Aug 20 2008
Dear Editor: I read today on your author, Victoria Laurie’s, website that you have been in discussions with her about a voice mail message that you have received from a blogger called NovelReads about a statement Ms. Laurie made on her website. I felt that Ms. Laurie’s accusations of this reader being a “psycho” and [...]
Aug 19 2008
more cat pictures Last week we saw yet another author/reviewer contretemps in which an author, upset over a review, engages the reviewer in a comically bad mannered way. When we’ve witnessed this in the past, it almost always seems to be over a C review. An average review. A review that says this book is [...]
Aug 12 2008
UPDATED: Ms. Laurie has apparently deleted her post. The cached version is here. Victoria Laurie, a professional psychic and author, engaged in an Amazon contretemps not too long after the Deborah Anne MacGillivray. This led to a mass deletion of reviews and comments at Amazon on all sides. Apparently Laurie, who says “Thanks to Candy [...]
Jul 8 2008
more cat pictures I meant to post my Top Ten Things a Publisher Can Do to Help Readers Spend Money this week but over the weekend, an author began to engage readers over at Amazon in a fairly combative manner over a three star, or average, review. I think it serves as a good illustration [...]
Jun 18 2008
MSNBC decided to run a poll about romance novels in conjunction with its feature of fiction writer Danielle Steele. Why MSNBC jumps from Danielle Steele to romance, I’ll never know but it just goes to show how culturally illiterate the MSNBC poll writers are. Apparently MSNBC believes that romance books are still called “bodice rippers.” [...]
May 16 2008
Theo Black, web designer and husband of author Holly Black, took to criticizing the websites of his former clients. I think Black is a talented guy but his vision of website design is style over functionality. I much prefer the functional and generic websites that he disdains because these sites are easier to navigate and [...]
May 11 2008
Update. Kira Takenochi has alerted people to new changes in her Yaoi publishing role. Hello Everyone, For most of you, this is going to come as no surprise, as I’ve been discussing this situation for a few weeks now in my journal at the site. As of tonight I will be shutting down the Yaoi [...]
May 5 2008
In our ongoing coverage of what is wrong with the United States (soon to be expanded to cover wrong headed laws being enacted or pushed to be enacted in foreign countries), we include Massachusetts. A proposed bill would allow individuals who obtain sex by lying to be charged with a felony which would, you know, [...]
Apr 30 2008
First there was the Indiana Censorship Bill that requires any seller of sexually explicit material to register with the Secretary of State. You know, like bookstores that sell romances and such. Now the Republicans have the opportunity to vote for Tony Zirkle who is in a primary race for a House seat in Northwest Indiana. [...]
Apr 17 2008
Most of the blogosphere has been mouth agape in reaction to the Deborah Anne MacGillivray harassment of an Amazon reader over a 3 star review that the reader left for a book of MacGillivray’s. In my link backs, though, I saw a post called “Authors Who Bite Back” from Tess Gerritsen’s blog that left my [...]
Apr 15 2008
As you can tell by the title, my impatience with publishers is rising. Their loose association with integrity becomes more evident every day. Last week, it was discovered that Lonely Planet, a travel guide publisher, was putting out books by an author who a) plagiarized and b) didn’t even travel to the places he wrote [...]
Apr 10 2008
Apparently, there appears to be a breakdown in the comment box on the previous thread. Ms. MacGillivray was the recipient of a three star review on Amazon. She chastises the reader for not understanding the book correctly. Reba, Thank you for letting me know you enjoyed "A Restless Knight" so much you read it twice. [...]
Feb 21 2008
I received an email this morning that contained the following words. I did verify that this was not a hoax but an email from a new publicity intern. Hi, I’m from [major New York publisher]. I would like to spread the word on two of our new Vampire novels. The first is [name of Book [...]
Feb 10 2008
moar funny pictures A little brouhaha went down over the past week within the Young Adult author community. When this was first sent to me, my immediate reaction was “thank goodness it’s not us this time.” Then I went to read. Another friend of mine commented that the internet makes it so easy for people [...]
Feb 8 2008
Borders is running a Buy 4 Get 1 Free special for romances. When I first saw this discount notice in my inbox (which works out to about $1.25 off per book), I thought, “Sweet.” But apparently, I should have thought “those rat bastards.” According to blogger at TensionBreaker: Offering consumers 5 romance novels for the [...]
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