The romance community is often stigmatized, and with the RT Booklovers Convention in Las Vegas last week, we took the opportunity to launch the #ireadromance social media campaign, which highlights all of the wonderful reasons why people read romance. A Twitter follower of ours may have said it best: ​

The conference is organized by RT Book Reviews and this year more than 2,500 attendees—composed of readers, bloggers, librarians, booksellers, and published/aspiring romance, YA, and fiction authors—gathered at the Rio All-Suite Las Vegas Hotel & Casino to celebrate all things romance!

We armed our authors with dry-erase boards and #ireadromance buttons and asked them to connect with readers and fellow authors. We wanted them to ask attendees to share just one of the reasons why they love reading romance. What we received was a wonderful mix of powerful pictures that showcase all of the diverse reasons why people love to read romance novels.

​Enjoy these photos, check out more on Twitter @SourcebooksCasa, and tell us why you read romance on social media by using the hashtag #ireadromance. 

Heather McManamy, a Wisconsin mom diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, wrote the book for her young daughter as an extension of the dozens of greeting cards she had written for all of the future milestones and moments she would miss. Heather died on December 15, 2015 just one day after she turned in the manuscript. Heather’s story resonated with many people. When her husband, Jeff, posted this on her Facebook page in December 2015, over 100,000 people reacted to it, sharing their own love, tears, and support.

​Jeff and their daughter, Brianna, signed copies of the book for everyone who came out to remember Heather with laughs, tears, and hugs.

“I have been asked a lot this week what this book means to me and should mean to others. I finally realized today exactly what this book is. It's a guide that Heather left us. A guide to teach us how to live more, laugh harder and love without boundaries, even when faced with the harshest realities. I don't post about Cards for Brianna to sell more books, I post about it in hopes that it touches more lives and maybe even changes a couple along the way.”

​NBC15-TV, WISC-TV and WKOW-TV all covered the event, as everyone who attended enjoyed a giant cake with lots of purple frosting—Brianna’s favorite!

Heather’s coauthor, William Croyle, attended the signing and said of his experience in working with Heather in the last week of her life:

“I think Heather initially saw Cards for Brianna as simply something fun to do, but the more we got into it, the more she was able to understand what an awesome impact it could have on the world. Everything glorious about her—the love, energy, compassion, honesty, resiliency, humor, humbleness—shines through this book.”

Heather shared her enthusiasm about the book on Facebook in December. ”Seriously, thank you to everyone who convinced me that this was one of those YOLO! opportunities I simply had to go for. The timing couldn’t have been crazier, but talk about an amazing alignment of the stars to have something so positive and fun to focus on.”

​A portion of the proceeds from print book sales of Cards for Brianna in the first month of publication will benefit METAvivor, a non-profit, volunteer-run organization that funds research for metastatic cancer.

The idea is to give aspiring authors another way to connect with us, beyond the traditional submissions process. Now, a writer can just add the tag submit2sourcebooks to their story on Wattpad and our editors will take a look. It lets writers circumvent the usual process of query letters, and also lets us see how readers are responding to and interacting with the story. We get a sneak peek at how readers will respond to a story, which is really useful data.

​And now we are excited to share that we’ve acquired our first romance project through Wattpad! It’s a light paranormal romance series titled the Undead Dating Service, by Juliet Lyons (julietlyons). It’s described as “Bridget Jones’s Diary…with vampires, a fresh concept, a touch of suspense, and a whole lot of snark.” We can’t wait to bring it to readers! 

​This is just one of the many projects we hope to acquire through the ongoing partnership. The Undead Dating Service series will begin releasing in spring 2017. Head over to Wattpad and search submit2sourcebooks to check out some other fantastic submissions! We can’t wait to hear what you think!