Jennifer L. Armentrout: From Indie Success to New York Times #1 Bestseller

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. To work with interviewer Rebecca Heyman on your next book, head to her Reedsy profile.

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Rebecca Heyman: Today I have the great honor of interviewing bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout. She has over 70 books in publication — you may be aware of some of her romantasy work, like the Blood and Ash series.

There's so much we can learn from Jennifer. She has been both traditional and self-published before; she's a true hybrid author doing amazing work. We're really excited to have her here, so let’s get started!

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BookTok and reader expectations

Rebecca Heyman: In the age of BookTok, people are not shy about sharing their expectations. When you develop a series that has such a rightfully rabid fandom like Blood and Ash, how do you balance your own creative spark with the weight of reader expectations?

Jennifer Armentrout: There's always a part of you that wants to know what readers expect — even though you know that's probably not going to end well for you, especially if what they're expecting is not actually going to happen. 

Even worse in a way is when their guesses are completely on point. In that case, there's a part of you that's excited they're getting it. But then you might think, “Oh no, was it too obvious?” 

I've had to learn to recognize when I'm letting too many outside voices get into my head. At that point, I need to take a step back because even the good stuff can have a big impact on what you're writing.

For example, if people really love the banter between two characters, but you know that this book is not going to have that, or people really love a character that you're getting ready to kill — you have to know when to step back.

Even before BookTok, there was always that knowledge that people are going to give you feedback, whether you asked for it or not. I remember back when Twitter was heavily used, it would sometimes feel like a landmine; when you opened a tweet, was it going to be a normal thing? Or was it going to be something you probably didn't want to see that day?

I've had to learn to take a step back when it’s starting to get to me, but I've always believed places like BookTok are meant for readers. I think it gets very complicated when authors start to encroach upon that space because it starts to facilitate those types of situations more. 

More importantly, a lot of readers probably aren't comfortable with authors watching their stuff. They might think, “Oh, I can't be honest because that author may come in.”

Rebecca: It's interesting that you mention that these are reader spaces. I'm going to take a moment to remind our audience that tagging authors in negative reviews reserves you a special place in hell.

Don't do that! These spaces are about fandom — being a literary citizen of the world. To be that literary citizen, you used to have to walk into a bookstore and attend readings. Now we've brought that incredible community right into people's homes, and we have to hope that people don't abuse the privilege.

I'm not sure what people expect when they do that; the book is already published. Remember — what one person loves, someone else hates, and vice versa. 

As a writer, you cannot cater to that. You have to write what you want to write because you're never going to make everybody happy. That is something that takes some time to learn. You may not fully understand it until you have a couple of books under your belt.

Self-publishing and the editorial process

Jennifer: When we think about reader responses to our work, a lot of viewers today are at the beginning of their author journey. They're getting ready to put their work out into the world – but self-publishing is not an easier path than traditional publishing.

Rebecca: It requires an incredible amount of work in a lot of different realms, and one of the ways to ease some of that labor is to assemble a really great team. In terms of editing, design, art, PR — who should newer authors be focused on getting into their stable the fastest? 

Jennifer: Well, when I started out in 2010, you didn't really have an “Avengers team” to assemble. Publishing has changed drastically in that time. Back then, self-publishing was not seen as a viable option, and neither was small press publishing — it was heavily frowned upon. 

If you wrote in a genre like YA [Young Adult], you had to go via traditional publishing routes — you needed to get your books into bookstores and libraries because teenagers weren't buying books online. You were kind of limited. But around 2011 to 2012, there was this explosion of self-publishing and small press publishers. 

Publishing was going through this revamp — publishers realized they didn't necessarily need these massive offices in New York City, or a million authors that they couldn’t keep track of. The way I got started was a little bit different, but first and foremost, finding an editor is super important.

The editorial process isn't fun. By that, I mean it's not as fun as getting cover cops, right? It's not as fun as talking about PR and marketing plans, though trust me, the marketing and PR plans will stop being fun. 

Editing is the most important part of a book. My first book was published with a small press. Small presses run just like traditional publishers — they have an editorial department, it's just much more condensed.

When I indie published, I approached it as if I was the publisher — if we're self-publishing, we are the publisher. That means that you should go through the same steps that a publisher would. An editor is the most important because your brain will autocorrect things as you're reading it.

You might think, “Oh, I know how to edit. I'm good at editing.” The problem is, when you're reading your own stuff, you know what you meant to write. You meant to say shirt, but instead it says sh*t, and you just don't catch that because your brain is putting that “r” in there.

Rebecca: Yeah, and you've probably read it, right? You've developed that sentence in your head for so long that you stop seeing the truth of it. There's nothing like a fresh pair of eyes at the line level. 

The value of a good editorial team

Rebecca: Do you have a creative sounding board or an editor that you're using more on the developmental side to talk things through, especially now that the worlds you've created have become so enormous?

Jennifer: I have some friends that help me out, but the good thing is, there are different types of editors.

There are some editors who are really good at editing; they're good at line edits and breaking down sentence structure, but they may not be so great at story development. I've been very lucky that, when I've written long series, the main editor I’ve had has been great at helping with story development.

You might have a plot idea in your head, but something's not working. I've had at least three editors that I would get on the phone with for three hours and hash it out. That's pretty rare, especially on the publishing house side.

The big thing with self-publishing back in the day was blogging. You would keep seeing the same bloggers at all the events — I've become really good friends with quite a few of them! If I didn't have an editorial team to fall back on, they would be who I would go to.

Rebecca: I think that's wonderful. When I’m working in a lot of developmental editing, I find that authors can get very anxious about pulling back the curtain and revealing their work to someone for the first time in a critical capacity.

We're here to interrogate all the things you thought no one would notice. So to have that kind of relationship with this community you've built over a long time must be amazing. I think there's something to be said about having these long-term relationships with people that you used to see at signings and meeting them in person, especially when so much of book publishing can feel like it's behind a screen these days.

The best aspects of self-publishing and traditional publishing

Rebecca: You mentioned that you published for the first time in 2010, not long after the Kindle came to market. You worked with a small press publisher — which was basically considered self-publishing at that time. The stigma has dissolved in a lot of ways because there is so much access to publishing professionals.

Since we saw the first “Kindle millionaires” in 2012, the market has become saturated in different ways. We see hybrid authors like yourself moving into that space, with the ability to make quick decisions about your content, but also having that traditional publishing support behind you. What do you think are the best parts of self-publishing and what are the best parts of traditional publishing? 

Self-publishing gives you more control

Jennifer: I would say the best part about self-publishing is the same as one of the worst parts — you have complete control. 

You might think, “That doesn’t make any sense,” but it does, in a way. Some authors might think they know what they’re doing (and maybe they do), but there are others who don't. For those people, having someone who can step in and say, “Hey, I know you're thinking about publishing a book in December, but you probably shouldn't do that,” is important.

The good side of that is you do have control. You're not having to worry about a contract. In around 2016, the traditional publishing world kind of conceded defeat to self-publishing when it came to contemporary romance because they could not figure out how to compete with digital pricing.

As a result, they started letting go of their “mid-list” authors — those whose books consistently bring in a certain amount of money that the publisher can count on. The mid-list is often what keeps the bills at publishing houses paid.

Traditional publishing houses started asking authors, “Oh, why don't you try writing this?” — and it might be a genre that you have no interest in. When you're self-publishing, you don’t have to worry about that. You don't have to worry as much about writing something that is trendy at that point. 

At the end of the day, publishers are there to make money. They're going to want books that they think are going to sell. When you’re self-publishing, you can get more experimental.

How distribution has changed

Jennifer: Distribution is the biggest thing with traditional publishing — they can get your book into libraries and independent bookstores. Even as a traditionally published author, it is very difficult to get into indie bookstores because their space is much smaller.

Traditional publishing editorial teams are excellent. That's not to say that there is never going to be a typo. But you do have these big editorial teams that include a main editor, a copy editor, a separate copy or line editor, an entire proofing team — you're not paying for that. 

On the flip side though, one of the biggest hindrances for self-publishing, and even small press publishers, was distribution. You used to struggle to get a strong presence in stores like Barnes and Noble.

A table in Barnes and Noble used to cost an arm and a leg for a publisher to get. Now you walk in there, and what do you see? BookTok recommendations! That table will often be full of self-published books.

One of the biggest things that happened was Waterstones — they changed the way that Barnes and Noble acquires books. It used to be on a larger regional level; somebody outside the store would make the decisions on which books that store would carry. 

The people in those stores didn't have a choice. Waterstones changed that. Now, everybody can order what they want. BookTok was also a huge influence, but Waterstones really helped level the playing field to such an unbelievable level.

It also allowed small press books to get the same type of presence in these bookstores. If you look at some of the big successful books that have come out recently, a lot have been from small press publishers; like Fourth Wing, for example. One of the things that helped with that was the larger distribution base — self-published or small press books are able to get into these bigger brick-and-mortar stores, which I think knocks out a bit of the positive from traditional publishing.

Rebecca: That's really interesting. I didn't realize that Barnes and Noble had adopted more of an independent bookstore model — where the people in the store are deciding what's on the shelves. 

Publishers used to basically pay for shelf space; that came at an incredible premium. I’ve heard so many people talk about specific books, not realizing they’re discussing them because those are books they've been shown in stores.

Jennifer: One of the things that benefited traditional publishing at that time was their ability to influence the market to determine what people are reading. For the longest time, publishers were able to make a bestseller because they could steer that market. 

You would have to bid for premium spaces in bookstores, like the towers that come in that are decorated to match the book, especially as you get closer to Christmas when you have all the box sets like that. 

That change was great for authors, but it was great for readers as well — now they can go to their local bookstores and see the books people are talking about online.

Romantasy

Rebecca: I want to pivot a little bit and talk to you about romantasy as a genre. There was a Guardian article in February 2024 that said, “Romantasy as a term was first seen in Urban Dictionary in 2008, but it was not popularized until 2022, when Bloomsbury claimed they invented the word to describe the work of Sarah J. Maas.”

Whether they invented the word or not, it has certainly become codified as the merging of fantasy and romance. Do you see romantasy as having specific tropes that differentiate it from genre romance?

Jennifer: It's called “romance with fantasy elements” or “the fantasy genre with romance sub-genre” or vice versa. What's different about it is, you didn’t tend to see a lot of high fantasy that had strong romantic elements in it. If they do have romance, it doesn't usually end well for that couple. It was often very male-oriented.

Rebecca: From an authorship perspective, high fantasy has been dominated by men for a long time. Tolkien, George R. R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss — high fantasy has traditionally been a male-dominated space, and romantasy is changing that.

Jennifer: You're 100% right. Fantasy books with a focus on romance weren't given enough airtime. They were often put in with another genre, and the romance genre has struggled to earn respect since its creation, even though romance is the highest-performing industry in publishing.

Rebecca: Romance has been the number one selling genre in publishing forever — I remind people of this stat all the time. Women readers and women writers have been driving publishing forward in the modern age for a long time, and it's about time that fantasy catches up.

Jennifer: It's taken a while to get respect for being a fantasy book that is also a romance. I think that is why the new genre term was created. For the longest time, a book was not called fantasy if it contained romantic elements. Instead, it was “paranormal.” 

If you go back and look at the 2000s and the 2010s, you will see fantasy romance books labeled as “urban fantasy.” They don't call it that anymore — I call it contemporary fantasy, meaning it takes place in our actual world. 

Fantasy has such crossover appeal. It transcends age and gender — one person may be reading it for romance, while someone else reads it for the action, and another person is most interested in the fantasy elements. That is part of the reason I think fantasy romance has developed its own tropes — the fantasy elements have as much prevalence as the romance does, which you don’t often see in other genres.

It has also opened up the doors to readers who never thought that they would like reading romance. A lot of romantasy covers look like fantasy books, so new readers may not be aware that they're reading a fantasy romance, which is expanding the readership.

Rebecca: We’ll get everyone on Team Romance eventually! I just devoured T. J. Klune's Green Creek series, and there is an incredibly strong romantic through-line in that series. It has to do with werewolves and witches, but I wouldn't call it romantasy — I would have called it paranormal romance. There's this tonal or textural difference, I think, between romantasy and paranormal romance, and I think they feed into each other. 

Jennifer: I can tell you right now, a lot of fantasy romance readers don't read paranormal romance. I know this because, when I have readers who read my fantasy series, they don't realize that I have like a kabillion books that are paranormal romance. 

Then they start reading my backlist, and I can see them in my reader group, talking about picking up these paranormal romance series!

Rebecca: My personal theory is that it has always been a little too easy for women and other minority identities to coalesce around romance. I think it freaks out the old guys a little.

Jennifer: It's not just guys that do that! Some of the most scathing and ill-informed takedowns of romance have come from women.

Rebecca: Holy internalized misogyny, Batman! There’s this idea that centering desire is somehow “lesser than” centering war, politics, or some kind of violence — that centering love is less valuable. 

Jennifer: For me, having started my writing journey in Young Adult, one of the most irritating roadblocks in romance books was that if there was any sort of sexual activity — whether explicit or implied — you would get an editor's note. But you wouldn’t get a single note about extremely detailed violence in your book.

Rebecca: Graphic violence, they're fine with. But heaven forbid you take someone's clothes off! 

Where do ideas come from?

Rebecca: You've done so many interviews over the course of your career. Is there a question that you never get asked that you wish you would get asked? 

Jennifer: I can tell you what I think are the most difficult questions to answer, and they’re linked. I cringe inwardly every time they’re asked because the answers are never what people expect. They are:

1. What is your motivation for writing?

2. Where do you get your ideas?

They’re difficult to answer because things just pop into my head. I have ADHD; I have to entertain myself. I feel like people are always waiting to hear this motivational answer, but I don't have one.

Rebecca: They want the secret! The secret is time, a lot of hard work, and giving your brain room to be neuro-spicy.