This Month’s Featured Article

Internationally Best-Selling Romance Novelist TL Swan’s Career is a Lesson in Perseverance and Authenticity
TL Swan’s career as an independently published romance author began when she found a diary, sitting at the bottom of a moving box that she didn’t recognize, with a pen wedged in between the pages.
Fourteen years ago, Swan purchased a business with her husband and the two endured great financial hardship as a result. Having experienced the emotional turmoil that comes with near-bankruptcy, Swan needed solace and inspiration.
During this struggle, she discovered Rhonda Byrnes’ self-help book The Secret on The Oprah Winfrey Show. “It changed my life overnight,” remarks Swan. “I was like, ‘Okay, so I’m gonna be given signs from the universe; someone’s going to tell me what I’m supposed to be doing.’ And two weeks later, I was obsessed with this book.”
After reading the book each day for two weeks, watching the recording on YouTube, and buying the movie, she encountered her old diary. Swan had been cleaning out her garage, and obscured beneath an array of random stuffed animals, boots, and bags, she saw it. “I opened it up, and it contained all these stories I’d written when I was sixteen and seventeen years old. It reminded me that I had wanted to be an author before I was a wife and a mom and did all the things for everybody else,” Swan recalls.
It was then that she finally encountered her sign. She explains that after purchasing a 29-day free trial of Microsoft Word, and with Google as her teacher, she wrote chapter one. She has never looked back.
Soaring in popularity overnight
Reflecting on those early years, Swan says that despite the newfound clarity of knowing what she wanted to do and taking action, this fact did not immediately translate into career success. “I sold no books for four years,” she says. “And I wrote in secret – I didn’t tell anybody. If I sold one book a week, it was a big deal.”

Three books from TL Swan’s “The Miles High Club” series.
In truth, the initial reception of her books was not always positive, either. “My mom used to buy them. My mom’s friends used to buy them. I used to get slammed on reviews. My books were too big. My books were too intricate. People wanted an easy read. And I kind of just ignored the criticism. I thought, ‘You know what? This is my midlife crisis. I’m writing for me. I don’t care what anyone else says,’” she states.
Indeed, TL Swan has always written for herself first and foremost, staying true to her own purpose even in the face of negative reviews suggesting that she should do otherwise. And with the trust that her readers will appreciate her authentic perspective, Swan has adopted an intentional mindset – a mindset that is to thank for her eventual success.
Swan had a story in her mind that she wanted to put to paper, and in doing so, she was resolved to write something fun, branching out into territory that was slightly different from the books she had already published. It turns out that her vision, which became her 2017 novel Dr. Stanton, was easier to actualize than one might think. “I sat down, and it literally poured out of me. I wrote a 150,000-word book in two and a half weeks,” describes Swan. “I didn’t even think.”
For the cover of the story, she took a chance, reaching out to a photographer from a French Vogue shoot she had stumbled upon. To her surprise, she easily got permission to use the image. Jokingly, Swan remembers, “I thought ‘It’s a sign!’ Being a weirdo – ‘It’s a sign: I got a cover from French Vogue! This is gonna be the book, right?’”
Without further ado, she uploaded the book and went to bed. In the morning, she was shocked by what she saw. “I woke up and it was number 29 in the store in the US, it hit number one in Australia, number one in Canada, and number one in the UK. It stayed in the top 30 for three months.”
In light of this remarkable success, Swan signed with Amazon’s romance publishing imprint, Montlake. She was the first Australian author to do so.
Letting the story unfold organically
Unfortunately, though, since Swan is also a psychologist, the moment she started to write, she knew she had to give up reading romance, switching out the genre for self-help books. Hyper-aware of how much the brain retains when reading, and out of an abundance of caution, she wanted to ensure that her words, stories, and worlds were all her own and not inadvertently pulled from others. “It’s a big sacrifice because reading romance is my first love,” acknowledges Swan.
While the book that skyrocketed her career overnight simply required that she sat down and let the words hit the page, it’s true that TL Swan now maintains an organized, yet fundamentally organic method to her storytelling. She shared that she draws inspiration from the fun of her youth, her own life, and the real-life past experiences of her friends, keeping her narratives not only well-planned, but genuine and capable of delivering emotions to the reader. “I don’t set a word count every day. I don’t put any expectations on myself. My books have to come to me. I can’t force something. If I force something, it turns out to be crap and I delete it anyway,” she notes.
Swan believes that readers can tell when a book is forced, which is why she says she “[goes] with the flow” even when she wishes she could be more formulaic and write thousands of perfect words in one sitting. What’s more is that she reworks and rewrites her novels multiple times over to ensure they reach a certain written standard.
However, although she does not limit herself by word counts or schedules, Swan certainly plans her stories, but in a way that gives them the room to develop and evolve on their own. “I always set a mood, and I write three words,” she explains, “so that those three words will set the tone for the whole book.” Then comes the Pinterest vision board. “I will set the tone, including the yachts, the cars, the suits, the shoes, what she would wear, the house where she lives, and where he lives. I collate the whole vision, and I just sit with that for a while.”
The nuances of the process
This way, the essence of the story is established as a foundation for the plot to take hold. Swan points out that in plotting her narratives far in advance, she lets her characters and storylines form over time. She designates a book with plastic sleeves for each novel, keeping track of inspiration as it strikes and allowing for details to build gradually. “Every time I think of something, I’ll write it on a note, and I’ll put it in the plastic sleeves. By the time I get to write that book, I’ve already had it in the back of my mind for twelve months. It’s been percolating, so I know what’s gonna happen. The story’s been plotted, and I just let it sit,” Swan describes.
When it’s time for her to write, the book essentially unravels itself. “I’ll go in and write chapter one, and it will just all be there. It’s all in my head,” she marvels. “It’s like a movie that I download.”
Swan recognizes the luxury of taking the time she needs with her books, and she’s thankful that she can table a storyline that isn’t sitting right for a few weeks until it comes back to her. “That’s the biggest joy about being more successful, or later in my career as I am now – I don’t feel the pressure that I did before, to hit the deadlines to try and make the money to pay off my credit card.”
With this organic approach, Swan leaves room for those characters and fictional situations that seem to escape her authority, too. “My best books are the ones that I just can’t control,” she reflects. Referring to the book she’s currently writing, Mr. Prescott, she illustrates the moments of surprise she continues to encounter when stories take unpredictable routes. “I’m like, ‘What is happening right now?! That is not supposed to happen!’”
Knowing whether or not a story will become a series has much the same effect. Swan explains that by chapter five, it may dawn on her that a story intended to be just a short, one-off book has enough content for three, or if she’s in the middle of writing, sometimes a character will stand out on the page and deserve their own book that wasn’t planned before.
Stories over tropes
Fortunately for Swan, letting her characters act out in unexpected ways works well in tandem with her preference for keeping tropes under wraps. “How is there any excitement in reading a book when you know every trope? My brain doesn’t work like that,” Swan clarifies. “I’m story-based, I’m not trope-based.”
With this emphasis on the story, she seeks to secure the shocking moments that make reading so special, rather than giving them away before readers get the chance to experience them. “To me, it’s about the story. It’s about surprising and giving the readers that *gasp* moment, and if they know the tropes, they’re never gonna get it.” Swan adds that this, too, has an impact on the sorts of ratings authors are receiving, as readers build an expectation in their minds of a given trope and have the potential to give a lower rating than deserved if that expectation isn’t met.
Because she puts out more abstract information about the book before its release, Swan notes that her readers put a special faith in her as an author; Swan writes the type of romance she loves, featuring well-educated men over thirty and intelligent women, and she believes that her audience has found her, and continues to follow her, because of this authenticity.
She wants lifetime readers and has gained her audience through this effort to keep readers, rather than focus on the mass market. “The incredible thing with my readers is my purposely vague – very, very vague – blurbs. They never know what they’re getting. They don’t know the trope reveals,” she explains. “They just have to trust that if I love it, they’re gonna love it. And they do.”

TL Swan’s newest book The Bonus is set to release on August 13. Image courtesy of TL Swan.
Navigating feedback and remembering your purpose
When it comes to outside opinions, whether it be praise from fans or negative remarks in reviews, Swan keeps a very balanced attitude. Her view is directly linked to her purpose in writing the books, and what she provides readers with is all the more important because, as she observes, romance readers want to tap into the emotions of the character, fall in love, and feel – not just follow along with the plot. “The minute I start letting other people dictate what I write, my career is over. What is the point if I’m going to write for everyone else? People are trusting me to give them a story that they didn’t know they needed.”
It can be difficult putting yourself out there in an incredibly vulnerable position as a romance author and writing about such intimate subject matter as love. Swan emphasizes that if it were an easy task, everyone would be an author, but she is incredibly grateful for the warm embrace of the many readers who show their love and appreciation for her work. “The wind blows harder at the top of the hill. Many people wish they had the guts to write a book.”
At the core of it though, she underscores that the goal is to feel personal, not external, accomplishment. “You have to make the book so good, they can’t ignore you. It’s not about going viral. It’s about writing a book that you love so much that you’re so proud of yourself. That’s all that matters.”
Swan’s Cygnets
If it sounds like TL Swan gives insightful, encouraging authorial advice, it’s because she does – to over a thousand aspiring romance authors, who she calls her “cygnets” (the term for baby swans).
When Swan first began her writing journey, her biggest obstacle was the lack of information available. “You know what it’s like. When you start writing, everyone thinks that everybody else is competition and you can’t share the good things you do, because then they might steal your readers,” she comments. “And it’s just total BS, because there are enough readers for all of us. And you know, knowledge is a gift.”
In an effort to pay it forward and ensure that the power and benefits of her knowledge were shared to help other writers be successful, she started the Cygnets group during the pandemic lockdown, sitting in front of her camera wearing pajamas and with a cup of tea in hand, to teach people how to write a book.
Swan has sold over six million books, translated in eleven languages and available in duet-style audiobooks. She has a book group with 20,000 members and recently started a publishing company called Keeperton, which has a romantic fiction imprint, Arndell. She has reached levels of immense success thanks to her heartfelt storytelling and the vital support of her team. But beyond this, Swan has truly shared her gifts far and wide. Over 1,400 members of the Cygnets have seen their own personal successes, and more than 180 books have been published thanks to this community, including a number one and about 20 top 100s. “It’s the thing I’m most proud of out of writing,” Swan affirms.
I spoke with some of the Cygnets about what the group means to them, and their inspired, grateful responses all pointed to the priceless impact of Swan’s guidance – and not just her teaching, but her innate kindness and the cherished friendships fostered within the community’s safe and encouraging atmosphere. “She’s a beacon of the notion that the rising tide raises all ships,” remarks AK Landow. “How refreshing is it to have a woman supporting other women from the goodness of her heart?”
Swan’s transparency, too, has meant a lot to authors struggling to find their way in the industry. “Many successful people only share their victories,” Jade Dollston explains, “but Tee is open to sharing her losses, her regrets, and her disappointments, and that makes her so much more relatable to newer authors like me.”
“It’s very easy to fall into the imposter syndrome or think you’ll never gain any readers,” Carolina Jax adds, “but TL went through her process and told us it takes time. Years, even. And to never give up. Just keep pushing. Just keep writing.”
LA Ferro, too, emphasizes that her “journey would never have begun if it was not for TL’s selfless decision to share her trade secrets with the world and inspire writers with a dream in their hearts to put pen to paper.”
The Cygnets group is emblematic of Swan’s constant dedication to having faith in herself and her own stories, while disseminating her gifts with others and remaining true to those qualities that make her such a thoughtful and sincere person. Her journey to become the internationally best-selling romance novelist she is today elucidates how, by prioritizing authenticity, selflessness, and persistence throughout difficult times, anything is possible if you have a story to tell.
To learn more about TL Swan and her work – including her new release The Bonus, coming August 13 – you can visit tlswanauthor.com, or find her on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at @tlswanauthor.