Writing Romance Novels

Romance is a major part of life especially in media. There is hardly any story made today without some instance of romantic interaction either between the main protagonists or the supporting cast of the story. Romance is so popular that it is the best selling storyline in many books sold today. If you are writer especially a woman it pays to have a look at this…

Who Reads Romance Novels?

The overwhelming number of romance story readers are women about 83%. Of these women about 70% are white/caucasian. The core reading age is between 30 to 54 years old. This is according to an article from the balance careers titled What You Need to Know About Romance Fiction Genre.

A few takeaways we can discern from this is that your storytelling must be from the point of a woman. This is why it is no secret that many romance writers are women. Although there have been men who have successfully written romance stories many hide under a pen name most notably a female pen name.

The majority of the readers are white/caucasian women. This is due to a lot of factors. One of the most glaring one is that white/caucasian women tend to have more disposable income as compared to women with other ethnicities. I am not here to judge about race or colour but traditionally and even today white/caucasian women do earn more money than other ethnicities.

Also by following popular media from both first and developing countries one thing I noticed is that for example in American TV shows the media content is more distributed. There is romance, sex, action, comedy, drama, science fiction, horror and so on. While in a developing countries in Asia there is a heavily reliance on romance, drama and social interactions.

This may be the reason. This is not to say that there is a small market for romance for non-white/caucasian book sellers on the contrary the e-book market in Asia is growing while e-book sales in America for example has been softening. Window shopping online for example in asian e-commerce stores would show you many romance books for sale especially targeting asian readers.

The core reading age is between 30 to 54. This may be due to the fact that by this age women who predominantly make up the readers are now married and have a stable home life. Younger women would still be experiencing romance life at it is and may not be interested in reading about romance but by actually experiencing it.

By this age many of the women have found a partner and would be busy building a relation and a family which includes financial concerns and career. So they do not have much time for actual romance or experience it less and less from their partners who are busy for example with home life and careers.

Romance is one of the most exhilarating experiences people especially women like to feel as often as they can. By the age of 50s however people including women begin to change their priorities in life. Many are now more concerned with retirement and old age more than anything else. This may be the reason why the readership falls sharply after this age level.

LGBT Romance Novels

As the title suggests these are romance novels based on men on men relationships, women on women relationships and other non-man and woman relationships. Though not the most popular currently in terms of sales. LGBT romance novels however have steady sales figures. This means that there is a loyal following out there for such stories.

By a wide margin gay romance novels have been outselling all the other subcategories in the LGBT romance novel category. This may be due to the fact that gay people are the most established and popular in the LGBT community. We can only think of such movies as Brokeback Mountain and similar movies to explain the popularity of gay-themed stories.

Men Read Romance Novels Too!

I know women who read romance novels too and from reading their books I can tell that there are stories that can appeal to straight men readers. Many men are interested to know what a woman feels or would do in particular situations and circumstances. There are also straight men who admittedly use romance novels as a substitute for the admittedly lack of romance in their real life.

In fact there are men who do write romance novels and are successful at it. The male readership of romance novels is only around 15% of the market. The market however in the US alone is 29 million so even 15% is worth a few million potential readers. If a male or female author can write romance novels from the point of view of the man then they could have a niche market unto their own.

This is a thing. If you Google the search keywords “romance novels from the point of view of a man” there would be many articles that allude to the growing popularity of this genre from the reader’s point of view. These articles even inform us that some of the authors of these books are male.

What Romance Novel Could You Write?

We have previously discussed who are the potential readers of your romance novels whether you are a male or a female author. The title romance novel could be a misnomer. For short stories it could be easy to term it as a romance story as the romance part can easily make a large portion of the story or even all of it.

For a romance novel it could be a different thing. The romance part might only be a part of the overall novel but what is important is that it is still a major part of it. Thus you can write a romance story where the main protagonist tackles a major problem while still being involved in a romantic relation with someone. Here are some romance story types:

Historical Romance
This story type is set in a certain time period in the past and usually follows a timeline. One major drawback of writing such stories is that you must have a great familiarity of the time period you are making a story of. You might be forgiven for lightly talking about the time period but one bad review from an expert in that time period can ruin your story and sales!

You also must be careful with the time period you choose. There are time periods and events that are especially popular that readers can easily relate to and read. For example there are many romance stories made about exploration periods in history. The galleon trades, Victorian England, the American Wild West are just a few of the time periods still being used as story backdrops today.

Contemporary Romance
These are stories made with the current contemporary time period as a backdrop and is the most popular romance story type of today. With these stories you really need to study your readers. Are you writing for North American readers or perhaps Asian readers or going all out and writing for a global readership base?

This can be difficult if you are writing for readers to whom you are not familiar with their environment. For example you could be an American author writing a story based in New York. It would be very hard to describe scenes in your story if you have never been to New York. Do not get me wrong there are people who have no problem with this.

These people use a vast amount of research to solve this type of problems. The internet especially made research for books and their backdrops very possible. For example one does not have to walk the streets of New York when Google StreetView can almost the same information.

As stated contemporary romance is one of the biggest segment of the market so expect tough competition from other authors. There is also the story of your story being easily dated after a few years as contemporary time periods change fast. You can however make your stories more interesting by writing about unusual contemporary stories like romance stories in times of modern war or disaster settings.

Romance is the Major Plot…
The types of romantic stories you could do is nearly endless. You could write a romance story set in a science fiction backdrop. You could write a romance story with a supernatural bent. You could write a story where a woman succeeds in business with the help of a partner she is romantically involved in which might be a competitor and so on.

In short as long as the romantic relationship is a major emphasis in the story you could write anything on any backdrop story. Of course book agents and readers would like you to name a type for your book in some instances but this boils down to marketing already. Again knowing your target reader is a good way of knowing the type of stories you would write.

Do You Have the Skills to Write a Romance Novel?

As previously stated even men write romance novels so do not be worried if you are a man interested in writing one. I also find it hard to imagine that there is a person out there that had not experienced the feeling of romance at one or many points in their life. If indeed there are persons who have no concept of real world romance there is plenty of media content to give them ideas.

In short you cannot escape knowing about romance. Again writing a short story is one thing and writing an entire novel about romance is totally a different thing that is why there are romance stories with a mixture of other stories as well for example historical romance novels. I have read for example historical romance novels with exhaustive description of the places and support characters of the time period it is set on.

I have also read romance novels where there are several relationships being told in one novel. I have read for example a novel which tells the romance story of a group of friends as they tackle their career paths in life. The individual stories themselves are short but the overall novel creates a unifying storyline that blends all the characters together. There are readers who enjoy this story format.

A Note About Erotica

There is no doubt that erotica is a big segment of the romance story/novel market. To be direct many readers even women of all backgrounds and ages purchase romance with varying levels of erotica. It depends upon the author to decide on their target market and we are not here to judge the author.

Take note however that there are book publishers that do not get involved in romance books with heavy erotic content. There are still those who have a zero tolerance on erotica. Erotica writers are also heavily stigmatised by many people in society that many authors hide under pen names to hide their identity.

The money could be good however for an erotica author. I read in an online forum this not so uncommon story of several men sharing their stories about writing romance stories with a heavy erotic content. One of the stories was from an old person who is in his late 60s. He makes a good living writing such short novels.

I would not say where he publishes his short novels but the platform is one of the biggest if not the biggest e-book e-commerce site. He makes enough money monthly that he is able to afford his groceries and bills. One of his tip is to write consistently as there are many readers who become repeat buyers once they like your writing style.

Conclusion

This article is not enough to cover all the major parts of writing a romance novel. However a few things are clear:
1. White/Caucasian women predominantly purchase romance novels.
2. Men can successfully write romance novels.
3. As long as the major plot of the story is romance you can write on as many story backdrops as you can.
4. Erotica sells but is still stigmatised.