Want to start an Author Travel Business?
Romance, Retreats & Wholesale Airfare: How Cher Terais Turned Her Novels Into a Travel Brand
Romance author Cher Terais built a travel business from her novels by treating her books, travel membership (The Booked Club), and Wanderlust Retreats as one connected brand under “As Written by Cher Terais.” She validated the concept through a single Meta-ad webinar, then scaled with virtual and in-person experiences tied to her novels’ settings.
Most authors are told to pick a lane. Write the book. Build the platform. Promote relentlessly. Then, maybe, build a business around it.
Cher Terais did the opposite—and accidentally built something absolutely incredible. Especially for those of us who also LOVE to travel and get paid money to do so!
This week on the podcast, romance author and founder of As Written by Cher Terais and The Booked Club (aff link) joins us to talk about what happens when you stop treating your books and your other passions as competing priorities and start treating them as one ecosystem.
It started with a virtual book launch
Cher’s third novel, set in Tulum, launched in November 2024 through a virtual event her team called “Cher in Wonderland” — part book launch, part QVC, part travel show. Halfway through, readers started asking the question that changed everything: “Are you going to Tulum? Can I come?”
By January 26, 2025, The Booked Club was born — a travel membership platform that gives members wholesale rates on flights, hotels, and experiences across every major airline. Members are paying 10–70% less than retail. And it grew almost entirely from one Meta ad funnel and a willingness to test the idea publicly.
One brand, three businesses, zero confusion
One of Cher’s smartest moves: she put everything under her own name. Her novels, her travel club, her retreats — all of it lives under As Written by Cher Terais. That decision saved her from the trap most multi-passionate creators fall into: managing five accounts, five websites, and five mailing lists for what is essentially one story.
When the retreat can’t happen, bring the retreat home
Her upcoming Paint, Pour, & Passport: A Night in Morocco event is a masterclass in adaptive thinking. When safety and pricing made the live Morocco retreat unworkable for this fall, she built a virtual immersive version. Attendees get a tea set and ingredients for a Moroccan tea ceremony shipped to their door, painting supplies for a guided art session, a Moroccan chef walking them through the culture, and proceeds going to a scholarship to send one woman on the real retreat in April 2027.
The Instagram strategy you haven’t seen yet
Then there’s the marketing experiment that’s been quietly taking off: Cher acts out her own characters in short dramatic scenes on Instagram. Instead of paying for an audiobook narrator, she became the narrator — playing Bali Blue’s protagonist Rheon Carson talking to her sister on the phone, complete with caught-cheating drama that isn’t even in the book. It’s backstory. It’s bait. It’s working.
Her advice for authors thinking about something similar: copy gets views, but authenticity gets engagement. Pick something only you can make.
The bigger lesson
Cher’s whole philosophy comes down to a single idea: the world is more accessible than authors give themselves permission to imagine. You can write the book and run the business. You can build the retreat and lead it. You can be the main character of your own story—not just on the page.
Listen to the full episode for the full conversation, including how veteran resources like the EBV and Victor and Valor shaped Cher’s business strategy, why she’s not in a rush to release her next novel, and the crossover romance Alexa and Cher might just have to co-write.
Join us at Marketing Bootcamp where Cher will be teaching how to do this!
Alexa Bigwarfe
Founder & CEO of WritePublishSell & the Women in Publishing Summit
Alexa Bigwarfe is a publishing strategist and creator of Book Launch in a Box, where she helps authors simplify their marketing and build launches that actually work. She specializes in turning books into platforms for visibility, partnerships, and revenue through proven, scalable strategies.
