It's tougher to succeed than it was a year ago in the Indie market, that's for damn sure. That said if you can write fast, on genre, and are savvy you can still make good money writing romance. I do okay, and I regularly rub elbows with people who do way more than okay (20k+ months). The key I've noticed is an ability to either have the novel of your heart be something marketable or know how to write to market. I think in romance it's getting less and less possible to write. You have to be willing to be at minimum publisher savvy. That means knowing how to create a brand, how to market etc etc. It's really not that hard, but it is a pain. I have sympathy for authors who don't want to deal with that. OTOH, I really have no interest in writing query letters, but if I wanted to not self-publish, that would be something I'd have to do. So if you really want to write, publish and make a living at it, you make it work.
You save up that $600 to publish your novel. Yes, it can be done at $600, it really, really can. And no it won't be crap at that price point, but you have to be very savvy. And you have to be savvy from the moment you put your pen to paper, in what you're writing. 99% of what I see people write isn't written to market, or part of a hot genre. Lots of those people self-publish and are DOA. There are resources to learn how to self-publish really well, and it can be done, but it's work, and more work than it used to be.
You save up that $600 to publish your novel. Yes, it can be done at $600, it really, really can. And no it won't be crap at that price point, but you have to be very savvy. And you have to be savvy from the moment you put your pen to paper, in what you're writing. 99% of what I see people write isn't written to market, or part of a hot genre. Lots of those people self-publish and are DOA. There are resources to learn how to self-publish really well, and it can be done, but it's work, and more work than it used to be.
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