Elaine Canyon

Elaine Canyon writes closed-door, light-hearted, and often stabby romantasy comedies from the beautiful mountains of central Utah, where she lives with her husband and children. When she’s not writing, you can find her in the mountains, hiking, rock climbing, and skiing with her family.

What genre(s) do you write?

Closed-door Romantasy Comedy

Do you have a newly released novel? What is the title and a link to buy the novel?

My most recent book is Love, Mystique & Mermaids https://elainecanyon.com/love-mystique-mermaids/ and I have a Kickstarter running in August for Love, Discretion & Dragons https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elainecanyon/love-discretion-and-dragons

Are there any other social media links, websites, or other places to learn about you that we should add?

Everything is at https://elainecanyon.com

As a self-published author, what publishing software do you prefer, and what platform do you use to publish?

I am a direct and wide author. I publish on all platforms, some through Draft2Digital, and others I go through their systems to publish, like Amazon, Kobo, and GoogleBooks. For direct selling I can’t recommend Curios enough. They require almost no integration, handle all the sales taxes, and you keep 100% of the sale. It's the only company I have an affiliate link with. www.curios.com/Joinelainecanyon And I adore selling live. I use BookVault as my main printer for all physical books I sell direct.

What inspired you to start writing this series?

This series is actually several of my fanfictions that I’ve turned into full-length novels. They’re VERY different from the fanfictions they started as, but so much better for that too.

What is one book that profoundly impacted you as a writer, and why?

All of David & Leigh Eddings books but my favorite of theirs is Redemption of Althalus. It is my absolute favorite book! It’s the first book that showed me you could intertwine complex fantasy with romance. Definitely a 10/10 would recommend. I only wish that it had a touch more romance.

What is your favorite hobby outside of writing, and how does it influence your creative process?

I love the outdoors, and I’m a pretty big geek.

The outdoors always ends up in my books. I haven’t written a single book where my characters don’t interact with the environment. Whether they’re traveling through a forest, sitting in the ocean, or just enjoying the aurora borrelias, my characters are outside.

My geekiness comes out in more subtle ways. For example, I’m a Pokemon girl, and you see that in every book having magical creatures that usually attach themselves to the main characters in some way. I’m a Potterhead, a Zelda-stan, a Pirates of the Caribbean fan, a video game girl, and more. If you’re in any of those fandoms, you’ll find pieces of these fandoms in my books, especially if you ship the same ships I do.

If you could give any advice to a new writer/author, what would it be?

Don’t get bogged down in the rules. When I started out, I started in fanfiction and it was amazing because the only rule was to communicate what your story was with all the tags we use. It was great because I learned through doing. After my first one million words in fanfic, and my husband noticing the following I built, I shifted to original fiction and nearly paralyzed myself with all the rules to be a “good writer.” There are so many rules that don’t work, don’t apply, and only matter if you’re in certain genres. I am all for improving your writing, but I would say take what works for you and be open to things that don’t work now potentially working later.