Mar 8 2011
Did Kathleen Woodiwiss’ The Flame and The Flower really give birth to the romance genre? Until last week, I’d always assumed the answer was a resounding No. But there seem to be quite a few sources that think it did. Wikipedia asserts that the publication of TFATF marked “the birth of the modern romance novel.” [...]
Mar 5 2011
I’ve been reading some posts about this YAMafia theory running around the internet. Regular readers of Dear Author should be very familiar with this given the past history in romance. It’s almost a relief to see the “be nice” mantra being preached outside of romance. Huzzah, all fandoms are dysfunctional. Essentially the theory is that [...]
Mar 1 2011
There are times when I wonder if being ignorant would have made my life easier. Over the past few months, the disappearance of my publishing world ignorance has made its way into my reading life. Specifically since I’ve begun turning to the internet for book-related advice and news. My internet de-virginizing has lead me to [...]
Feb 22 2011
We are now in a period of disintermediation which essentially means the number of entities in the supply chain between the content creator and the customer have been reduced. The reason for this is because the supply channel has become incredibly efficient and cost effective. If you can type up a book in Word, you [...]
Feb 15 2011
Heather Massey is a blogger who travels the sea of stars searching for science fiction romance adventures aboard The Galaxy Express. Additionally, she pens a science fiction romance column for LoveLetter, Germany's premier romance magazine. **** The extraordinary heroine exists in all subgenres of romance, but in my opinion, we could use more of them. [...]
Feb 8 2011
Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is from Pittsburgh. Apparently it’s the law that if you were born and raised in Pittsburgh, you must be a Steeler fan. I understand this. I was raised in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, there are two laws. First, you must cheer for the Packers and second, you must always [...]
Feb 1 2011
What exactly is a bestseller? I had a reader email me and ask why a certain author had “International Bestselling Author” on her website and what exactly that meant. There are authors who are now labeling their books “Number 1 Kindle Bestseller”. Publishers Weekly noted that Snooki’s A Shore Thing (which is categorized as a [...]
Jan 25 2011
Last summer, I ran a poll about the brother in law trope, one that I like a lot. Many readers were turned off by this trope because, for them, it rang a little too much of incest for them. This got me thinking about incest in romance and what other tropes have that feel to [...]
Jan 18 2011
I was reading the Jennifer Greene books which are being re-released through Carina Press and I was struck by the small ways in which the book details were being updated. One character refers to text messaging another character. Another character was watching CSI and the kids were listening to Lady Gaga. These Greene books were [...]
Jan 11 2011
I guess my title should be why isn’t there any arranged marriage stories? Or maybe it should be why isn’t there any arranged marriage stories portrayed in a positive light? Two young adult books have been released in 2010 that dealt with arranged marriage. One, Passion Play presented the gang rape of the female protagonist [...]
Jan 4 2011
I know we have the reputation for being the meanest girls on the mean girl block and I assume that is because we write F and DNF reviews. Not to mention D reviews. But the fact is that the majority of our book reviews are positive. 65% of them have B- grades or above. The [...]
Dec 12 2010
I don’t agree with everything in this article but this sentence in the third to the last paragraph really struck a chord with me as readers and authors grapple with the price (as opposed to value) of ebooks. The two most common ways people acquire books today are borrowing from a library and borrowing from [...]
Nov 16 2010
Once October hits, we are inundated with holiday messages, primarily Christmas messages. In the romance genre, there is no escaping this either. Harlequin isn’t the only culprit. Bantam republished Mary Balogh’s “A Christmas Promise“; Sourcebooks is putting out Phillipa Ashley’s “Dating Mr. December”; NAL has Nadia Aiden’s “Twelve Wicked Nights”; and Berkley has the “Wolfsbane [...]
Nov 7 2010
After last week’s post, there was quite a bit of discussion in a number of areas about the issue of geographical restrictions, some in response to the creation of lostbooksales.com, a site that I, Maili and Keishon created based on a comment made by Suze If I had the time and computer savvy, I'd set [...]
Nov 2 2010
A few months ago, Harlequin category (or series) romances appeared on the USAToday list. The reason for this is two fold. First, Harlequin is now assigning individual codes to each book so that the sales of each book can be tracked individually instead as a general category of “book”. Second, more category books are being [...]
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