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Welcome to the Romance Genre Specialist
I'm Emily Keyes, a romance editor, ghostwriter, book marketer, and avid reader.
I started the Romance Genre Specialist because I have one goal: to help authors like you get great romance novels out into the world.
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Wondering what type of romance I work with?
I work with all levels of steam, from closed-door to pure smut, all romance genres except dark and mafia, and all triggers except dubious consent, consensual non-consent, rape, and violence against women and children. ​
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I also edit cozy mysteries with romantic sub-plots.
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You might be curious about why my prices are in both USD and GBP. Though I'm originally from the US, I now live in the UK, and work with authors in both countries. This means I can edit in either English dialect. ​​
My Background
I've worked in the romance industry for nearly 7 years as an editor and ghostwriter. I started my career in publishing in 2017, working first as an editor for Pearson Education India, then as an assistant editor doing mainly manuscript evaluations for a small literary fiction and poetry press, Brickhouse Books.
In 2018, I moved to Dublin and spent a year working as an editorial assistant for a non-fiction religious press, Columba Books and its sister press, Currach Books, continuing to do manuscript evaluations and learning the basics of copyediting and proofreading. While at Columba, I also did a beta reading mentorship with Romance Refined, and reviewed romance novels for the blogs Love in a Time of Feminism and All About Romance. After I left Dublin, I began freelance editing, and, when one of my editing clients offered me a ghostwriting contract, added ghostwriting to my repertoire. Ghostwriting over 70 romance novels made me a plotting wizard, and I use that wizardry as a developmental editor, making sure authors are approaching key scenes, beats, and tropes in the ways that work best for their story.
I've edited for Cobalt Fairy and Relay Publishing and indie authors Haley Weir, Goldie Walker, Layla Valentine, Rosie Darden, Clara Dunn, and K.C. Bishop. I've written blurbs for Evelyn Boyett, Kendall Sharpe, Clara Dunn, and I've ghostwritten over 60 plot outlines and 80 manuscripts for USA Today and Amazon Top 100 Bestselling authors, as well as authors like you who are just starting out. I do fiction manuscript evaluations for Greenleaf Book Group.
I also help romance self-publishers, especially those from passive income publishing programmes, set up their businesses over on Upwork, offering advice on everything from calculating a budget to hiring ghostwriters, selecting cover designers, plotting lead magnets, and planning newsletter content. If you want to check out my work there, just follow this link.
And, as if all that wasn't enough, I manage three pen names—two erotica, one romance—doing the covers, blurbs, newsletters, and, of course, all the writing, for each.
But what, you might be wondering, does all that really mean?
It means I know romance. I know its plot structure and the new variations of that structure (hooray for low angst!), its sub-genres, its tropes, its steam levels, and the reader expectations for each. I keep a close eye on the market, track reader expectations and trends like most people track their daily step count, and read as many new romance novel releases as I can cram into my Kindle, all so I'm up to date on what is, unequivocally, the best fiction genre out there, and how you, dear romance author, can carve out your own little corner of it. ​
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Ready to work together?