Some conversations in romancelandia never go away: accuracy and authenticity in historical romance, whether Jamie Fraser of Outlander is a great hero or the greatest, and whether series books are wonderful or maddening or both. Coincidentally, I was about to finish the last book of an eight-book series when I saw a column lamenting [...]]]>

Some conversations in romancelandia never go away: accuracy and authenticity in historical romance, whether Jamie Fraser of Outlander is a great hero or the greatest, and whether series books are wonderful or maddening or both. Coincidentally, I was about to finish the last book of an eight-book series when I saw a column lamenting the lack of stand-alone books in romance. I was nodding my head in agreement when I suddenly stopped and thought, wait a minute. I’ve been reading series and linked books in the romance genre as long as I’ve been reading romance, and these include some that were written before I was born. Are there really more series books and less stand-alone novels? Is it that we notice series more because we talk about them as a community? Are they publicized more, by authors and publishers? Or is it just something we have mixed feelings about so the conversation never really goes away?

There are a number of ways books can be linked to each other in a series.

(1) They can feature the same characters over a number of novels, like Eve and Roarke in J.D. Robb’s In Death series, and the relationship develops over the installments. Among non-genre books, the development of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane’s romance by Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorites.

(2) They can feature a shared world, with different main characters in each books; previous characters make quick or more extended appearances, the way strangers and friends do in real life. Meljean Brooks’ Guardian and Iron Seas series are contemporary examples of these; Mary Burchell’s Warrender Saga books and Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels are blasts from the past.

(3) They can revolve around a family or set of friends, with each member of the group starring in his or her own book. They can be single-authored or multiple-authored. The Bridgertons, the Cynsters, the Mallorens, the Bedwyns and the Black Dagger Brotherhood come to mind immediately when I think family/friends series, and I don’t even read Laurens or Ward.

When I stop and think about it, romance is the only genre among the ones I read regularly where readers complain about too many series. The SFF and mystery genres are dominated by series, and the debate usually rages around issues of quality (Wheel of Time) or time between books (I know, George RR Martin is not my bitch), rather than whether they should exist at all. Characters can grow and change (Rebus, Dalziel, Spenser), or they can remain almost cartoonishly static (James Bond, Mickey Spillane, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys).

As a young and voracious reader, I absolutely loved series, even when they petered out in the later volumes (I’ve read the first five Anne of Green Gables books more than a dozen times, the last few rarely or never). I especially enjoyed following characters across books. And I like shared worlds most of all. The Warrender Saga is one of the best shared world series I’ve read, in any genre. I think that’s in large part because Mary Burchell was extremely knowledgeable about the classical music world, and her love for it shines through. Every book in the series isn’t outstanding, but they’re all worth reading and they don’t copy each other in plot and characterization (or at least no more than category romances do in general).

My other favorite shared world series is Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire oeuvre. You might almost call it fan fiction. Thirkell took the English county that Anthony Trollope invented, created descendants of his Barsetshire and Parliamentary series characters, and made them entirely her own. She wrote a book a year from the early 1930s on, mixing in new characters with the old families, and she took them through the pre-World War II period, the postwar era, and into the early 1960s. Each book has at least one romantic storyline, and some have two or even three. Not all the books are great, and the later ones get both less interesting and more mean-spirited about changes in English society. But it’s a thoroughly immersive world as well as a valuable snapshot of a certain type of English County life. The 1930s and 1940s novels, in particular, are top-notch in both characterization and evocation of setting.

The family/friends category of linked books are not as appealing to me, and I don’t seem to be alone. These are the ones readers tend to complain about the most these days (Spies! No More Spies! Please!), but they aren’t a new phenomenon. Marion Chesney wrote The Six Sisters back in the 1980s. The patriarch is a hunting-made Squire rather than a Ducal Head of Family, but they’re structurally similar to the Bedwyns and the Mallorens.

While I have fond memories of the Chesney series, this type of series seems to be the most uneven in terms of individual installments. Balogh’s Slightly series had a couple of books that were keepers for me, but it also had the Disney Whores. All of Chesney’s Sisters weren’t equally interesting. And, of course, there’s the suspension of disbelief. Not only is the whole family or group of friends hero/heroine material, but they all find equally fabulous mates. It’s asking a lot of authors. And what about the times when the supporting character of one book takes a turn as a hero in the next, and in the process seems to undergo a personality transplant?

Finally, there are the dreaded open-ended series, which we find in all of the above categories. They can grow and grow, especially if  the early ones sell well. A previously well-defined family series can beget a second set of linked books (Balogh’s Slightly series was succeeded by the Simple quartet, with Bedwyns showing up yet again). Sometimes they have a fully developed and consistent world across the installments, like Jo Beverley’s Rogues, but at other times, no so much. The plots, characterizations, and themes all get recycled, and characters seem to exist primarily as sequel bait.

At this point a reader will throw up her hands, wish a pox on all series books, and read stand-alones to get the bad taste out of her mouth. But inevitably, she comes back when a new series with rave reviews comes along. I doubt series are going anywhere any time soon. They are catnip to publishers, because if readers like one book, they’re likely to buy the rest, and who is going to pass up the chance to sell to a captive audience?

But we can vote with our feet by telling publishers which types we prefer. For me, it’s shared worlds. How about you, readers? Which types do you gravitate towards, and which examples of linked books stand out for you as especially strong or weak?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of bluster in the YA community over what reviews “should be” and how they should be written and defined and what they should and should not contain. It’s a conversation that was very common in the online Romance community not so many years ago, and [...]]]>

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of bluster in the YA community over what reviews “should be” and how they should be written and defined and what they should and should not contain. It’s a conversation that was very common in the online Romance community not so many years ago, and the topic still breaks the not-so-still waters periodically.

I won’t rehash the arguments made over the past few weeks, but I will provide a link round-up for anyone trying to catch up on the crazy:

A nice summary of the Goodreads flameouts

YA author Hannah Moskowitz’s “open letter” to Goodreads reviewers

Veronica Roth’s thoughtful response to some of her fellow YA authors’ meltdowns

Maggie Stiefvater’s insistence that reviews should be like academic papers, with a thesis and supporting sentences

Crime writer Jim Thompson’s rules for reviewing

Common themes have emerged from authors and reviewers. On the authorial side we’ve seen the assertion that there is a certain type of review that deserves to be called a “review,” and there are certain “professional standards” said “review” must meet, else it becomes something else, something decidedly lesser. And on the reviewer side we have the persistent refrain, “reviews are not for authors, so authors should not be trying to define them.” Of course there are authors on the so-called reviewer side and vice versa, but this conversation has occurred so often over the past decade or so that I’ve been online, that many of the issues are now well-rehearsed.

There also tends to be this polarization of micro and macro perspectives. On the one hand, you get rants on specific reviews that generate numerous generalizations and misunderstandings. We saw that here on Dear Author just yesterday. Then you get these macro-level generalizations about, say, less than stellar Amazon or Goodreads reviews, as if these reviews are mass-produced in some anti-author factory somewhere. In fact, one of the interesting things Veronica Roth notes is that “98% of the time, the reviewer is expressing opinions about a book, and if an author expresses his or her opinions about a review, they are always saying something about the reviewer.” We’ve also seen that here at Dear Author, too.

And let’s face it; it’s not difficult to see why that happens. A book review can feel like an incredibly personal thing, even though it’s directed at the book and not the author. Responding publicly in a way that doesn’t sound like a personal opinion about the reviewer is not as easy as it may seem, in part because a review is a personal opinion, with the reviewer and the review more closely combined in the review itself.

Which is, I think, one of the best things about reviews and one of the chief reasons we (that is, the broad community of readers, authors, editors, and publishers, regardless of favored genre) should be encouraging as broad a diversity of reviewing voices as possible, with the fewest set “rules” about what constitutes a proper or legitimate review.

I suspect a lot of the rule-setting is about legitimacy. I mean, what author wouldn’t want a glowing review in the NYTBR? And regardless of all the dismissive “I’m laughing all the way to the bank” comments about gaining critical exposure in certain venues, there is still a lingering sense that certain critical attention equals cultural or literary legitimacy. I think some of the current muddle in YA is connected to a desire for the perception of greater legitimacy for the genre. And I don’t think that desire is, in itself, illegitimate. What I think is unproductive and short-sighted, though, is the attempt to proscribe reviewing, especially when those doing the proscribing are not, in fact, doing the bulk of the reviewing.

For example, how many people consult Yelp or Trip Advisor when checking out a hotel or restaurant? How would you feel if the restaurant or hotel industry came out publicly against certain kinds of online reviews? Wouldn’t that seem to represent an overstepping of bounds? But book reviewing is different! Books are art! Writing is hard! Yes, writing is difficult. Writing reviews can be difficult, too. Not everyone articulates their opinion easily or in the same way. Not everyone is versed in the language of literary theory or writing craft. Not everyone has the same writing style or feels the same way about a book. In fact, it’s the very personal experience of reading – much like the experience of writing – that makes it special and makes the articulation of its lasting effects on the reader so critical. Not that every review is a gem of brilliant insight or linguistic beauty, but as a whole, reviews are tangible evidence of the importance and legitimacy of reading and of books.

At its best, reading creates an alchemical reaction between book and reader, an elevation of both through the synergy created in the radiance of the experience. Although difficult to express, every reader knows what I’m talking about here, because we’ve all had that experience, thus our ongoing dedication to reading. It’s a very personal experience that, in and of itself, cannot be expressed. However, what can be articulated are the thoughts and reactions we have to books in a review – literally a re-viewing of the text through words. And in that re-viewing, we can share a part of that reading experience with others, making something that is unique and personal into something collective and connected.

If legitimacy is really the issue here, then let’s think about the long-term legitimacy of reading and book buying in general. How many nail-biting admonishments do we hear about the future of books, which are in hot competition with myriad other forms of entertainment. Reading, a largely solitary experience, becomes shared and communal through conversation, some of which may begin with reviews. Conversation both reflects and fosters personal investment, which in turn promotes more reading and conversation. The book is critical, but so are the forums in which the book becomes alive again through discussion and debate. This second-life doesn’t always take on the form most pleasing to the author, but it’s life, nonetheless, and that vivification is productive. It keeps interest in reading and books alive and growing, in the form of overlapping communities, forums, and venues, and in the inclusion of more and more voices. Why would anyone want to limit the number or type or style of voices in reading communities when there is so much worry about the long-term viability of books and reading?

But perhaps even more importantly, why would we want to stifle the precise thing that makes reading so powerful to so many of us – the enduring promise of that alchemical magic – for the sake of formalities? If books are special, if they are to be regarded as “art,” and if genre fiction in general is legitimate, then it will survive bad grammar, bad language, and even bad reviews.

Think of it this way. A [...]]]> On Wednesday from 8 am EST to 8 pm EST, Dear Author will join others like WordPress and Wikipedia in going dark. We are joining these other sites in solidarity to protest SOPA and PIPA, in their current incarnation, bills that will be used to censor the internet.

Think of it this way. A number of authors host their own message boards. If one user posts a link to an image of a hot guy that is copyrighted, someone else could get that author’s site pulled down. If an author posted a video from YouTube that used copyrighted songs, that author could be in violation of the law and have access to her site blocked.

A protest against this bill is not a protest against the fight against piracy. Instead, it is a statement in support of a due process, the right to be heard, the right to be presumed innocent of wrongdoing until proof has been made.

Tomorrow some sites around the internet will be black to display what the outcome of PIPA/SOPA could be, if passed. But don’t take my word for it. I urge you to spend some time tomorrow reading up about the law.

As more authors bypass traditional publishing to bring their products directly to the consumer, the greater the risk is to the reader that she wastes her money (albeit a low amount of it) and her time (possibly more precious) on a sub standard product.  The benefit of a book that is published by [...]]]>

As more authors bypass traditional publishing to bring their products directly to the consumer, the greater the risk is to the reader that she wastes her money (albeit a low amount of it) and her time (possibly more precious) on a sub standard product.  The benefit of a book that is published by an actual publisher, whether it is a print or digital first publisher, is this idea that someone impartial has said “this is worth reading.”  With a self published book or one published by a house that is run by the author herself (this is more common that you think readers), there is no impartial person standing between you and the book giving a single stamp of approval.

But even with that impartial person given a stamp of approval, non discounted book prices drives down the number of chances readers can take on a book in any given month. With covers, titles, blurbs, and themes so similar from one book to another, relying on the old browse method can be tricky and expensive.

With the increase in pay to play reviews which will undoubtedly grow as the secondary publishing services market grows to address the needs of self published authors, readers’ opinions are more important than ever.

I’ve been trying to buy and read more books that are self published. I feel like I am a pretty forgiving reader and am willing to overlook any number of grammatical and spelling errors and typos so long as the story is readable but I am overwhelmed by the sheer volume of books out there, even for 99c.  I’m not concerned about the money as much as my time, although 99c failures can add up fairly quick.  In order to sort through the books, I rarely buy one that doesn’t have at least 30-40 reviews with an average of four stars and above.

I asked Ned about this and he says he feels absolutely no compulsion to rate or review anything he buys, reads, consumes.  ”There are plenty of people who are willing to provide their opinions,” Ned said, looking at me pointedly.  But I rarely leave reviews at Amazon or even Goodreads, both places that I go to look for reader opinions of books.  I write reviews here at Dear Author and that is about it.  Since the turn of the year, though, I have started to leave one to two sentence reviews at Goodreads of every book I’ve read, kind of like one of reading list roundups here at Dear Author, as a way to give back to the Goodreads community.  I haven’t yet started leaving reviews on Amazon but I’ve been thinking about whether I owe the customers on Amazon to rate the books I’ve purchased there.

I don’t think readers owe it to authors to review or rate their books up or down but I do wonder if readers owe other readers to review/rate their books so as to help other readers.  Maybe it is to warn readers away or maybe it is to help a book you really think is a gem find an audience.  Of course one can say that some readers’ reviews aren’t worthwhile because they are universally “THIS IS THE MOST WUNDERFUL BOOKES EVERR!!! or “icantbelieveiread that cruppy book”.  Or you can argue that one good review outweighs a dozen one line reviews that tell a consumer almost nothing.  Nonetheless, a cumulative number of reviews, either good or bad, can help to create a general picture of whether a book is worthy of your time.

What do you think?

I was going to write about whether readers have a duty to other readers to write and leave reviews where they shop, even one or two line reviews. But given the five days of flameouts in roughly the first five days of 2012, I thought I would briefly address the issue of the author/reader [...]]]>

I was going to write about whether readers have a duty to other readers to write and leave reviews where they shop, even one or two line reviews. But given the five days of flameouts in roughly the first five days of 2012, I thought I would briefly address the issue of the author/reader paradigm.

The authorial flameouts have primarily been young adult and self published authors. I think part of the reason is the maturity of the online reading community. I don’t mean maturity by chronological age of the community but in the length of time that the community has existed. The romance community had these kerfluffles stemming back to the 90s, and they were mean and ugly and worse than what you see today, thank goodness. (Thank goodness, because I don’t wish some of those author flameouts on anyone).  But the early reviewers of romance did not back down. Mrs. Giggles, Laurie Gold, reviewers at The Romance Reader, and the author reviewers at Paperback Reader kept on, and in doing so, helped to change the atmosphere and culture of the romance reviewing community.

It is not that romance is free of these flareups.  Just last year, an author jammed her foot in her own mouth by suggesting she would like one of our DA reviewers to “throw up.” But by and large, we’ve really matured as a community because readers, reviewers and even authors have stuck up for the right of reviewers and readers to have their say.

I don’t think that the self-publishing community and the young adult authorial community have quite reached that level of sanguinity and realization that critical readers and reviewers are an important voice in the community. Although several YA authors have come out in support of reviews, others have yet seen that by their authorial flameouts they embarrass themselves (witness the deletion of comments and blogposts) and their fellow authors, and can put a damper on a burgeoning community. One moment of great irony in Julie Halpern’s now deleted rant was when she claimed that negative reviews are “discouraging people from reading.” Those of us in romance know that precisely the opposite is true – negative reviews and the controversy surrounding them can sell a book as fast or faster than a glowing review. Of course not everyone in romance values the critical or negative review, but those reviews have become much more mainstream as the community has matured.

Creating a robust community of readers is something that takes time and perseverance, and it does make sense to for readers to stand up for themselves. But understanding what is driving these authors can also help readers respond more effectively.

Readers and authors each have their own paradigm – that is, a set of beliefs, circumstances, and assumptions that guide and contextualize their behavior. Sometimes these paradigms seem to mirror one another, while other times they are in direct conflict. Under the reader paradigm, the author is perceived to have a large platform, and thus when they say something, it has resonance. They can start Twitter campaigns, affect a group down voting of reviews on Amazon, and rouse a group of fans to charge after a reader. Under the author paradigm, the reader is perceived to have a platform (even when she does not) and it resonates. They can start Twitter campaigns, affect a group down voting of reviews on Amazon, and rouse a group of like-minded fans to charge after the author.

Both parties believe the other has a larger platform and a position of power from which to affect others. In my opinion, generally speaking, a published author has a natural and intrinsic platform. She has an author loop with like-minded authors at the ready to exercise their down vote button at Amazon. She has friends and family that she rounds up to leave positive reviews at various sites. She has a readership that she acquires or has already acquired, and loyal fans who will defend the author’s work at various boards, blogs, and other review sites.  The Author can also write negatively about reviewers in her books as Lori Foster and Victoria Laurie.

Readers, on the other hand, have much smaller circles. Few will go around and get their reviews up voted on Amazon. Few will be able to get other readers to leave negative reviews, mostly because it’s difficult to get enough people who have all read the same book. This may be changing, but published authors still inherently have a larger platform. Witness, for example, the reviewer, Sophie, that was the target of Jamie McGuire. She had 31 followers at the time McGuire posted her blog post. At that time, McGuire had over 670 fans.

The awful “cow” and “toe rag” reviewer, Stephanie has 39 followers. Leigh Fallon, who tried to start a campaign against Stephanie’s Amazon review, which included several personal invectives against Stephanie, has 907 friends, 358 fans and is the #1 most followed.

Julie Halpern totally lost it over a review posted at The Allure of Books. It is, as Halpern suggests, a blog with a big following. 1258 followers are proclaimed on the blog. Halpern, however, is a multi-published author with four books under her belt and a new one due to be published in 2012. Halpern even views herself as superior in her blog post: “ I know it should not matter what this blogger says about my book (and after just reading her bio, which has much in the way of potential mocking, I am just going to rise above). Because I am already SO FAR ABOVE in my life.”

Under the author paradigm, publishing a book is one of the greatest achievements ever.  (This is not to say that it is not a great achievement but that it is not valued the same by readers).  Under the reader paradigm, the book is a commodity of entertainment to be valued, weighed, and judged like so many other products that they spend their time and money on. The book as an object is not necessarily special. A book can become special and hold a favored position in a reader’s mind, but not all books have that status, especially books that will never be read or have been read and not enjoyed.

Under the author paradigm, the feelings of the author matter.  Under the reader paradigm, the author’s feelings should not matter because the book and the author are two separate things. For example, a review written with the author’s feelings in mind can end up being less than truthful, and the reader review system relies on the veracity of the review, the transparency of the bias.

Under the author paradigm, a negative review can affect their livelihood. Consequently, critical readers and reviewers deserve to be mocked in a book (PC Cast) or brought to heel. Under the reader paradigm, one negative review does little, particularly when there are dozens of positive reviews, or in the case of some authors, several hundred positive reviews. And if there are a multiple negative reviews such that the average rating of the book is 3 stars or less, then well, that pretty much indicates to the reader that the book is getting the praise or criticism it deserves. According to Jamie McGuire, “In no other work environment is someone expected to be attacked so viciously and then say, “Thank you,” which makes the book review equivalent to a job performance evaluation. And a bad evaluation, presumably, can jeopardize one’s career.  But we know from many years of experience, that negative reviews don’t crater careers because no book ever written has been exempt from negative reviews.  Says one reviewer regarding To Kill a Mockingbird:

If I could give this no stars, I would. This is possibly one of my least favorite books in the world, one that I would happily take off of shelves and stow in dark corners where no one would ever have to read it again.I think that To Kill A Mockingbird has such a prominent place in (American) culture because it is a naive, idealistic piece of writing in which naivete and idealism are ultimately rewarded. It’s a saccharine, rose-tinted eulogy for the nineteen thirties from an orator who comes not to bury, but to praise. Written in the late fifties, TKAM is free of the social changes and conventions that people at the time were (and are, to some extent) still grating at. The primary dividing line in TKAM is not one of race, but is rather one of good people versus bad people — something that, of course, Atticus and the children can discern effortlessly.

The “I’m not going to buy” mantra stems in greater numbers from the author’s response to the review than from any negative review.

I know these are generalizations and do not apply to every author and reader. There are well-balanced, respectful authors who value the role of critical debate about their books. And there are poorly-behaved readers who make thoughtless comments about books and authors. But over the years, these generalizations continue to return in the author-reader dynamic, especially as the community grapples with the growth of reader-generated criticism.

But one constant remains: book reviews are not the same as a workplace performance evaluation. They are not even meant for authors. Reviews are for readers. This needs to be our mantra.

Readers do not have a limitless money and time to devote to reading. Readers use the opinions of others to cull through the thousands of books that are thrust before them to choose what is worth their time and money. Both are important. Readers use reviews to open up discussion on books, because while reading itself is a solitary act, books are a community good, and readers love little more than gushing over or ranting over a book that moved them. And readers love nothing more than a good book. They will often overlook a book (or ten) that disappointed them to try yet another by the same author that got great reader feedback. I think it can be very helpful for authors to remember that readers are generally not invested in the author unless they are adamant fans or the author has distinguished herself in a negative way.

But it’s also helpful for readers to remember this. It’s why readers would not say the same thing to an author directly at a book signing or convention as she might say in a review. Readers are not critique partners and it is not their job to “help” an author “get better.” While tagging an author in a tweet announcing your less than stellar review may seem like a small thing, it can seem like a hard poke to the author. Most of us know that criticism is inevitable, but not every author wants to see negative reviews of their books. And what doesn’t seem negative to the reviewer can come across as criticism to an author.

Witness the furor against C reviews here in this blog post or witness the Facebook posting of Jessica Park (self-published author) who can’t imagine why anyone who gave her a C review would want to follow her on Goodreads.  Anything less than a glowing five star review probably shouldn’t be shared with the author unless she asks directly for it. If readers don’t want authors defending their work in the comments to reviews, it seems fair to not directly invite them to the review.

Reviews are for readers.  If you are a reviewer, don’t assume that the author wants to hear what you have to say, no matter how insightful or brilliant it is.  Let her find out from her critique partner, editor, or beta reader.  It’s true that errors have become more frequent in books, but pointing those out to the author isn’t a public service. Once a review is public, any number of people might read it, including the author. But if readers start thinking that reviews can help authors or that authors should read reviews, then that just validates the idea that reviews are like a personal performance evaluation, which in turn overpersonalizes the relationship between reader and author and encourages more bad feelings between the two.

Maili suggested I do a prediction of the 2012 romance genre, but those books have already been bought, mostly.  Here’s what I would like to see:

Although I’m not exactly a devoted reader of John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, a Twitter retweet last week drew my attention to a recent post, in which he announces that readers protesting ebook prices on his “Big Idea” posts will have their comment deleted:

Why? Primarily because here at the tail end of 2011, [...]]]>

Although I’m not exactly a devoted reader of John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, a Twitter retweet last week drew my attention to a recent post, in which he announces that readers protesting ebook prices on his “Big Idea” posts will have their comment deleted:

Why? Primarily because here at the tail end of 2011, I find the subject boring and I find the people who get huffy about an electronic book not being [insert price you believe for whatever reason an eBook should be] are exhibiting a particularly tiresome sort of entitlement, to wit, that owning an electronic book reader means that you are possibly obliged to announce your opinion on book pricing at every turn. See, the thing is: You’re not. You don’t have to. At this point, I wish you wouldn’t.

But it doesn’t stop there. Scalzi goes on to insist that such complaints are “kind of mean to the author,” and that

. . . going into a comment thread of a Big Idea and making a big show of why you’re not going to buy the book because of a price point that the author very frequently has absolutely no control over kind of makes you a dick. Authors are already neurotic and twitchy about how the book is going to be received; you going in and announcing “I will not buy your book for reasons entirely unrelated to your writing and about which you were given no say” is really cluelessly rude. If you want to complain about the pricing, please do — to someone who actually has the wherewithal to do something about it, namely, the publisher. They are not hard to find and e-mail.

Without a doubt, Scalzi has the right to delete comments on his blog, and at least he’s giving people fair warning that he will do so in certain circumstances. That’s not what irked me about the post. What irked me is this belief that readers who protest book prices to the author are “entitled,” a word that in the context of his post suggests that we are somehow overstepping and over-reaching beyond what is our right. That, combined with Scalzi’s belief that readers have easy access to publishers and that not utilizing it is “mean to the author,” struck me as just plain wrong. Numerous supportive comments to his post honestly surprised me, as did a point Scalzi brought up to me in a long Twitter exchange, namely his belief that the big 6 publishers regard readers as their customers – which stands in contradiction to what even the publishers themselves say. And while I certainly understand why authors would get frustrated and even resentful over reader complaints about pricing, I think Scalzi’s argument is, at best, myopic and mistaken in regard to readers, authors, and publishers.

The Nature of the Book

There is an ongoing tension around whether books are the same or different from other consumer goods. Is the book a sacred cultural artifact or a commercial product akin to a vacuum cleaner or a kitchen appliance? The rise of digital books suggests that even within the realm of books there is a hierarchy of cultural value. Eloquent eulogies to the paper book abound, elevating its status and calling into question whether something that’s not printed and bound can even be called a book. Publishers currently treat digital books differently from print books, both in royalty structure and pricing (i.e. no so-called agency pricing model for print books). Scalzi argues that “eBooks are not special snowflakes; they’re just books in electronic form. As someone who prefers to read in eBook form, you are not substantially different from someone who prefers hardcovers, or trade paperbacks, or mass market paperbacks,” but what about books in general?

The Nature of the Reader’s Relationship with the Book

My own view is that books are both a commercial good and a cultural artifact, which means that behavior toward them will be a hybrid of consumption and critical engagement. And one of the biggest aspects of the commercial nature of books is the price. Under the current so-called agency pricing (Charles Petit does a great job explaining why it’s not really an agency model), big 6 publishers set the price of books, but consumers still primarily acquire books via retailers, which have long been considered the customers of publishers. As cultural artifacts, books are creative products, and readers are conditioned to identify them primarily with the author’s name on the cover. In the broad universe of books and readers, what is the likelihood that a reader will identify a book with its publisher?  I know for myself that even now I’m much more likely to know a non-agency book’s publisher than I am one from the big 6. Some of those non-agency books I purchase direct from the publisher (e.g. Harlequin), but most I still buy from a retailer.

The Nature of the Reader’s Relationship with the Author, the Retailer, and the Publisher

When I learned that publishers don’t view readers as their customers, so much made sense to me. My inability – until very recently – for example, to find a contact link on the Penguin publishing site; Macmillan CEO John Sargent’s failure to include readers in his letter on the agency stand-off with Amazon; the seeming hostility to digital demonstrated by big 6 leaders like Simon and Schuster’s Carolyn Reidy, who unselfconsciously explained the practice of “windowing” digital releases, admitting that,

“The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback. We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible.”

Hachette CEO David Young added, “We’re doing this to preserve our industry. I can’t sit back and watch years of building authors sold off at bargain-basement prices. It’s about the future of the business.” And the big 6 business model is built around the hardcover, something I do not believe reflects the priorities of the reading public as a whole.

I know it’s not personal; I understand that publishers, like all commercial businesses, are profit-driven; I don’t doubt that publishers know consumers are end-users of their products. However, their business model has not included readers as customers. Digital growth is beginning to challenge this tradition, but as the publishers themselves admit, it’s a challenge. Part of the problem is that big 6 publishers have decidedly not made themselves accessible or even recognizable to readers. Frankly, I’d love to know when it became easy to contact publishers directly, because that certainly has not been my experience.

Consumers sometimes vent their complaints about a product directly to the manufacturer; however, as gazillions of Amazon reviews demonstrate, the retailer is the likely first stop for the consumer, because they have a direct customer relationship with the retailer. And as readers, especially readers online, we identify books with their authors, more and more of whom have websites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts. In their own way, authors have become like direct marketers of their literary products, not necessarily selling books directly, although more and more authors are, in fact, publishing their own books and selling them via retailers.

Which brings me (FINALLY!) to my central question: why is it inappropriately entitled behavior for a reader to complain about ebook prices to or in the presence of the author?

If ebooks are not “special snowflakes,” then why wouldn’t we expect readers to act any differently from other types of consumers? Consumers complain to the store; book consumers also complain to the authors. But, Scalzi says, authors can’t control their book prices, so it’s “mean” to complain to them. I’m not going to debate the question of whether authors can or cannot control prices, because for me that’s not the point (although clearly self-publishing indicates that author can create an environment in which they can control the price of their books). Rather, I’ll focus on this: among retailers, authors, and readers, the only party not in contractual privity with the publisher is the party Scalzi insists has the burden of dealing with directly. This just strikes me as fundamentally illogical.

Even if I accept Scalzi’s assertion that big 6 authors can’t control price, as contractual partners with publishers, does that invalidate the reader’s right to protest? Authors make choices in what publisher they contract with, and maybe some authors want to know the deterrents readers face in buying their books (this goes for geographical restrictions, too, for example). As Dan Gillmor, director of ASU’s Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, pointed out in his recent Guardian blog post,

Sure, I can afford the higher prices. But the greed of the publishers has inspired me to make different plans. Now I reserve bestsellers at my local library – run by people who love books: imagine that! – and read them whenever they are available. What were impulse purchases of books that sent revenue to publishers are now impulse reservations that do not. If I have to wait a few weeks, no big deal. I should have remembered that all along.

How many readers are now forgoing purchase of big 6 books because of so-called agency pricing, even if they can afford the higher prices? Is this something authors want to know? As authors continue to reach out directly to readers to market their books, I don’t think it’s reasonable to view readers who complain to the author about prices as misbehaving. Because as popular as it is to say that the reader rules, if that were truly the case, I’m not sure the big 6 would even exist, let alone have been able to establish so-called agency pricing.

And do I even need to address the question of whether it’s “mean” to complain about prices to the author? The person who has commercially sold his book in the hopes of making money from it? The person whose name is figured most prominently on the book itself?

Why Shouldn’t the Reader Complain to the Author?

I’ll give Scalzi this: he’s right that I don’t “have to” complain about the price of digital books. What I think he’s dead wrong about, though, is that complaining about the price of digital books is a form of illegitimate entitlement.

When I purchase a digital book from big 6 publishers, which I do infrequently if the price is not reduced, I am denied the right of first sale, which is one of the most fundamental copyright principles. More and more, I am also being denied the kind of editorial and formatting quality I associate with a higher book price (even print books have declined in size, paper quality, and editing, which creates another pricing issue, but I’ll leave that aside for now). But to abdicate my own rights under copyright law in purchasing a digital book means that I am ultimately buying a lesser or at least more limited product. And just as I don’t think it’s anywhere near reasonable to pay $15 or $20 to rent a movie, I don’t think it’s reasonable to pay print prices for DRM’d digital books.

So what about publisher costs? The current print model demonstrates clearly that price is not determined purely by the cost of producing an item, so I don’t find that a helpful argument in determining the cost of digital books as compared to print. With the big 6 business model built around the hardcover, the growth of digital books is not a good thing, which means that publishers do not have much incentive to promote their growth unless the model is changed. With debates over whether so-called agency pricing has helped or hurt authors, it’s unlikely that authors will stand united for or against the practice.

All of which makes it more likely than not that if readers protest digital pricing, they will do so to authors. Even if authors feel that is unfair. Which, in some cases it might be. And perhaps it’s not the most effective venue of protest, although I don’t think it requires subtle interpretive tools to read Scalzi as dismissive of readers who protest digital prices period. But how does lodging the protest with the author’s online book marketing presence make the protesting reader a “dick”? How is the reader’s frustration about an ebook price any different from an author’s frustration over, for example, a royalties structure? I know there are authors who forward reader comments to their publisher. Not every author does this, nor should readers expect it. I think we all have to accept that for the most part people act in what they perceive to be their best interest. The question here, I think, is whether pricing is in the interest of the author, as well.

Without a doubt, the primary perceived interests of readers, authors, and publishers are not always in alignment. But when we have direct evidence that digital book pricing is aimed at slowing digital growth, which in turn potentially slows digital sales for authors and deters readers from buying their books, I think price is a shared concern between authors and readers, one which we are all reasonably entitled — and perhaps should be encouraged — to discuss. Except, of course, at Scalzi’s blog.

For many years, we’ve preached that review are for readers and they are. Oftentimes, when authors react to reviews, it results in an unfortunate dustup with authors saying things they wished they hadn’t and readers throwing out threats of a ban list. The comment threads to a review can be contentious whether it [...]]]>

For many years, we’ve preached that review are for readers and they are. Oftentimes, when authors react to reviews, it results in an unfortunate dustup with authors saying things they wished they hadn’t and readers throwing out threats of a ban list. The comment threads to a review can be contentious whether it is here at Dear Author or at places like Goodreads and Amazon.

But there are times when authorial interaction might actually produce interesting discussion. After I reviewed “Lord of the Abyss,” I wrote a note to Nalini Singh and Singh wrote me back* and said that she wanted to share with me why she turned Liliana beautiful at the end, an ending that I complained about:

I did consider not having that fairytale makeover, because like you said, Micah didn’t care. The thing was, I couldn’t do it to Liliana, herself because it hurt her so much when people were cruel to her, or said nasty things like in the village. The thought of her living her entire life having to bear those slights (and the reality is, people still would’ve said them and they still would’ve hurt, even if only a tiny bit each time since she would’ve had Micah’s unwavering love in contrast) – yeah, I just couldn’t. And since it was a fairytale, I did get to play fairy godmother.

I responded:

You know, your comment is one that I think would be interesting to readers, if you would be willing to post it. I’m not sure how I feel. It’s true that I wouldn’t want Liliana to be hurt constantly by the shunning of others, but I loved the idea of a truly ugly heroine. It’s amazing how none of that really matters when you are in the meat of the story.

Nalini’s response:

As for the Liliana comment, I don’t know. I always wonder if author intention should have any place in a reader’s experience. I’ve always liked the idea that each reader reads a different book, dependent on what personal ideas/life experiences they bring into the story. It’s an interesting thing to think about, especially now, with authors so accessible via the web.

This got me thinking. Jeannie Lin’s response about the ending of her book was posted on her website. I thought her explanation of the Eastern philosophy that drove her story was interesting. It didn’t change how I felt about the book but I enjoyed reading it and contemplating her perspective.

Both the Singh and the Lin comments were ones I would have liked to have discussed with other readers. These might be appropriately questions at the end of the book that could be asked for a reader group (those are sometimes included in trade paperback books).

I emailed Caitlin Crews to see if she would like to write up some thoughts about Shame and Heroines in romance and mentioned that I found that Jake, the hero in “Heiress Behind the Headlines,” hadn’t suffered enough for all the horrible things he said to Larissa, the heroine.  She gave me a really interesting response:

I’m really interested in your take on Jack. I was worried that many readers would not find Larissa at all sympathetic (and indeed many do not) and so in some ways I suppose I saw Jack as a kind of mouthpiece for what I anticipated those readers might feel about her. I also thought that his public acceptance of her at the end would be more meaningful to *her* than any sort of extended grovel might be, as I imagined she wouldn’t necessarily believe that. My understanding from some of the feedback I’ve gotten so far is that some readers just hated her as I worried they might, and those readers seem to think Jack could have done much better. I guess I was trying to strike a balance between those two takes on the story; it’s always so fascinating to hear how/if that kind of thing worked!

But author interaction can result in two things, no matter the intention of the author, both which are detrimental to reader conversation. First, an authorial inerjection can reduce reader commentary. Meljean Brook shared:

I think there’s room for author interaction in the comments of a review, but it’s very limited room. In general — unless the reviewer has notified the author directly about the presence of a review and invites a reply — I think that it’s best not to comment at all. We all know that many authors are online, seeking reviews of their work and looking in on discussions; there’s no need to tap the readers on the shoulder and say, “Hey, I’m here,” because it’s likely to have a chilling effect…and for good or bad, the best thing for an author is for readers to talk about her book. Why shut that down?

The other thing that can occur is for readers to mistake the intention of the author or interpret the author’s intention exactly right and either results in a kerfluffle. Another author emailed me this response:

Explaining a book in the comment section may invite discussion, but it seems argumentative to me. A reader has the right to their opinion of the book, no matter what that opinion is. If an author thinks their book is A and the reader thinks it’s B, no matter how much the author argues the point, it’s very rare the reader is going to change their mind–they’re always going to think it’s B. It’s the reader’s experience that matters. That’s their takeaway and no amount of explaining on the author’s part is going to change that. The only additional takeaway the reader will receive is a bad view of the author, which is never a good thing, in my opinion.

Another author shared that it was frustrating to read in a review what the author’s intention was when writing. It’s one thing for a reader to say that it came off as if an author meant it X, Y, or Z and another for a reader to speak as if she is an authority on the author’s intent:

I’ll be honest, it really pisses me off when readers speak with “authority” on what my intent as an author is. They can think what they want. They can speculate to their hearts content. But don’t go around saying that Author thought this or Author did that… And any time a reader claims to KNOW what an author meant or what she was “really” doing, they just make themselves look like an ignorant.

Almost universally, the authors I emailed on this topic felt that comments to reviews are simply not a place for authors to interject their opinions. I know that at DA, if an author comes in during a discussion and I sense that it might reduce reader discussion, I’ll make a comment to try to encourage readers to discuss the book, as if the author is not there.

One author said that the only time she felt is was appropriate to comment publicly with readers is when the author is invited, such as to a Book Chat. Most authors echoed this

“In my experience, when readers really want to hear from an author, they’ll e-mail her.”

I admit that I rarely email authors at all mostly because I feel, maybe wrongly, that most authors really don’t want to hear from anyone with dearauthor.com in the email address.  I don’t know whom I’ve offended with strongly worded reviews and I don’t want any one to feel like they need to be nice or gracious to me if I’ve hurt their feelings.  To that end, there are often questions that arise from a book for which I have no answer.

I’m curious what readers and authors would like to see.  Do they want more authorial interaction?  Do they like that the conversation is primarily between readers of the book or potential readers of the book?  Are they interested in hearing the author’s perspective?

*All emails reproduced with the consent of the sender.

There are four types of romances as it pertains to villains:

The straight contemporary and the straight historical rarely have villains. The story is propelled primarily by the main characters and their romance.

Paranormals, Science Fiction romance, and urban fantasy [...]]]>

There are four types of romances as it pertains to villains:

1. Romances with no villains.
2. The redeemable villain
3. The domestic villain
4. The international villain

The straight contemporary and the straight historical rarely have villains. The story is propelled primarily by the main characters and their romance.

Paranormals, Science Fiction romance, and urban fantasy books almost all have villains and usually another worldly creature who has lost touch with humanity. Humanity being usually being loosely defined as caring for someone other than oneself. In Patricia Briggs’s series, the villains are often power mad fae or vampires that have become too drunk on the acquisition of power.

Romantic suspense books feature either a sociopathic domestic villain or a sociopathic international villain.  In Laura Griffin’s series, the villains range from rogue police officers to politicians to random sickos.

How we define villains are important because a villain has to be rendered sufficiently amoral in order to justify the vigilante fantasy, particularly if the book has a #3 or #4 villain.

Justification here is a) just wrong in the head or b) too greedy for power and without remorse for the lives of humankind.  This latter line of thinking is often used to define villains.

If the villain is too dastardly, then it can’t be number 2. Drug dealers or those who traffic the sex trade are two types that seem to fall into number 3 or 4. (See e.g., Pamela Clare’s Breaking Point).  Many people clamoured for a book featuring Louis Renard, the villain in All The Queen’s Men.  I believe that the only reason that readers were drawn toward Renard was because all of his bad deeds were done in an effort to save his daughter.  In Catherine Mann’s Cover Me, the villain claimed to be doing his evil deeds for the love of his wife.  When the wife found out, she called BS on that arguing that she would never have wanted him to engage in his activities for the betterment of her life.

The international villain is popular for many authors who write about paramilitary organizations.  Authors like Cindy Gerard mix it up between horrible drug lords in South America to dirty American politicians.  (Note: politicians are another favorite villain)  Lisa Marie Rice’s villains are almost uniformly of some other country, often radical Islamic people.  I encountered another book recently that featured North Koreans as the villains.  Very plausible, but concerning.  If the sum total of Middle Eastern or Asian representation in romances are the villains, then the tendency toward homogenized characters becomes even more disturbing.

There was an author that wrote that racial balance can’t be obtained without it looking like a major Mary Sue Maneuver, particularly in historicals.  I find this disturbing because if you can create a villain in historicals that is a particular racial caste then I’m not sure why it is so challenging to create a non villain in the same time period of the same racial caste.

Alas, I don’t want this post to be all about race and villains (although that is an important topic).  What I’m really getting at is what makes an effective villain for readers.  Villains, more so than any character, are often flat and uninspired, relying on stereotypes and shorthand to get the message across that this character really needs killing, as Hardy says in Blue Eyed Devil.

I think the problem with the nuanced villain is that the killing of that villain isn’t as righteous and the readers don’t really get to experience the satisfaction of a wrong corrected.  Take for example, Jeannie Lin’s The Dragon and The Pearl.  I felt deflated at the end when three people who had done wrong to the main protagonists walked away with nothing more than a stern talking to.
Jeannie Lin responded to this (not just my feelings but others) with a really thoughtful commentary on Western v. Eastern philosophies:

I’d like to concentrate my thoughts on two themes and one trope prevalent in the resolution of The Dragon and the Pearl. The themes are the preservation of harmony, or more specifically in this case social order, and the importance of family to promote harmony. Though these themes are not unique to Asian stories, I believe they are prevalent ones. The one trope is the unexpected master/mentor. The murderous villain with a heart.
…
There are different themes and values at play here. There is no good. There is no evil. There is harmony and disorder. I think this is easiest to see in the resolution of HERO. Jet Li, the hero, has spent the entire movie with the singular purpose of killing one man: a tyrannical warlord who has consumed kingdoms and cultures in bloodthirsty and ruthless wars before declaring himself emperor. But at the end, Jet Li realizes this man’s vision was to unite the empire and create an ideal of “Our Land” where there was none before. It would be a greater wrong to throw the empire into chaos and so Jet Li stands down and sacrifices himself.
Warlord Li Tao in The Dragon and the Pearl has similar values. His honor system is built around the preservation of order.

If the villain shows more, ah humane, tendencies such as undertaking the course of action to further the good of a child or someone less advantaged or perhaps upholding a certain way of life for the greater good, then the killing of that character is disturbing to the reader.  However, one of the things that romances often lack is poignancy and nuance. In Kaylea Cross’ Deadly Descent, one of the characters is a Muslim intent on killing the hero.  The motivation for this character’s actions is that he believes the hero killed his brother.  Swept up in the anti-American talk, the character joins a local militia to move against the US soldiers.  Yet, nothing that this character does is villainous. He is fighting for what he believes in against the foreign occupiers.  He is avenging the loss of his brother.  These are the traits and motivations that you often find in heroes in romances.  I wasn’t sure if Cross intended a sympathetic portrayal but I read it as one and I was grateful.

Military heroes are often presented as believing themselves too villainous to love.   The redemption story line is built around the concept that someone who did something bad in the past can be heroic today.  In Tori St. Claire’s January 3d release, Stripped, the heroine is a CIA agent actually engaging in truly villainous activities for a greater cause.  She sends girls into the sex trade, posing as a Russian mobster’s girlfriend.  The goal is to find all the players in this sex trade to close it down.  Engaging in these activities and regularly sleeping with the mobster (none of which is seen but rather alluded to at the beginning of the book), the heroine becomes so numb to feeling and so disgusted with herself she believes herself to be irredeemable.  The author tries to convince the reader that she can and is redeemed, or at least worthy of redemption.  She pulled it off for me but I know that the acts of the heroine in the first part of the book may render the character irredeemable for many others.

Ultimately it comes down to a reader’s point of view, but my argument is that a more nuanced villain can create emotional tension in a story that can leave a reader thoughtful but still satisfied.   But perhaps the more nuanced villain is too close to the redeemed hero?  What’s your thoughts?

A couple of weeks ago the Brookings Register ran an article titled “Not your mother’s romance novel.” The article spoke to two women who have recently become interested in romances. Two women who had not read older romances, but had formed negative opinions regarding those older romances:

Gill said she believes the romance genre [...]]]>

A couple of weeks ago the Brookings Register ran an article titled “Not your mother’s romance novel.” The article spoke to two women who have recently become interested in romances. Two women who had not read older romances, but had formed negative opinions regarding those older romances:

Gill said she believes the romance genre of years ago earned its reputation, though she hasn’t read many of the older books. They seemed to feature weak heroines and dominant heroes.

Entangled Pub* announced on October 24, 2011, that it was launching Lori Wildes’ Present:

What sets Lori Wilde Presents: Indulgence apart, however, are the fresh and hip voices. “These aren’t your mother’s category romances,” says Lori Wilde. “They’re quick paced, exciting contemporary stories, whether funny, sexy, mysterious, edgy, or emotional, that showcase what it’s really like to fall in love in the twenty-first century.”

Allie Boniface writes:

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, publishing houses like Avon, Harlequin, and Mills and Boon were the kings of the industry. They released books with titles like A Pirate’s Love, Kept Woman, and Rebel Vixen. These stories, mostly historical romances, were pretty formulaic.

There is an implied insult that the mother’s romances were some how terrible. It’s true that the 70s, 80s, and some of the 90s, book covers show a nearly naked woman with a long haired man looming over her. Who can forget these iconic Johanna Lindsey books with the heroine placed at the foot of the hero, like a supplicant. These days, we just get the nearly naked woman. It is also true that there were rapetastic books publishing in the early period of mass market romances and probably a greater number of them that are generally published today (although it seems like we will never completely escape them).

Laura Vivanco writes in her scholarly analysis of Harlequin Mills & Boon books that “every romance novel thus combines elements of the old, the new, the borrowed, and the blue.”  Vivanco, Laura. For Love and Money. Penrith:  Humanities-Ebooks LLP.  2012, p. 21)   This was true in 1981 and it is true in 2011.  The way in which authors have mixed those elements are due, in part, to the author’s own sensibility as well as the time period in which they lived.

Books published in the 80s and 90s were rich in diversity of characters and tropes. I think of the late 80s to mid 90s as one of the golden periods of romance. Harlequin Temptation was one of my favorite lines and it featured heroines that were business owners, professors, lawyers. They were women with agency.

However, I don’t know many long term readers who don’t have a love for books published in the 80s. From category books to full length historicals there were women who were strong. Take the wretchedly politically incorrect Savage Thunder (p. 1989) featuring the native American hero who falls in love with a wealthy (virgin) widow traveling around the West looking for fun, adventure and a good roll in the hay. Lady’s Choice (p. 1989) featured a nearly six foot redhead who owned her own tea house and had plans to build a tea empire. Teller of Tales (p. 1993) had a cross dressing heroine who had adopted a mannish persona and the man who loved her and was willing to flaunt his supposed sodomy to all of society. A London Season (p. 1981) had a strong, young woman whose strength of will determined not only her course, but that of a young stablehand and all those around her. Blaze (p. 1986) isn’t my favorite Susan Johnson but she wrote about the Absarokee clan in a way I’ve rarely seen others do since. Proud, wealthy, powerful.

While it’s an easy slogan, it suggests that whatever was old was bad and our mother’s had bad taste. In many cases, the readers are the mothers. I doubt I am the only one on this blog that could have a child old enough to be reading these books.

I started reading romance the middle 1980s which is over twenty years ago. I have fond memories of books I read in my early years and many of them included the same themes and tropes and archetypes that I read today. One author I find fascinating is Charlotte Lamb. I’ve read about 60 of her books. I think that her bibliography would make an interesting academic study. Lamb published from 1973 through 2001. She clearly struggles with the male and female dynamic in her books wavering the all too forgiving wife in The Marriage War (p. 1997) to the dedicated film director heroine (and sister of the heroine in the former book) in the sequel Hot Surrender (p. 1999). There is the unforgettable Vampire Lover (p 1995) wherein the heroine ties up the hero, uses him, and then leaves him unsatisfied.

There’s no question that romance as a genre has evolved and changed. I think the growing interest by readers in other genres has led to greater cross genre hybridization and more fully developed fantasy worlds that are focused on romantic development of its leads.  There are fewer secretaries and more female business owners, although not enough.  In fact, you could argue that the limited way in which the genre has changed in terms of writing females with agency is more of a criticism of the current state of the genre rather than a derision of the old school romance books.

Romances were not one monolithic genre where every book written was in lock step with its sister publication.  Books that predate the current release list aren’t automatically filled with rape and oppression.  By using the saying “not your mother’s romances”, the person insults both the mother and any one that enjoyed a book that the undefined mother may have liked.  The slogan is old and should be retired unlike the books of the 80s and 90s, some of which are classics that will endure.

I’d love to hear your old favorites. I’d like to compile a “Must Read” list of books from the 80s and 90s.  Please include a snippet about the book you recommend so I can put it in the list.  Long live my mama’s romance books.

*Weirdly on November 14, 2011, Entangled introduced a new editor who wanted “bodice rippers.”

During a past discussion about the lack of representation of non nobles in historical romance, there was one comment that by Darlynne that stuck with me.

Maybe it says readers want people of power in their romance novels. You don’t have to worry about the hero being ground under someone’s heel or treated badly, [...]]]>

During a past discussion about the lack of representation of non nobles in historical romance, there was one comment that by Darlynne that stuck with me.

Maybe it says readers want people of power in their romance novels. You don’t have to worry about the hero being ground under someone’s heel or treated badly, not when he’s the most powerful SOB in the area. If someone else has the power to destroy the hero, if the world is skewed so far in favor of a ruling class, how can he keep the heroine safe?

As I thought about it more, I realized that what readers in the romance want is a hero with agency  not necessarily one with wealth.

Romance readers seek certainty. An author can do all kinds of terrible things to her characters including beatings, sexual assaults, near death, actual death, and everything in between and it is all excused if the main protagonists achieve a state of cojoined happiness. It is the certainty of the ending that makes it safe for the reader to embark on the journey. Safety is another part of the happy ever after.  In fact, I believe that part of the popularity of military individuals is this idea of personal safety.

In the article I linked to earlier last week, a professor recounted this:

At one point during class I was talking about male privilege, and one student asked me to explain. He noted that he is a man and he doesn’t feel particularly privileged. In response, I noted my own privilege: “When I leave the building late at night, I don’t give a second thought to my safety as I walk to my car. If it’s ten at night, if it’s dark, I just assume that I’ll be fine. But for many women, there is a constant thought process: Do I find someone to walk me to my car? Is it safe at this hour? What are my options?” And then I asked, “who has gone through that train of thought recently?,” and every woman in the class raised her hand. And then they told stories: About avoiding parts of town; about setting their schedule in certain ways; about making sure that they had someone to walk them out; about being on their guard, all the time. The need to guard against the possibility of sexual assault is simply not part of most men’s everyday thought process, while it is a major part of many women’s everyday lived experience.

It’s not that I think that women walk around full of fear for their safety but I do think that a woman alone can have qualms.  I get nervous in elevators when there is only myself and a male I don’t know, particularly if the male tries to talk to me, particularly if he mentions something about my perfume or my shoes or my hair (all things that have happened).  I keep one hand on my cell phone and keep thinking to myself, “don’t talk to me, don’t talk to me.”

Yet, the hero of a romance story can only provide safety, security and certainty if he has agency. Agency means the hero has the freedom to make decisions and affect the outcome of his life regardless of those who might have power above him.

Individuals with agency include small business owners, law enforcement individuals, paramilitary individuals, rich men.  This concept of agency works well with cowboys because the land is so wide open (purportedly) that there are no laws but those that they make. If the hero’s will is being challenged, the hero moves outside the societal paradigm to gain agency such as “going rogue”.  Sometimes, the hero’s journey is gaining agency perhaps through clearing his name or getting the bad guy.

This agency can be imposed upon by “feelings” such as familial obligations, revenge, the hero’s sense of morality or even in deference to the heroine, but it is the hero’s agency that allows him the luxury of choice.   Concomitant with the hero’s choice is the ability to impose his decisions on those around him.  In this fantasy representation, heroes are not controlled by downturns in the economy or irrational bosses.  Their criminal activities are offset by the immorality by those in power, more Robin Hood than Robber Baron (and even the latter are present on the hero side).  Their positions are either unassailable or forgiveable.  It is why the hero is always an alpha in a pack of werewolves (even if he isn’t the top alpha which, of course, makes no sense but he cedes power to the other alpha by choice, not because it is required of him).  Thus is the power of agency.

I submit that the most important trait of the hero is to have agency, whether he steers his own ship through self employment at a small scale such as a tavern owner or the billionaire, whether he carries an official badge or works black ops, whether he is a duke or a pirate king, so long as he is the one who determines his own outcome.  Over to you, commenters.

Who doesn’t love a small town Romance? Given Jane’s observation in her 2011 RWA wrap-up that small towns remain very popular, apparently a lot of readers do. Given the comments to that post and various lamentations from readers online, there are many readers who absolutely despise the small town Romance.

While all genre devices [...]]]>

Who doesn’t love a small town Romance? Given Jane’s observation in her 2011 RWA wrap-up that small towns remain very popular, apparently a lot of readers do. Given the comments to that post and various lamentations from readers online, there are many readers who absolutely despise the small town Romance.

While all genre devices have advocates and critics, the divide over the small town device seems especially wide. Critics charge it with being anti-feminist and reactionary, not to mention candy-coated fantasy. Advocates point to the strong family and community bonds, the often quirky characters, and (sometimes) a focus on more traditional social values.

I admit that I tend to avoid the most saccharine of the small town books; I’ve been wary of Robyn Carr’s books, for example. But among those I do read, I find some true diversity. For example, I’d put Jill Shalvis’s Lucky Harbor and Sunshine, Idaho books in the candy-coated category. Lucky Harbor seems a very idyllic small town, with the reunited sisters/heroines elevating domesticity to an epic level by deciding to refurbish and re-open the inn their deceased mother owned. The protagonists may have wild, difficult, unloved, even abused pasts, but somehow the current incarnation of the town seems to polish up even the roughest edges of life. It’s a bit like Lucille Ball meets Frank Capra. The insularity is rendered as charming rather than dark; community as a source of strength, support, and outstanding baked goods; and love heals all. It is, after all, Lucky Harbor.

But I’ve also read a number of small town Romances that have more of an edge. Victoria Dahl’s Talk Me Down, for example, brings heroine Molly Jenkins home to Tumble Creek in an attempt to escape her stalker ex-boyfriend. And while the town offers her a delicious diversion in the chief of police’s uniform (Ben Lawson),  Molly can neither escape her ex nor the scandalous implications of her secret career as an erotica writer. And who can forget Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome To Temptation, where Sophie Dempsey hopes to make a name for herself with a documentary featuring an old-time actress and ends up in a battle between her very warm feelings for the handsome mayor, Phin Tucker, and his mother’s feelings for her, which are much cooler and more disapproving. It’s pretty much a meta-novel on the small town Romance, where the “family values” aren’t always what they seem.

Still, the small town Romance seems to have a big reputation for being over-idealized, anti-feminist, and dangerously blind to the real problems that too much insularity can breed.

Part of the issue may be that inspirational Romances often make use of this device, as well, blurring subgenre boundaries. I know many love the Robyn Carr books, but the imagery of the “Virgin River” and the whole love and healing motif have kept me from reading the series. And I think we’ve all read those small town books in which the heroine seemingly inexplicably throws off the chains of her ambitious career and chic urbanity for the SAHW+M role, with the small town world idealized to the point where the heroine’s motives for choosing that life apparently don’t need to be carefully considered and explained to the reader.

The more traditional books in the small town panoply reminds me of some of the books within the sentimental novel tradition, characterized by novels like Fanny Burney’s Evelina and even Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and the domestic fiction tradition of the mid-19^th C. Books by women like Catherine Sedgwick and Harriet Beecher Stowe, which portrayed women learning how to make good choices, especially a good choice of marriage, which, as Cathy Davidson notes in Revolution and the Word, was probably the most important decision a woman could and would make in her life. These novels glorified domesticity as the ideal realm for women, motherhood as the pinnacle of a wife’s service, and reasonable sentiment as the greatest power for women to cultivate in themselves [recklessly simplifying all through this paragraph]. Novels like Eliza Wharton’s The Coquette demonstrate the perils that can befall women who ignore their good judgment in favor of unreasonable passions (unwed pregnancy, social humiliation, poverty, death, etc.), giving the sentimental novel a general ethos of moralism that may or may not be subtly subverted within the text itself. And some of those values have moved straight into a number of small town Romances.

Which, when you think about it, makes a certain kind of sense, especially given the social conservatism of marriage. And by conservatism, I don’t just mean in terms of moral values, but also of preserving a coherent, lasting social structure, which the West considers to be rooted in the nuclear family.  Combined with the small town motif, which brings to mind myriad cinematic and popular media fantasies (Frank Capra, Norman Rockwell, and Thomas Kinkade, for example), especially for Americans, there is a tendency, perhaps, to idealize and naturalize social conservativism. When you add a benign insularity to the mix, it can feel both comforting and claustrophobic.

In many of the small town Romances I’ve read, while the heroine’s life simplifies in some ways once she moves into the small town environment, it becomes more complicated in others. Often, the other ways involve a developing romantic relationship. I’ve enjoyed a few books that feature a hero’s return to a small town, notably Theresa Weir’s Bad Karma and Jill Shalvis’s Instant Attraction, both of which feature men who are grappling with deep emotional trauma. Victoria Dahl’s Good Girls Don’t features a hero who has returned to small town life from Los Angeles with deep physical and emotional wounds to heal. More often, though, it seems that it’s the heroine who is the focus of the small town idealization, which may add to the difficulties some readers have with this device.

Despite the difficulties protagonists may face from the small town environment – everything from criminal activity to nosy neighbors, interfering eccentric family members, and cute dogs – there does seem to me to be a benign fantasy element to most of the small town Romances I’ve read. Many of the overwhelming choices the heroine has to make have been stripped away; her priorities change to be more emotionally and romantically charged; and the romance seems to play a significant role in resolving some or all of the problems plaguing the heroine in her “old” life. What I’m not sure about is how many of these fantasy elements are exclusive to small town books and how many are Romance genre staples, magnified in a different way when combined with the small town device (economic prosperity comes to mind here).

In fact, the small town fantasy reminds me quite a bit of Nancy Friday’s theory on the submission fantasy, namely that it’s “a chance to relieve ourselves of all responsibility for the delicious, forbidden sex we crave” (Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age, 2009). Instead of being forced to submit sexually as a way of feeling free from the burden of responsibilities and choices, the heroine submits to a new life, which is often undertaken with great reluctance or even active resistance, and which strips her of many of the previous responsibilities and choices she previously had. It’s a submission fantasy of another type, more emotional than sexual.

My own view is that it is definitely possible to create a small town fantasy that does not look like a somewhat reactionary idealization of life before second-wave feminism, although it may be difficult to do that without satirizing the small town fantasy. Not that it isn’t possible, but for me that possibility is exercised in well-crafted romantic development that enhances rather than substitutes for other priorities in the heroine’s life. Or, if the heroine chooses to leave her big city life behind, I need to feel that her choice is as independently and intelligently made as we would expect of a choice to pursue a position as a NYC corporate CEO.

But what do you think: is there a dividing line for you in what small town books you love versus those you despise, or are you an unabashed lover or hater of this subgenre of Romances, and why? Do we overgeneralize small town books in the genre? Can/should small town Romances should be more socially progressive, or is the benign community ethic and the fantasy of the simpler, healthier life the necessary appeal?

Sarah Wendell and I had a lively debate via email on the topic of inclusion or getting it right.  The Mahajara’s Mistress by Susan Stephens recently reviewed at Smart Bitches features a heroine who has an eye patch due to the loss of an eye and is scarred in her face.  She dresses like [...]]]>

Sarah Wendell and I had a lively debate via email on the topic of inclusion or getting it right.  The Mahajara’s Mistress by Susan Stephens recently reviewed at Smart Bitches features a heroine who has an eye patch due to the loss of an eye and is scarred in her face.  She dresses like a pirate and works at a trendy hair salon in Monaco.  The disfigurement is largely an accessory and not well integrated into the heroine’s character arc.  I felt that the inclusion of disfigured heroines, even when poorly done, was a step forward.  Sarah disagreed. With Sarah’s permission, I have excerpted some of our email exchanges (and yes, I write the briefest emails of all time):

Jane:  There is another HP featuring a heroine who has a prosthetic leg and I confess that I was really disappointed that there wasn’t some discussion about her shyness in taking off her clothes, in showing her leg to her partner.

I mean, in comparison to the lovely breast cancer story by Karina Bliss, there is no comparison, but I give kudos to Harlequin for allowing these characters to exist, even in their meringue like forms.

Sarah:   I can’t give credit for the attempt when the attempt is so shallow and poorly done. You can’t give a character a disability or difference that is so profound and treat it as if it’s haircolor. It’s like all the characters we were discussing before, J, that have coffee-variation colored skin. Does the darkness of their skin affect them or permeate their existence in noticeable ways? No? Then what’s the point of giving a difference from the established Caucasian heteronorm if the difference makes no difference?

Jane:  No, you have a good point, but I think I want to have more inclusion, even in these fits and starts than no inclusion at all.  But I think that describing people with coffee colored skin is tired and old.   So I’m less irritated by the inclusion of a character of color but by the use of food to describe them.

Sarah:   I think what this comes down to is what I think of as the two styles of making change: you can storm the castle and demand change, or you can sneak in the back and change from within. Usually I advocate for the former for a mess of reasons but in this case, the “fits and starts” don’t work for me as a reader and I want to storm the castle. I can’t give any credit to anyone for publishing a half-assed character with a disability or disfigurement.

What bothers me about the fits and starts and the way in which “different” characters are included is when that inclusion is so shallow, the disability or difference is an accessory that can be turned on and off or used for pathos when the scene demands and forgotten otherwise. That’s not how it works. For example, contrast Mia in “Maharaja’s Mistress” to the Karina Bliss character who had a mastectomy without reconstruction. That character’s loss of her breasts was felt in so many small ways, and affected so many parts of how that character felt about herself as a female, as a sexual being, and as a daughter (esp since her mom’s mental health was failing at the same time). Mia, from MM, had an eyepatch. Sometimes it had sequins. She was embarrassed about how she looked. That’s about it.

I do not mean to sound strident here, but there are so many times when I read a review of a romance and see readers say, in effect, “I had NO IDEA there were characters like me in romances,” whether it’s Asperger’s or post-mastectomy. The example you gave of the character having one limb missing and using a prosthesis yet having no shame or embarrassment about showing her body to her partner – that’s just insulting to the reader who has that or similar experience. To treat a major difference like a decoration demeans the experience of people who do have that difference.

So the inclusion makes me want to storm the castle and demand characters who are different from the established Caucasian able-bodied norm and whose differences are at the very least realistic. As a reader, I find it insulting to be told that something so major as a loss of an eye or a leg is no big deal when the characters get naked. There’s a lot of things the mighty wang can do, but growing another eyeball surely isn’t one of them.

Jane: I’m thinking about paranormals and where there is a distinct lack of cultural representation. The homogeny amongst angels and demons being all white is incredible so any inclusion of non white characters as the protags is a bonus for me.

To expand on my thoughts, the norm in romance is white anglo saxon, even in paranormal books we have angels describing other people of color as “exotic” or the only non white people are the bad guys.  In a paranormal world, how is it possible that all these beings: valkryies, vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, fae, etc. are white or European, mostly western European?  It’s not that I don’t think authors shouldn’t make every attempt to “get it right” (see infra, contemporroneous and mistorical discussions).  I do. I think that when you are writing about anything, whether it is women having a career, or characters having a disability, or being of a different race, that authors should do their utmost to get it right because it is respectful and shows thoughtfulness on the part of the author.

It’s that in the romance genre, we are reading a largely homogenous group of people regardless of the sub-genre which would allow for more freedom such as paranormals or contemporaries and perhaps I would give more latitude to authors trying to be more inclusive of differing races, religions, and abilities.  I was thinking about holiday stories recently and how almost all of them seem to celebrate Christmas.  Where is Hanukkah? or Kwanzaa?

We would love to hear what you have to say.  More inclusion even if the authors are flubbing it up right and left or getting it right even if it means more homogeny?

Like many romance fans, I recently read the newest book by Loretta Chase, Silk Is For Seduction.  Like many fans, I too loved it.  It is a great example of the qualities I look for in a romance: interesting characters, engaging storyline and witty, sometimes startlingly funny, dialogue.  It also seemed refreshingly different.  Now, [...]]]>

Like many romance fans, I recently read the newest book by Loretta Chase, Silk Is For Seduction.  Like many fans, I too loved it.  It is a great example of the qualities I look for in a romance: interesting characters, engaging storyline and witty, sometimes startlingly funny, dialogue.  It also seemed refreshingly different.  Now, I’ve been reading romances since the mid-nineties.  So I’ve read through the many tropes of the historical heroine – the TSTL innocent, the hoyden, the martyr, the virgin widow – well, you get the idea.  I have favorite books for all of these types but I think my favorite heroine is the heroine who has a passion for something other than the hero.

I want to read about a heroine who cares about something outside of herself.  This can be a job, a hobby, a cause, or a talent but I want to read about that drive to accomplish or create something.  I want to read about a heroine, like Marcelline Noirot, who makes things happen.   She is a planner and a schemer and you know whatever life throws at her she will control her destiny.  Her passion for dressmaking and designing defines her and the author uses Marcelline’s drive for success to develop her character and relationships.

In contemporary romances you would think this is easy to do.  Just give the heroine a career or job that she cares about and the author instantly adds depth to the character.  However, the trick is to use the heroine’s occupation in a meaningful way.  Author Sarah Mayberry excels at creating fully developed heroines who work and whose careers, or the loss of them, define them.  In her series romance, Amorous Liaisons, the heroine is an injured ballet dancer who has lost her career due to an injury.  The heroine in All Over You is a scriptwriter and is passionate about vintage clothing.  In Her Secret Fling the main character is a washed-up swimmer, who is adjusting to her new career as a reporter.   I loved Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James because the heroine is a successful attorney who doesn’t have to give up her career to find love.

In historical romances, of course, this is harder to pull off because of the constraints on women at various times in history.  Still, I have read historicals featuring heroines passionate about Egyptian antiquities, such as in Connie Brockway’s As You Desire, or the shipping business, such as in Liz Carlyle’s Never Lie to a Lady.   Daphne in Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible is eager to break the code of hieroglyphics and Juliana Merton in Miranda Neville’s The Wild Marquis, owns a bookshop.  When done well, the heroine’s hobby or occupation can be used to propel the story, create tension or flesh out the characters.

Lately I’ve been looking for historical romances that stand out from the crowd, that are out of the ordinary, whether through an exotic setting, a different type of character or an interesting subplot.  What a delight to read a historical with a working heroine.  Silk Is For Seduction satisfied my desire for something different this week.  But I’d love to read more historical romances with heroines who are passionate, even before they meet their hero.

Karla

*****

As with everything [...]]]> When Joan Swan contacted me and asked if I was interested in an author guest post, I replied that I would be as long as it wasn’t promotional in nature. She reached out to author Pamela Palmer and together they have presented this piece on cover art.

*****

As with everything in the publishing process, the development of a book’s cover art follows a similar path and, our course, that journey takes turns here and there based on more factors than I can name–different publishing houses, various authors, different genres…etc.

Generally speaking, thoughts of a cover begin about twelve to fifteen months before a book’s release date, at which time an author often receives an “art sheet” or something similar.  Here, the author may describe a character’s physical attributes, any scenes in the book that might aid in creating the cover art or themes within the work that could be portrayed on the cover.  The author might also be asked to provide a two to three paragraph blurb of the book so the art department can get a feel for the book’s plot.

Once that information is turned in, all goes quiet on the subject for several months.  Around the eighth month mark prior to release, an author may get a peek at the rough cover art.  Or they may not.  It’s not unusual for publishing houses to keep the cover under wraps—from both editors and authors.  Sometimes authors get to request, and see, changes made.  Often they don’t.  Interestingly, many authors have no input into covers.

This may surprise many readers out there.  It shocked everyone in my circle of family and friends (those outside publishing that is).  They assumed that because I wrote the book, I would have significant input in the design process.  But that’s (generally) not how it works in traditional publishing – and there’s very good reason for this.

Art – all art, including writing – is subjective.  And publishers are looking at cover art from a very different perspective than an author.  While an author may have an affinity for one character over another, desire to highlight a particular theme very close to their heart or portray a certain professional image, a publisher’s goal, first and foremost, is to sell that book.  With the strong emotions of love and hate, likes and dislikes surrounding books, we often forget that publishing is a business.  If we as readers don’t purchase books, publishers don’t make money.  If publishers don’t make money, they close.  If publishers close, they don’t make books.  If they don’t make books, we can’t read.  So covers that sell are beneficial to everyone—publishers, authors and readers.  What will sell?  Well, that would bring us back around to the art is subjective statement.

I have a bachelor’s degree in design.  I’ve worked as a corporate and small business web designer and graphic designer and I know first-hand how hard people can be to please.  Myself included.  Not because any of us are intentionally trying to be difficult, but because the process of manipulating an idea into words is still such a crude and inaccurate process and telepathy is so very unreliable.  I prefer osmosis, myself.

Rest assured, marketing, sales and publicity professionals are just that—professionals.  As writers study articles on craft and promotion, they stay abreast of the latest sales figures, target markets and buying patterns.  And they apply all that knowledge when designing a cover around an author’s story.  Ingenious really when you stop to think about it.

Let’s look at how Kensington took aspects from FEVER’s storyline and combined them with marketing trends and ideas to create FEVER’s cover.

From the storyline:

• My hero, Teague Creek, is extremely physically fit—not only because he’s sexy and FEVER is a hot romantic suspense, but because his character is an escaped prisoner, and his bulk and strength kept him safe from attacks inside prison.  Hence, the uber-hot guy on FEVER’s cover.
• Teague was a career firefighter prior to his wrongful conviction and subsequent imprisonment.  An explosion at a military warehouse containing illegal, highly radioactive chemicals endowed him with his paranormal abilities.  Hence, the cover background of flames and the over red-orange color theme.
• Teague’s tattoos play and interesting and intricate part in not only his character in FEVER, but in the storyline as well.

Marketing angles:

• Male chest images are very hot sellers.
• The font they used is strong and sharp, much like the storyline.
• The font they used has a paranormal feel, an element not otherwise suggested in the cover design
• The V in the font points to his, er…ah-hem…which so many of you astute readers have pointed out, with more than a tiny bit of giddy glee, I might add.
• The tattoo’s, while not the same as those in the book, are more appropriate for a cover image and convey interest, sensuality, mystery and danger.

As in many of my art courses in college, we could go into lengthy discussions on silent messages, color theory, image placement, etc., and all of that plays a part in every aspect of design.  I’ve only hit the major points here, but I hope you’ve found it interesting.  And I hope you love the cover of FEVER as much as I do.

Now, I’d like to introduce New York Times bestselling author Pamela Palmer.  Since her debut novel in 2007, Pamela has published ten novels and one novella, her most recent, ECSTASY UNTAMED, releasing tomorrow with a stunning cover!  Pamela gives us her experienced view on the subject of cover design.

Joan:  Pamela, did you have any influence in your early cover art? Did that change as your status as an author grew?

Pamela:  I’ve always had input, but I wouldn’t really say I’ve ever had much influence. In truth, at least at Avon, the editorial team, marketing dept., publicity, art department, etc., all discuss their vision for the cover, taking into account the author’s suggestions. But, ultimately, the cover is in the hands of the art department.

Joan:  What can you tell us about the process of cover art creation from your personal experience?

Pamela:  I’ve published with three publishers and each does it a little differently. At Berkley, where I published two time travels under the pseudonym, Pamela Montgomerie, my editor emailed me with a suggestion for a cover look, sharing the covers of other books that were similar. We went back and forth until we were both happy with the type of look. In both cases, the covers turned out very similarly to what we’d discussed. Avon requests my input prior to the cover conference I described in the previous question. Harlequin asks their authors to fill out exhaustive Art Fact Sheets from which the art department comes up with the cover design. Months later, I’ll get an email from my editor with the actual cover and it’s always a thrill. It’s often like seeing my characters come to life for the first time.

Joan:  What do you think constitutes a killer cover, from both a reader and an author perspective?

Pamela:  A killer cover has to be eye-catching, which is an elusive quality. Of course, what appeals to one person won’t necessarily appeal to another. Some prefer a sexy cover, others prefer romantic. Still others prefer pretty scenery. But eye-catching always wins the day. The cover of Ecstasy Untamed, which releases Oct. 25th, is bright pink with a gorgeous bare-chested man on the cover. This one definitely catches the eye.

Joan:  What is your favorite cover out of all of your work? Why?

Pamela:  Oh, this is hard to answer. I’d have to say it’s the cover of Rapture Untamed, book four in my Feral Warriors series. I adore the black and white intensity, the hero’s hard expression mirrored in the face of the lethal black jaguar behind him.

Joan:  Do you think using the same font for an author’s name repeatedly builds that author’s brand for reader recognition?

Pamela:  I do think branding is important and the font is certainly a big part of that, especially if it’s a distinctive font. With my Feral Warrior series, I’ve been so pleased that Avon has kept the same basic cover look (the bare-chested male with the animal he shifts into somewhere on the cover). The titles, too, have all remained ‘Untamed’ which clues the reader each book is the next in the Feral Warriors series. I was kind of thrilled when this latest cover, Ecstasy Untamed, had my name larger than the title.

What is your favorite aspect of a novel cover?  Any comment or question enters you for a chance to win one of three Pamela Palmer novels and one of ten custom handmade FEVER bookmarks. 

Open internationally.

*****

Joan Swan is engaging in a  behind-the-scenes tour of what’s involved in getting a debut author prepared for publication. During week one, she talked about getting that call and all that goes into the submission process to make that call become a reality with guest Lauren Dane.  Last week, edits were the topic of discussion with Kat Martin.   You can find out more about the author and her debut book, FEVER, at her website  www.joanswan.com

It seems strange that in 2011, nearly 2012, we have to give advice to authors on how to manage their websites. I think authors get worried about how to tackle the huge ordeal that is their website and become paralyzed by the idea of the time or cost involved. When I am looking at [...]]]>

It seems strange that in 2011, nearly 2012, we have to give advice to authors on how to manage their websites. I think authors get worried about how to tackle the huge ordeal that is their website and become paralyzed by the idea of the time or cost involved. When I am looking at an author’s website, I am going there for two reasons.

1. I just finished a book of yours and want to see what else I can buy.
2. I heard about you from a friend and want to know more about your books.

In sum, readers search out an author’s website because we want more information about your books. You have to make it easy for readers to find the information that they are seeking. This means no gimmicky names for sections of your website. Authors might think it is cute, but readers are just confused. Never, ever confuse the reader.
The primary things that an author’s website must contain is:

1. What book is currently released. This is your latest release.
2. What is your backlist.
3. What is coming next.

The above three piece of information fulfill the needs of the reader who just finished your book or heard about you and wants to know more about your books.

1. Current Release

This information should be on the home page of your website. The current release page should contain a cover, buy links, blurb, and link to an excerpt if not just the excerpt in its entirety. Note the word current. This means up to date. Timely. Your latest release.

Additional items: Explanation of how this current release fits in with other books you have written. Character bios for the main characters. Setting description. Links to inspiration pieces.

2. Backlist

This information should be included via a link on your home page. It should be named either “backlist” or “books” and not “hidden gems”. When you shop at retailers, all the link names are the same even at precious sites like Anthropologie, the shoes section is “shoes” not “sole sensation” or something like that.

The backlist should be organized in two ways. First, there should be a date ordered listing of your backlist. Second, there should be a series listing of your backlist. Please include any anthologies in the series. The series should be numbered.

The backlist should be printable for non digital readers. For digital readers consider creating a downloadable CSV file or Excel spreadsheet with Title, Author, ISBN, pub date, and series name and number.

One piece of advice I’ve seen given to authors is that their sites should contain no redundancy. I think this is entirely wrong. Readers will find information differently and thus you should present your information in as many ways as possible to serve the different readers. Thus the reader might encounter “reading list” in several different places throughout your site. This is OKAY. Better to be redundant than to leave a reader confused and uniformed.

Additional items: A QR code that would email a file of all your backlist titles to the requesting user.

3. Coming Soon/Next.

This is the biggest flaw I see on author’s websites. There is no coming soon or coming next page. If a reader goes to an author’s website and she has just finished the author’s latest book, she wants to know what is next. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a contract for your next book. You should have a page that says “I’m working on Hero #4 book next” or “Book 3 in the series is a work in progress.” This way we readers know that we should still remember your name. You aren’t going to disappear off the planet.

Other Content

Contact page. I know that some authors do not want to be contacted in any fashion and choose not to leave their email on their website but I really think that every author needs a “Contact Form”. Have your critique partner or best friend or daughter filter these out for you if you can’t handle the reader email but have some way for someone to contact you.

Frequently Asked Questions.
Do you get the same questions over and over from readers? Compile a FAQ.

The Story So Far.
I love The Story So Far feature on Meljean Brook’s website. She has two ongoing series, one that is quite lengthy. The Story So Far gives a brief summary of each book and thus no matter where a reader starts in the series, she can read “The Story So Far” and get caught up. Yes, I realize that “The Story So Far” contains spoilers but I think that, on balance, it is better to provide spoilers so that readers can feel they can jump into the series at any point rather than intimidating readers from even starting the series because it is too long.

Character Connections.
In books that are connected, it is nice to see a list of what characters show up in the different books. Laura Griffin has Character Sketchesthat give a brief bio for each character, the book where they first appeared, and the book in which they are featured.

Items Your Website Should NOT Include

Absolutely no autoplay of sound. The majority of readers are going to visit your website during the day, probably at work. Do you want them to get in trouble with their boss or co workers? Do you want them to never visit your site? If the answer to those questions are in the negative then, do NOT have autoplay on your website. Repeat this ten times.

Do not use FLASH. Oh, I know. Flash is pretty and sparkly and wonderful but frankly I think the only people that love flash on an author’s website is the author and her mom. Flash slows down the time in which it takes for a website to load. Flash does not work on the over 100 million iPhones, iTouches, iPads on the market. Everything you want to do in Flash can probably be done with HTML5 or CSS. Want something fancy? Pay for an animated gif. Look at the animated cover that Mills and Boon did for Michele Hauf, Alexis Morgan, Caridad Pineiro and Laurie London. It’s a gif, if you are wondering.

Do not use a blog as your website. This is not the same thing as saying “don’t use blogging software as your website” because you absolutely can use free blogging software for an author site like WordPress or Blogger. The key is making sure that the above three components- Current Release, Backlist, Coming Soon- are stationary links on every page of your blog. If your only mode of contact with the internet world is with a blog that puts the new content first, how do you expect readers to find information about older titles? Do not make them hunt and search for that information.

Do not use dark text on black background. It is very hard to read. Even vampires would appreciate more contrast, after all they love the red with the black look.

Do not be afraid of whitespace. White space is the white or not text/graphic space between words and graphics. White space assists with readability.

In sum, every element of a website should answer these questions:

• Is it providing my readers with valuable information?
• Is the information easy to find?
• Will this information aid the reader in buying my books?

If these answers aren’t in the affirmative, then rethink. Commenters, what else have you got? Good examples, bad examples?

I’ve been futzing with this article for a couple of months and it’s not working out. I told myself to finish it and publish it and it accidentally went up last week. I guess that is a sign. I think the problem that I have with the subject is that I don’t have any [...]]]>

I’ve been futzing with this article for a couple of months and it’s not working out. I told myself to finish it and publish it and it accidentally went up last week. I guess that is a sign. I think the problem that I have with the subject is that I don’t have any real concrete opinion here but rather than let it languish, I figured I would post it and then read all the comments. Maybe something will crystalize after reading the opinions of the  commenters of Dear Author.

Sarah Wendell and I give presentations on ebook reading devices (Angela James, too, at RT). We try to cover the pros and cons of the devices and we always try to include a section on customer service. Good customer service can make up for a less than perfect device. Barnes and Noble’s in store service is remarkable. Amazon’s online service can’t be beat. Good customer service engenders loyalty. Loyalty, in return, means return sales and good word of mouth. Even if a product is outpaced by another product, the loyal customer defends their allegiance, believing that even if this current product isn’t perfect, the next one will be. It takes a long time of substandard service to break a customer’s loyalty but it can be done.

I’m sure you can all see where I am going with this. John Locke, the seller of over 1,000,000 ebook units in 5 months, has a marketing book out. In the marketing book, he describes the efforts he makes to reach out to his fans, to create a personal connection with them. Authors are in the business of providing customer service as well. Do it well and those fans become loyal followers who spread of the gospel of Author A without any prompting.

When Sarah and I did a reader roundtable at RT this past year, I asked the question “How many books does it take for an author to go on the autobuy list.” Many responded with “just one”. When I asked the converse question “How many books does it take for an author to move off the autobuy list, the response was varied and many agreed that it would take more than one, even several. A reader won is not easily lost.

As we enter this new age of publishing, however, the pressure will increase on authors to provide more customer service, maybe not to the extent that John Locke is promoting, but definitely increased.

In the past, when an author has been confronted by price or availability, scheduling, bad cover blurbs, bad covers, publication of a series, the author has been able to say that those decisions are outside of her control. And it was true. With self publishing, however, the mantra from readers may be that nothing is out of the author’s control no matter who the author’s publisher is, whether it be her or another entity.

And what one author is doing will be held up to other authors. For instance, Courtney Milan and Tessa Dare have had their self published works translated in German. German readers are going to wonder why more authors aren’t offering that service. Anne Stuart self published a sequel to her ICE series and it is price at $6.99 and not available to UK readers. UK readers are asking why. Loretta Chase, one of the grand dames of romance (and I don’t mean by age, but by the way in which her books are revered), is self publishing her backlist titles with covers that make her books look like they were culled from the ranks of public domain books that are over 100 years old. Suzanne Enoch can’t be bothered to update her website. She has a new book out this month called “A Beginner’s Guide to Rakes” (and that is a misleading title if there ever was one) but you wouldn’t know it from the website which has her latest book as ” ” which came out in 2010. Fans of Enoch wouldn’t know that she has another book coming out in the Spring of 2012. Someone may comment that Enoch has more important things than updating her website like personal problems (I’m not saying she does, but that may be an excuse), but to readers who want more information, that is of no matter.

I know this feeds into the argument or belief that authors have about readers and their entitlement attitudes.  I’ve heard authors unhappy that readers email them right after a book has been released and want to know what is next.  Readers are a lusty, demanding group and that’s actually a good thing. It’s why romance readers buy so many books and in such huge quantities.  A  reader doesn’t demand what she doesn’t want.

Still, the idea of authors providing customer service for their products might seem a little frightening but maybe there really isn’t a change. Authors have always had a higher profile that publishers and editors. They are the ones that field the complaints about books not being available, about ebooks having DRM, about books priced too high, about books being too short, too long, too much green on the cover.

It’s obvious that the competency in the business of selling books isn’t in the same trade set as writing books. To place the burden of customer service on authors presents an almost unfair expectation. Writers are not necessarily business people or people that understand the fine art of customer service. Writers may not know every available resource out there (german translators?!) or they may be misled by even well intentioned individuals. I read, from time to time, advice thrown out on blogs that makes me cringe.

Obviously, the solution, every time we readers get anxious about customer service, is to picture the person providing the service is that kitten in the picture because that no one can be impatient with that kitten and her little itty bitty phone but barring that, what expectations should readers have? I.e., if it can be done, do we expect every author to adopt it? Do we, as readers, have tolerance for slow moving responses to our demands?   Will the move of some authors to self publishing and the freedom gained with self publishing increase the demands of readers?  Can an author rely solely on her books to build her base?  Or does she have to be John Locke? Or Bella Andre who writes a personalized email to everyone on her email list for the past seven years every time a new release comes out? Or Courtney Milan who is pricing her books at $.99 and getting them translated into German?  What is reasonable readers?