You bet it does, especially if you are a successful romance writer! In my fortnightly Catalyst News for creative people I pass on useful tips and opportunities and whenever I mention romance, people get a bit embarrassed or dismissive – maybe because the English are deeply romantic, but don’t want to admit it!

If writing for this market appeals to you, here are a few tips from my last newsletter:
If you think romance novels are for sissies, read no further, but if you want to break into one of the most lucrative niche markets in writing then stay with me. Oh, and don’t imagine this is just for the girls, an astonishing number of successful romance writers are men, though they usually write under a female pseudonym as apparently that sells better. Why does romance pay? It’s because romantic fiction accounts for over 20% of all fiction books bought in the UK and that’s a big market that is always hungry for new writers.

Don’t believe me? I will let that old favorite Mills and Boon’s figures tell their own story:
** 50 million readers worldwide
** 200 million books sold each year = 6.6 books a second
** 3.2 million regular readers in the UK
** 13 million books sold each year in the UK
** 1500 authors worldwide; 200 authors living in the UK
** 600 new titles a year; that is 50 a month

One of the most successful in the field is American author, Nora Roberts, who makes her fellow authors look like slackers. She has written 175 novels, the majority of them best sellers, and there are nearly 300 million copies of her books in print – imagine the royalties on that?

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