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Though I do much of my work through this website, helping authors plot, write, edit, and market their romance novels, I also freelance over on Upwork, where I often work with clients who come to the romance publishing industry via programs that teach them how to make passive income through self-publishing. Students from these programs learn the basics of self-publishing in general, as well as the benefits of publishing genre fiction, often romance specifically. They are encouraged to hire ghostwriters to write their books, so the students can focus on marketing the books and growing their audience through newsletters.
And while self-publishing can certainly be profitable, hiring a ghostwriter is a sound method—I've been a ghostwriter for authors and seen their audiences expand as they've been able to put more books out in less time—and marketing a romance novel is just as important as writing the romance itself, I've noticed a few misconceptions the clients who go through these programs often have about the romance publishing industry.
I'm going to go through them below, both because I like sharing knowledge (why else would I start a blog?), and because I want everyone interested in romance publishing, whether an author writing their own books, or a self-publisher hiring ghostwriters to write them, to understand the fundamentals of the industry so they can succeed.
Only the most popular sub-genres matter
Incorrect! Romance is a monster of a genre, with more than 25 sub-genres, and not all of them are particular big, or visible if you're benchmark is the Amazon Top 100 list. But success isn't about picking the most popular sub-genres.
It's about finding a specific niche—a combination of sub-genre, trope, and theme—that combines both what the author/self-publisher likes to write/publish with what readers want to read, then publishing books that do both, over and over again.
For example: publishing steamy billionaire contemporary romance? Sure, it seems like the right choice, because it's an incredibly popular sub-genre. But it's also HUGE, and full of many, many, many authors and publishers, making it hard to gain visibility. Basically, making that your author brand makes you a really, really small fish in an ocean.
And it's not a sub-genre for everyone; remember, there are more than 25 others out there! But, if, say, I'm a self-publisher who does love her some hot rich dudes, I could niche down to steamy billionaire age gap romances featuring alpha males and shy heroines. This niche isn't nearly as competitive, yet still contains elements many readers love, though in a more specific combination. That specific combination makes market research way easier; I can focus on researching reader expectations for each element—steamy romance, billionaire romance, age gap romance, alpha males, shy heroines—and making sure my books' covers, blurbs, titles, and keywords are targeted to attract readers who love those elements. Basically, I'm creating a curated audience of readers, rather than trying to appeal to a mass market.
I've become a big fish in a small pond, to continue with the metaphor.
Tropes are the most important part of a romance novel
Yes, tropes are important to the romance genre and its readers. So much so that I created a list of every romance trope, because I want authors and readers to know just how many are out there. But the most important part of a romance novel isn't its tropes.
The most important part of a romance novel is its characters. Because while there are only so many ways to spin the only one bed trope, there are infinite ways to spin the couple or throuple or foursome or fivesome sharing that bed. And readers only want those characters stuck sharing that one bed to see what happens to them—emotionally, physically, sexually, heck, maybe even spiritually.
Sure, readers might pick up a book partly because it contains all their favorite tropes—heck, we've just proved that in the point above—but they keep reading because they want to see what happens to the shy heroine who falls for the alpha male billionaire when he tells her he doesn't believe in love, and she makes it her mission to break out of her shell and prove him wrong. It's also why blurbs are so important; sure, they signal tropes and steam, but the purpose of them is to give just enough insight into the characters that readers HAVE to know what happens to them.
You can have a great romance novel using just one trope to affect the romance, character development, setting, or sub-plot, as long as your characters are interesting to readers. But a romance novel with flat/underdeveloped or stereotypical characters? It won't be good no matter how many tropes you throw at it.
Great romance novels can be ghostwrittten cheaply
There's a saying I often think of when people tell me they're going to pay their romance ghostwriter 1 cent or less per word: you can get something done good and slow, or cheap and fast, but good and cheap? Not possible, especially where romance ghostwriting is concerned.
I've been a romance ghostwriter, and I edit romance ghostwriters' work, so trust me when I say that finding a skilled and cheap (<$0.02/word) romance ghostwriter is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Impossible, frustrating, and likely to lead to injury, in this case financial.
Why? Because a ghostwriter's rate is reflective of their experience. And romance authors and self-publishers need experienced people who know the romance genre and its readers to ghostwrite their books; otherwise, they're going to be paying for edits so extensive and expensive that just the editing costs will exceed what they would have paid if they'd hired an experienced ghostwriter with a higher rate in the first place.
Quality is worth the price.
Releasing a book a month is essential for succcess
Rapid release was a great strategy a few years ago, but as the seasons change, so do the algorithms and the best publishing strategies.
And sure, it's a good rule of thumb to put books out regularly; it still pleases the algorithm, at least for now, and it meets the needs of voracious romance readers, who read more books in a week than many do in a year. But regularly doesn't mean every month; in fact, it means different things to different people. I always advise my clients to publish as often as works for them. And, especially at the beginning of someone's publishing career, trying to release a book every month is like asking someone who's only ever run a mile to do a half marathon every week. Sure, they might make it to the finish line, but it'll be rough, painful and, to move away from the running metaphor and back to publishing, expensive.
Because mistakes are expensive, and when you first start doing something, you're going to make them. Heck, experienced authors and self-publishers still make mistakes when they release books!
But releasing rapidly before you really understand everything that goes into getting a book into readers' hands—plotting, writing, editing, book covers, blurbs, Kindle keywords, newsletters, group promos, newsletter swaps—is just going to make things stressful. And life is stressful enough, right? I myself accidentally uploaded the wrong manuscript to my KDP account the other day, and had to wait an agonizing 2 days for it to go through the review process so I could go back in and upload the right one. And I've been self-publishing for a year, and working in romance publishing for nearly 7!
And thus, we come to the end of this blog post. I hope it helps authors and self-publishers interested in romance understand what mistakes to avoid when they start their publishing journeys. Romance is an awesome genre, but finding success as a romance author or self-publisher is a marathon, not a sprint. And if you're looking for someone to coach you through the race, check out my services.
Until next post, happy reading and writing!