Indie Author SnapShot: The Appeal of Romance and the Choice of Main Characters

I was also curious, from my one-day snapshot of book titles, to see what the correlation was between romance in the novel, and the book's sales potential.

I divided the books based upon the contents of their blurb, between those with a clear, romantic love focus, those which left the potential for a romantic storyline, and those with no suggestion of a romantic sub-plot at all.

Not surprisingly, those books with a clear romantic sub-plot described in the blurb out-sold those with no suggestion of a potential romantic storyline by a ratio of 2.9:1.

Those books which left open only the potential for a romantic interest, however, were indistinguishable from those with no hint of a potential romantic storyline - differing by a little more than 1-percent in sales.

Clearly, romance has a broader appeal - beyond the fantasy genre. But to capitalize on that market, the novel has to be clearly aimed at that market, leaving no ambiguity.

There was also a disconnect in the ratio between female and male protagonists - and how well each book sold. Based upon the description in the blurb, 69-percent of the titles surveyed focused on a single female protagonist, rather than a male protagonist or multiple main characters. Those which did focus on a female protagonist, tended to out-sell those which focused on a male or multiple protagonists by a ratio of 2.1:1.

Both of these trends no doubt reflect heavily on the audience which is most likely to purchase novels in this genre.