romantic fiction

[William]

Just been talking to a friend, he's American, about writing and he reckons that there's money to be made in romantic fiction. The publisher Harlequin was mentioned. Not loads of money, about a thousand dollars a book he reckons.

Now here's a question, do you let lucrative factors like this lead your writing or should it be independent of them? I've nothing against romantic writers, but I really don't think I'd be capable of writing in that genre. I think I'll stick with detective fiction.

[Evelyn]

1. How much you can make from writing a Harlequin varies depending on the line. Google "Brenda Hiatt" and "Show me the money" to get an idea of how much you could earn.

2. Since this is in a group discussing M.M. Kaye, she records in her autobiography that she tried to write a boy-meets-girl-loses-girl-gets-girl romance and make money. She wrote, "... this form of literature isn't nearly as easy to write as you think... I was writing something I thought was sentimental and saccharine drip, and in consequence, all I produced was exceedingly bad and patently phony drip that no publisher in the right minds would have accepted... You have to *believe* in it."