Ray,
my wife sends her heartiest congratulations to a fellow author.
She looked on Amazon and laughed, then blushed lightly and exclaimed, "This sounds more like Sex'capades than a Bodice Ripper!"
The 3rd book in her 8 book series is out, and the 4th is due in the Spring.
Plus she has contributed to a couple of anthologies.
I need to post those.
She says that when you're deeply dismayed by publisher's rejections to stay strong, not take it personally and send out three more submissions.
Hey John. Thank your wife for the advice. After a few decades in sales, I've learned a few things about rejection. I researched traditional publishing routes, but chose to self-publish. The nice thing about self-publishing is I can explore reader responses and change keywords to more accurately reflect my target market. This is all a learning experience for me. It is definitely a genre hybrid. Beta readers and contracted editors labeled the novel (in no particular order) romance, mystery, light sci-fi, thriller, techno-thriller, crime, sexy but not erotica.
One of the questions I asked my beta readers on every sectional review was to predict the plot and themes of the book. Each one made very specific predictions, and by the 25% mark, gave up guessing. It was nothing that they expected due to plot twists and world-building. The one thing I wanted to avoid was a reader saying to themselves, "Oh, this is BS" when they read a plot twist. One beta reader said, "I've never read another novel like this!" She was an avid reader and complete stranger who worked in an eye doctor's office, and was the one I mentioned above whose husband had to hide it from her so they could get work done around the house. She'll be getting a free, signed copy next week because she hasn't seen the final version.
And wow, your wife is a novel producing machine! I purchased her Kindle version of Perilous Confessions back on your original posting. Now that my first writing effort is behind me, I look forward to reading it. I apologize for the delay, but I am unable to read other works while writing my own. Now, I can relax and read something that isn't occupying my mind 24/7/365.
Ray