She's Written 20+ Books You'll Never See Her Name On | Leani Lopez | Books, Banter, & Beyond

Author, ghostwriter, podcaster, and audio drama producer Leani Lopez joins Donna for a conversation about what happens when you refuse to pick just one creative lane.

Leani (spelled L-E-A-N-I) is a Puerto Rican author who left her full-time job in 2018 to write full-time — and has since ghostwritten more than twenty romance novels, released two books under her own name, produced two full-cast audio dramas, and built a podcast for writers. In this episode she pulls back the curtain on all of it: what a ghostwriter actually does, why she stopped checking whether her ghostwritten books hit bestseller lists, and how she wrote, directed, acted in, and edited a ten-episode fantasy audio drama from a microphone in her basement.

In this episode:

• The difference between an audio drama and an audiobook — full-cast scripts, sound effects, and music vs. a single narrator
• To Court Death and Battle Cry — her two audio dramas, and why season one of Battle Cry took nearly three years from script to release
• Casting 17 speaking roles, recording every actor one at a time, and hitting 10,000 listens in the first year
• What ghostwriting really looks like: lump-sum payment, no editing, no marketing, and handing the book off for good
• Why she stopped tracking her ghostwritten titles — and the time one showed up on her own Instagram feed and she didn't recognize the story
• Setting boundaries as a ghostwriter, vetting clients, and why she left a ghostwriting company
• Her own books: Slip of the Hand (mafia/crime thriller romance) and Lost in the Dark (dystopian romance novella)
• Phoenix's Call — her newly drafted 130K-word queer pirate romance, first in a planned five-book series
• Notebooks first, then Spotify playlists — including individual playlists for major characters
• Outlines as guidelines, not gospel, and the characters who walk out of the shadows uninvited
• Literary archetypes, and why the reluctant hero who rejects the call is her favorite to write
• The best writing advice she ever received: let each character's word choice tell the reader who's speaking
• Writing story through dialogue alone — and cutting a beloved line because it didn't work in the edit
• Her podcast I Got Nothing: A Podcast for Exhausted Writers, and why she now spotlights indie authors

FIND LEANI LOPEZ

🌐 Website: LeaniLopez.com 📚

FIND DONNA R. MADDEN

🌐 Website: donnarmadden.com 📺 YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCxwABIo9y8BWvn0BGtlftLQ 🎧 Listen to Books, Banter, & Beyond on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts 📖 Small town romance — interconnected standalones, including No One But You

⚠️ This podcast is rated 18+.

#BooksBanterAndBeyond #DonnaRMadden #BookPodcast #AuthorInterview #WritingPodcast #BookishPodcast #LeaniLopez #BattleCry #ToCourtDeath #PhoenixsCall #SlipOfTheHand #LostInTheDark #AudioDrama #AudioFiction #FictionPodcast #FullCastAudio #AudioDramaProducer #ScriptedPodcast #RadioDrama #Ghostwriter #Ghostwriting #WritingCraft #WritingAdvice #WritingProcess #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #CharacterDevelopment #LiteraryArchetypes #WritingDialogue #OutliningVsPantsing #Romance #RomanceBooks #RomanceAuthor #SpicyRomance #QueerFantasy #QueerRomance #LGBTQBooks #SapphicRomance #FantasyRomance #PirateRomance #DystopianRomance #MafiaRomance #IndieAuthor #IndiePublishing #SelfPublished #IndieBooks #AuthorLife BookTube #Bookstagram #BookLovers #ReadersOfYouTube #PuertoRicanAuthor #LatinaAuthor #QueerAuthor #OwnVoices