Barre Fight lands in bookstores in just one week, and even sooner for independent bookstores. I’m excited for people to read it, and I hope it brings them a lot of joy. It has certainly brought me enormous satisfaction over the last few years to write this romance series and see it through to the end against the backdrop of, shall we say, a lot of life.

It has brought me satisfaction—but it hasn’t, and likely won’t, bring me much income.

Which is fine for me, personally, since I have a full-time job that pays my bills. I also have a partner with a full-time income, and a solid personal safety net in case one of those two things changes. I will be okay if this book does not earn me back what I spent to publish it—to say nothing of the months and months of work hours I put into writing and revising it.

But it’s not fine for most people. Most people don’t have the luxury of sinking years of unpaid work into writing a novel with no guarantee it will be published. Most people don’t have the privilege of paying up front to self-publish a book in the hope that it’ll break even or make them a profit. (Especially not if they’re committed to spending real money on real humans to edit that book and illustrate their cover, which I was. AI cover art is straight up theft, and it’s cheap to buy. Real cover art is expensive, and I think we need to have compassion for the authors who can’t afford to spend money on the real thing but want to compete in an increasingly visual book marketplace.)

My point is, creating art of any kind is a luxury. Time is a luxury, space to think and imagine is a luxury, and of course capital to launch that art into the world is a luxury, whether you’re publishing a book or putting on a dance performance. Virginia Woolf understood this when she wrote about having a room of one’s own, and her gender analysis of who gets to write can be applied to race, class, and ability as well. Even if this book never makes me back a dime, I am incredibly fortunate to have been able to write it at all. (I am also more like your average author than many people realize. Lots of us have day jobs and no intention of quitting them).

This should not be the case. Creation is a fundamental part of our humanity, whatever form it takes—writing, making music, playing roleplaying games, dancing, or crafting. We all deserve to live lives that allow us the time and energy to create. Those creations don’t need to be monetized (seriously, my fellow millennials, I know I don’t have a leg to stand on here but they really don’t). But we should all have the means to share those creations if we so choose. Our creations have meaning to us, their makers, but those meanings shift and change when we share them with others, as do our relationships to them.

Art should not be a luxury. Not to create and not to experience. A world in which only a select few people get to make and share art is an impoverished one, and as we hurtle towards a culture saturated by AI-scraped slop, it is paramount that real humans get to create their real human art about real human experiences.

Perhaps after reading this you’re wondering how best to support Barre Fight, a piece of real human art, and me, the real human who made it. It’s very considerate question people sometimes ask authors: Where can we buy the book in the way that is best for you? The really messed up part is, the best way to support me financially is… to buy this book in ebook format on Amazon. And the second best way is to buy it in paperback format, also on Amazon.

Sigh. I know. Not exactly a victory for independence and art and freedom. The reality is that Amazon is where the margins are biggest for this particular book (though I cannot speak to the economics of other authors or other books).

If you buy this book at an independent bookstore, which you can do through Bookshop.org or buy calling them and asking them to get it in for you, the margins will be small for me. Basically non-existent, to be honest. However, shopping at a local independent bookstore is an investment in your town and in your community. It supports book clubs and bible study groups and third spaces and author meet and greets. Amazon can’t do that. Amazon will sell you a book cheap and deliver it fast. It will put a few more dollars in my pocket. But it won’t bring your favourite writer to town to do a reading, and it won’t host a postcard writing party to state legislators, and it won’t provide a cute low-pressure first-date coffee spot the next time you ask your crush out. Shopping at a local bookstore is an investment in you. I’m very grateful to these local bookstores for their support:

• Dog-Eared Books in Ames will have signed copies and ships nationwide

• Sidekick Coffee & Books in Iowa City will have signed and personalized copies (and I’m doing an event there on 10/11)

• Shelf Love DSM in Des Moines will have signed copies (and I’m doing an event there on 11/1)

• HEA Book Boutique in Cedar Rapids will have signed and personalized copies and ships nationwide

• Prairie Lights will stock it and ships nationwide, and I just signed a few copies there yesterday

And not for nothing, a physical book cannot be wiped off your e-reader by the giant corporation that sold you both products. A physical book cannot be censored or tracked like an e-book can. As we’ve seen a lot lately, corporate entities are quite willing to fold to political demands to alter or remove material the powers that be do not like. I don’t think we’re quite there with e-books, but I know that’s a concern you don’t need to have about a paperback novel you keep on your shelf. If I were you, I might buy paperback and buy local, even though I am me, and that choice will make me almost no money.

Sigh. I know. Saying all this is a luxury, too. Treating a book as a break-even hobby is privilege. What can I say, the publishing industry, and the world in general, are a mess. There are no perfect choices here; we’re all just doing the best we can to make choices that honour our values.

Whatever choice you make—buy the book, borrow the book, steal the book (please don’t steal the book; AI will do that)—I am so excited to have Barre Fight out in the world. A mess of a world, one that feels scarier and less stable every day. But a world in which people are still creating things and sharing them with other people. My book is just one little piece of art, but it means a lot to me. I hope it means something to you, too.

Happy reading,

Chloe.

A number of Iowa independent bookstores will have signed copies of Barre Fight! They include HEA Book Boutique, Dog-Eared Books, Shelf Love DSM and Sidekick Coffee & Books, where I’ll be signing books and meeting readers on pub day (October 11) as part of their inaugural romance festival! This evening of celebrating romance is going to include two wonderful friends of mine, authors Elise Wayland and Denise Williams. Along with quite a few other romance authors, we’ll be signing, decorating books, and doing champagne shooters (still don’t know what those are, still excited to find out).

All these shops ship nationwide. If you’d rather order from your local indie, you can do that through Bookshop.org.

You can also get Barre Fight from your usual large retails like Barnes & Noble and Amazon, though Amazon won’t have it available to order in paperback until October 14 (you can preorder the Kindle edition now, however).

Less than a month until pub day!

Hello good readers!

Barre Fight is now available for pre-order in e-book format and in paperback from a number of Iowa bookstores that ship nationwide! Look at this gorgeous cover! Look at this tired, happy author with her stress-mangled cuticles! I’m so thrilled to finally have this book in my hands, and excited to get it into yours, too.

Big thanks to Sidekick Coffee & Books, HEA Book Boutique, Dog-Eared Books, Shelf Love DSM, and Prairie Lights, who are all stocking plenty of copies so that whether you’re local or in some far off locale, you can get a copy of the third and final book in the Dancers Down Under series.

• To order a signed and personalized copy from HEA Book Boutique in Marion, click here.

• To order a signed and personalized copy from Dog-Eared Books in Ames, email or call: (515) 598-7508, hello@dogearedbooksames.com

• To order a copy from Shelf Love DSM in Des Moines, contact them here. And if you’re local to Des Moines, mark your calendar for an in-person event with me and best-selling author Denise Williams the evening of November 1 at Shelf Love.

• To order a copy from Prairie Lights in Iowa City, call them: 319-337-2681.

• And on release day, October 11, you can find me in person at Sidekick Coffee & Book’s first Iowa City romance festival, It’s Getting Plot in Here, where I’ll be doing a meet and greet and signing copies. And enjoying something called “champagne shooters,” which sound delightful. Get your ticket here.

Barre Fight will also be available in paperback on Amazon starting on October 14. Those copies will not be signed or personalized.

Finally, I’m so excited to be doing a virtual event with THE Olivia Dade, author of the Spoiler Alert series and the Harlot’s Bay series, hosted by HEA Book Boutique, at 1pm CST on September 13. Olivia is one of my favourite authors, and I recommend her books on a weekly basis. The platform for this event is yet to be announced, but mark your calendar and pick up a copy of her latest, Zom Romcom, as soon as you can. It’s a zombie apocalypse romance, and it’s bloody funny, bloody romantic, bloody sexy, and bloody bloody. And the cover glows in the dark.

That’s all from me for now. Happy reading,

Chloe Angyal.

Hello, good readers—

BARRE FIGHT is almost done. The editor is on her second round of edits. The cover artist is on her third round of sketches. Last week, I drafted the final few pages of the entire book, including the words “the end.” In the next few weeks, I’ll shift to preparing for publication this fall, including sending it to fellow authors to blurb (terrifying, but necessary).

And here’s some good publication news: I’ve decided that this book is going to be a paperback, as well as an ebook. I hadn’t planned on printed copies, but as I was writing this weekend, I thought, “I really want to be able to hold this book in my hands.” More than that, I want other people to be able to hold it in their hands. And most of all, I want everyone who wants to buy it from an independent bookstore to be able to do that. Because indie bookstores freaking rock, and Iowa’s indies in particular have been so supportive of my books, and the careers of many other authors. So you know what? Screw it, let’s do a paperback.

I’ll have more information about where you can get your physical copy of BARRE FIGHT soon, but I can promise you that several Iowa indies—Sidekick Coffee & Books in Iowa City, Dog-Eared Books in Ames, HEA Book Boutique in Marion, and the brand new Shelf Love DSM in Des Moines will all carry it. And good news: they all ship nationwide.

And in a little more good news, I’m going to show you the opening words of this enemies to lovers romance—it explains the “enemies” part of the equation, but the “to lovers” part takes a few hundred pages. Enjoy!

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL BALLET’S NEW STAR HAS SHINE, BUT LITTLE SUBSTANCE

by Ivy Page, Sydney Morning Sun junior arts reporter

‘The Sleeping Beauty’ is a notoriously difficult ballet for the ballerina dancing the titular role. Quite apart from the considerable technical skill required to dance the infamous Rose Adagio, which demands long balances on a single pointe-shoe-clad foot, the dancer playing Princess Aurora must dance both with girlish exuberance and the maturity of a grown woman who has woken from her long, cursed slumber and found her one true love.

The role is so challenging that it can be easy to lose sight of Aurora’s partner, Prince Désiré. But the prince is always there, and his role is challenging, too. In Sunday’s performance of The Sleeping Beauty by Australian National Ballet at the Sydney Opera House, principal dancer Katarina Antonov was up to the challenge. The same cannot be said for her partner, newly minted principal dancer Justin Winters.

Winters has several gifts that make him a good fit for the role of the prince. His thick golden hair screams “royalty,” and when he and Antonov danced their several pas de deux, his prince appeared wholly smitten by Aurora. Antonov appeared comfortable and secure as they moved together, suggesting that Winters is an adequate partner; no small thing in an artform where women must place their bodies—their livelihoods—entirely in the hands of their male coworkers.

Above all, Winters has the natural gift of exquisitely arched and articulate feet, something that all aspiring dancers long for. “Good feet”—steep arches that snap into tight curves whenever Winters points his toes—mean that when he dances, he seems to add half a foot to his already above-average height, and when he extends his legs, he creates long, seamless lines from hip to toe. His feet, simply put, are the stuff of dancers’ dreams.

But good feet, a nice head of hair, and adequate partnering do not a principal dancer make. In Sunday’s performance, Winters danced his solo combinations with technical proficiency coated with a vapid charm, an emptiness that the most aspirational of arches could not make up for. At times, he seemed to get swallowed by the ballet’s sumptuous set and his sparkling brocade costume, disappearing into the role and not in a good way. A more substantive dancer would not merely have looked the part of a prince, but would embody the gravitas and self-assuredness one expects to find in a member of a royal family. Winters, while sparkly, wholly lacked that substance.

In its recent promotions, Australian National Ballet has demonstrated its commitment to promoting promising dancers early and giving them a chance to grow into their new ranks. Winters’ performance, however, raises the question of what he brings to the stage: true artistic promise, or merely a pretty face and a pair of freakish feet?

I wonder if this review will lead to Justin Winters hating Ivy Page for many many years until they’re forced to work together? It’s a romance novel, so, probably!

Publishing is an odd business. Some part of it’s always booming (hockey romance, celebrity cookbooks), but the entire enterprise seems to be perpetually in crisis. So much of it is opaque, even to the people who work in it. Some of it’s just based on vibes—no one really knows what makes a bestseller, so a lot of decisions come down to guesswork.

This is all true, and it’s also what I tell myself when things don’t go my way in publishing. Which is what happened this week, when it became clear that the publisher who bought the first two books in the Dancers Down Under series, Pas de Don’t and Pointe of Pride, won’t buy the third and final book, Barre Fight.

Now, that book is already written, because that’s how fiction works: whereas in nonfiction you sell the proposal and then write the book, in fiction you write the book and then you sell the book. No guarantees, you just have to write the best book you can, all 100 000ish words of it, and hope someone wants it. (A very very small number of fiction authors get multi-book deals, in which they sell a novel with just a proposal. I don’t think Stephen King has to write a book first and hope some nice editor will make an offer).

Barre Fight is written, and I think it’s pretty good. It’s not quite enemies-to-lovers, because one of the characters hates the other while she is oblivious to his grudge, so let’s called it “unrequited hate.” It starts and ends in Sydney, but the second act takes place in New York City. It’s the first and only book in the series that tackles ballet’s obsession with a very specific and arbitrary body type, but not in the way people expect. It’s got multiple HEAs in it. It’s got serious spice. It’s got an adjoining hotel room door and many many musical theatre references. And I think you should get to read all of that.

So I’m self-publishing it. It’s off to an editor next month, and this fall—winter at the latest—it’ll be available for you to buy on Kindle. It’ll even have a gorgeous cover to match the other two books in the series, because Ivy and Justin are two hot heartbroken horny dum dums (affectionate) and they deserve it.

Here’s a little about them (if you’ve read Pas de Don’t and Pointe of Pride, you’ve met them both):

Justin Winters is a lover, not a fighter. But when a drunken homophobe steps out of line at a pub one night, mocking him for being a ballet dancer, he loses his cool. Unfortunately for him, the punch is captured on video and catapulted into virality by Justin's least favorite journalist, Ivy Page. Poison Ivy, as he calls her, has already savaged him in her reviews, and now she's putting his place on Australian National Ballet's New York tour in jeopardy.

Ivy Page once dreamed of being a ballet dancer, but she's found a new calling as an arts journalist. When she's abruptly laid off, she panics and accepts a job in PR at ANB, where she's promptly put to work cleaning up Justin's image so the board will allow him to go to New York. There's just one problem: Justin Winters hates her, and he won't cooperate.

But Ivy Page is allergic failure, and she finds a way to win Justin's grudging trust. Soon enough, they're on their way to New York City.

Once they're there, the thrill of sold-out crowds at Lincoln Center and Ivy's infectious enthusiasm for the city has country boy Justin falling—reluctantly, but hard. But can this showmance survive the return to real life, and the crisis that awaits Justin in the rural hometown he thought he’d escaped?