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    How to Make Money Writing Romance
    How to Make Money Writing Romance
    How to Make Money Writing Romance
    Ebook149 pages1 hour

    How to Make Money Writing Romance

    By Yuwanda Black

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    About this ebook

    Learn How to REALLY Make Money Writing & Self-Publishing Romance

    In this ebook, you will learn/get:

    • 20 months of sales numbers;

    • Info about Amazon's KU program and what it means for self-published authors;

    • Marketing I've tried that's worked well;

    • Which outlets sell the best;

    • The best way to format your novel to upload quickly; and

    • Tested insights into how to price your romance novel to sell … and more.

    And so much more. I've written and self-published over 40 romance novellas -- earning as much as $3,200 in one month. 

    You can too with the knowledge dispensed in this ebook.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherYuwanda Black
    Release dateSep 13, 2017
    ISBN9781386873594
    How to Make Money Writing Romance
    Author

    Yuwanda Black

    I've been a reader of romance novels since I was a pre-teen. I've read hundreds of them. "Everybody wants to be loved." This is the enduring theme of all romance novels. We all want to be loved and accepted for exactly who and what we are. And that's the beauty of love – it keeps the hope alive in each of us that there is someone out there, somewhere, who will love what is unique about us. This is what keeps me reading romance, after romance, after romance. Professional Background I've been a freelance writer – for businesses – since 1993. More about my businesses can be found below. A Romance Writer Is Born I wrote my first romance novel in 2013 (3 Weeks 'til Forever). I decided to give this type of writing a try because the title popped into my head one day and just wouldn't let go. After finishing up several more romances, I realize that I've finally found my calling. I love reading – and now writing and publishing – love stories. In 2014, I formed Inkwell Editorial Publishing to bring as many stories to readers like you as possible. I hope you enjoy reading these novels as much as I enjoy bringing them to you – whether they’re written by me, or by one of our ghost writers. My Businesses New Media Words (http://NewMediaWords.biz) is my online writing company. I also publish http://InkwellEditorial.com, the leading web portal for info on how to start a successful freelance writing career. I've self-published over 50 non-fiction ebooks, mostly on the business of freelance writing, self-publishing and internet marketing. My writing online writing courses can be found at http://InkwellEditorial.Teachable.com. My fiction titles (romance) can be found at http://InkwellEditorialPublishing.com.

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    • 5/5
      A wonderful book that guides romance writers down the self-publishing route. A very informative, concise, and honest read. Thank you.




























































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    Book preview

    How to Make Money Writing Romance - Yuwanda Black

    PROLOGUE

    First, let me say thank you for purchasing this ebook. I’ve self-published over 50 of these types of books (non-fiction, how-to). Why?

    As an online entrepreneur, as I learn, I like to share the knowledge with others. I love making money under my own steam – and helping to shorten the learning curve for others so they can do the same. So again, thank you!

    Almost Two Years of Sales Numbers

    Some of the fundamentals from the first version of this ebook have been updated and are reprinted within because the fundamental steps you need to take to get started making money as a romance writer haven’t changed.

    HOWEVER ... there is a ton of new information in this new version, including:

    20 months of sales numbers;

    Info about Amazon’s KU program and what it means for self-published authors;

    Marketing I’ve tried that’s worked well;

    Which outlets sell the best;

    The best way to format your novel to upload quickly; and

    Tested insights into how to price your romance novel to sell ... and more. 

    FYI, Amazon’s KU program caused a lot of author sales to tank dramatically (60, 70, 80 percent or more), including mine. In spite of this – as my numbers will show – there’s still good money to be made as a self-published romance writer.

    Get Schooled in Writing Romance

    So sit back, relax and prepare to get the foundational lessons you need to succeed in the most popular genre of writing of all time – romance writing.

    What You Need to Know about the Information Within

    Before we get started, I just want to tell you a few things ...

    1. Get the First Version of This Ebook

    This ebook was first published in the September 2014. This update is in May 2016 – almost two years later. A LOT of changes have come down the pike since then, especially with Amazon.

    All of info in this update applies to my sales, experiences, etc., today. In some instances, I refer back to the way things were when I first published this ebook. In many instances, I don’t because again, my goal is to delve into the most up-to-date information.

    If you want to see how the industry has evolved, you can download the first version of this ebook or only $7.99 cents at http://dld.bz/dwDdc.

    2. This Ebook Will Discuss Mostly Self-Publishing Romance Novels on Amazon

    I self-publish my novels on a few other outlets (listed below), including Amazon. But, Amazon was for a long time the largest money maker for me. And, they have kind of cornered the market on self-publishing.

    In my opinion, you can’t NOT publish there – that is, if you want to earn decent money as a self-published writer.

    Where I Publish My Romance Novels besides Amazon

    In addition to Amazon, I publish my short romance novels on:

    Barnes & Noble (B&N)

    When I first wrote this ebook in 2014, B&N accounted for about 10% of my romance ebook sales. As of this update, it’s up to about 50%—and sometimes more.

    All Romance Ebooks

    Until recently, this was my third, best-selling channel. Google Play has kind of overtaken it.

    Since I last updated this ebook, I added two more sales channels. They are ...

    Google Play

    This is the site I average the most per book on – a little over $2.00. It’s because of their pricing structure, which is kinda funky. We’ll discuss that in a later chapter.

    Draft2Digital

    This is the final outlet I sell my ebooks on (Draft2Digital.com aka D2D). This outlet publishes your books to many other outlets. That way, you don’t have to open individual accounts at each one. Following are the current partner stores they publish your ebook to:

    iBooks

    Barnes & Noble

    Kobo

    Inktera (formally Page Foundry)

    Scribd

    24Symbols

    Tolino

    and CreateSpace.

    And, they’re currently pursuing agreements with:

    Overdrive

    Ingram

    ARe and Omnilit

    Google Play

    Amazon

    Playster

    You can select which ones you want them to publish to. For example, I upload my books myself Barnes & Noble, so I always deselect this boxes when I upload my titles there. There’s no need to give them a commission for something I’m already used to doing myself is my rationale.

    You can use D2D as your sole distributor if you don’t want to deal with the hassle of uploading to various outlets individually. They publish pretty quickly too. It takes your books longer to show up on some outlets than others, but you know exactly when they do because they send you a confirmation email.

    They also send you a confirmation email if there’s a problem that needs to be fixed before your book can be published via a particular outlet. One of my most common ones is fixing the promotional links I normally put at the back of each novel.

    Some outlets don’t allow that (Amazon does). So I sometimes forget to take it out, and will be sent an email with the following message (see graphic on next page) ...

    Links and references throughout the book promote a competing website. For example, "Get it this best-selling multi-cultural romance now AMZ (http://dld.bz/d8UXH); Barnes & Noble (http://dld.bz/d9hmr); and Google Play in the section You might also like" at the end of the book. Please remove. See the iBooks Store Formatting Guidelines, section 13.8.

    It takes all of a few minutes to go in, strip the rule-breaking text out, and re-upload. Easy, peezy!

    I’ve never dealt with any of these other platforms, so that’s why I signed up with D2D. I didn’t want to have to learn. Manually uploading to four outlets already is enough.

    Like all the other publishing outlets, there are no upfront fees to sign up and have D2D distribute your book. They earn a percentage of each of your sales. Their fee structure is, at most digital stores, approximately 10% of the retail price. This works out to roughly 15% of net royalties on each copy sold at each outlet.

    One more thing about publishing with D2D, their upload process is quick, fast and easy. You can even use their conversion tool to format your book and upload it to other outlets. It’s sooooo much easier than using, for example, B&N’s uploading tool.

    You can even use their software to convert your book without being a publisher there. For this reason alone I love them. I did a detailed post about publishing with D2D, outlining 12 things I think it’s important to know about using this distributor. You can read it at http://dld.bz/dZtXF.

    That covers where I publish. Now, to my experience.

    3. No Experience

    I’ve been a reader of romance novels since I was about 12 or 13 years old. I wrote my first one, a novella, in May 2013. After I wrote that one, I didn’t publish my second one until almost a year later – in March 2014.

    To date, I’ve published 41; 39 of which can be found on my fiction writing site at http://InkwellEditorialPublishing.com (two were published under a pen name; that’s why they’re not listed).

    So you can start this career with no previous romance writing experience at all.

    4. Why $2,000 per Month and Not More, or Less?

    I settled on this amount because I believe it’s totally achievable within three to six months if you’re constantly producing. In my opinion, you need to be putting out at least 2-3 new titles a month.

    When I first started, I earned almost $2,000 within the first couple of months ... that I wrote regularly. This was in March 2014. At that time, I had seven titles out, which included the one I’d written in May of 2013.

    I published six short novels between March and April of 2014, which was one reason my income exploded so quickly in my opinion. And was with practically no marketing; no name recognition as a romance writer; and again no experience writing in this genre before May 2013. This is very important to keep in mind.

    I like to give people totally reachable goals. That’s why I’m settled on $2,000 per month. Even with all the shakeups at Amazon that caused a lot of authors to take major income hits (me included, which my numbers will show), I still think this is very possible.

    5. I Only Self-Publish My Romance Novels as Ebooks

    I’ve never published a paperback book, and probably never will. Hence, all the info here is about selling

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