For love or money: how one planner advises romance author clients from the heart

Within the diverse client base he keeps at his New York-based RIA practice, Larry Sprung has a special fondness for one particular niche: romance authors.

"They're a great bunch of people," Sprung, the 26-year veteran advisor and founder of Mitlin Financial, said in a recent interview. "They're a community of typically like-minded people who are very charity-oriented, willing to give, family-oriented. So they're just people that I can relate to very well from a lot of their personal situations." 

According to Sprung, his relationship with romance authors began just over a decade ago as a result of a shared advocacy. After a personal tragedy involving his brother-in-law, he and his wife became vocal champions for mental health, setting up a charitable fund at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in his memory. 

"We were very open and honest about our family situation," he says. "My wife had a blog where she would review romance books, and one author approached my wife 13 years ago asking if she could donate a portion of the proceeds from her book sales for May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month, to the memorial fund. And my wife said that would be great."

It was a fateful connection. From there, Sprung said the story took on a life of its own, with other romance authors reaching out to offer their support. As more people signed up as donors to the fund – he says they now have 25 novelists regularly making contributions – it opened the door to another opportunity.

"Somewhere along the line, we were approached by an organizer running a conference for romance authors," he recalls. "She asked if I would be willing to speak as a resource at the event."

While writers may hope to hit it big with a bestseller, they mostly have limited interest in financial matters like taxes or putting money away, which makes managing the resulting windfall a challenge. Because of the support he received from the community up to that point, he agreed to put together an educational presentation.

"She said other advisors had done it before, but they went in expecting to get business right away – they'd come one year, and then they're gone," he says. "So we created a presentation called 'Write Your Financial Future,' delivered it, and we kept going back."

Over time, Sprung managed to build up to the healthy client base of wordsmiths he serves today. He declined to identify them specifically for privacy reasons, but he says those relationships run the gamut from people holding down full-time jobs to support their writing habit, to high-profile names who've achieved literary fame with New York Times bestsellers.

"One of the families we work with was a lawyer for a number of years, and she really enjoyed writing romance. So she ended up making the transition from law into romance writing," he says.

As investors, Sprung says romance authors don't fit into a particular mold. From an asset standpoint, they may have anywhere from several hundred thousand dollars to tens of millions in investable assets. In terms of risk tolerance, some are conservative, while others are more risk-averse.

"Some of those earlier on may be a little more risk-adverse because they don't have the means to go that far. Those that have accumulated more wealth can afford to be more aggressive," he says. "I think many of them face the same challenges as other entrepreneurs in terms of managing their family finances and running a business."

Because his team continuously works to develop financial plans with clients and see how they perform against the markets, he says the recent turbulence hasn't had a dramatic impact on their portfolios. On the business side, several of his clients have reported sales declines over the first two quarters of the year, likely due at least in part to a broad pullback in consumer discretionary spending.

"Some of them are looking at new ways to generate revenue, whether it's by finding new readers through Facebook ads, or setting up their own store rather than being reliant on Amazon," Sprung says.

Aside from charitable giving and entrepreneurship, Sprung was able to connect more deeply with his clients by authoring his own book, "Financial Planning Made Personal," a 10-year project that finally got published in 2023. While he's quick to play down that accomplishment ("I'm not necessarily on their level"), he says the resulting growth at his practice points to a fundamental principle for advisors looking to specialize for a specific niche.

"I'm not saying go write a book, and then you're going to be working with authors all of sudden," Sprung says. "But I think it's like going into any new niche: you have to go in with a genuine curiosity, learning what their pain points are, and being there to educate them ... It's about doing it from a good place, right from your heart, and not necessarily thinking about driving revenue."