Today we’d like to introduce you to Alise Monroe.
Hi Alise, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
To set the scene before I go into all the nitty-gritty details, we’re an author-duo. Two best friends writing together under one pen name. We live in two different states though, so I’m doing this interview as Alise only, but Monroe is half of this, so you’ll get her side of it all too!
Everything about our story, from meeting to writing a series together, was a happy accident. I’ve been in the book space online for a few years now. “Bookstagram” became a big thing, and the author/reader dynamic on the self publishing side of the industry changed. Using social media, it was easier for readers to connect with authors. An author I connected with was looking for early readers to help with the development of her story. She had a group of three of us in a chat, and I ended up hitting it off with another woman on the team—enter Monroe.
It started as us chatting about the books we were reading, but within a week or two, we were texting almost nonstop. We became close friends very quickly.
A couple months into our friendship, I confided in her that I wanted to write a book and had this plot I couldn’t stop thinking about. Funny enough, she was also toying with the idea of writing and had her own plot she was considering. In 2024, we made it our resolution to take the plunge.
Sadly, like most resolutions, within a month, we stopped writing consistently. We both had a couple of chapters but ultimately, got stuck in one way or another.
In April of 2024, Monroe asked me if I wanted to do a writing exercise to see if we could get back into the habit of writing. We decided to write second chance for the exercise and everything else would be determined as we went along. We each took a point of view (Monroe took the male POV, later known as Carrington, and I took the female POV, later known as Thea) and started writing.
The intention was never for their story to become a novel, we truly were just trying to create the habit of writing consistently. However, within a month, we had three-quarters of a book and a full-fledged story. That was the moment where I said to her, “So… we kind of accidentally wrote a book. What now?”
The answer was to dive in. From the almost full-length novel we’d written at that point, we had three more ideas, creating a four-book series. Since then, we have more than I can count and enough to keep us occupied for a good while.
We get comments constantly about how readers don’t notice it’s two authors under one pen name, which was part of the happy accident. We never knew our styles and author voice would mesh in the way it did. Neither of us can imagine writing alone now. Because of the way we formatted the stories and the way we approach it, each main character has their own voice while not straying from our combined author voice.
As for where we are today, we’re about to release the third book in our debut series, Ripple Effect. We plan to start writing the fourth and final installment this year. Our next project will be a marriage in crisis, hockey romance duet full of angst and a love that never dies despite all the trials and tribulations life hands them.
And after that, who knows? I can tell you we have pages and pages of ideas and a true passion for bringing those stories to life.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There is a huge misconception about being an author. I think almost everyone goes into it thinking they’re just going to write and the words themselves will be the hardest part. We learned very quickly how untrue that is. Most publishing, but especially indie publishing (self-publishing), is much more than just writing. Most authors I know will tell you writing is the easiest part of it all.
Behind the scenes, authors are also doing marketing, outreach, events, graphic designing, promo for new releases, managing their teams, among so much more. The marketing takes most of the time and effort. Indie authors rely on social media to reach readers. Though reaching them is only the first step, once you’re in front of them, then you have to convince them to pick up your book.
Indie published authors also aren’t typically placed in big bookstores. So we lean heavily on indie bookstores and community outreach.
Learning we have to be our own biggest cheerleaders has been the hardest hurdle though, I think. We had to get past feeling like we’re bragging or being annoying, because at the end of the day, no one will push for our books as hard as we will. Even in the face of rejection, we still have to shout about them and not give up.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m an indie romance author! I co-write with my best friend under one pen name, Alise Monroe. We’re known for writing flawed characters. We write about people who aren’t perfect, who make mistakes, who don’t have it all figured out, but they still get to find love at the end of their story. We want to show that everyone, despite their mistakes, is worthy of love.
When we realized what we had in our debut, we decided it was worth exploring as a brand. We want to write about raw emotions, real-life situations, emotional connections, and also emotional baggage. I think giving people grace is so important, so why not give it to fictional characters? We want people to walk away from our books feeling like they understand the struggle those characters went through because maybe they went through something similar.
Life isn’t cut and dry or black and white, our books won’t be either.
We also delve into mental health in all of our books. I think most adults struggle with mental health in one way or another; we wanted to represent that in our characters. We want people to know it’s okay to not be okay sometimes, but the voice in your head isn’t always the one you should listen to.
How we started definitely sets us apart from some authors, though we aren’t the first or last author-duo. But I think how we write and the way we tell these stories sets us apart as well. There are a lot of books out there written for the reader. They’re straightforward, you know you’re going to get your happily ever after at end, and the stories have characters you love to root for. I can’t promise all of those things in our books. What I can promise is a nuanced story where you feel the emotions with the characters. I can promise the reader will get a happily ever after by the end, but it will be hard earned. And as stated before, our characters won’t be perfect. I can’t guarantee you’ll be rooting for them the whole time, but I do hope readers see the beauty in even the flawed characters finding love.
This is a hard industry to break into. It’s also hard to continue writing knowing it may take years to truly be seen by readers. I am proud of our books, incredibly so. We did something a little controversial with our debut and some of the topics we handle, so I’m very proud of us for publishing it despite it being a risk. But I’m most proud of us for publishing at all. So many people dream of writing a book and never do, so even if this doesn’t work out long term, I can say we beat the odds and published the book we wanted to put into the world.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love the community. For a long time, I didn’t feel like I had a place in this city. Being a millennial who didn’t grow up here and working from home can be very hard. It’s difficult enough to make friends as an adult, but add in working from home makes it ten times harder. I finally found my people though. Through them, I’ve seen how amazing this community can be, how similar interests can bring even the most introverted people together.
I’m so happy to see some of the revitalization happening in the downtown area. This being a tourist city can sometimes feel like those projects aren’t done with us in mind, but I truly think it’s helping small businesses as a whole and helping locals feel like this is still our city.
Pricing:
- Available on Kindle Unlimited
- Physical copies can be purchased on our website at alisemonroe.com
- Physical copies are also available at Rue & Reverie Bookshop
- $20
Contact Info:
- Website: https://alisemonroe.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author.alisemonroe/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567393216720
- Other: https://www.threads.com/author.alisemonroe
