Comments on: USA Today Besteller List, Week Ending August 5, 2007

By: Laura Vivanco

Laura Vivanco — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:48:40 +0000

Oh I see. I hadn’t worked out that it was the paranormal aspect that was innovative.

I’m not sure that paranormal world-building is more difficult. It requires an initial effort, I’m sure, but once it’s set up, all the authors would be working from, one hopes, fairly detailed guidelines. I imagine that one of the problems that may arise when creating a connected series of contemporaries is that people may make assumptions about the contemporary world precisely because it is contemporary, and that may mean that they trip up over details which differ from one location/culture/social group to another.

By: Jane

Jane — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:05:21 +0000

The Dorchester books are connected paranormals which I view to be more difficult to craft than modern contemporaries with connected families. I think the first similar series that Harlequin did was Raintree series which I thought was a mess. As I am not a writer, perhaps the effort is the same but I view detailed world building harder to accomplish than creating a realistic contemporary setting.

By: Laura Vivanco

Laura Vivanco — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:40:28 +0000

Dorchester was innovative in creating these connected books by different authors and I would love to see other houses do something like this.

Harlequin Mills & Boon have been publishing connected books by different authors for a while. What’s different about this Dorchester set of connected books?

By: Melanie

Melanie — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 03:59:00 +0000

Wouldn't it be fun to read a connected series with Meljean Brook, Nalini Singh and Marjorie Liu from Berkley?

What an awesome series that would be!

By: sherry thomas

sherry thomas — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:29:08 +0000

According to last years PW article featureing 10 fresh voices in romance (authors debuting in 2007), Monica McCarty’s print run is 250,000. Even if one gives it a 20% discount, since publishers tend to puff up the print run number when speaking to PW, that is still 200,000 books. I expected to see her on the list.

I found the link to the article on Meljean Brook’s website, if anyone’s interested.