Stories, insights & updates from Theo Reads

I didn't write back to argue, but I did sit with the question for a bit. Then I started writing this post because once I have the answer to a big question, I have to go share it with someone. My husband will tell you it's classic me.

The truth is that romance readers are chasing very specific emotional states, and they're not the easy emotions you'd expect. As I write this, I'm deep in the throes of building emotional taxonomy for Theo Reads — how readers feel when they finish a story — and my hours of research on how readers describe romance on various subreddits and on BookTok indicates that what they're not pleasant feelings. Words like "longing", "I was devastated", "this broke me", "I'm so gutted" keep coming up.¹ People are selecting, deliberately and repeatedly, the emotions that hurt.

Today we launched The O Bookmark Collection, the first reader loyalty program in romance that rewards you for completing stories (not just opening them or adding them to your TBR).

Romance readers are dying for it. BookTok can't stop talking about it. And if you've ever put a book down just to stare at the ceiling... you already know exactly what this is about.

If you're a romance author who's gone wide, you'd probably like to know how Theo Reads stacks up against Draft2Digital and Smashwords. I break it all down for you here. And if you're still curious after, grab some time on my calendar and let's talk.