Why I Started Theo Reads For Romance and Spicy Stories

Why I Started Theo Reads For Readers and Writers of Romance and Spicy Stories

I was 12 when I stumbled across my first Penny Jordan romance novel. I remember smuggling the book out of my (much) older cousin’s room, staying up all night to finish it, and sneaking it back on her bookshelf the next morning. After that, I read anything in the genre I could get my hands on, including more explicit stories. These books helped me explore my budding teenage fantasies and destress during exams. In a traditional environment where S E X was that “eww omg gross” thing, I learned about female pleasure and how consent is sexy. Since then, I have continued to read the filthiest smut I can find, a passion that has only blossomed over the years.

So, why Theo Reads? 

First, let me tell you a little about my professional career: I’ve led marketing teams for over 20 years at marquee companies like American Express, Martha Stewart, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Gartner. Over the years, I’ve advised more than 15 startups on growth strategies. A lot has changed in the past two decades: the rise and fall of Facebook, SpaceX’s reusable rocket, Venmo, self-driving cars, smartphones, Alexa and Siri, and smart homes. 

Guess what hasn’t changed? We’re still reading romance on crappy platforms circa 1998 and 2006 that allow us to search by trope, but not kink, with no content warning (like sexual abuse) and give life to the public narrative of this genre as trashy and “not literature,” catering primarily to “bored housewives.” (do homemakers really have time to be bored?). 

In a genre where more than 72% of authors are self-published, these outdated platforms offer almost no tools to support authors. They actively shame romance writers by banning or shadow-banning them and making it nearly impossible to find their stories. 

Enter Theo, which stands for “The O” as an homage to this beloved genre that caters to what both readers and authors want most. 

On Theo, readers can discover well-written short stories, novellas and full-length books penned by some of the greatest romance writers of our generation, searchable by spice level, sub-genre or kink, trope, or content warning. In a post-Fifty Shades of Grey era where readers often feel bashful about admitting their preferences for explicit literature, Theo's classy and non-cringeworthy interface promotes public ownership of reading tastes. Theo fulfills readers' desires by providing well-written and easily accessible stories by their favorite authors, and more effectively meets the needs of those seeking captivating and explicit content.

On our site, authors can find a home that gives them the tools they need to create amazing (and amazingly romantic and sexy) stories, from Grammarly-style editing to help rewriting small sections of a story. Authors get no-cringe book covers that run the gamut of styles from illustrative to photorealistic or abstract…although we do still love a good clinch or vintage Fabio book cover. 

You know what’s truly mindboggling, though? We’re still using data from 2009 and 2013 on reader demographics. Platforms haven’t invested in gathering basic insights into what today’s readers want. I mean, we don’t launch publicly until Q4, 2024, but we already know more about who the romance reader is, what she/he/they are looking for, and are developing insights specifically for LGBTQ+ readers and story characters (coming soon). We’ve done more in a few short months than the entire industry has done in more than two decades, and we’re just getting started.

Theo is the new platform that matches discerning readers of romance with stories written by some of the greatest writers of our generation. Romance and spicy stories can also be good literature. They can both fire up our frontal cortex and titillate at the same time, and we’re here for it.

I hope you’ll join us.

Interested in learning more? Write to me at [email protected] and follow @GetTheoReads on Instagram and TikTok.