Soaps Vs. Romance by Alina Adams

Today is Day 1 of the big Book Blowout Sale sponsored by Indie Romance Authors. To celebrate this 3-day event, I've dropped the price on my new romance Scents and Sensuality from $2.99 to only 99cents! This is only at Amazon Kindle shop and only for May 1-3.

To help me celebrate the big blowout sale, Alina Adams, author of NYT best-selling soap opera tie-ins, romance novels and figure skating mysteries, has dropped by. (You'll find her blog as a link on her website.)

Alina is currently in the process of turning her backlist into enhanced ebooks featuring video, music and more. She's offering the first book in her Counterpoint Interactive series for only 99 cents during the Blowout Sale -- Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga - Volume One.

Take it away, Alina!

Soaps vs. Romance Novels
by Alina Adams

In the musical Oklahoma, one character sings that "The cowman and the farmer should be friends."
I’ve always felt that way, too. Well, not so much about cowmen and farmers, but about romance readers and soap opera fans.

Having both written romances and worked in soap operas, I thought that they had a lot in common, and fans of one should also like the other. So I was surprised to get pushback from both camps on the subject.

Soap opera fans' biggest objection to romance novels seems to be that books are too narrowly focused on the couple, instead of sprawling across a canvas of relatives and community. Plus, when the book's over, the story is over.

Romance readers' biggest objection to soap operas is that they have no Happily Ever After. Or, rather, they do – for about fifteen minutes. And then someone cheats, someone dies, somebody's first love returns from the grave and/or somebody leaves the show. Nobody lives Happily Ever After on soap operas.

I got to admit, if forced to pick one, I’m in the soap opera camp. As both a reader and a writer, I hate it when I invest all this time and emotional energy in a couple, and then the story just… ends. I don’t want it to end. I want to know what happens next (even if it does end up involving a first love who didn’t really die in that place crash/fire/canoe).

That’s why, after writing stand-alone titles like The Fictitious Marquis, Thieves at Heart, Annie's Wild Ride and When a Man Loves a Woman, I am trying something different.

My newest series, Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga, features two sets of heroes and heroines, plus their extended family, plus a sprawling canvas. And it ends on a cliffhanger. Which the readers then get to resolve.

Basically, I am taking what I learned of writing to fan interaction from when I worked for the soap operas As the World Turns and Guiding Light, and bringing it to the romance world. Readers will tell me what they want to see happen next. And then I will write it. (Within reason. No vampires. I know people seem to love vampires. But, not in this series. I fail to find the dead sexy.)

Will my experiment work? You tell me. Two volumes of Counterpoint: An Interactive Saga have been released so far, and more are on the way.

Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga - Volume One will be discounted to $.99 cents as part of the May 1 Book Blowout. Check it out and let me know what you think. As I said, I am totally open to feedback.

And, in the meantime, tell me, do you prefer soaps or romance novels, and why?

Alina's Other Books

Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga (Volume Two)

When a Man Loves a Woman: Enhanced Multimedia Edition

Murder on Ice: Enhanced Multimedia Edition (Figure Skating Mystery)

Takeaway Truth

Stock up on some incredible bargains during the big Indie Book Blowout sale.