The Story Behind His Banana by Penelope Bloom

By Penelope Bloom

The cover for my newest release is one you need to see to believe. It’s probably not too hard to imagine that this cover started out as a joke. Last September, I made it to get a laugh from some of my author friends. I don’t remember what the thought process was, or why I thought it was a valuable use of my time, but I showed it around when I was done. I remember looking at the finished product once I posted it in my chat group and was waiting to hear what people thought. I was secretly curious if people would say the same thing I was thinking. “That might actually work.” It would be a huge risk to launch a book with a banana on the cover, obviously, but it just felt like a risk I could imagine really working out.

I was pretty pleased when most of my friends echoed my thoughts. The general reaction was to kind of laugh, then to gradually come to the idea that they wouldn’t be surprised if something like that worked. I was told “you have to do it”, which I laughed off at the time and kept saying, “sure, someday.”

It never felt like the right time to take a huge risk. I was either following a book that was well-received and trying my hardest to deliver a worthy follow-up, or I was following a book that didn’t do well and really aiming to hit it out of the park with the next one.

In the end, I decided to do it at probably the most vulnerable and risky point in my career I could’ve imagined. I was just coming off a few books that struggled and starting to wonder if the whole romance world was really something I could keep making a career in. My confidence was at an all-time low and so was my hope. I made a post on my Facebook page explaining how I was going to be taking a break for a few months to kind of re-evaluate and decide if I needed to pursue other projects. There had been a lot of negativity surrounding the indie author world, and I’ll readily admit that it had gotten to me.

There was a huge outpouring of support and positivity from more loyal readers than I ever could’ve imagined I had. People were so genuine and encouraging that I couldn’t help but be inspired by it. Within a few hours of making the post, it felt like I’d been completely turned around. I was excited to write something, and I wanted to do something fun and amazing to say thank you to everyone for pulling me out of such a dark place.

So without giving myself time to doubt it, I dove into writing “His Banana”, the book behind the cover that had almost reached meme status in my writing group. I’d always said if I ever tried to write it, I’d need to think of a book worthy of that cover. You can’t just slap such a crazy cover on any old book, and to be honest, I was intimidated by that idea for a long time.

It felt like the right time though, so I did it. I let loose with more humor and had way more fun with the book that I think I ever have in the past, and somehow, someway, it worked. At the time of my writing this, His Banana is currently rank 16 overall in the Amazon paid store, making it the top-ranked romance for the moment. Just a week ago, I would’ve never imagined something like this, and I really only can thank all the people who were there to encourage me when I was at my lowest. As a side note, I think it’s hilarious and awesome that the romance community has a good enough sense of humor to make a book with a banana on the cover a best seller. You’re all seriously amazing, and I’m so thankful I get to keep writing books for this community.

Penelope Bloom is the author of the new book His Banana. 

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