Join us as we welcome author Donna Robinson, wife of Dr. Richard Robinson, as she delves into her journey of faith-inspired writing. Discover how Donna transitioned from supporting roles at Northside Baptist Church to becoming a prolific author of contemporary Christian romance novels. She shares insights on how the genre touches lives, emphasizing stories of love, faith, and the unexpected paths God sets before us.
Well, hello, it’s Mike Tring with Crawford Media Group, KLTT. Today we’re joined by Donna Robinson. Donna is the wife, and she is an author, but wife of Dr. Richard Robinson, heard on Holy Ground on 670 KLTT throughout the weekend, especially on Sundays, both morning and afternoon at 5 p.m. Donna, thanks for taking the time with us.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER 02 :
I appreciate it. So good to have you. We want to talk about your authoring, your books, and what God’s worked through you to do with your books. So tell us a little bit about yourself, please.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, well, you said my husband is Richard Robinson, and he has a radio program here. He’s also the senior pastor at Northside Baptist Church in North Glen, Colorado. And I should mention that we have four grown children and 15 grandchildren here. And as a pastor’s wife, I help him in visiting people and typing up the bulletin each week. I’m also involved in the music program, and I play the piano for the church services and for the choir. And then in 2009, my first book was published, and I wrote several more books. But then several years ago, our church daycare needed a director, and I was kind of volunteered for the job. So writing books was set aside. But now our daycare has closed, and I’m back to writing and publishing again.
SPEAKER 02 :
So what kinds and types of books do you write?
SPEAKER 01 :
I write contemporary Christian romance, telling a story of how two people meet each other and fall in love. These are Christian or inspirational books, so they are called clean or wholesome romances. And I try to bring in the characters’ faith in God without being preachy. So, for example, in my book, No One But You, Cheyenne is slated to inherit $4 million from her grandmother, but only if she’s married and has a child by the time she’s 30. But at the beginning of the story, she has no one to marry, and she’s 21 years old, so time is running out. She has to wait and trust God to find a man for her, and she also has to be willing to give up that money if that is God’s will. Of course, that story has a happy ending, but I want my readers to think about the problems in their lives and apply what Cheyenne learned to their situations.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s a wonderful way of framing it so that people get to see God coming through in somebody’s life and their reliance on him for solutions. So tell us, how did you start writing fiction books? And I say that as someone who could not write a book. Okay.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, many years ago, my husband had a friend who was writing a book, and that got me interested in writing. So I looked into it and started reading books on how to write a novel. Well, these authors suggested back then, this was in the 1980s and 90s, that the best way to get published was to write articles for magazines. So I spent several months sending out 21 query letters to different magazines, and I got rejected 21 times. But then I sent a fiction story to a Sunday school paper, and it was accepted. And I was actually paid $55. So it seemed like the Lord wanted me to write fiction, and I started looking into writing novels. I really enjoy writing fiction, and I came to the point where I realized that writing wasn’t just a passing fad for me. It was a calling from the Lord. He gave me the desire to write, and then he helped me to learn the details in writing a book. In fact, my writing verse is 2 Timothy 1.9, which says that God has saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. So I believe the Lord has a purpose in calling me to write Christian fiction.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you mentioned that you started reading books on how to write novels. Give us a little sense of what that was like.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, well, a lot of people think that writing a novel is easy and anyone can do it. But if you want to write a good novel or an excellent novel, you need to study the art of novel writing. Hundreds of books have been written on how to write an excellent novel. and there are rules that have to be followed. My daughter and I spent about 10 years attending a critique group, and this was a group of women who were all interested in writing books. So we met once a week, and we would read each other’s chapters, our work in progress, and comment on it. So like one person might say, your dialogue sounds really stilted here. Or someone else might comment, there’s no description of this man. What does he look like? Things like that. So through the years, we all learned how to improve our writing and eventually to write a good story. Then we would send our manuscripts out to publishers since we were still back in that era.
SPEAKER 02 :
So how did you get published? That seems hard.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, I did get published. In 2007, a manuscript I wrote for The Love of Books was accepted by Barbour Publishing. They had a book club where they sold four books each month to customers who signed up. So with four books each month, they needed a lot of writers. I thought I would be writing for them for years. And I had three books published, but then in 2011, they decided to close the book club. So there went my publisher. I tried to get into other publishing companies, but just got rejected. Then I heard that an author could self-publish through Amazon. So I looked into it, and I started self-publishing books in 2014. Now I have three series of books out, and I was able to get the rights back from Barbara for my first three books, and those are called the Tumbleweed Wedding Series. These books are about three siblings who live in Wyoming… and how they each find their true love. In fact, I’m going to stop here and I’m going to, excuse me, give you one of my books. This is called For the Love of Books, and it’s about a young girl who falls in love with kind of a stranger to their small town, and she’s not really sure if she should go with him or not. So it’s… She lives in Wyoming, and it’s kind of interesting that we live close to Wyoming. So anyway, I hope you enjoy it, or maybe your wife will. Thank you so much. You’re welcome. And another series is called The Naughty Pine Chronicles that I wrote. And these books are set in a small town in Pennsylvania. So far, I only have two books in this series, but I have plans to write two more books eventually. And the third series I have is called The Hearts of Bluestone Ridge. And this is the series I’m working on right now. These books are set in a small fictional town in Illinois called Bluestone Ridge. I have only one book published in this series, but I’m about to publish the second book, hopefully, this month. And I have plans for at least three more books after that in the series. So these books are all contemporary Christian romance, but I also have one stand-alone historical fiction book called The God of All Tomorrows, which is about a missionary in Peru in 1934.
SPEAKER 02 :
You’re becoming a prolific author. And the book publishing world, has that changed, have you found?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes. Thanks to Amazon, anyone can publish a book.
SPEAKER 02 :
So with these changes, how do you work with it? What’s your future look like, I guess?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, in publishing, the market has really changed in the last few years. You used to have to go through book agents, or you could send the first three chapters of your manuscript with a synopsis directly to a publishing company. And then you would have to wait, sometimes for months. Publishers had so many book queries, and they rejected most of them. In fact, it became a running joke among writers that you could wallpaper your bathroom with rejection letters. So I wasn’t really surprised when I couldn’t get another publisher. But then Amazon started their publishing program around 2010 or so, and authors immediately jumped on that. E-books especially became popular, and Amazon kept up with all the latest technology, making it easy to publish a book. And it’s free, although Amazon does take a small commission for each book that’s sold.
SPEAKER 02 :
So you publish on Amazon. How about people buying it? How do you make that happen?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, it’s not that easy. There are several disadvantages to publishing with Amazon. For one thing, unless you’re a famous person or a famous author, your book will probably get buried. Right now, Amazon publishes over a million books each year written by self-published authors. So it’s hard to get noticed. And also with a publisher, a writer just has to write the book and the publisher takes care of the rest. But with Amazon, the author has to hire his own editor and then format the manuscript himself. Many authors not only publish in paperback, but they also do e-books, audio books, and hardcovers. Then the author has to market his book to let people know it’s available.
SPEAKER 02 :
So when you write a book, how do people find those books on Amazon, and how do you get the word out?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the best way to find my books is to go to my website, which is DonnaRobinsonBooks.com. A reader can see all the books I have available to buy, as well as sign up for my newsletter. And if you sign up, I’ll send you four special recipes that were made by the characters in my books. Nice.
SPEAKER 02 :
Very nice.
SPEAKER 01 :
And by the way, my husband designed my website and all my book covers, and I think they’re beautiful. So you can take a look at DonnaRobinsonBooks.com.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m looking at one of them right now.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
And it looks great. Very professional. Well done. Well, Donna Robinson, it is DonnaRobinsonBooks.com. Donna has written how many books total now?
SPEAKER 01 :
Right now I have seven books that are published. Amazing. Hopefully. Well, it’s not that many, really. But hopefully I have some more. I am working on The Hearts of Bluestone Ridge. So hopefully in the next couple of years, I’ll have three or four more.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wonderful. As a non-author, that sounds like a lot to me. So God has you very busy. And a great way for people to plug in, again, DonnaRobinsonBooks.com. Those books are illustrated in the book covers, I guess the best way to put it. Book covers are by Dr. Richard Robinson, who is our longtime friend and partner here on 670 KLTT with Holy Ground. Well, Donna, such a joy to have you here. Thank you for making the drive from North Glen down to the radio station. And again, DonnaRobinsonBooks.com and seven books available right now. Thanks, Donna.
