The Dark Romance Team is a community of readers, PAs, and authors of dark romance and taboo genres that was started mid-July 2024. The team’s admins love reading and reviewing as ALPHA/BETA/ARC readers as well as love volunteering for street teams as it helps us to feel like we are part of the community and that we are giving back to the authors. However, we also noticed how hard it was to find ARCs and Street Teams to sign-up for, specifically those for our preferred genre of reading - Dark/Taboo Romance. So, with the goal in mind of helping to build bridges between authors and readers of these genres, the admins, Hayley (@foreversargent), Amanda H. (@midwest_heathen), and Amanda C. (@crookedhouseofbooks) came together to figure out what we could do to make it a little bit easier for everyone.

Initially, Hayley and Amanda H. had only planned for an Instagram group chat where we could share any sign-ups we found with any other readers we found that wanted to join. However, once we started posting about this chat option, it blew up bigger than we really ever planned for! In the first few days of working on creating the team, Amanda C. (@crookedhouseofbooks) reached out and offered to help with what was being created. She already had an Instagram Broadcast Channel where she shared sign-ups she found with her followers that she wanted to integrate for the Dark Romance Team’s use and use as a starting point for growing the team.

Within less than two weeks, the Dark Romance Team had grown exponentially with not just readers looking to join but with indie authors wanting to participate with the team as well! The admins worked hard that first month to manage the growth of the team and put various options into place to help reach as many readers and authors as they could. This included a main team Instagram page, a main team Facebook Group, a Discord server as well as choosing influencers to help promote the team.

These influencers were a vital part of spreading the work about the team and helped to recruit a great deal of readers and authors. The admins held a two-week long challenge for the influencers to see who could bring in the most readers and authors to the team with the top two receiving gifts from the admins. There were two influencers, Jillian (@punkysouls) and Sheena (@basicbookbitch85), who both went way beyond our expectations and were both able to bring in 50 individuals each, most of them PAs and authors. Due to this, the admins decided to bring them on and create permanent team position for them as a ‘Little Domme’. We have since made Jillian a team admin as well as added an additional twelve Little Dommes to the team as well as a regular term of 12 influencers as well. Their main objective is to post weekly about the Dark Romance Team in order to recruit authors, PAs, and readers for the Dark Romance Team. Their main source of content is thirst trap reels :) 

Since July, the Dark Romance Team has grown to include over 200 authors and PAs. Our Instagram page has surpassed 10K followers and our Facebook group 2K. When we initially started out, we ran the team mostly on Instagram through group chats and specific Broadcast Channels. However, in February of 2025, we transitioned the majority of our sharing to our Discord server due to the team outgrowing Instagram group chats maximums. 

We share sign-ups for ARC/BETA/ALPHA reading and hype/street team opportunities 24/7 in our Discord server, our Facebook Group, and our Instagram Broadcast Channel. We allow authors and PAs to share the sign-ups they have and also allow our readers to share sign-ups they have found as well as long as they fit within the dark romance and taboo genres. The admins, Little Dommes, and our current term of influencers then ensure that any sign-ups shared  are cross-posted to the other platforms to ensure we reach all members of the teams since not everyone uses the same ones. 

We also provide team members with multiple chats options on Discord where readers and authors can interact with one another and we also have dedicated engagement Instagram account where readers and authors can share recent posts with each other to gain more reach. We also have chat options for authors and PAs separately where those that are a part of the team can communicate with one another and ask questions, provide advice, etc. to one another.

Our main team page on Instagram (@darkromanceteam) is used to help promote the authors that are a part of the team by sharing posts on our feed and stories about authors' upcoming sign-up openings/closings, new releases, reveals, etc. We also use the team page to provide book recommendations from the admins, Little Dommes, and Influencers. The Dark Romance Team also shares these posts through all of our platforms include Discord, Facebook, and Threads. 

The admins continue to work on where this group is headed on a daily basis in order to do what we can to help keep this bridge between readers and authors in place for the dark romance and taboo genres as well as to help indie authors succeed. We are accepting new members to our Masterlist every day and are constantly using every platform we have to reach out to other authors and PAs and offer our help however we can. So if you see one of our handles liking or following you on social media, we want you for the team!