Apr 4 2007

Happy Anniversary Dear Author

By Jane • Misc • • Tags: ,

Anniverary

So one year ago today, Jayne and I started blogging. Oh, my how time flies. In celebration of our anniversary, Jayne and I chatted yesterday about our time together, ebooks, and the future of our blog. We are giving away 10! $5 gift certificates to Fictionwise and Amazon to commenters today. Why don’t you drop a comment about the ways in which you would like to see DearAuthor change in the future? It can be anything from “more reviews” to “less reviews” to “less opinions” to “enough with the hideous pink”. Anything at all is welcome.

Don’t forget to fill out a Reader Rita Ballot for a chance to win free books and a whole basket full of RITA winners in July.

jayne (9:45:18 AM): Yo
jane1dearauthor (9:50:23 AM): Yo Yo
jane1dearauthor (9:50:25 AM): Yo
jayne (9:45:54 AM): we’re deleting that from the final product, right?
jane1dearauthor (9:50:51 AM): LOL. Right. I’ll send to you for review. So, tomorrow is our big anniversary
jayne (9:46:19 AM): Oh, I can check my spelling then. I can’t spell worth shit. I want an ice-cream cake

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jane1dearauthor (10:15:24 AM): Do you regret coming on board? Even at all?
jayne (10:10:54 AM): Not unless I can’t get a review right in my head
jane1dearauthor (10:16:07 AM): What is the hardest book you’ve had to review? or maybe the hardest review to write?
jayne (10:12:23 AM): I hate doing a review for a book I asked for or specifically agreed to review and it turns out I didn’t like the book
jayne (10:12:38 AM): I want to like all the books I read
jane1dearauthor (10:17:31 AM): (Simply Magic?)
jayne (10:13:01 AM): I didn’t like the experience of reading it but the review wasn’t that hard to write. I guess C reviews are the hardest. Unless there’s something like the Bedwyns that really yanks my crank and I can beyoch about it easily.

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jane1dearauthor (10:19:27 AM): Besides the free books !! what are the best things about blogging?
jayne (10:15:22 AM): being able to talk about books. when I finish one, and I love it or hate it, I want to be able to tell people about it and hear what they had to say as well and hammer out exactly what worked or didn’t work for me.
jane1dearauthor (10:20:51 AM): What do you want to change about the blog in the future?
jayne (10:16:35 AM): (thinking)
jayne (10:17:15 AM): let me keep thinking. I’m such a simple person….
jane1dearauthor (10:22:18 AM): lol
jayne (10:17:49 AM): see, you’re the Visionary. I just grab your coattails and hang on for dear life
jane1dearauthor (10:23:14 AM): If there was one thing that you could change / ad / subtract, what would it be? I.e., , I confess that I am tired of our layout and am thinking about changing it. . . .
jayne (10:24:16 AM): is it too crowded? or just time for a change
jane1dearauthor (10:29:12 AM): oh, I don’t know. I think that we could do a better job of highlighting our reviews. maybe separating out some content. There is a move in blogland to go toward magazine style blogging.
jayne (10:24:59 AM): I have noticed that it’s hard to go back and find our reviews of ebook sites
jane1dearauthor (10:30:03 AM): our search function doesn’t work worth shit. must replace that
jayne (10:25:36 AM): are we still looking at indexing the reviews by author name?
jane1dearauthor (10:30:31 AM): yes. I still want to do that. My brother, the sql god, however is ducking my calls. I can’t imagine why
jayne (10:26:06 AM): should we have a post asking for suggestions? improvements? see what is and isn’t important
jane1dearauthor (10:31:16 AM): Yes, I definitely want to do that.
jayne (10:31:53 AM): what about recycling content? are we all just talking about the same thing? over and over and commenting about each other? I don’t want us to just sit around and all become like talking heads on TV. all yapping about the same thing in only slightly different ways. Or become like an “in group” where we talk to each other all the time and others who don’t know these people or read their blogs feel left out. I don’t want the casual dropper-in to wonder what half of what we’re talking about is about. And I don’t want to lose what’s made us popular and what, for most people, seems to be our biggest draw — honest reviews and opinions
jane1dearauthor (10:44:41 AM): I don’t want to be talking about just what goes on in blogland either and I do think that there will always be some recycling of topics because, as in books, there are only a few major topics. I read somewhere that there are only 7 plots. So we have to make it fresh, somehow, everytime we bring up a topic.

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jane1dearauthor (10:46:51 AM): Have you met with Laura Florand?
jayne (10:42:33 AM): yes, we went out for late afternoon coffee and chocolate in mid Feb. before Lent when I gave up chocolate! She’s a doll. and she sounds exactly like Lauren Bacall!
jane1dearauthor (10:47:49 AM): Does meeting authors make it more fun or less fun for you, as a reader? It seems that some author/reader contact is fraught with peril.
jayne (10:43:41 AM): she said something about me coming to some author’s meeting and smoozing but I hesitated. I don’t want to meet some of these people then have to write a C review for them. She had just gone to a SEP signing and had met a bunch of area authors there. I feel that I could give a more honest review if I don’t know them and I don’t want to do a pity review because I can see an author’s hopeful face in my mind.
jane1dearauthor (10:50:51 AM): I know. I’ve read some statements about how reviews don’t even consider the author and I think to myself, of course not, because if they did, no one would be able to write an honest review. We would all be thinking – well, I can’t be critical here or there because the author’s feelings are going to get hurt.
jayne (10:46:42 AM): and we start to sink into the quagmire of “let’s all be nice”
jane1dearauthor (10:52:04 AM): which does no one any good. I mean, I think that is what differentiates the online blog reviewer from the fanzines and fanzones.

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jane1dearauthor (11:02:22 AM): you read alot of ebooks and are a big ebook fan. why is that?
jayne (10:58:48 AM): authors seem to be allowed to be different. try different genres or settings or plots that aren’t the same old same old. though you do find that as well
jane1dearauthor (11:04:05 AM): do you think that there is a quality difference between the ebooks and the print publications?
jayne (10:59:24 AM): yes
jayne (10:59:43 AM): wait…do you mean quality in writing or publishing?
jane1dearauthor (11:04:48 AM): well, what do you mean?
jayne (11:00:54 AM): I mean that the writing can be just as good – or not – but ebooks from ebook publishers do seem to lag behind in publishing quality – meaning more typos, missed words, etc
jayne (11:01:21 AM): the western I just finished is a huge example of that
jane1dearauthor (11:06:36 AM): I think that is because of the sheer numbers that ebook publishers put out. EC puts out like 6 or 7 books a week. that seems like a tremendous number
jayne (11:02:32 AM): BDSM, BDSM threesomes, BDSM fantasy, BDSM vampires…. Fated Mates!!!

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