excited when I learned that Romi Moondi was going on tour with Last-Minute Love, the sequel to her novel Year of the Chick (which I reviewed earlier this year). I eagerly signed up for this CLP Blog Tour and I'm so glad I did. I loved this book!

Here's the synopsis:

What's a girl to do when she meets the Internet man of her dreams, he's better than she expected, but he lives an ocean away? And let's not forget her parents,who are trying to lock her up in arranged-marriage doom... 

In this fast-paced story of culture clash and romantic pursuits, there's a big fat Indian wedding, the struggle to keep a long-distance flame alive, and an unexpected mystery man who could set a new course in motion. 

All the while, our heroine abandons what was once an all-consuming man-search, which helps her remember the person she used to be, and the person she hopes to become; the history-loving nerd, the hopeless romantic, and the emerging author with dreams of ditching the corporate rat race. 

This is the book of living in the moment, making the grand gesture, and putting it all on the line. This is when Romi Narindra comes alive...

In my review of Year of the Chick I noted that it took me awhile to get into the story. That was not the case with the sequel. I was immediately reminded of how funny Romi is and how much I adore her sense of humour. I started reading this at the gym and I'm sure I got some strange looks as I was literally laughing out loud. I just couldn't help it! The humour carries on throughout the entire novel, even when things get a little more serious and confusing for our heroine.

I realized after I finished the book that I think I connected with it so much because I felt like I was actually with Romi (the character) through all of her adventures. Romi (the author) did a great job of writing this book to really make sure her readers were fully immersed in her character's life. It was descriptive and really well done.

Even though I loved the book for the humour, there were some more serious moments in the story. I don't want to give much away but I actually found myself tearing up when Romi was discovering that what...er, who...she wanted just wasn't going to work out for her. I was both sad and angry for Romi. I hated that she got treated in such a crappy way.

Last-Minute Love isn't going to be for everyone. Romi has a particular sense of humour (one which includes multiple f-bombs) that isn't going to appeal to all readers. If you don't have delicate sensibilities and if you love a feisty heroine then I definitely recommend Romi Moondi's novels. You don't necessarily have to read Year of the Chick first but it's probably best. I'm so excited that Romi is planning on writing a third novel in this series and will eagerly await more information about the book.

A slight aside: last week I wrote a post about the ten bookish people I'd like to meet in real life. I think I need to add Romi (the real person, not the character, obviously) to that list. If she's as awesome as her fictional alter ego, I definitely want to meet her. Bonus: she's in Toronto (yay Canadian authors!) so it's not totally unreasonable. :)

Overall, I loved Last-Minute Love and I think others would love it as well. It's an amazing book that would be great for any twenty-something female. There's so much more I could say about this book but I think you should buy a copy and make up your own mind :) Make sure you check back on Wednesday when Romi stops by Books Etc. with an awesome guest post!