From the time romantic fantasy author Carissa Broadbent self-published her first novel (A Palace Fractured) in 2017, readers have raved on social media about her intricate world-building, scintillating romance, and multilayered vampire characters. Now, Broadbent's body of work has a new home with Bramble, a romance-focused imprint of Tor. With the publisher set to release four original titles in the Crowns of Nyaxia series, as well as new editions of her previously published books, PW talked with Broadbent about going from indie to traditional publishing, world-building, and connecting with fans on TikTok.

You've been self-publishing your books for a long time. How different is the experience of being published traditionally?

There are so many differences! When self-publishing, I am in the driver’s seat from start to finish. Though I am working with many editors, proofreaders, cover designers, and so on, I’m still the one managing the whole process. In traditional publishing, I am the one being managed! So, the logistical nature of my role is just very different top to bottom.

But aside from that operational difference, there is also a huge difference in mindset and criteria for success between the two. For example, when I was coming up in indie publishing, the traditional wisdom was to produce books very quickly—four books a year can be considered “slow.” Authors focused on building a holistic audience rather than making a single book a mainstream breakout success, partly because many of the avenues to hitting that mainstream success are closed to indie authors. The culture in traditional publishing is the opposite—far fewer books are released, but a big emphasis is placed on the performance of each one, which can have major effects on your career. Reconciling these two mindsets can be a big adjustment!

Self-published authors, particularly those active on TikTok, are often so closely connected to their fans. How much does your base readership continue to drive and inspire you?

I am extremely grateful to readers—I owe my entire career to organic word of mouth on social media! I never, ever forget this, and there is nothing more inspiring to me as a creative than hearing from readers who truly connect with my work. That is, to me, hands down the best part of this job.

At the same time, I am quite firm about my personal boundaries on social media. When I was working in the corporate world, I would often say, “If you ask someone for an opinion, for better or for worse, they will give you one.” Social media is basically one big solicitation for opinion that we all carry around in our pockets, and I recognize that my books are going to be talked about like any other piece of pop culture, both positively and negatively. Those conversations are not for me, and I stay far away from them.

Do you draw from the lush world of traditional vampire lore as you're writing? How much is purely your own creation?

Definitely! There is so much vampire lore in history and in pop culture. I have many influences, both conscious and not. I’m sure that even things that I thought I came up with, someone else has explored in some way at some point— but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Every creative person touches an idea differently.

Part of the reason I ended up with three different vampire kingdoms was so I could explore three different “types” of vampires—the bat vampire, the shadowy vampire, and the monstrous vampire.

What is your world-building process? How much do you know about a new world you are creating before you begin writing?

My last series, The War of Lost Hearts, had a world that naturally grew outward from the characters and their stories. When I sat down to start the Crowns of Nyaxia series, I really wanted to do the opposite—create a huge world with very broad guardrails and find compelling, emotional stories within it. It was very much a “yes, and?” world-building process, where I wanted to find as many opportunities for fun and interesting stories as possible. This is how I ended up with the pantheon of gods, with each god having entire societies, magic systems, and so on under their domain—and how I ended up with a vampire society that has three different kingdoms with three different types of vampire magic. Then, of course, in between all of these, there are tensions and conflicts and politics. It is just a huge sandbox to play in, and there are so, so many stories to tell here.

I tend to be quite an organic world-builder. I sketch out the general concepts and rules for the world but also leave myself lots of gaps within them that I can flesh out as the series goes on. While I love world-building, I ultimately feel that characters and their arcs are the heart of my storytelling, so I leave lots of room where I can flesh things out depending on the particular tale I’m trying to tell.

How would you personally categorize your books in terms of genre? How do you feel about the term "romantasy"?

I definitely call my books "romantasy." Some folks in the business of books can get very particular about genre labels, which makes sense, as it’s part of our jobs! But I’ve seen that readers are often much less specific. I think the term “romantasy” does a fabulous job of communicating, generally, that "there is lots of fantasy in this but also lots of romance.” Some romantasy is “fantasy first,” and some romantasy is “romance first,” but in my mind, both of those things are romantasy and many of the same readers will enjoy all of those stories.

I consider my books to generally skew fantasy on the fantasy-to-romance romantasy spectrum, but I still call them romantasy. I call them epic fantasy as well! I don’t believe the two are mutually exclusive.

What can you share about the upcoming new books in the Crowns of Nyaxia series?

This is a dangerous question for me! I am notorious for accidentally spoiling my own books!

As I mentioned before, this is a very big world, and we have eight books to dig into various aspects of it: the Crowns of Nyaxia is a six-book series, with two standalone spin-offs. The Serpent & the Wings of Night and The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King have focused on only one kingdom lorded over by one goddess. The first two books of the main series followed the House of Night, books three and four will follow the House of Shadow with a different primary couple, and books five and six will follow the House of Blood with yet more primary spotlight protagonists. The main epic fantasy plot spans all six books, as they’re one continuous series.

The third book in the Crowns of Nyaxia series, coming out in November, is The Songbird & the Heart of Stone. The focus shifts to the House of Shadow, another of the vampire houses, and we’ll be headed to the underworld. The conflicts in this world are ramping up both among the mortals and among the gods. Things are going to get very, very big! And even characters whose main stories have concluded still have major roles to play in all that is to come.

What types of bonus material can your fans expect from Bramble's versions of your previously indie-published books?

Without getting too specific, readers can expect a bit of what I’ll call “Avengers post-credits” content. I’m really excited that I got the opportunity to play a little more with the connections between the various books, including the standalones.

From your perspective, what are some key ingredients that go into writing a memorable romance?

Oh boy! I love this alchemy. It is always very important to me to write couples that I truly feel belong together. Yes, the sexual tension is fun. But they’re not just hot people who are attracted to each other—I want them to genuinely respect each other and make each other better. I want readers to close out a book and believe that these two will still be together 10, 50, 500—they are vampires, after all!—years from now. Often, my first drafts are a bit light on the sexual part of the sexual tension because I’m focusing on building out that foundational friendship of their relationship, and then I turn up the dials on the physical attraction once I have really nailed down precisely what they like about each other as people. This is why I often have a “period of domestic bliss” in each of my books, where the characters are just being with each other and realizing how much better their day-to-day lives are with each other in them.

I do have a few tricks in my grab bag. Theme is very important to how I write. Usually, I will develop the main couple on opposite sides of the book's theme, so they can explore that theme through each other—for instance, a vampire who deeply mourns his humanity and a human who wants nothing more than to discard hers.

Are there particular tropes that you frequently revisit—or subvert!—in your books?

There are certainly some ideas that are really interesting to me, and anyone who has read my entire catalogue can probably see me reexploring some of them even across different series! I love tropes as a way to succinctly explain what’s “in the bottle.” From a creation perspective, I try to focus more on the step before the actual trope itself—meaning, I try to focus on what makes a trope appealing and incorporating that into the story. I love anything that’s high tension and high angst. I love the pain! So, I do often end up with enemies-to-lovers situations, especially in this fantasy world where the stakes can just be so deliciously high.