Author Ana Huang.Supplied
When you think of your favourite author, you might imagine they spend most of their time immersed in creative work, or wistfully gazing out the window awaiting inspiration.
The reality in the 21st century, however, is that making your living as a writer – especially when social media was how you made your name as an indie author – can sometimes look a lot more like running a small business than some fantasy idyll of ink-stained fingers and chasing your muse.
Just ask Ana Huang, who The Globe and Mail reaches after a long day of setting up at a book convention.
“If people knew how much time we spend in our inbox … Writing is maybe 40 per cent of the job, but the rest is marketing and admin,” she says with a laugh.
Like a growing number of the authors you’ll see on bestseller lists these days, Huang got her start self-publishing, building her romance readership via a staggering social-media presence: More than 734,000 Instagram followers, 666,000 on TikTok. (She’s now “hybrid,” meaning some of her books are published via a publishing house.)
And, as with so many writers enjoying the fruits of the genre’s current popularity, things really changed for her when BookTok went wild for her very-adult Twisted series. Four years – and more than a billion views – later, that title sits just below juggernauts such as Pride and Prejudice, Fifty Shades of Grey and The Thorn Birds on Book Riot’s list of the bestselling romance novels of all time.
I am always in awe of how prolific romance authors are. What’s your current turnaround from idea to final draft?
I’ve actually slowed down a little bit. These days, on average I publish about two books a year. I am the kind of person who writes to deadline, so whether you give me four weeks or four months, I will be right up against that deadline. If I had the choice, I would literally be thinking about a book forever, and never get anything on the page. But when I have a hard deadline, my brain shapes itself to conform to that.
That’s really interesting, because you came up out of Wattpad, which is entirely voluntary.
Those were pretty wild days. I was on there when I was a teenager. It’s funny because it was voluntary, but because there were no stakes in it, there was no pressure. It was easier for me to write back then. But I was very disciplined, like every three days I would upload a new chapter, and I did that for the duration of my time on there. It did teach me how to pace out my schedule in a way that was beneficial when I decided I wanted to pursue publishing as a career.
Can you remember the first stranger who was like, “Hey Ana, you have a talent!”?
I wrote my first novel when I was 15, and I uploaded it when I was maybe 18. It was a very different website back then – it was much smaller, very community-based, and I was very involved. I don’t remember the exact first comment, but I do remember these total strangers on the internet telling me they were enjoying my story. It was amazing, because up until that point, I’d never shared my stories with anyone.
In a weird way, not much has changed. Does it feel the same to you?
There are still times I can’t believe that I get to do this for a living. When I meet readers, I’m constantly amazed that there are all these people who have spent so much of their time and their money to read my books. There are moments when I get a little overwhelmed, in a good way.
Just the scope of your social-media reach! That’s a lot of eyeballs on you.
With everything in life, there’s a pro and a con. It’s amazing that these books have been able to reach so many people, and so many people connect with them. The flip side is that there are so many eyeballs on [me] that I feel like I have to walk on eggshells.
When people comment that they’re so excited, they hope it’s as good as the last one, I know they mean well, but sometimes they do get in my head. What if they don’t like it as much as the previous book? Or readers will come up with fan theories, and I’m like, that doesn’t actually happen in the book. Will they be disappointed if my book doesn’t turn out to be this thing they’ve already deemed it to be? Sometimes, I have to take a break from social media.
When I’m writing, I can’t look at the comments because I think it will obstruct that creativity. I think that’s a reason that I write a bit slower now, because I don’t have the same amount of freedom that I had when I was an indie author that no one had heard of.
Which book are you most proud of?
I am the proudest of being able to finish Twisted Game, which is the second book in my Twisted series. It came right after Twisted Love took off. It was the first time I had to feel that pressure of outside voices. It was also the first time in my career I had to stay away from reading my reviews. I was paralyzed with this creative anxiety for weeks on end, and I still had a day job at the time. There was a point where I wasn’t sure if I would finish it.
I’m also really proud of the book I have coming out this fall, The Striker. It’s my first sport romance, and I’ve never written anything like that before. Not only is it about ballet and soccer, but it’s also set in London, so I really set myself up for a ton of research. It was outside of my comfort zone, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
There’s definitely a sports thing with romance in the air at the moment.
When you think of it, it makes sense. When you think about people in sports, they’re so disciplined, they’re at the top of their craft. And then you get the team dynamics, unless it’s an individual sport. And then you have all these sports that are becoming popular, like F1, the Olympics, hockey.
The “alpha male” hero is one of the hallmarks of your books. What is it about that archetype that draws people again and again?
It’s the fantasy of having someone just take care of all these things so you don’t have to think about it. In real life, we are overwhelmed by all of the decisions we have to make, and it can be exhausting. In real life, we’d still want that agency and independence, but I think in fantasy it’s okay to let go a little bit and say, “Here’s this person who will take care of all these things for me, and all I have to do is sit back and enjoy it.”
Part of that fantasy is that this alpha male has your best interests at heart. In the real world, so many people’s experience with that kind of person is that they are not the nicest or best people.
That’s that great thing about fiction. You can explore these things in a safe space where you control what happens. For me, I’m also very conscious that no matter what kind of hero I write – they tend to be on the “morally grey” alpha spectrum or a bit gentler – what they have in common is that they always treat love interests with respect. They will never cheat on them, and even if they make stupid mistakes, they will always regret it and try to become a better person.