Dancing Queen Diane Demetre

Diane Demetre is a fresh, passionate voice in storytelling. She is an award-winning author of genre-busting romance novels with a twist. Her dramatic flair, sense of place and evocative style create an entertaining escape for her readers. Diane’s works feature empowered heroines who live life to the fullest on their terms, much like the author herself.

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Transcript:

Sarah Williams:                  Welcome to Write with Love. I’m Sarah Williams, bestselling author, speaker, and creative entrepreneur. Each week, I chat to passionate and inspiring authors about their journey in creative writing. Some are traditionally published. Some do it themselves. Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone has something interesting to say. We all love love, and love what we do. Today’s show is brought to you by our amazing fans and supporters on Patreon. If you’d like to help support the show and get some awesome bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/sarahwilliamsauthor to learn more. Now, here’s today’s show.

Sarah Williams:                  G’day. I’m Sarah Williams, romance author and independent publisher at Serenade Publishing. Today I’m chatting to Diane Demetre. Thanks for joining me, Diane.

Diane Demetre:                It’s great to be here, Sarah. Thank you.

Sarah Williams:                  No worries. It’s lovely to have you on the show today. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey to publication?

Diane Demetre:                Okay, well, I started off many, many years ago in the entertainment industry. I was a dancer, an entertainer, a choreographer, and director. That was my form of storytelling, I guess, because as I was growing up, I was an avid reader. I used to write stories, but I used to like performing best of all. Then about, I don’t know, a number of years ago back in 2012 or something like that when Fifty Shades of Grey was really, really big, a friend of mine said, “Oh, you must read that.” I said, “No, no, no, I don’t want to read that.” She said, “No, no, no, read it, read it, read it.” I went, “Oh, okay.”

Diane Demetre:                Under sufferance, I read it. That was the impetus to my writing career, because I went, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” For a start, I was a child of the ’70s, which means we went out there, and we marched for women’s rights. We did those things. We went, “No, my body is mine. It’s not yours.” When I read Fifty Shades of Grey, I went, “Oh, no, that’s so wrong.” We all burned our bras back in the ’70s to stop that sort of crap from happening, so I went, “No.” I had no intention of writing erotic romance. I’d already written children’s books years before, and they’d all been sitting in drawers, but the whole thing came in. No, you’re writing erotic romance, and so that’s how Dancing Queen was born.

Diane Demetre:                Dancing Queen was about a 42-year-old woman who goes out and has sex on her terms rather than the other way around. Dancing Queen flew out of my fingers. I’m going, “Why am I writing erotic romance? I don’t even read it.” I’ve never even read it. Straight after that in my head, Tiny Dancer was already lined up, which is about a 24-year-old dancer who gets the job of a lifetime at the Moulin Rouge. Then the last one, Dance to a Gypsy Beat, was lined up. They were all lined up like they’re at the lights, and that’s about a young lawyer from Australia who has to flee Australia because of his unsavory clients and finds himself connected to a very famous flamenco couple.

Diane Demetre:                So the Dance of Love series was born. As they say, write what you know, so having been a dancer for the first third or more of my life, it was very obvious to me to have characters that were dancers and to take the reader through not just the onstage and backstage situations, but the feelings and how that all works. I found that it worked a treat for erotic romance, because I’ve got lots of hot dance scenes and all sorts of things going on. That was it. That’s how that started, but it wasn’t how I envisaged I would ever get into writing, through erotic romance.

Diane Demetre:                I was fortunate enough to have two publishers say, “Yes, we want it. We want it. We want it.” I was one of the lucky ones in that I had a publisher who jumped on it, two, and then I chose one. Going through traditional publishing for my first foray into a writing career was great, because it put some wind under my authorly wings. I went, “Okay, yeah, I’m probably going to … I’ve got the time now in my life to do this.” I went, “Right, full steam ahead. Let’s go.”

Sarah Williams:                  Fantastic. I love that Fifty Shades of Grey was an influence in a lot of writers’ lives, I think, at the moment.

Diane Demetre:                Oh, it is. Yeah, I’m sure.

Sarah Williams:                  Whether good or bad, but that’s a really interesting story. Wow. Yeah, so tell us about the first book. Did you pitch it, or did you send it to slush piles? How did that all happen?

Diane Demetre:                Look, it was just one of those wonderful fortuitous moments. I pitched it out. I sent out cold submissions online to various publishers. I had seen an author, H.C. Brown, speaking at a conference. After that conference, I went up and I spoke to her, because she was really very compelling. She was a bit like me. She was very willing to say that she had voices in her head. Not everybody’s willing to say that. I went up. “I have voices in my head too.” I was telling her what I was writing, and she said to me, “Listen, I’m with the erotic romance publisher, Luminosity, in the UK. Once you’re ready, let me know, and let me see your submission letter. You can mention that I referred you.”

Diane Demetre:                Luminosity offered me a contract, and then it was a cold submission from the United States from an independent publishing firm over there who also offered me a contract. Then I looked at both of them. I asked them both a few leading questions about how they function, and I was looking for the most transparent and the most professional. Luminosity won hands down, and I was thrilled to sign with them. Within a year, the other publishing company had gone under anyway, so it was very serendipitous. I had made the right choice and ended up with Luminosity Publishing.

Sarah Williams:                  Oh, that’s great to hear, and yeah, with publishing houses closing down as regularly as they do, you definitely made the right decision with that. Wow. You’ve decided to go in a slightly different way with your latest book that’s coming out. Tell us about Retribution.

Diane Demetre:                Well, Retribution is my salute to people who live hellish lifetimes, who live terrible childhoods, and go through awful trauma, and how they overcome that and how they can actually set up a new life for themselves, and then perhaps fall in love again. It was my tribute to people who surround all of us who have all of this terrible emotional trauma, because I was a stress and life skills therapist for many years. I’ve counseled people in this. Again, I tend to be very intuitive with my writing, so I haven’t set out and been a strategic writer. I could keep publishing erotic romance, but that wasn’t the next book that came in.

Diane Demetre:                The next book that came in was Retribution, which was a damaged ex-soldier, but not damaged because of war, damaged because of something else, and a talented ballerina who had a buried secret inside of her that was coloring everything in her life. I wanted to have the hero as a dog. I fashioned my hero on my Border Collie, and so the dog in the story is called Whiskey. She’s absolutely integral to the action and what happens. Again, it was a beam into the story. This is who they are. This is what they look like. This is how it’s all going to flow, and this is what’s going to happen. That’s how Retribution was born. I love the story, and I love the characters. They’re very, very special there.

Sarah Williams:                  That’s fantastic. How are you publishing this one?

Diane Demetre:                I’ve decided to self-publish, because to be very honest, I got sick of waiting. I got sick of waiting for people to answer submissions, publishers to answer submissions, or they’d say, “Yes, we like it, but it’s not right for us,” and so on and so forth. I understand that, because I do write slightly outside of the box. I don’t write exactly what they want. I write what I feel I need to write. I had lots of interest in it, but no one wanted to take it. I thought, “What am I doing? Why am I sitting and waiting? It won the Romance Writers of Australia best unpublished manuscript award last year, so why am I sitting and waiting for somebody to tell me it’s good enough to publish?” Then I went, “Dammit, I’m going to publish it myself.” That’s what I’ve done. There we go. If it’s won the award, it’s good enough to publish. Off I went, and I went on that crazy self-publishing journey. Whoa, my head hurts, Sarah. My head hurts, but there we go.

Sarah Williams:                  Yeah, it [crosstalk 00:09:44] certainly is a big lesson to learn, and that first time you do all those tax forms, [crosstalk 00:09:51].

Diane Demetre:                Well, I found that the easiest part, because as a business owner, that didn’t bother me, but it’s just the amount of setup everywhere. You have to set up with book funnel, and you set up with KDP, and then you set up with … It goes on and on, IngramSpark, and then da da da. Then you have to do the formatting program, and then it’s like … Today I spent most of the morning setting up a new launch schedule for my next book and putting everything in order, so I know where … Tick, tick, tick for next time should be a lot easier next time.

Sarah Williams:                  Until something changes, and then you’re going to have to do something else. It’s always changing, this industry. That’s why we love it.

Diane Demetre:                Oh, yes, isn’t that fabulous? Like the Amazon paperbacks coming from America, first of July, the GST. Yeah, thanks for that, Amazon. Love you on that one. That was crap.

Sarah Williams:                  That’s it. Are you going wide, or are you just going to go with KU?

Diane Demetre:                No, I’m just doing Amazon. I’m going to stay exclusive. I’m going to do AMS ads, and I’m going to test the hell out of them. I’m going to see how it all comes together. [inaudible 00:11:02].

Sarah Williams:                  Excellent. Well, that’s good. If you do need any help, just sing out. I’ve been doing Amazon ads for a while.

Diane Demetre:                I will. I’ll take you up on that.

Sarah Williams:                  That’s a real change from … Retribution from your Dance of Love series, but I do love that you’ve got a ballerina in there, so it’s not too far.

Diane Demetre:                No, no, I needed a really gritty, tough, disciplined female lead. From my experience, you don’t get much tougher than a soloist in an international company. They are tough, so I needed her to be tough and flexible so that she could get out of her tight spots.

Sarah Williams:                  Okay. Fantastic. You’ve also done some workshops. I know I was in Brisbane last year for the RWA 2017, and you did a workshop there on the Dance of Love. Just tell us a little bit more about that.

Diane Demetre:                That was actually doing dance as the expression of love. RWA asked me, the organizers asked me, could I do something using my dance background, my choreographic background, to do something a little different? What I wanted to do was use the two ballroom dances that had been assigned to me and to actually express how love works, not just from a chemical, pharmacological viewpoint in the brain, but how that moves through the body. Dance is the perfect way to show love, all the sequences of love from first sight, first touch, and all of the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again, and to do all of that through the sequencing of dance. Yeah, it was great. I loved doing it, and the dancers loved doing it. It was really different, because then I narrated it, as you know. It gave, I think, a different insight to the audience as to how love works in the body and how visually, if you’re putting dance if you’re not a dancer into your story, that you can actually switch on those senses and see it anyway.

Sarah Williams:                  It was beautiful. I’ve always loved ballroom and Argentine, Latin dancing and that sort of thing, so it was really spectacular to watch. I was really thrilled to see that.

Diane Demetre:                Oh, good.

Sarah Williams:                  Do you do any other teaching or mentoring or anything like that?

Diane Demetre:                Yes, yes, I do a lot of workshops in writing and in getting started. I look at the seven steps to being a writer. I don’t gloss over. I don’t make it a, “Oh, it’s fabulous. It’s a glamorous lifestyle. It’s wonderful.” It’s a lot of hard work, and it’s a lot of dedication, as in everything in our lives if we want to succeed. I always say to people in my workshops, “It takes 10,000 hours to be an expert.” You’ve got to put in the 10,000 hours to get anywhere out of the rookie stage into mid-range up to an expert stage. I do workshops at local libraries. I’m looking at probably doing some workshops here in my new office next year in 2019. I just have a few more books to get published and written before I start doing that, but yes, I love doing that. I love passing on information.

Diane Demetre:                I was thinking the other day, having done this self-publishing journey, I would love to do a real nuts and bolts self-publishing course and give everybody all of the information that I’ve learned, because you’ve got to go to so many places to find it all, rather than, “Right, this is how you do it. Off you go. I suggest you go to this course, this course, this course, this course, and then go,” rather than that’s what took me a lot of time was trying to find which are the best courses to go to and the different tools you need to make your job easier. Anyway, it’s all in the pipeline.

Sarah Williams:                  Yeah [crosstalk 00:15:07]. Oh, brilliant. What are you working on now?

Diane Demetre:                I will be finishing off my next book, which will be launched on the 14th of October. That’s called Island of Secrets. That’s a sweeping multi-generational love story in the vein of … What’s his name? Oh god. I’ve forgotten his name, just lost … See, the brain is gone, unfortunately. It’s across 40 years. It’s all centered around this one island off the coast of Maui, a privately-owned island called Harbor Island. Yeah, it’s a lovely story. It’s told in two parts and from the female protagonist’s point of view in each part, and all the secrets this island has had for many, many years and how they have impacted the progress of the island and the very climax of the book, and what is revealed at the end, and how at the end, will love topple the legacy of the island or not?

Diane Demetre:                Yeah [crosstalk 00:16:12], and again, it was one of those inspired books. I was out on the Broadwater going boating. What was it, end of last year? I can’t even remember now. I was out waiting for inspiration and saying to the universe, “What are we writing next, fellas?” This boat traveled past. It was an older type of cruiser. It was called Harbor Island. I went, “Bingo.” Then the whole book just flooded into me about this island called Harbor Island off the coast of Maui and how it’s going to work and everything else. I went, “Great. Thank you. Off we go.”

Sarah Williams:                  I love it. That’s awesome.

Diane Demetre:                Then the one I’m currently writing is called Murder on the Silver Galapagos, and that’s part of the murder series, because I grew up and just devoured Agatha Christie. I think I had every one of her paperbacks sitting up on my shelf in my library here, very old and tatty. Then all of a sudden, I thought, “Oh, I guess I’ll be writing murder mysteries next.” Yeah, so Murder on the Silver Galapagos came to me when I went to the Galapagos Islands last year. I went on an expedition cruise there. As I walked onto the boat, on the ship, sorry, not boat, on the ship, it was nearly like Agatha Christie said to me, “We’re doing a murder mystery here.” I went, “Really?” Off I went, and I got everybody on side. You can actually kill somebody on that ship and never get found out, so my biggest thing is, how are they going to find the murderer? Because you can’t do it. They showed me where they don’t have CCTV.

Sarah Williams:                  Good to know.

Diane Demetre:                The captain said, “I hear you’re doing a murder on my ship.” I said, “Yes.” That’s the next one. Yes, they all just beam in, you know? I’m the [inaudible 00:18:01] lady of writing. I don’t know.

Sarah Williams:                  Now that you’ve started with the self-publishing, I’m presuming you’re going to keep going with that?

Diane Demetre:                Yes, simply because … I mean, I would love to get a big traditional publishing contract, but you know what? The amount of time it takes to do the submissions and to send them out and to just wait, and in most cases, they never reply, so I get a bit peeved with that, being in the business world myself. I always answer emails. I don’t think it’s that hard to say, “Sorry, no thanks.” I’m a bit peeved with how publishers don’t follow business protocol. The amount of time I spend sending out submissions, I go, “You know what, I can spend that time more effectively by writing and self-publishing.” I’m reclaiming more writing time by not submitting is how I look at it now.

Sarah Williams:                  Yeah, absolutely. [crosstalk 00:19:03]. You have Retribution coming out on what date is it?

Diane Demetre:                Yeah.

Sarah Williams:                  Oh, you’ve got it-

Diane Demetre:                On Friday. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:19:09]. I’ve got a little proof copy there, so yes, it’s coming out on Friday, this Friday. It’s a romantic suspense. Yeah, I’m very thrilled with it. I love my characters. It’s a gripping tale of betrayal, hope, and love.

Sarah Williams:                  Fantastic [crosstalk 00:19:28]. As this goes out, it will be available on Amazon.

Diane Demetre:                Yes.

Sarah Williams:                  That is absolutely fantastic. Where can we find you online?

Diane Demetre:                Look, I’m on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, my website, which is all the Ws, dianedemetre.com. Then you can find all the links to everything from there anyway. Yeah [crosstalk 00:19:49], join me, join me, join me.

Sarah Williams:                  Yay. Well, thank you so much for that, Diane. I really appreciate your time.

Diane Demetre:                That’s all right, Sarah. Thank you. It was wonderful, and all the best with all your publishing too.

Sarah Williams:                  Thank you so much.

Diane Demetre:                Go, go the self-publishing.

Sarah Williams:                  Thanks for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed the show. Jump on to my website, sarahwilliamsauthor.com, and join my mailing list to receive a free preview of my books and lots of inspiration. If you like the show and want it to continue, you can become a sponsor for just a couple of dollars a month. Go to patreon.com/sarahwilliamsauthor to find out more. Remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a review of the podcast. I’ll be back next week with another loved-up episode. Bye.