Are you trying to figure out how to write a romance novel and make money? It’s possible to make a lot of money writing romance on the side. And you don’t have to be an experienced writer to get started.
Today, Yuanda is black InkwellEditorial.com She shares with us how much money she makes writing romantic fiction, along with details on how to succeed if you’re interested in doing so.
And again, you don’t have to be a professional writer or even have excellent writing skills to do this!
How to Write a Romance Novel and Earn – Interview
How much do you earn as a romance novelist? How long did it take?
With my second novel, I sold about 250 copies and made about $500 in that first month. It took me exactly six months to hit $2,000.
In May 2015, after writing 23 novels in just over 12 months, I earned $3,211.57, my best month ever.
Between spring 2014 and late 2016, I published 44 romance novels (some under a pen name). The breakdown looks like this:
2013: First Book (It Bombed)
2014: 21 books
2015: 18 books
2016: 3 books
Why the decline? Amazon’s all-you-can-read subscription program, which caused a lot of self-published (and traditionally published) authors to lose sales. Plus, I got burned out. At one point, I was putting out a book every 7 to 10 days.
But I’m glad I did it, even though I don’t recommend it. I still make money every month from those books, and now that I’m back to publishing regularly, sales are starting to pick up again, because this post depicts
My plan is to put out a book a month this year and for the foreseeable future until I’m making at least $5,000 to $10,000 a month.
I have other streams of income, so this (very achievable) goal fits into my financial plan.
Is Romance a profitable self-publishing space overall?
OMG YES! Romance is the #1 selling point in fiction writing—by a wide margin. Evidence?
According to Statistics in this post, $1.44 billion, #1 in romance and erotica sales. This includes self-published romances.
With 30 million devoted readers, it’s hard not to succeed in this genre — if you publish regularly, even if you’re not the best writer to be perfectly honest.
That’s the old, “sex sells,” workplace cliché. It is true – as my experience proves.
And just for comparison, the second best-selling genre in fiction is crime/mystery at $728.2 million, almost half that of romance writing.
What I’ve found though is that niche is important when it comes to romance – and boy are there a lot of niches!
So, can you really make money writing romance novels if you’re an average writer?
I had no experience writing romance (or any kind of fiction) before I wrote my first romance novel in 2013. Let me repeat that — I had no experience writing romance or fiction of any kind.
An important aspect of writing is that you must know your characters intimately. This makes them believable because you know what they will say, how they will react to certain situations, and what their “love language” is.
While you can start writing romance with no experience, if you fall in love with the genre (pun totally intended!), you’ll naturally want to improve your writing skills.
I read romance novels and studied how to improve my writing skills in this niche.
As any writer will tell you, your skills as a writer can always improve. So don’t wait until your writing is “perfect”. It will never happen, and if you think it does, you’re kidding yourself.
Get started — and educate yourself along the way. Again, this is going to be a lifelong journey anyway, so why wait when you can self-publish the next one Fifty Shades of Grey?
And you know what happened with the book, right? Yes, it sold millions of copies and became a major motion picture. But, it also got slammed for writing (and continues to do so).
Read some reviews on Amazon. You will see what I mean.
Is niche important in romance writing?
It is very important. Here is an example.
My first romance was an African American love story. The second one I wrote was an interracial love story, as did my sister.
I wrote it because one day he said to me, “Why don’t you write an interracial romance and see what happens?”
So I did, for a few reasons:
- I knew my writing was not bad. I’m not saying I’m the best writer, but I know I’m not terrible either. In fact, I still think my first romance novel is one of my best love stories.
- I was in an interracial marriage (my ex-husband is an Argentinian); And
- I was really curious as to what would happen. I didn’t think the races of the characters would make a difference, because love is love, right?
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! … at least when it comes to writing romance.
African American romances sell very well. All you have to do to prove it is to look at the success of author Brenda Jackson. But some niches are easier to break into than others — and interracial romance is one of those niches.
So I wrote my second romance novel, Trapped by Desire. Here’s what happened…
I wrote the same and marketed the same. The only difference is that I slapped a picture of an interracial couple on the cover.
As for sales shows, niche topics – a lot.
How did you get started as a romance novelist?
Oh boy, it’s a windy story! It all really started by accident; It wasn’t something I ever planned to do. So what happened to this…
I have two sisters. A writer like me. We both primarily published non-fiction, how-to ebooks until 2013. What changed that year?
My sister went on a trip to Texas to visit her son, who is in the military. On that trip, he said he was driving and the idea for a love story came to him. He said it bothered him, so when he got home, he wrote it down. It was a short (about 65 Kindle pages), interracial romance – the way the characters presented themselves to her.
It was his first attempt at writing fiction.
However, after he wrote the story (Love a Texan from New Orleans), he uploaded it to Amazon (AMZ). We’ve both been publishing our non-fiction books on Amazon since 2008, and we both come from publishing backgrounds; Worked in NYC in legal publishing for years.
However, she uploaded her short love story and promptly forgot about it; Don’t really expect anything. But the next morning when he checked his AMZ stats (as he did every morning), to his great surprise, his sales were … 8 copies, 13 copies, 22 copies etc.
Throughout the day he kept refreshing the screen and the number kept increasing. We are both shocked! Why?
Because remember, we both published in the non-fiction sector. In that niche, sales usually don’t happen like that. It’s a slow build – especially for anonymous writers like us.
So when he saw the sales going up, we were both glued to the screen, “What?!”
My sister sold over 500 copies of her first romance novel in one month – earning about $1,100. He priced it at $2.99. At Amazon, you earn 70 percent on all items priced between $2.99 and $9.99. So he was making about $2.06 per book.
Not bad for a first time writer, right? Actually, I thought it was like hitting the friggin’ lotto!
After seeing my sister’s success, of course I had to try it. So I wrote and uploaded my first romance in May 2013 (for 3 weeks forever) … and it immediately bombed.
I was confused, but shook it off and went back to writing and self-publishing my how-to, non-fiction ebooks.
Since 2010, more than half of my earnings as an author have come from my self-publishing efforts. These days, I write almost exclusively for myself, ie, developing curriculum, writing non-fiction (and fiction), blogging/affiliate marketing, etc.
It’s all written down – that’s why my site aims to: Make money … for yourself and/or others.
You see, there are many ways to create a living text. And, that’s why I wasn’t too disappointed when I thought the romance thing wasn’t going to work out. But obviously, that wasn’t the end of my romance writing career.
Tell us a little about your e-course and how it can help others make money writing romance novels.
The course teaches you…
1 – How to Write Romance
This section is very detailed, starting with what you need to do before you actually start writing the story (eg, creating a character profile and creating an outline).
2 – How to market your novel
The course covers how to practically secure sales; There is a “formula,” if you write characters that resonate with readers if you want it to practically guarantee sales.
This explains why you shouldn’t spend so much time on marketing at the beginning of your romance writing career. In fact, sales should be the last thing on your mind when you first start out.
Of course, there is an actual formula that details what percentage of time you should spend marketing and at what stage of your career. There is a point of diminishing returns, so you know when to “top out” your marketing, so to speak.
3 – How to hire ghostwriters for writing help
This is a really easy way to accelerate your earnings. However, it is not without its flaws.
In this section, I describe my experience and give some guidelines to follow if you decide to go this route.
4 – Setting up your own publishing company (optional)
There is a step-by-step plan that tells you exactly how to set up your own publishing company FYI, this isn’t necessary, but if your romance writing career has reached a certain point, you might consider it.
5 – Distribution – Where to publish your romance novels
While Amazon remains the behemoth, there are always new outlets popping up where self-published authors can publish their work.
And that’s another reason I love writing romance. Once a book is written, you publish and start earning as new outlets open.
In conclusion
One thing I want to emphasize is that anyone willing to put in the time to write can make money writing romance novels.
It took me exactly six months to reach the $2,000/month mark (I wrote 15 novels in that time). Again, this is not with any previous fiction writing experience. And I am small, small potatoes.
There are writers who have earned over half a million dollars per year within three years, and many others who have earned $8,000; $10,000 and $20,000 a month — all within a few years (or less) of starting to write romance.
Don’t believe it? Google it and see for yourself.
That being said though, I want to emphasize that romance writing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Writing is hard work, and you must be disciplined about it.
You must constantly come up with new titles, learn what genres work, find your audience, and build your own mailing list.
there some information Here that gives you more details. If you work, you will surely be rewarded. I have proven it, as have many others. What is your next romance success story?
Get the knowledge you need, and start exploring.
About Yuanda
Published by Yuanda Black InkwellEditorial.com, a site that teaches aspiring freelancers how to make money … for themselves and/or for. He is a traditionally published author who has self-published nearly 100 ebooks. If you are interested in writing romance, you can learn more from her Free course.
Anna Thurman is a home blogger and mother of two. He has been researching and reviewing remote jobs for over 13 years. His results are published weekly here at Real Ways to Earn.
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