Authorship and Social Media: A Case Study on Nora Roberts and JD Robb

Sam Meyer

Graduate Student, University of Arizona

LIS 517 – Introduction to Digital Cultures

Prof. Laura Lenhart

May 8, 2022
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Culture in the United States is changing rapidly in our digital world. That is no more

apparent in the life cycle of books – from composing with pen and paper and a typewriter to

writing with a cell phone. With her long history of authorship, Nora Roberts has experienced all

of it. Beyond the author, however, digital culture affects the manufacture, distribution,

marketing, and the experience by the final consumer: the fan. This paper will explore how

social media affects the relationship between author and fan through a case study of Nora

Roberts.

JD Robb / Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts is a US-based bestselling novelist. Wikipedia ranks her as the 19 th best-

selling fiction author (List of best-selling fiction authors). She has sold more than five million

copies of over 220 novels. Her first novel, Irish Thoroughbred, was written in 1979 and

published in 1981. Mills & Boon and Silhouette Romance mainly published her early books

(Flood), while more recent works have been issued with St. Martin's Press (Goodreads, Search).

Her bio referenced that "recently, the New Yorker called her 'America's favorite novelist' ”

(Roberts, Nora’s Bio). In 1994, her publisher advised her to “get a hobby.” This inspired her to

take the pen name JD Robb and began a futuristic, true-crime, speculative fiction series that

now numbers over 50 novels (Sagel). There is little scholarly research done on the works of

Nora Roberts, despite her popularity. While fellow bestselling fiction authors such as J.K.

Rowlings or Stephen King are regularly found in the academic literature, Nora Roberts has had

few literary studies made of her works. No monograph examining her complete bibliography is

available. Researcher Michelle Goris believes that this is common in contemporary Romance
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authors, but Roberts’ best-selling nature makes the lack of this study particularly remarkable

(Goris, p. 5). However, that lack has little impact on her publishing sales or large fan base. Due

to her popularity, she has established a non-profit foundation to promote various charities,

emphasizing literacy, the arts, and children. The foundation has been involved in several

libraries and supports international humanitarian work (Nora Roberts Foundation).

While this paper aims chiefly to explore the relationship between Roberts and her fans

through social media, it is important to understand her style of writing and the two names

under which she publishes. Roberts’ early books were category romances, and later Roberts

novels became known for thrillers with a strong element of mystery and family-- relationships

of all kinds. Robert’s books feature detailed and complicated plots. In the last 40 years, there

has been a significant change in the culture of the U.S., along with our relationship with

technology and digital culture. One example of Robert’s trendsetting was when she left the

Romance Writers of America guild in 2005. As mentioned in the Guardian: “Roberts criticised

the organisation over its homophobia in 2005, after it published a statement “defining romance

as one man/one woman” — “Jesus, it’s fine to have a character fall in love with a freaking

vampire, but not someone of the same sex? Bullshit. Just bullshit,” she wrote on her blog”

(Flood). This is only one way Roberts has been a leader in the Romance genre.

In 1995, the first “In Death” novel came out under the pseudonym JD Robb. The In

Death novels are significantly different from most Roberts books. In Nora Roberts Land, the

typical tropes are explored by author Ava Mills: small town romance featuring predominantly

white, middle-class, heteronormative characters with challenges that are ‘not too dark for light

reading’ and always feature a Happy-Ever-After (Goodreads, Nora Robert’s Land). However, the
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first In Death novel, Naked In Death, starts with the brutal sexual murder of a prostitute, a

tortured homicide detective named Eve Dallas, and a reformed (or not-so reformed) criminal

billionaire, Roarke, from the slums of Dublin. Characters are diverse, and society in futuristic

New York is radically different from most of Roberts' books' peaceful small towns and rural

settings (Robb, 1995). The JD Robb pseudonym has a thriving fan club run through a podcast

and a fandom wiki with encyclopedia entries for over a thousand characters .

Figure 1: An image of part of the JD Robb book collection with cover art. Source: JD Robb In Death
Series, Pinterest.

In a case study of her fan communities, I hope to show how this author’s two identities

compare with each other and relate that to the larger digital community of fiction literature
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fans. While not analyzing in-depth the actions of the fan interaction through social media, I

hope that a wide-angle analysis might generate trends that can show how digital authors

interact with fans through social media. Through this exploration, and with research into

current works on fan communities and digital culture, I hope to understand how the

relationship between fans and an author has changed due to digital culture.

Fan Communities and the A.R. fan

For clarification purposes, it is best to start with some definitions. The Oxford English

Dictionary defines a fan as, “a person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular

person or thing,” from an abbreviation of the word fanatic (Oxford Languages.) The aca-fan is a

term to designate scholars or researchers who are also a fan. Cristofari & Guitton put forth a

credible argument into the ethical and practical concerns that face aca-fan and the

communities that they study. Understanding that popular media does not have a neutral

attitude towards fans (see textbox), there is a complicated position of establishing a balanced

representation and avoiding cultural appropriation of the fan spaces. This is one reason why

this paper will stick to a surface view; another is that a proper in-depth study requires an IRB

and a review board to ensure that no unintentional ethical violations occur (Cristofari &

Guitton; Nielsen). Henry Jenkins was one of the first self-identified aca-fans. In Textual

Poachers, he wrote: “I have found approaching popular culture as a fan gives me new insights

into the media by releasing me from the narrowly circumscribed categories and assumptions of

academic criticism and allowing me to play with textual materials” (Jenkins, 2013, p. 5).
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“It’s why the viewers clung to the screen—for the

gloss and dirt. She could be fearless in exposing
icons. It’s not surprising someone violently objected.
Icons have fans, after all, and the word fan is short
for fanatic.” Robb, Secrets in Death, p.126.

Fans gather in digital spaces together to form communities. These groups may be

known as fandoms or media communities. Still, the best term is fan communities because it

emphasizes “the multiplicity and diversity of these groups while calling attention to their

internal frameworks and mores” (Niesen, p.234). Fans use “networked technologies not only to

engage with each other, but also to influence the artistic, legal, and political conversations

around the media or individuals they are fans of,” (Sauro, p. 132). Fan communities are diverse

spaces, and one specific type of place is that of fan fiction writers. Fanfic, fanfiction, fic, or Fan

fiction is authored by fans in a world and characters that they did not create and has been

extensively studied. However, it is only one type of digital community. Using authors Nora

Roberts and JD Robb, we can see many diverse digital meeting places.

Nora Roberts JD Robb

Twitter @NoraRoberts 20 Following, n/a
2,884 followers. Joined 2009/ 0
Tweets.
Facebook 635K followers 160K followers
Instagram 64.5K followers / 639 posts 27.6K followers/ 602 posts
Goodreads Nora Roberts Groupies / 1975 J.D. Robb/1462 members
members
Pinterest 6.1k followers merged character board
Blog The blog is run by the publicist team, with additions from Roberts.
The “blog is meant for longer discussions and better connections”
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merged for both authors (Fall into the Story).

Archive of Our Own Because the works are indexed by series or title, it is difficult to
determine the exact size of this fandom.
YouTube Numerous interviews and other media representations. Also, fan
sites through YouTube. See example references below.

Figure 2: Social Media Community Comparison between Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb. References for the
information in this chart are located in the references section and highlighted in pink.

Figure 2 is a brief overview of the different types of places that fans of JD Robb and Nora

Roberts gather. Some interesting conclusions can be drawn from this information. The first is

that some of these groups are run by fans (Twitter, Goodreads), and others are under the

umbrella of Nora Robert’s publicist, Laura (Facebook, Instagram). The only location where the

author herself contributes occasionally is her blog, which does not allow for much back and

forth interaction between fan and author. However, as a writer, this may be a space where the

author feels comfortable sharing personal experiences with her fan base. The Fall into the Story

official Blog contains information about new releases, pronunciation guides, travelogues

(stories about Robert’s vacations written by Nora and starring her in-real-life family), and

similar items for fans (Roberts, 5/4/22).

Overall, there is not much difference between the social media accounts of the two

authors. For the most part, Nora Roberts social media sites feature slightly more information,

likes, or followers than JD Robb. There are some key differences due to the difference in the

works between the two authors. The JD Robb In Death Fandom Wiki is appropriate due to the

amount of information generated in a 50-novel plus length series. And the presence on IMBd is
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unique to Nora Roberts – and the 12 movie adaptations of her books (In Death Wiki Fandom;

IMBd).

While there is a Nora Roberts Twitter account, there has not been a single post made

using that name despite thousands of hopeful followers. But, there is a very active German-

language and two Spanish-language groups on Twitter. It is essential to understand the

international nature of digital fan communities when a subject can reach beyond the original

location and intended audience (Fan, [@jdrobbfan], Fans, [@NorarobJDROBB], Roberts

[@NoraRLatinas], Roberts [@NoraRoberts]).

Fan-run communities are located on Goodreads, the PodcastinDeath website, and the

JD Robb Wiki. Goodreads has three Nora Roberts book clubs, with the largest having over two

thousand members. By contrast, JD Robb has two book clubs, the largest with 1.5 thousand

members. The Podcast In Death fan group is active, engaged, and a good source for fan

merchandise. In its ninety-first episode, episodes are available free for download or through

several subscription services like Audible, Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or Podbean.

(Podcast in Death). There are several YouTube collections online, and there are several author

interviews, such as one done by Australian Hatchette Books. On the other hand, some fans also

post videos about their journey with Roberts, such as Bookslikewhoa’s: “I’m going to read every

Nora Roberts book ever written.” Also on YouTube, you can find fan representations of JD Robb

characters, taken from T.V. and film and spliced together in an interesting mix.

Chapter Two of Textual Poachers details why fan program guides are so intricate and are

usually preferred to those published by professionals (Jenkins, 2013, p.69-70). This is readily
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apparent in the JD Robb wiki run on the Fandom Platform. This genuinely collaborative

encyclopedia contains over 1900 pages and 4000 edits. It showcases details about characters,

the books, and plotlines. However, the communal spaces, such as the discussion boards, are

not updated. This site is primarily focused on maintaining a current encyclopedic database of

information (In-Death Wiki Fandom).

One final community that I would like to expand on because it ties into a discussion on

marketing and publishing: Pinterest. Pinterest is described as a “visual discovery engine for

finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more” (Pinterest). While there is a

combined Pinterest page for Nora Roberts and JD Robb, other profiles also feature the author,

including Love Conquers All Press (75 thousand followers), Harlequin Books (18.7 thousand

followers), www.la-biblioteca.com (6.2 thousand followers), and Kidaoo Book Summaries (2.6

thousand followers.). We can see that a fan base becomes a commercial force through

Pinterest.

Marketing and Publishing

The digital nature of U.S. culture can also be seen in how today’s books are published,

marketed, and sold. This also affects fans and fan communities and their relationship with

authors. Many of today’s authors use direct author-reader interactions to self-market their

“online brand,” affecting their literary reputation. One publisher stated: “We refer to our

authors’ social media communities as their assets: something they own and will always take

with them” (Murry, p.76). This contrasts with the idea of online communities and participatory

culture being composed of a social contract. Publishers are more focused on the “stickiness” of
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their product, and fans are more interested in content's “spreadable” nature. Spreadability

embraces the activities of an audience to generate interest, become actively engaged, and

invites fans to shape the context and shape of media as they share it within their social circles

(Jenkins, Ford & Green, p. 5-7). The utopian ideal of social media platforms as an alternative

space without commercial constraints has been subsumed by big authors and publishers (Dijck,

p.15). Murray voices the complaint:

“The concept of bookish community has become so saturated with commercialism in

online-born literary spheres, and existing real-world book communities have become so

co-opted by commercial concerns in their digital incarnations, that it seems timely to

rethink the very ontological opposition between community as based on emotional

rapport and common interest, and the idea of community as potential market” (p.62).

This is a contrast to the spreadable model and the gift-economy model of early social media fan

spaces. Neilson quotes researcher Hellekson from 2009: “Online media fandom is a gift culture

in the symbolic realm in which fan gift exchange is performed in complex, even exclusionary

symbolic ways that create a stable nexus of giving, receiving, and reciprocity that results in a

community occupied with theorizing its own genderedness” (Nelson, p.9). One way that

Roberts, among others, uses the spreadable model in marketing is in the book trailer, a video

“commercial,” for a new book that is easily spreadable through social media platforms (Murry,

p.62).

Following the downfall of most independent booksellers in the U.S. due to the growth of

bookselling-Amazon.com, the book giant has a huge influence on what books are sold and how.
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Algorithmic culture ranks what is currently popular, encouraging more sales of what is already

selling well. It leads to an effect of self-reinforcement: polarizing the market into big books at

one end and small independents and new writers at the other end (Murry, p.55). This changes

how fans discover, purchase, and communicate about book. An example is the Goodreads site.

Amazon purchased it and now works in concert to promote and sell books with the retailer in

addition to its books clubs and reference information on titles and authors.

Fan and Author interaction

McLeod cuts through to the heart of the issue of how fans and authors interact with

each other. Prior to the digital era, the Aristotlean rhetorical triangle represented this

relationship. The author, the text, and the reader are at the three distinct points of a triangle

that keeps both the reader and author independent of the media. However, with digital

interaction, the Aristotlean model is no longer sufficient.

Figure 3: “Traditional fan-text-author interactions as the rhetorical triangle model actually describes
them, absent non-textual interaction between audience and author.” Source: McLeod & Holland, p. 9
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Figure 3 shows how ideas can travel between the audience and the author. The text acts

as a go-between in connecting user-generated content and an author’s published works. This

continuum also allows space for ideas to travel back and forth through the text. Social media is

the liminal space where audience text and creator text intersect, an interstitial space that

benefits both author and fan (McLeod & Holland, 7-10).

Fulop provides three ways that authors can engage (or not) with social media: to use,

abuse, or refuse social media. She describes three case studies to demonstrate how three

French authors use social media. The first example is Francois Bon, who uses several of the

same social media platforms that Roberts uses. The social media user sees it “as a tool of

empowerment when used smartly for circulating information, making connections and building

a community that can stand on its own feet outside the outdated and, for the digital author,

largely unhelpful literary establishment” (Fulop, p.126). The second action is to refuse to use

social media, and a case study of Neil Jomunsi illustrates an author who used social media,

closed his accounts, and then reluctantly returned. The loss of social media means the loss of a

‘key strategic tool’ in marketing and sharing one’s work. The third demonstration is abuse:

creating fictional profiles that follow and frequently post in favor of an author’s work. This is

similar to the paid professional product reviewer who can boost a book's sales on Amazon

without ever seeing the actual product. (Fulop; Murry).

Nora Roberts takes a fourth stance: hiring a team and using volunteer forum

moderators to maintain a solid social media presence. Rettberg summarizes the dilemma faced

by authors today in regards to social media:

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“But we can’t not play technology today, at least not as a society. Individuals can extract

themselves, refuse to be on Facebook … but ultimately if we refuse to participate in

technology and social media we can’t participate in contemporary public debate,

democracy, employment, commerce etc. An absolute digital detox is all but impossible

today. We need to build alternatives. Bruce Sterling describes us as not living in digital

capitalism … but in digital feudalism, where we live in spaces owned by our feudal lords

(Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc) and are both completely dependent on them and

actually feel fealty to them. I think Sterling is right in that these technologies have

become part of the air we breathe.” (Rettberg)

Conclusion

The use of a publicity team allows Nora Roberts and JD Robb a middle road to use social

media spaces to communicate with fans. The fans have forums and space to discuss the

intricacies of the plot, grow new stories and adventures from the existing cannon, and make the

JD Robb world more accessible to new fans through the encyclopedic Wiki. While separate from

the fan-run areas, information and publicity on new works can be disseminated through social

media with the use of Nora Roberts’ publicist, or her publishers, who also make use of social

media avenues. The international appeal of Robert’s work has seen social media travel to

German- and Spanish-speaking communities and countries other than the U.S. in postings from

Australia and the European Union. The use of a professional publicist allows Roberts to focus on

writing new works, which should please fans while still acknowledging and encouraging a free

flow of information between the two groups. It is also possible that the growth of Amazon.com
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and other algorithmic ranking systems has allowed Roberts’ popularity to maintain a strong

presence in the digital marketplace.

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