Depends on what you call "romance". WE think it's romantic, but so far the chicks we've showed it to tend to use fanciful terms like "porn" and "creepy" and "restraining order". Seriously, as mentioned by another poster ROMANCE is a genre (more like a multi-headed, ever-mutating, amoeba) and has some major advantages for writers who are capable of meeting it's challenges. (By which I mean, of course, not throwing up) First, it's one of the few genres in which agents are not required to submit to publishers. Many of the larger houses accept transom submissions, which you won't find in any other genre. Second, it's The Staff Of Life for ebooks and all the new "presses" using POD and having names like "Black Rose", "Effusive Rose", "Rose Colored Rose" and "Menopausal Lust Denial". It's probably the easiest sort of novel to see in print, or at least in ebook with a publisher's name other than your own or LuLu. Third, it's a huge sub-culture. I'm talking about the writers here, though same goes for the readers. Town that wouldn't have a writer's group in a thousand years have romance writers groups. The websites for Romance are miles ahead of the marketing, promoting, and support that other genre sites enjoy. That said: you have to know your onions. Even more than most genres' the sub-categories of Romance are very specific on what they want. So if you are going to write BadBoy or Christian or Mormon or Islamic or Vampire or Zombie or Kickassitude or Outer Space or Regency Romance, you'd better know what they expect and be comfortable with giving it to them. Some houses even have different "degrees" of "spiciness" like a Thai menu. If you are doing something that doesn't fit existing categories ("Medieval Zombie Necromance"?) then you should consider starting up your own POD press. ("Dead Shire Rose"?)
uh, on the note of 'better knowing what they expect' means you gotta know basics about them, like mormons are christians...
I'm not a romance novelist per-se, but my more recent writings always have romantic elements sprinkled throughout them. As That Silly Welsh Guy put I'm more about the "Chase" than the "catch" whereas I prefer to go through the flirty-bird stage than the full-on romantic fiend stage.
There is Christian romance. There is Mormon romance. Different lines. The discussion is romance writing, not religious taxonomy.
