#62 B.K. Borison: Why She Started Writing Supernatural Romance

Morgann Book (0:05)

Welcome back to Off The Shelf. Today's guest has made everything from Christmas trees to meteorology to grim reapers feel endlessly romantic. She is the author behind the Lovelight series, First Time Caller and her newest release Grim Tidings, BK Borison. Welcome to Off The Shelf.

B.K. Borison (0:21)

Thank you so much for having me.

Morgann Book (0:22)

Thank you for coming in. Now, you just announced last week that there are three more books coming in this Grim Tidings world. What role do you think you would play in this fictional afterlife?

B.K. Borison (0:32)

Oh, gosh. I have gotten that question before and I think my gut says I would be Bloody Mary. I would hang out in, I would hang out, not in like a weird way, but like, no, actually probably in a weird way. I'd hang out in mirrors, because I think it's fun. You can just bop from people's mirrors.

Morgann Book (0:48)

That just gave me such a flashback to like elementary school. And I am such a scaredy cat.

B.K. Borison (0:53)

Me too, I couldn't do it, but like you had to do it at school.

Morgann Book (0:56)

You had to do it, you had to like, the cool kids would do it. And you'd be like, yeah, like I'm good to come along.

B.K. Borison (1:02)

No, I'd be scared for weeks.

Morgann Book (1:04)

I fully believed in it.

B.K. Borison (1:05)

I still believe in it, probably. Whenever I'm in the bathroom, I'm like looking in the mirror, like I can't turn the lights off and look in the mirror. She's there.

Morgann Book (1:12)

You never know. Now we'll come back to Grim Tidings. I wanna start at the beginning a little bit. You self-published Lovelight Farms, just to like see what would happen. When did you first begin to notice that something was happening here? People were picking up this book, a lot of people.

B.K. Borison (1:27)

It was bananas. I truly, when I published it, I was, like you said, I was like, we'll just see. And I think I had six pre-orders for that book.

And I didn't have an Instagram. I didn't have anything. I was just, I wrote the story because I wanted to write the story. And then pretty quickly, I think I published it in November. So I wasn't even publishing like with a big runway to the holiday season. I was just la-di-da and threw it up. But pretty quickly, I think the first week of December, a significant influencer picked it up. And then it was just Bananas from there.

Morgann Book (1:57)

Wow.

Now, I recently found out that had an original cover that you designed, the dark purple. You designed this after like a hiccup with your illustrator and like last minute chaotically, first of all. I think it's adorable.

B.K. Borison (2:11)

It's awful.

Morgann Book (2:12)

He has a beard.

B.K. Borison (2:13)

Why does he have a beard?

Morgann Book (2:14)

I know, but it kind of just like, it was just fun. In this moment, like what would you tell yourself in this moment? If you're like freaking out, you're like, oh my God, I have to design this cover now.

B.K. Borison (2:23)

I don't do it. Step away from, I was a girl with Canva and a dream. I think it was even before Canva. I was like, oh gosh, it was my illustrator bail last minute. Again, I had no idea what I was doing. So I didn't have illustrator relationships. I didn't have PR kits or artwork made. In my background at the time, I was working as a creative director.

I was like, I could do this. I could put a cover together. I think I bought assets off creative market. I was trying to get rid of the beard and I couldn't get rid of the beard. I was like, it's fine. It's fine. We'll just do it. But I'm so grateful we have new covers now, that's for sure.

Morgann Book (3:03)

Now, what does your relationship look like with illustrators now? What is the kind of communication? Do you have a vision or do you let them run with it for more of your recent books?

B.K. Borison (3:13)

I have too much of a vision. I think my publishers would say, because I have the creative background.

Morgann Book (3:18)

Yeah.

B.K. Borison (3:19)

So Miriam does the Heartstring series and Brittany does the Ghosted series. And I was very intentional for why I picked both of them, because Brittany does such great things with like magic and Miriam's so great with color. So it's a very collaborative process. And for that, I'm really lucky. Like, I know a lot of authors don't have a lot of thoughts, but I'm always like, here's a 15 page slide deck. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings. I usually have a vision of what I want it to look like. And I'm lucky that my publishers let me do that.