My ALLi author guest this episode is D. K. Marie, a Michigan-based romance author who writes stories about second chances, emotional healing, and hope. She’s moved from traditional publishing into indie publishing and recently won a Wishing Shelf Gold Award. We talk about her journey from reader to writer, the business side of indie publishing, building a loyal readership, and why she believes romance novels can offer comfort during difficult times.
Listen to the Inspirational Indie Author Interview: D. K. Marie
About the Host
Howard Lovy is an author, developmental editor, and writing coach with a long career in journalism and publishing. He works with writers at many stages of their careers, with a focus on helping them develop their ideas and strengthen their work while preserving their unique voices. He lives in Northern Michigan.
About the Guest
D. K. Marie is a Gold Winner of the Wishing Shelf Book Awards and the author of eleven published works, including romance novels and a poetry collection. Her stories center on unexpected connections and emotional intensity, blending heart, heat, and humor with relatable characters and emotional depth. When she’s not writing, she can be found behind a camera lens, on her motorcycle, or curled up with a good book. She lives in metro Detroit with her husband, two children, and a cat who supervises her writing with zero impartiality.
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Read the Transcript
D.K. Marie: My name is D.K. Marie. I write romance novels — I have 10 out. Two series take place in Michigan, and my most recent one is set in Kentucky with bourbon distillery owners. The first book in that series just recently won the Wishing Shelf Gold Award for the fiction category.
Howard Lovy: Wonderful — congratulations. And as we talked earlier, you're a fellow Michigander. We're about five or six hours apart, depending how fast you drive. You're down in the Detroit area and I'm up in Traverse City.
D.K. Marie: I do have a story that takes place in Traverse City. I love it up there.
Howard Lovy: It's beautiful. Some of my own book is based up here at the Interlochen Arts Camp. A lot of writers are up here too — it's just a place where you can be out in nature and hopefully be inspired.
D.K. Marie: Yes, it is a very inspiring place.
Growing Up in Michigan
Howard Lovy: So let's go back to talking about you. Where did you grow up, and was reading and writing always a big part of your life?
D.K. Marie: I grew up in Michigan and have lived here most of my life. I moved to Kentucky for a while, and then to Germany. I didn't start writing until later — I've always been a huge reader, read every genre — and it just took me a while to believe I could write my own stories. Now it's been less than 10 years and I've got about 10 books out, so I definitely had some stories in me and still have a lot more to write.
Howard Lovy: I'll bet. Did you go to college, and did you study literature?
D.K. Marie: I went to Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. I majored in public law and government and minored in nonfiction writing. So it was a bit of a learning curve when I switched over to fiction, but I already had the love of writing in me, so it was a fun craft to learn — and I'm still continuously learning.
Howard Lovy: Did you set out to become a lawyer first?
D.K. Marie: I had thought about it. I was leaving all my options open, which is why I did public law and government with a minor in writing — I didn't know if I wanted to go to law school, become a paralegal, or do something else in the legal field. But instead I just went off in left field and didn't go into anything to do with law.
Fisher Theatre, Harley-Davidson, and Finding Fiction
Howard Lovy: So what did you do first — was it writing immediately, or did you hold down other jobs?
D.K. Marie: We did a bit of traveling with my husband's work, so I raised the kids and did some traveling. Then when I came back, my jobs were kind of left field — I work at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, and I teach people to ride motorcycles at Harley-Davidson. I just went off in that direction. And always writing — always writing for well over a decade now.
Howard Lovy: So even while you held down those other jobs, you had a secret manuscript somewhere?
D.K. Marie: I actually kind of started them at the same time as I wrote, because once I got into my stories I'm a little bit of a workaholic. I absolutely love the theater and I love motorcycle riding, so they're my way to get off my desk — make some side money and get away from the writing. But once I started writing, I just dived right in and it became my full-time obsession.
Howard Lovy: The motorcycle riding is fascinating. What made you get so heavily into that?
D.K. Marie: I had been riding motorcycles pretty much since I got my driver's license — it's just something I enjoyed. I took a couple of years off when my kids were younger, and when I got back into it I took an advanced rider course just to see what I'd forgotten and what I hadn't. Once I finished that course, the state started sending referrals to community colleges looking for coaches, and I thought, what the heck, that sounds fun. I tried it, worked at Schoolcraft for a bit, then transferred over to Harley-Davidson because it was closer to home and had a nice schedule and good people.
Why Romance: Comfort, Hope, and Characters You Believe In
Howard Lovy: While you were in college, that's when you first got into reading romance novels. What was it about the genre that connected with you?
D.K. Marie: Growing up I read a lot of horror and thrillers, so I think I just like books motivated by characters. I'd read a little bit of romance, but the way they were written started shifting in the 2000s, and I loved the power behind women choosing what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it. The older romances were always about finding the perfect man. The newer ones work both angles — the women finding themselves separately, becoming who they need to be before they ever find love. I really liked that concept. And I liked that no matter how dark things get in a romance, there's always that sense that it's going to be okay. They were like a comfort blanket, very hopeful. When I switched over to writing, it meant I got to live in those stories for however long it took to write each one, rather than just a couple of days reading. That's how I ended up down this path.
Howard Lovy: You've written that you start with the characters and stories you wanted to see that weren't out there yet. What kinds of characters or relationships did you feel were missing from romance?
D.K. Marie: It's hard to pinpoint exactly, because at first it's just that feeling of: I like this story, but… Eventually I had enough of those that I thought, well, let me try to write it. For one thing, I wanted to write what they call cinnamon roll heroes, because you didn't see a lot of them. No matter how messy the hero and heroine are, I like writing how they can separately become who they need to be. I write in both points of view, and I always explore the wounds they carry — what makes them have false beliefs about love. I love looking at it from a psychological angle: doing the research on the man's perspective and the woman's, and then finding them becoming their own people before they find their way to each other. That's always fascinating to me.
Howard Lovy: What's a cinnamon roll hero?
D.K. Marie: You have your typical alpha guy who tends to be a little overbearing — he always knows what to do and the right way to do it, which works well in fiction. The cinnamon roll tends to listen to the people around him. He supports instead of overtaking what those people need to do, whether that's friends or a romantic partner. He trusts that others can make their own decisions and he's just there for support. He can still be strong and command a room — he just doesn't need to overtake the people around him.
Howard Lovy: That sounds a little more realistic too.
D.K. Marie: Yes — what I get a lot is that my romances still have that swoony feel, but they're realistic.
From Traditional Publishing to Indie: Cutting Out the Middleman
Howard Lovy: You initially went the traditional publishing route before moving into indie publishing. What did you learn from each experience, and what ultimately pushed you toward wanting more control?
D.K. Marie: When I did traditional publishing, I was very new at writing. I had my first book that I'd ever written — I wasn't one of those people with 30 manuscripts under the bed. I wrote it, researched how to make it better, and then started querying for an agent. I got one, told her I planned on writing four books in the series, and she reached out. I had interest from two publishing houses, picked the one that wanted the whole series, and went from there. It was helpful because I didn't have my community yet — it was good to have somebody to ask questions to, the agent and the publishing house.
But as time went on, once the series was done, it started feeling constrictive. The publishing house wasn't bad — if they didn't like a cover they would try to work with me, and if I wanted to try some marketing idea I could mention it. But after a while it started feeling like I had to manage the middleman. The traditionally published route almost felt like that middleman, and I thought: let me just try cutting out the middleman and do it myself. Now I pick my covers, I pick my editors, I pick my marketing — I wanted to see how I liked that versus having somebody to talk to but also having somebody who was, in a sense, in my way.
Howard Lovy: Did you have to learn the business side as you went along?
D.K. Marie: Yes, and I still am. I got lucky — I found a fantastic cover designer and every editor I've worked with has been great. The marketing and PR side is still difficult because you can't do it all, and finding the right person, the right fit, the right team is hard. But it's the same thing with traditional publishing — you don't even have a choice there, so if you don't like the team you're stuck with them regardless. At least now if something doesn't work out, you just move on to the next thing. A lot more work, but a lot more freedom.
Standing Out in a Saturated Market
Howard Lovy: Romance is a very saturated market. How do you differentiate yourself?
D.K. Marie: Branding, and figuring out who I am as a writer that will set me apart. I've found that in-person events are great — I get to talk to readers face to face and get direct feedback about what they think makes my romances stand out, why they keep coming back. Every genre has its certain expectations, but you also have to have something adjacent to those expectations to give it something a little different. And then basically just don't give up. Keep working at the craft, keep bringing out books that people like, and the hope is that slowly but surely the word of mouth picks it up.
Second Chances, Emotional Healing, and the Freedom to Go There
Howard Lovy: Your books often focus on second chances, emotional healing, and ordinary people dealing with real-life struggles. Why are those themes important to you personally?
D.K. Marie: It's probably the core reason why I write romance. I tend to be pessimistic, so I like to see everyday people with everyday struggles find their happiness — healing themselves, finding that person. I even had one of my characters say it: ‘Being alone isn't lonely — it's about finding the right person.' Finding the person you're meant to be. That's the core of my stories, the core of what I want to give to people when they're having a rough day, a rough year — that there's still hope. Whether it's a single-parent romance or a character who's been a recovering addict for five years and is repairing their life, I want everybody to feel seen when they read those books.
Howard Lovy: Do you feel like you have more freedom as an indie author to stray from the romance tropes, or do you still have rules you have to follow?
D.K. Marie: The biggest rule is the happily ever after. Don't make readers fall in love with the characters and then not give them their happily ever after. But other than that, as an indie author I feel like anything's up for grabs — which is another reason I went indie. I've had topics I wanted to explore that traditional publishers wouldn't touch, whether it was something small you wouldn't think they'd care about or something bigger where you can see why they might hesitate.
Howard Lovy: Are there subject matters you've tackled as an indie author that a traditional publisher wouldn't take?
D.K. Marie: Yes. One of my main characters was a recovering addict — five years clean. One of the things that bothered me when I read books where a character had some type of addiction was that they always made it seem as simple as ‘pull up your bootstraps and get over it' — no emotional damage, no fallout. I really wanted to represent people who had ever struggled with that, because we've all either been through it or we've loved someone who has. It's a big part of our society. My traditional publisher said no. And I had another story where the male character had been in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship — it's not a topic that gets explored much when it comes to the emotional damage to men. Not a lot of people would touch it. But as an indie author, it became one of my most popular books. Same with The Recovering Addict — out of that series it's probably the most popular. It speaks to people. They want something slightly different. They want to feel empathy, to experience things beyond their own lives. That's the reason we read.
The Wishing Shelf Gold Award
Howard Lovy: You won a gold medal in the Wishing Shelf Awards. Can you tell me what book that was for?
D.K. Marie: That was The Bourbon Bet. Another one where traditional publishers wouldn't go there — the family who owns the distillery is considered billionaires, and apparently billionaires are only allowed in New York and Europe, not in Kentucky. It's odd little rules like that. Readers don't care — they love it. They love the idea of a Southern romance that's a little different from a cowboy romance but not quite the New York City slicker type either. Something in between. I think that's part of why it was popular. The Wishing Shelf, for those who don't know, is decided by readers, and they liked the unique spin on the bet trope — it isn't a traditional bet story.
Howard Lovy: That must have been very validating.
D.K. Marie: Yes, especially because it was in the fiction category. You sometimes get that as a romance author — people saying ‘well, that's not serious fiction.' But genre fiction is fiction. So it was very validating to see it speak so well to all those judges, and to do so well in the fiction category.
Building an Author Brand: Newsletter, Events, and Reader Connection
Howard Lovy: You're not only an author but you're also working on your author brand — a newsletter, events, direct reader engagement, special editions, and giveaways. How much of that makes a difference in terms of sales and visibility?
D.K. Marie: I think it makes a huge difference, and I feel like all of that needs to be done. My two favorite things are in-person events and the newsletter, because I get to speak directly to my readers — not only to find out what they like, but because I just like talking to them. Who doesn't like talking to other book lovers?
Howard Lovy: What kinds of in-person events do you do?
D.K. Marie: All kinds — I've done workshops for libraries. Lately the adult book fairs have been really popular. And then with the Bourbon series — The Bourbon Bet won the award, and there are going to be three books in the Blackstone Billionaire Bourbon series, two out so far — going to boozy book fairs with that series has been a hit. They're a lot of fun. We all miss those grade school book fairs, and these have that same kind of vibe. Those are probably my favorite events.
Surprises Along the Way and Advice for New Authors
Howard Lovy: You began this whole thing not really knowing what you were doing, going on instinct. What has surprised you the most about your career and the life you've built?
D.K. Marie: How much of a roller coaster it is, and how steep the ups and downs can be. How much, when I love something, I just persevere through it. As a writer there are a lot of ups and downs and it's not a sprint — you hear people say that, but it's another thing to live it. What shocks me is how much I'm willing to learn to do this. In the beginning you picture yourself sitting at your desk writing, and that's it. I didn't know I also had to learn business, how to brand, how to market, how to constantly go out of my comfort zone to do workshops, talk to people, go to in-person events. Most writers just want to sit at their desk and write. And it forces you — it has forced me — to lean into my extrovert side a lot, and I'm not an extrovert. But if I love something enough, I'll do it.
Howard Lovy: What about the future — are you sticking with the genres that work?
D.K. Marie: Who knows what the future holds. At this point I have one more book I want to finish in the Bourbon series. And I have a writer friend — we've talked about going into paranormal, and we've already outlined a series that will be romance again, but Brothers Grimm retellings with characters in their 30s and 40s. Not little kids, not YA, but the classic stories twisted around — who the villains are and who the good guys and girls are gets flipped.
Howard Lovy: Interesting. And those originals were dark.
D.K. Marie: Yes. So they will be a little dark.
Howard Lovy: That's great. What advice do you have for other authors who want to break into romance and build their brand?
D.K. Marie: Don't give up unless you don't enjoy it anymore — nobody says you have to see it to the bitter end if you don't enjoy it. And always improve your craft. There's never going to be a point where you can't be a better writer. It's a saturated market, and you've got to be the best if you want to be seen.
Howard Lovy: Excellent advice. Thank you, D.K. — I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.
D.K. Marie: It's been my pleasure.
Howard Lovy: Okay. Bye.
D.K. Marie: Bye.
