Unlocking Romance: The Genre That Loves You Back
Welcome back to my blog at www.selfpublishingcoach.co.uk! Today, as Valentine’s Day, the most romantic time of the year approaches, I’m diving into a genre that not only captures hearts but also dominates the market - Romance. After two fiction series of books and two standalone novels, I have finally published a novel that follows the ‘rules’ of the Romance genre to the letter. Throughout this journey, I've learned invaluable lessons about the lucrative and emotionally rewarding world of romance writing. I’m delighted to share these lessons with you, so let's explore why Romance is the genre that loves you back.
Romance: The Reigning Champion of Popularity
You may be wondering why Romance is such a good bet when it comes to writing and publishing fiction. Firstly, it is the most popular genre in literature. There are about 100,000 monthly Google searches for romance books, with the specific terms, ‘dark romance” and ‘best romance books” getting between 41,000 to 30,000 searches each.
In the last three years, sales of Romance and saga fiction have risen by 110% to £53 million in the UK. This is the highest figure in a decade, according to figures from Nielsen BookData. Romance has become the hottest genre in the US too, with sales jumping by more than 50% in recent years, to an annual income of 1.44 billion.
As you can see, Romance is hugely popular with readers. This would explain why on Amazon as of January 2024, over a million Romance titles are for sale. Authors are clearly chomping at the bit to meet the demand from readers. And why wouldn’t we?
My Genre Shift to Romance
Having seen the above figures, you will not be surprised that my decision to move into a more defined Romance genre with my latest novel was partly a commercial one. To Melt A Frozen Heart is the first novel that I can, with hand on heart (no pun intended), call a pure Romance book. My previous novels, two series of books and two standalone titles, are somewhat of genre mashups. Although “Genre mashup” is a category on Amazon, it’s a difficult genre to sell and doesn’t have the same huge popularity that the Romance genre does.
My previous titles, which I describe as, ‘Romance with a Noir twist’, are popular enough, but I often struggle to describe the stories to readers, let alone know which category to go for on the Amazon dashboard. The term Nordic is so often combined with Noir, that readers just couldn’t match anything with the word Nordic with Romance. Perhaps it will come, but for the moment, I’m done with fighting the fight over establishing a genre called Nordic Romance on my own. I’ve given it ten years, so I think that’s long enough.
Transitioning to more traditional Romance writing was almost a relief, allowing me to finally accept that I like to write about happy stories involving complicated characters, rather than just complicated narratives. For too long, I had been under the impression that I should only write stories with darkness (death and villains as well as love) in them, because of my country of birth. Turns out that having now lived in the UK for over 40 years, much longer than I lived in Finland, it’s time to let the light in. 😆
As well as more fun to write, To Melt A Frozen Heart was also so much easier to describe on the various bookselling platforms. It was simple to come up with the blurb, and I didn’t have the usual problems with finding the book categories, or keywords. My elevator pitch is so incredibly simple too: ‘To Melt A Frozen Heart is an enemies-to-lovers romance set in Lapland.’
I will not go back to writing in a genre that is difficult to describe or categorize.
The World of Romance Sub-Genres
Although Nordic Romance doesn’t exist anywhere else apart from my fiction, the Romance landscape is rich with variety. It offers a sub-genre for (almost) every taste – from historical to paranormal. On Amazon alone, there are now 30 sub-genres and 32 sub-subgenres of Romance. Romance also features as a sub-genre on Amazon in other categories, such as Women’s fiction and Literary fiction. Navigating the different categories on Amazon is complicated, but luckily tools such as Publisher Rocket and K-Lytics make it easy.
The people behind K-Lytics regularly analyse all the categories and put them in a succinct PDF and video report.
To find the category that best describes your work, or to give you inspiration on romance categories, go to the latest (January 2024) Romance Report by K-Lytics. Just tap here to find it. I use K-Lytics to inform myself about categories and keywords, book covers and titles used by popular authors in the genre. I don’t know what I’d do without their regular reports.
Publisher Rocket, on the other hand, lets you search for Amazon categories and (keywords related to them) in real-time. They will let you see the competition in any genre (or category) you will be facing using a traffic light system (red is bad, yellow OK, green good). I find Publisher Rocket another invaluable tool when setting the metadata for my books on Amazon, as well as in other online stores.
Marketing Magic in Genre Writing
Writing within a defined genre, like Romance, streamlines marketing and cover design processes. It provides a clear path to target your audience effectively. The experience I’ve had with To Melt A Frozen Heart is a testament to this theory.
If you study the categories carefully and keep your keywords in line with your chosen genre, your title’s visibility in bookstores increases markedly. Above I’ve mostly talked about categories and genres on Amazon, but the same applies to other bookstores, such as Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, etc.
As well as making the category choice easier with a Romance title, when you have a definite idea of where in the many literature categories your book falls into, it makes it much simpler to write the book description. Whether you’re compiling a so-called Elevator pitch or a longer blurb for your book page in the store, if you know exactly what genre your story falls into, your job is a much less complicated one.
Believe me, I’ve been there!
Trying to explain a book where the main character has suffered a loss and near break-up of her marriage, while also being threatened by a Russian mafia boss, and uncovering long-held and devastating family secrets, on a Scandinavian holiday island, isn’t easy. My series, Love on the Island, is essentially a love triangle between Finnish-born Alicia, her British husband, Liam, and a Swedish journalist, Patrick. But the six-book series also has a Russian fugitive, an unplanned teenage pregnancy, an unexplained death, a jealous ex-wife, a friend’s troubled romance with a sea captain, a later-in-life romance, a reunion with a presumed-dead father, and countless secrets. I loved writing these books, and I think they are the best I could do at the time, but if I ever wanted to rewrite them (which is unlikely), I’d certainly streamline them into more popular, and recognised romance sub-categories.
Romance Writing Is More Financially Rewarding
Given the popularity of the genre, you would expect that Romance authors earn more. The Alliance of Independent Authors author income survey published in June 2023 showed that the median income for self-published writers was about $14,000.
A report by the Authors Guild in the US shows that for Romance authors, this figure rose to around $31,725 per year. This increase is significant, even if the sums will not make you rich overnight. They do show, however, that if the plan is to make money from your writing alone, opting for the Romance genre is a good bet.
Pricing Your Romance Novel Right
For self-published authors, who control every aspect of the publishing process, pricing is important in determining the income you derive from your books. Traditionally, Romance books have lagged in how much the writer has been able to charge for their book, but this trend has been reversed in the last few years. The latest K-Lytics report shows that now around 44% of romance books listed in Amazon’s Top 100 bestsellers are priced at $4.99, while 35% are priced at $5.99 and over, and the rest (21%) are $3.99 and under. It’s clear that readers are willing to pay for quality. What this tells me is that we mustn’t undervalue our work, especially if it aligns with the high standards of today’s Romance literature.
Over to You
In conclusion, romance writing isn't just about crafting love stories; it's about tapping into a vibrant, lucrative market with boundless potential for creative expression and financial gain. Whether you're a seasoned author or a newcomer, exploring the romance genre could be a rewarding venture.
Remember, your unique voice is what will make your romance novel stand out. Embrace the conventions, but don't be afraid to add your personal touch.
Are you a romance writer or thinking of giving the genre a go? Comment below and start the conversation!
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