Kaja Bucik Vavpetič alias Zoe Ashwood has built a loyal international fanbase writing fantasy romance in English. Having self-published more than 20 novels in English online, she has now had her first one come out in Slovenian in hardcopy.

Goodreads describes Zoe Ashwood as an author of "sexy paranormal romance for women who believe in magic and true love". Her stories feature mythical creatures like orcs, sea dragons and aliens. They invariably have a happy ending.

Before starting to write herself, Bucik Vavpetič translated fantasy and romance novels for several years, which she has always enjoyed reading herself, but did not use to have enough people to discuss them with.

So she started writing a blog. She discovered a book blogging community, learning that some of the bloggers wrote books themselves, so she started writing too.

She says her first novel was terribly bad and will never come out. A second one was better because she knew the genre well, and a third one, Trust the Wolf, would become her first published novel.

Writing without a stigma

She chose self-publishing because the practice has become very popular abroad. There, the genre did not have the stigma of second-rate literature like it has in Slovenia.

Later on she hired an editor, a professional cover designer, a proofreader and other key people you need when publishing a book, Bucik Vavpetič told the Slovenian Press Agency in an interview.

"Today, most of my income comes from e-book sales, and I am also registered in Amazon's Kindle Unlimited system, through which Amazon subscribers can borrow my books. Their monthly subscription fee is about $12 and they let you borrow an unlimited number of books."

She gets 70% of the purchase price of her e-book from Amazon. "So if the price of the e-book is €3.99, I get about €3. That option does not exist here. Amazon also gives us the option of print-on-demand, so they digitally print a copy of the book that goes straight to the readers."

Another advantage of working abroad is that the whole world can read in English, she says.

She writes romantasy, a genre that she says has been established in the Anglo-Saxon world for many years with Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire being one of the first such works. In recent years, the most successful American writers have been Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros.

"I met Rebecca myself at an author event in Edinburgh in September. She had the longest queue," says Bucik Vavpetič, who does not see other authors as competition and she likes to recommend good books written by fellow authors to her readers.

Fantasy literature is also popular in Slovenia with an increasing number of original titles but mainly translations of bestsellers supported by films and TV series.

Feminist heroines and cinnamon roll heroes

Zoe Ashwood's readers are mostly female, at least that's what she can tell from the reactions she gets on social media and from the emails she receives. But her Slovenian novel Srebrne Vezi (Silver Bonds) has also been read by men, initially her husband, father and brother, but others too.

"As Igor Harb wrote on the cover of the book, Srebrne Vezi has an incredible amount of action, but also just the right amount of kissing," she said about the Slovenian film critic, podcaster and book translator.

Kaja Bucik Vavpetič's first Slovenian novel. Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/STA

The novel is set in a local setting with forests, groves and the like, and features Slavic mythical creatures and imaginary Slovenian place names.

The heroine, Mila has a clear goal to save her brother, but she also learns a lot about herself in the process. "My story has three-level structure, one is Mila's personal development and learning about the world, a second one is a love story and the third one is the arc - let's save the world."

Bucik Vavpetič says she is a feminist, and believes it is important that the heroines in her stories have a will of their own. "In the past, heroines in romance novels in particular have been rather passive and only worried about what men will think of them."

She says fantasy literature can be socially critical, meaningful and deal with important issues. "It is like an escape from the world, but it is also a good opportunity to explore important social issues such as racism, feminism or important historical events within a fictional world. In a fantasy world, authors can play with what it might have been like if history had unfolded differently."

She is planning to translate and release Srebrne Vezi in English. However, she is not sure whether it would pay for her to translate her English books into her mother tongue, not least because there is no publicly accessible platform to sell e-books not linked to publishers.