Meet Your Neighbor: Woodville's Nicole Ryan third book into romance writing career
WOODVILLE ― Nicole Ryan's love of writing began in middle school with a short story competition, followed by creative writing classes in high school and college.
She has been honing her craft ever since. Ryan published her first romance novel this past summer, her second just last month, and her third book is due to be released in July.
Ryan grew up in Woodville along with her five siblings, and for a few years, she lived just a block from the library where she spent her time reading young adult fiction. She graduated from Woodmore in 2011, went off to college, and eventually returned to Woodville. She now lives in the village with husband, Danny Ryan, and their cat and two dogs.
Author describes her books as emotional, spicy romances
She describes her books as “spicy contemporary romance with humor, but also very emotional.” The books are so spicy that in the acknowledgements in her first book, Ryan thanked her father for following her wishes when she begged him not to read it “for the sake of his psyche.”
“Mrs. (Carolyn) Nitz, my high school English teacher, was a huge influence. By my senior year, I was spending four periods a day in her classroom,” Ryan said. Nitz attended Ryan’s first book signing.
Ryan said the ideas for her stories occur pretty naturally. Inspiration for her first book came while sitting in a plane the day after her sister’s funeral. The story is set in France, the place her grandmother was born. Ryan has yet to visit France, but she researched the area in order to write the story.
The book she is working on, “The Very First Night,” has an “if I could go back and do things differently” theme. The blurb and the cover art were recently revealed on her social media accounts.
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Characters in books are named as writing goes on
When it comes to character names, Ryan comes up with “the bones” of her characters, the essence of who they are, and then starts trying out names until they fit. The lead female in her first book was originally named Esme, but after getting well into the book, Ryan decided the name just did not fit and the character became Genevieve, Gen for short.
Ryan’s favorite time to write is in the evening, claiming her brain just does not work before noon. She tries to write every day but finds that she does her best writing when she is on a deadline — even if those deadlines are self-imposed. Since her books are self-published, she has to get on her editor’s schedule months in advance.“I usually light a candle, lock myself in my office, and turn on some lo-fi music,” Ryan said. Lo-fi, or low fidelity, is music recorded with intentional imperfections, such as misplayed notes or environmental noise.
“My favorite part of the process is the editing, especially the later rounds. Drafting stresses me out. And I like formatting for some weird reason.“ Ryan has approximately 200 books in her highly organized home library. She uses an app to track her collection, right down to which room in her house each book is located. Ryan’s favorite genre is, of course, romance.“I read books ranging from contemporary to fantasy to sci-fi, but they have to have at least a romantic subplot,” Ryan said. Her favorite authors are K.A. Tucker and Ana Huang.
Ryan researched self-publishing before launching her first book
Ryan started researching self-publishing years before completing her first book, because she did not want to sell her intellectual property. She learned everything she could about the process.
Now she answers questions for other authors. Having worked for an advertising agency, she also has a background in marketing, which has come in handy when promoting her books on social media.
Participating in online writing forums for years has helped Ryan to connect with others in the publishing world. She found illustrator Rose Gulhan via Instagram and hired her to create the cover illustrations of her books’ characters. Ryan designs the remainder of the covers herself.
She also connected online with Savannah Thomas, the narrator she chose for her audiobooks. She briefly considered finding another narrator to voice the male characters, but dual narration is expensive and none of the auditions that she heard had the voice she sought. In addition to the United States, Ryan’s books have sold in other countries including France and Canada. “I have a weirdly disproportionate following in Canada,” Ryan said, “so I will be doing a book signing in Calgary on July 27.”
Ryan’s books as well as dates for her upcoming book signings can be found at nicoleryanbooks.com. Fans can also find her on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at @nicoleryanbooks. The release party for her next book, “The Very First Night,” is scheduled for 6-9 p.m. July 20 at Finch and Fern Book Co. in Sylvania.
Contact Rene Dix at 419-307-0914 or via email at rene.dix@email.com.
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Woodville OH romance novelist Nicole Ryan's 3rd book out summer 2024
