Fifteen years in publishing. Ninety-six books the long way. Two hundred and sixteen after. A coaching business, twenty-one pen names, one New York Times feature, 10,000 death threats in 24 hours, and a very loud conversation about what authorship means now. Here’s the whole arc — in my own words.
I didn’t start with a bestseller. I started with every other job in publishing first.
Editor. Cover designer. Ghostwriter. Indie publisher. I took every job that would teach me something about what readers actually want — and what the industry keeps getting wrong about what readers actually want.
By the time I sat down to write my first novel under my own pen name, I’d already read a thousand manuscripts that didn’t work. I knew exactly why. And I had a list of things I wasn’t going to do.
Ninety-six books later, written the old-fashioned way — one sentence at a time, at hours no one wants — I had a readership, an Imbali Award for Excellence on the shelf, and the slow stubborn craft that only ever gets built by showing up.
I love writing. I love my job. I love making books. I love telling stories. I love romance writing.
Not “can AI write a novel” — that question is boring, and the answer is no. The interesting question was quieter, and harder.
Can this thing remove the drudgery — the research rabbit holes, the continuity checks, the brainstorming loops where I already know what I’m trying to do but need a sounding board — so a working author can spend more time on the things only a human can do?
The voice. The emotional truth. The specific weight of a sentence that lands. The reader’s beating heart. The happily-ever-after they earned.
I tore apart every tool I could find. I broke them. I rebuilt them. I developed a workflow. Then I developed a better one. Then I did the only thing I know how to do when I’ve found something that works: I started writing.
I published 216 novels across 21 pen names. Hit high six figures in nine months with zero paid advertising. Then the NYT called — and 10,000 death threats arrived in 24 hours.
And then I did the thing I’ve always done with what I learn — I taught it. Because what’s the point of a workflow you keep to yourself?
PlotProse launched. Live author training. Pre-made romance outlines. Complete manuscript packages. A method that takes the stubborn craft I built over fifteen years and makes it teachable. Twenty-four hundred writers in, and counting.
Somewhere along the way the story stopped being about me publishing novels. It started being about every author deserving the tools to tell their story — and build a business around it.
Everything in the Method now lives on its own site, with its own products, its own community, and its own newsletter for authors.
The feature ran. Then the NYT podcast episode followed five days later. Then every outlet with an opinion on AI had an opinion on me.
Some of it was generous. Some of it was ugly. There was doxing. There were threats — against me, against my family. There was a firestorm across Gizmodo, the Halifax Examiner, Futurism, Aftermath, Cybernews, Gigazine, the Cornell Daily Sun, and half the publishing Substack economy.
Almost none of it asked the craft questions.
So I climbed the hill.
If the headlines weren’t going to ask about the craft, someone had to.
I went on Brave New Bookshelf — twice. Episode 49 before the storm, Episode 64 after. I went on Writing With AI . I talked to Indie Author Magazine . I kept my blog open. I launched Authors and AI — my show and my weekly Substack — because I wanted a room where I could finally talk about tropes, structure, character chemistry, the tools, the business. The whole conversation, not just the headline.
Turns out when you stop being quiet, people start asking the better questions. Podcast hosts. Event programmers. Other working authors who’ve been using these tools and hiding it because the stigma made them afraid.
That’s the story so far. Author. Entrepreneur. Voice. Same person, three surfaces, one obsession — stories that earn the happily-ever-after.
I write and publish weekly on craft, romance, AI, and the publishing industry in Authors and AI — my Substack and my show. I turn up on podcasts, panels, and stages whenever the room is serious about the conversation. Pick your door.