Laurie Kahn spent four years making a documentary about the romance industry. She’s listed ten “surprising” things she’s learned about the romance industry during that time.
Some of them will be no surprise at all to romance authors. A few of them have even finally started to penetrate the heads of businessmen, telling them how they failed to recognize an opportunity and are now playing catch up to get a foot in the door.
One such piece of information is that romance novel sales total more than a billion dollars a year—as much as sci-fi, mystery, and fantasy combined. Even as recently as five years ago men were shaking their heads and saying romance was only read by frustrated uneducated elderly single women. Apparently, they were wrong.
Another point she makes is that the majority of romance authors help and support each other, teaching newbies skills, helping them climb the ladder and finish writing that book. It’s a community of people engaged in a love of books and reading.
Romance authors pioneer new technologies and methods. They were the first to use ebooks, the first to use social media, the first to build communities with their readers, and the first to embrace self-publishing.
Her final point is that romance writing isn’t easy. Some days it seems like every second person is going to write a book. Some have even started one. But the number who have actually completed the book, had it edited, had a professional cover made, had the polished book formatted and put up for sale, is a lot smaller.
Writers are multitalented, hardworking people.
For the full article go here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/laurie-kahn/romance-novels_b_7109458.html
Helen Woodall
helen.woodall@gmail.com
Helen is available to line edit and/ or content edit fiction and non-fiction. Rates on application.
