How to Become a Romance Writer

My name is Michelle Jackson and I love reading romance. I’m super excited to talk about this topic. One of my favorite revenue streams that I’ve developed in the past year has come from writing and self-publishing ebooks. I actually write and publish both non-fiction and fiction books and I LOVE THIS REVENUE stream. Am literally obsessed with it. There are so many reasons why I love self-publishing, but I wanted to specifically talk about becoming a romance writer in this episode. On Wednesday, I will talk about how to become a non-fiction writer and why I’m so obsessed with non-fiction writing too.  Get ready as I answer some frequently asked questions and more.

*In order for me to support my blogging activities, I may receive monetary compensation or other types of remuneration for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial and/or link to any products or services from this blog. Please read my disclosure here.*

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Listen to the Show

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Show Notes

• Sometime during the Spring or Summer of 2018, I read a blog post on Making Sense of Cents about making money writing romance. Now, you have to understand, at this point in time I was trying a lot off things out professionally:
  • Vaguely trying coaching
  • Trying to start an online community
  • Half-heartedly trying to make affiliate income
  • Freelance writing stressed me out whenever I had a bad client because it never made sense to me how editors complicated what could be super easy projects.

• As excited as I was about making money online, nothing I was doing was lighting me up besides making affiliate income and I wasn’t making enough of that consistently to be excited about it.

• But, I did enjoy writing and producing content. So, I decided to give writing romance a try-and, I’m glad that I did. So, I’m going to share some tips with you in this episode.

How to Become a Romance Author

• The first step is to decide that you would like to write your first book. By deciding that you’re going to write your first book, you set an intention.

• We’re grown ass adults. I’m tired of people being embarrassed about romance.

• Respect the genre and be a fan. If you don’t enjoy reading romance, it will be difficult to actually write the books. In fact, you will find it painful. Luckily for you, there are other genres you could specialize in if you enjoy them.

• Know the statistics-romance is THE MOST LUCRATIVE genre to write in. Period. And, it’s hilarious to me because there is always a Happily Ever After (of some sort) unless you’re European. The Europeans sometimes enjoy a not so happily ever after. Those books piss most people off.

• Understand your readers. Part of the reason why you need to read and enjoy romance is because it helps give you an insight into your readership.

• Don’t listen to the naysayers. In fact, be very careful about who you share your writing intentions with. That’s part of the reason why I created my “Make Money with Ebooks” course. So, that students would be in a consistently supportive space.

• Avoid letting imposter syndrome keep you from working on your book. After working with the students in my course and one-on-one I’ve observed a couple things.
  • Imposter syndrome is a huge problem. Self-talk is what keeps people from taking action for YEARS.
  • How do you avoid Imposter Syndrome? Focus on taking manageable actions steps daily/weekly/monthly to move you towards a completed book. Those action steps include, but aren’t limited to the following:
    • Daily writing goals
    • Using a Vision Board to gain clarity on where writing this book stands in your overall goals.

• Redefine what success looks like. For me, just writing the first book was a successful outcome. I was not anticipating making any money with it. Then, I did and it was kind of awesome.

• There are no limits. Romance has a ridiculous number of genres and sub-genres that you can write in. Here are a few of the romance genres:
  • Contemporary
  • Erotica*
  • Historical
  • Young Adult/New Adult
  • Paranormal
  • Religious Themed

• Here are some of the sub-genres, be prepared for your mind to be blown!
  • African-American/Multicultural
  • Paranormal sub-genres
    • Shifter romances
    • Vampires
    • Witches
  • Contemporary
    • Billionaire
    • Mafia
    • Military
  • Historical
    • Western
    • Multicultural
    • Time-Travel
  • New Adult
    • Paranormal
    • Academy romance
  • Bully Romance
  • Dark Romance
  • Reverse Harem-This one is HUGE. Where the woman is the lead in the story and she has multiple love interests
  • LGBTQ

• Umm, so what about the sex scenes?
  • What about them? It’s up to the author to decide the heat level of their books. And, there are sub-genres for all of that.
    • Clean romance-no sex scenes
    • Religious romance-typically, no sex scenes or they are vaguely alluded to
    • Heating up
    • So hot your e-reader will burn your fingers and your eyeballs

• Let’s talk Erotica-
  • The main difference when compared to regular romance is the plot. Erotica doesn’t necessitate a deep focus in terms of the overall plot. Again, in order for this to be good-you need to be a fan.

• Pen Names or Your Name
  • I use a pen name for my romance books (Autumn Stone), but it’s not a secret on purpose. It’s not a secret because it’s part of my overall online monetization strategy and honestly, it doesn’t bother me to share my pen name.  HOWEVER, for those of you who work in industries such as education, the government, etc. It may be a good idea to have a pen name. Or, if you’re uncomfortable publishing under your name-have a pen name.

• Writing in multiple sub-genres-I’ve personally decided to write in several sub-genres. Right now 99% of my books feature an African-American woman as the lead character. I did this because I wanted to read stories that featured women like me as the lead. And, I got tired of waiting for the types of stories I wanted to read, so I wrote them. I decided to write in different sub-genres and I’ve enjoyed doing that so far. The key to doing this is making it very clear in the description of the book/the book blurb what the book is about, etc. By doing this, I understand that this strategy may positively or negatively affect my book earnings.

• Book Development-Some things to consider
  • Character names-are they outdated? Can we pronounce them? Are they sexy?  Oliver is not a sexy name. Fight me on that one.
  • Are your characters relatable, likable? Or, are they hard to connect with. I’m currently reading a book where…a character is on the edge for me and I almost stopped reading the book.
  • Do the situations that your characters find themselves in make sense? Regardless of genre.
  • The conflict-what is the situation that the characters find themselves in? How do they resolve it?

• For some people the love that you’re writing about is a subversive act and I’ll just leave it there.

• However, writing in one genre/sub-genre and becoming known in that space is also a great strategy.

• On Thanksgiving day I received almost $1200 in ebook payouts. I LOVE THESE PAYOUTS.Writing romance is not my primary focus. I have several income streams that I’m also focused on:
  • Affiliate income
  • Non-fiction books
  • Fiction books
  • Make Money with Ebooks Course
  • Podcast Sponsors (Square State)
  • Events
  • Freelance Writing
  • Coaching

• Writing romance changed my overall focus and business and I’m so thankful that I took a small risk with something random. It’s been a wonderful journey.

• The great thing about writing and self-publishing ebooks is that I always have ongoing projects that I can be working on in the background. When I first started working for myself, I found that I struggled on where to focus because I didn’t have products that I was producing. I was self-employed and constantly looking for projects to work on for other people.

• Who will buy your books? People buy the following:
  • Poo to send to people. Why do you buy poo when you create poo daily? This makes no sense.
  • $66 Mustard greens from Neiman Marcus-do they have cute Southern Grandmas making greens in some underground lair?
  • Wine condoms-I didn’t know it was a thing until I did research for this episode. Now you know it’s a thing too.  Check them out HERE.
  • Basically, someone out there will buy your book if you market it. But, that’s also why I have my course Make Money with Ebooks to help you out with that.

• Freelancers-You’re already creating content, why not create and self-publish books building up a passive income revenue stream that will allow you to say “no” the projects that don’t light you up. Or, allow you to say “no” to clients that just won’t work. If fiction isn’t your jam, bookmark Wednesday’s show, where I will be talking all about writing non-fiction books.

Resource and Author Mention

Joseph Hogue has written a fantastic resource all about writing ebooks. It’s called “Self-Publishing for Passive Income.” Click HERE to check it out on Amazon.

L.J. Shen books are super intense. Here’s one of them….

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Michelle

I am an obsessive foodie, but not self-righteous with it, love travel, meeting new people, helping you look good, and am freaked out by people who don't enjoying reading...something! Grab a Perrier, read my blog, feel free to drop me a line! Hope to hear from you soon.

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