If you’re into reading at all, you probably know about the trends going around on BookTok and Bookstagram (the reading side of TikTok and Instagram). Or just the trends that have been going around in our culture at large, really.

There’s so many popular books with beautiful covers that receive tons of fanfare, but then you read them and discover that the writing quality is worse than a Wattpad fanfiction. Or the book is riddled with smut (sometimes to such a degree that the book could pass for written pornography), especially in the latest popular fantasy novels.

And let’s not forget about how popular “morally gray” fictional guys are — but only because they always have ripped muscles and hair falling over their eyes🙄 Sure, he’s actually a horrible person who has zero character whatsoever, but look at his abs!

I would name-drop certain popular book characters who fit this description, but I won’t (for now anyways.) But I find it so ridiculous that people on BookTok go absolutely crazy for these characters, while being in a relationship with somebody like that in real life has such horrible consequences.

I’m so grateful for the authors I’ve found who write popular, award-winning books but without the smut or questionable characters. I hope that I can join those authors one day and write beautiful romance novels that everyone can enjoy without having to worry about spice or other weird elements <3 and I’m so happy for the friends I’ve met in my writer’s workshop who are already publishing their wonderful books that span almost every genre there is.

“If they won’t write the kind of books we like to read, we shall have to write them ourselves.” — C.S. Lewis

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I also wanted to let you guys know that my newsletter is officially live! If you go to my website (which is now shilohnoelle.com), there’s a place in the right sidebar where you can sign up for my newsletter.

Signing up for my newsletter is different from signing up for my blog posts — as a part of my email list, you’ll get monthly updates from me about my writing journey, editing business, and any ways I could use your help. I’ll also send out emails if there’s any special opportunities I want to make you aware of.

Being a part of a newsletter or email list may seem like a small thing, but it’s actually one of the greatest ways I can grow my audience and platform, not to mention how powerful email marketing is once you have a product or service to offer people. So if you’ve already signed up for my email list, please know that I appreciate every single one of you SO much and it means the world to have you guys on my newsletter 💞 and if you haven’t signed up, I hope you will!

And if you know anyone who would be interested in reading my writing or just being a part of my journey, feel free to send them the link to my website and/or let them know about my newsletter.