Lily Zante - Romance Author

Updated covers for the Perfect Match Series

I’ve updated the covers to my Perfect Match Series!

I wrote The Proposal towards the end of 2012. It was my 2nd attempt at writing romance. (Love, Inc was my 1st). I had NO idea what I was doing. I knew nothing about POV, nothing about head-hopping, didn’t even know how to format my books, and the first draft was actually a word vomit while I typed away furiously at my keyboard after work.

I was working in London then, juggling three children and three different school-runs. I was exhausted. I wrote the story in about 10 days and I uploaded what was nothing better than a 1st draft (I can’t believe I did that!)

It was December 2012. The children were ill. They had the norovirus , which was winter vomiting bug. I was desperate to get this story finished and uploaded before Christmas. Once the kids got better, I fell ill with the same bug. I managed to upload something, even though I knew it was full of errors, I didn’t think anyone would buy my book. I needed to reach that goal of uploading by the end of December.

So I did.

Except that I then forgot to fix the errors 🙁

The story was riddled with them. Grammar, spelling, POV shifts, head-hopping mistakes galore, you name it. I EVEN got a minor character’s name wrong (HORROR OF HORRORS). And then, to make it worse, I decided to run an Amazon promo on the book – forgetting that I had yet to fix the mistakes. (Or, you know, refine my drafting process…)

I had 10,000 free downloads over the next few days.

And people started to read my book!

They left reviews, too!!!!

Some loved it, despite the errors.

Some hated it, because of the errors, and some just hated the story.

A male stripper and a corporate high-flier?

But The Proposal went on to become an Amazon Bestseller (in the UK)

I’ll take it 🙂

And I went on to write 3 more books which then became my first ever contemporary romance series. A Perfect Match Series  sold enough to make me believe I could make a go of this – writing romance for a living.

I write contemporary romance intermingled with women’s fiction, family life and sagas. I write about love, romance, friendships and relationships – the fabric which makes up our lives. Back then I thought I was writing chick-lit, so my first covers were:

I’ve changed the covers a few times since then and these are the latest:

 

I LOVE them 🙂

I’m never sure I capture a book well, because covers are so subjective but I absolutely love these new ones.