Be unexpected

When you tell people you're a romance author, what's their reaction? Do they giggle and blush? Do they ask why you'd want to write that? Do they laugh you off? Or do they look you up and down asking where your feather boa is?

 We romance authors have a very interesting stigma attached to our occupation. People have expectations that don't involve business suits, let alone business minds. Which is really ironic when you think about how romance authors have led the self publishing revolution and really found a new way to get our books into the hands of our readers...but I'm getting side tracked.

People expect us to look a certain way. A certain, sexy, way. Because, after all, we write about sex. We talk about it. We drag all those fantasies front and center and tell people that they're okay.  So, we must know what we're talking about, right? We must look like this:

Us and the phone sex operators.  We all shop at the same stores, right?

Here's a dirty little secret: we are a sexy bunch of people. Not because we've got cleavage hanging out of our suit jackets, but because of our minds. We dare to imagine. We dare to believe. And since we do, we sparkle in a way that doesn't have anything to do with our tiaras or vampires. (Notice that I didn't say we don't own tiaras, but that the sparkle in our eye isn't only because of them)

We are beautiful. We are smart and we are strong. And we deserve much more respect than our reputation brings us.
But it's okay. We're not going to make a big deal about it. We'll just sit here in our bunny slippers, quill in our hand, and pen our next novel. It might never win national awards, it may not inspire world peace or change the political climate, but we're happy. And because we're happy, our readers are happy.

And our bunny slippers are damn sexy.  Unexpected? Yes. That's what makes us so much fun.