Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Two male authors were chosen as the winners of the Gather.com’s First Chapters Writing Contest. Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone imprint will publish Terry Shaw’s, The Way Life Should Be, featuring a reporter who investigates his friend’s death, and a historical thriller by Geoffrey Edwards titled, Fire Bell in the Night.

Yes, I pulled the sex card and I did so intentionally. There were very few female authors in the finalists.

Via Publishers Weekly.

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Dear Ms. Vincent:

I was excited about your book after Angie W blogged about it a few months ago. It is an urban fantasy, shapeshifter romance and I really like those books. It’s told in the first person. With a first person narrative, we readers have to WANT to root for the character’s successes and sympathize with her failures. When the reader finds that she would rather have the villians do away with the heroine, there is a problem.

Faythe Sanders is a female member of a Pride. While at grad school, she is attacked by a “stray”, a werecat not belonging to any Pride. Faythe is soon after summoned home by her father, the Alpha. The attack she suffered was just one in a string of attacks on the tabbies in the North American Prides. Faythe is resistant to returning home but in the face of her father’s enforcer, Marc, she obeys.

Marc is Faythe’s former lover. She knows that he still has feelings for her but she didn’t like the manipulativeness in which her family manuevered her into being engaged to Marc. It wasn’t …

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Phyl sent me this picture last week and I meant to blog about it. She said

I've passed this truck a couple of times on the freeway and today saw it parked out in front of Hobby Lobby and managed to snap a picture with my phone camera. It's an ad for a number of local housing developments called Lifestyle Communities which are designed for younger, first-time home buyers. Their ads are meant to appeal to hip, upwardly mobile people. I saw this and thought, it's chic to be an aspiring romance author.

Very cool, no? Thanks Phyl.

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Khaled Hosseini’s sophomore effort, A Thousand Splendid Suns, won the No. 1 position. This book is the subject of a huge promotional push but that doesn’t always guarantee placement on a list, let alone the number one position. Hosseini’s debut book, The Kite Runner, is selling briskly and at No. 11.

Susannah’s Garden by Debbie Macomber is the highest ranked romance and this book fell from 10 last week to 20 this week. This week and next marks the release of new romance books so we should see some new blood on the list. The USA Today list is illustrative of a well known fact: genre fiction books have short sales lives.
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Susannah’s Garden, Debbie Macomber (Mira), $7.99, No. 20 (Peak No. 4 ).
Beware a Scot’s Revenge, Sabrina Jeffries (Pocket) $6.99, No. 26 (debut)
Cover of Night, Linda Howard (Ballantine), $7.99, No. 28 (Peak No. 6). Paperback release.

The Witness, Sandra Brown (Warner), $6.99, No.37 (Peak 13). Last week, the book was 45 and the week before it was 60. This book has legs.

The …

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Dear Ms Law,

When Jane sent me a bundle of June release books, I immediately picked yours off the pile to try. I’ve long been a fan of your historicals (please say you haven’t given up writing Westerns) and I wanted to see how you’d handle a contemporary. Well, if you must give up historicals, at least I can say that your modern efforts are worth checking out.

Ellen thought her life was all planned. She’s been married to a man she loves for twenty years, has two teenagers who, if they aren’t always stress free to raise, are basically good kids, she lives in a lovely suburban house and has a nice middle class life. Then she caught Tom cheating on her and realized it’d been going on for a while. Marriage counseling has only helped so far and now she realizes the time has come to decide: is her marriage worth any further effort or not? At their counseler’s office, Tom causually tosses out an offer. Why doesn’t she try a brief fling and see that, as he’s told her for months, “it’s just sex.”

Ellen is shocked but her best friend from high school, …

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Dear Ms. James:

Maybe I am not your audience. I love your writing which is full of historical detail and great dialogue. Each scenes is amazing. The theme that everyone wants what they perceive that they cannot have wove under and around each character and their interactions. What then, when that is the attraction, happens when you actually get what you want?

The challenge is that there appeared to be many character inconsistencies and the short shrift given, once again, to the main couple’s development of their love story led me to doubt the relationship. Individually the scenes are spectacular. It’s the when the scenes are put together as a whole that the characterizations seem in conflict and the romance always seems to escape me.

Lady Roberta St. Giles and Damon Reeve, Earl of Gryffyn, are engaged in a “I’ll teach you to seduce someone else” game. Roberta has her sights set on marrying the Duke of Villiers and Damon has his sights set on getting Roberta to fall for him, instead.

Roberta is the daughter of a somewhat disgraced earl. Her father is frequently the subject of public mockery and …

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Okay, so now maybe the weird publicity material that Harlequin does emphasizing romantic relationships instead of books makes sense. It announced today that it would be publishing a line of non fiction books such as self help, diet, inspirational, memior and biographies. Its first non fiction book, Friends: A Love Story by Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance was a New York Times bestseller.

The Press Release also mentioned releasing “companion pieces to successful fictional series by the company’s many bestselling authors.” I suppose those are like the “companion” guides that have been done for Outlander series and Nora Roberts.

Via Newswire.

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Meljean Brook follows up her debut effort with Demon Moon, another smart take on the vampire mythology. Colin is a vampire without compare. Made from Nosferatu blood, he is powerful but cursed. He cannot drink from someone without driving them to madness. And he must drink to survive. When the bloodlust is upon him, drinking is inextricably intertwined with sex. Savitri is a women whose endless search for knowledge has no answer for Colin’s dilemna. They cannot resist each other but neither can survive together for long if Colin must drink from other women. Their personal dilemna is compounded by a hoard of nosferatus coming into the earthy realm to take possession. Recommended by Jane.

If you only know Susan Kay Law for her excellent western historicals, why not try her new contemporary “Just Sex?” Ellen is horrified to hear her husband (her caught in the act cheating husband) suggest during a marital counseling session that his affairs are nothing more than just sex and that she should probably try it herself to see. Ellen’s not quite ready …

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This past week, I’ve not been returning emails in a timely fashion. I’ve ignored commenters on the website. I’ve been weak about adding “news” to the “news section.” In essence, I’ve been a bad blogger. But I am not the only one. Look around the blogosphere and there are some blogs that have been suspiciously silent. This time, it really is a conspiracy!You see, back in February, there was some discussion about the fact that the internet really failed to provide a good centralized location for information. There are any number of reader blogs and review sites, but none of them provide a comprehensive list of upcoming romances.

I always like to know what is “next” and so do many other readers. But finding out what is next and what next is about is a real challenge. In fact, it seems that we spend more time looking for books than reading them.

With the help of several other bloggers, we are launching a new venture called Romantic Advances. Who all is involved?

• Devon
• Jane
• Jennie
• Kristie J
• Rosario
• Sybil
• Tara Marie
• Wendy

The plan is for …

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There is usually a great hue and cry raised about review copy sales. One reviewer is taking an in-your-face point of view and sells them direct from her site. I’ve got some highly prized ARCs sitting in my curio cabinet. How much does anyone want to give me for Creation in Death?

MJ Rose blogged about it and got only 1 comment. It must be a dead issue. No, I am not selling the ARCs. I throw them away! Shocking, isn’t it.

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If You Deceive, the third and last installment in Kresley Cole's entertaining MacCarrick brothers series, gives the oldest and most difficult brother, Ethan, the chance to find his "forechosen mate . . . For his true lady alone his life and heart can save.� Not surprisingly, the most difficult brother also proves to be the most challenging romance, and unfortunately, the book did not quite master that challenge.
Like his brothers Court and Hugh, Ethan MacCarrick is unlucky in love, a fate he believes to be foretold by a family prophecy, the last and crucial lines of which are obscured by blood. Until each brother meets his mate, they believe they are to remain loveless, childless, and disastrous to anyone who cares for them. Ethan has doubled and even trebled his misfortune, first by the deep scar that mars his once beautiful face and then by his first fiancée's wedding-eve death. He is bitter and jaded, resentful of his responsibilities as Earl of Kavanagh and angry at the world in general, and more specifically at those who caused his disfiguring scar. Never a man who had tremendous respect for …

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Over the weekend, Gail Northman resigned from Triskelion. This has led to a flood of authors demanding their rights back as Northman, regardless of the questionable email, was considered by some authors to be the backbone of Triskelion. Let’s hope that Triskelion doesn’t go the way of Venus Press. However, authors like Lynne Connolly will be finding a new home.

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This was originally posted last August. The book, however, was not in print anywhere as the author had moved publishers. I received notice that this is now available from Mundania Press in both print and ebook form. This is a favorite series of Jayne and mine and one of our first introductions to epublishing. Who knew it could be so good?
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Dear Mrs. Connolly,

I had often heard you mention your books at the yahoo Regency chat site but when I first decided to try them, there were very few reviews out there. So I pretty much had to take a big ($17.00) gamble on this one as at the time I wasn’t reading ebooks. I’m glad to say it paid off nicely. Though it’s listed as an out of niche romance/mystery, the mystery actually takes second place to the romance. I’m glad to hear that the whole series, as well as two new books, will be available again in ebook and print form from Mundania Press.

What we get is a period (Georgian) detailed look …

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First its USAToday with its co-branded books and now it is author Nora Roberts. She has moved into icon status, if she wasn’t already before, with her very own bobblehead to be given away at the July 6th Hagerstown Suns baseball game. Hagerstown Suns are the single A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. A number of the bobbleheads will be given out at the game and Ms. Roberts will be throwing out the first pitch.

I have no idea what she is holding in her bobblehead hands, but it should probably be a computer or a keyboard or the world.

JMC, will you be attending this?

Via the SmartBitches.

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In March 2007, RWA decided to review the Publisher Recognition standards. Currently the standards require the following:

• publisher pay royalties
• not a subsidy or vanity presss
• length of business minimum of 1 year
• sold at least 1500 hardcover or trade paperback or 5,000 of any other format of one romance book

Selling to the publisher qualifies a member for PAN (published author network) membership

Amy Padgett, a Cerridwen Press author is unhappy with the PAN proposed changes. She had a post detailing her problems with the proposed changes. She has since deleted the blog post. [Note to authors: a blog is not a personal journal. Don't post stuff if you don't want the blogosphere to talk about it.] Her post doesn’t actually state what the proposed changes are, only that she is unhappy. What I understand is that the proposed changes require an author to earn $2000 in royalties/advances on a single title. This is probably no problem for anyone who publishes with New York, but for the non advance paying epublished authors, the income requirement could be onerous.

As a reader, I can’t get excited about this, but I thought it was newsworthy for the authors who …

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Houghton Mifflin is setting up shop at BEA mimicking a bookstore. Inside, it will play videos of its authors and books that can be used by bookstores to promote author signings. I think that this is a great idea and would love to see book trailers and author interviews available for viewing at a bookstore. Imagine that you are in the romance aisle and a little flat screen on the end cap runs a number of video promotions. Can you imagine the sales that would generate?

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Although it is not in fiction books, yet, USA Today announced that it will work with 6 major publishers to release co branded books. These are mostly puzzle compilations. Examples of these are as follows:

• NOLO business an legal guides co produced with USA Today to be released in February 2008.
• Sports Publishing will publish a hardcover commenorating 25 Years of USA Today sports in the fall of 2007 as well as other cummulative efforts.
• Sterling Publishing (Barnes and Noble) will release USA Today Crossword Puzzle books
• Andrews McMeel Publishing will also publish puzzle books long with a day-to-day Soduko Puzzle calender.
• MultiMedia Publishing will put ou a monthly USA TODAY Sudoku puzzle magazine
• Mead Westvaco Consumer Products will publish a 2008 USA TODAY Year-In-A-Box (R) Multi-Puzzle Calendar.

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BookSense.com has launched a program that allows its stores to sell e-books to customers’ computers or handheld devices. Ingram Digital Ventures will fulfill e-book orders in three formats: Palm OS, Adobe and Microsoft Reader.

Last winter, the ABA signed an agreement with Ingram to allow affiliate bookstores to sell ebooks. This agreement has become a reality with Booksense.com launching its program that allows member stores to sell e-books. Ingram Digital Ventures will fulfill e-book orders in three formats: Palm OS, Adobe and Microsoft Reader.

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Jo Leigh is a woman of varied talents. Unlike the common thinking behind the jack of all trades term, she is not a master of none. She does just write books, she writes award winning books. She doesn’t just play pool, she wins 8 ball championships. She has also written screenplays, been a producer, and a script consultant on more than fifty screenplays. Today, Ms. Leigh shares her thoughts on writing and the romance genre.
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Jane: What did you do before writing and what made you start writing?
Jo Leigh: Read as if I needed books to live. Watched movies obsessively. I was also quite bossy, which I personally believe is a requirement.

Jane: Jayne, my blogging partner, found a fascinating article about what some authors do to jump start their creative juices. Any tips you care to share?
Leigh: There are several stages to the process, and for me, each one needs a unique pump primer. For new material, I love to brainstorm with other writers. Five is the magic number, but I’ve brainstormed …

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Dear Ms. Pickens:

I almost didn’t read this book. It was a Regency, with a spy. The blurb used word like “sultry body” and described the hero as “sinfully sensuous.” Groan. However, the editor was Melanie Murray, and Murray was interviewed by us a few months ago so I thought I should give it a try.

Within the first chapter, I knew that this was something different. The heroine, Siena, was a street urchin who was observed to have good instincts and the ability to get out of trouble, even at the age of 12. Marquess of Lynsley trolls these streets to unearth girls such as Siena. He takes them to his school and trains them to be assassins, spies, anything that the crown needs. Many of them do not make it, but the few that do become one of Merlin’s Maidens. Women who will do anything, use anything, to get achieve their objective.

Siena has been training in the arts of seduction, society parlance, hand to hand combat and sword fighting, all to become one of those …

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Dear Ms Cummings,

Thank you for finding and taking the time to edit and publish what might have remained a little read glimpse into the daily life of David Day. Day, though a middle aged man at the time and also one having a wife and four children to support, didn’t hesitate to answer his country’s call to arms. Enlisting for a three year term of service, he saw action in now little heralded encounters along the coasts of North Carolina and Virginia. His diary shows him as a hardworking man who never shirked his military duty yet also a man of intellect and education who possessed a dry sense of humor much appreciated by the men with whom he fought. His thoughts on citizenship and a man’s duty to try and preserve the union for which our forefathers had fought so hard were forthright and strongly stated without turning into a sermon.

His daily accounts of the differences between North and South were delightful to read and truly showed how distant the regions of the country were before the age of mass communication. As a resident of North Carolina, I found it amusing that …

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I installed the Alex King mobile plugin at Sybil’s blog (The Good, The Bad, The Unread) a week ago because I was tired of trying to access it from my smart phone and having to wait five years for the home page to load. According to Business Week, 80 million smart phones were shipped worldwide in 2006. About 5% of the cell phone subscribers currently own a smartphone and this is likely to increase to 10% in the next few years according to analysts. Essentially, there is a good portion of the internet browsing market who couldn’t visit Sybil’s blog because of the length of time it took to load her home page.

Ironically, Sybil blogged about her frustration with MySpace last week and authors’ seeming devotion to it. It seemed to me that authors spent way too much time on MySpace and not enough time optimizing their websites for readers who want to buy their books.

Marianne …

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Dear Ms Kenner,

Two years ago I got swept up in your Play.Survive.Win world. The scavenger hunt plot with death as the booby prize for those who lost plus smart protagonists sucked me in and didn’t let go until the last page. “The Prada Paradox” closes the three book story arc and, while not as good as the initial “Givenchy Code,” it still delivers.

My blogging partner Jane has already written a letter outlining the story so I’ll head straight to my thoughts. This was a neat way to get new readers up to speed with the storyline so far without doing a complete info dump. But, even while being neat, the start of the action was slower compared to the two other books. If the tension had been mounting the whole time, it would have worked better but the into 1/3 just felt too languid compared to the rest of the series. The fact that the heroine is a famous actress who has to dodge fans as well as the assassin added a nice twist. I can also believe the attraction between Devi and Blake …

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Dear Ms. Marr:

This story probably has one of the best opening scenes I’ve read. Keenan, the Summer King, has wooed countless of girls throughout the centuries, hoping that each is the one who will return Summer to the faeries. The Winter Queen, Keenan’s mother, has been slowly overtaking fairyland and the cold power of her rule is seeping into the human world. Keenan must find the Summer Queen for her power combined with his will be strong enough to combat the cold. For each girl Keenan seduces into loving him and who ultimately is not the Summer Queen, an eternal life of coldness is her reward, with only a wolf for a companion. The forsaken girl is only released from her captivity when another unsuspecting one falls for his golden charms.

Aislinn is his next target. He dreams of her and, like the many girls before he’s courted, believes that she is the one.

Aislinn is special. She can see the faeries and otherworld creatures. Her grandmother is the only one who knows this. Grandmother has …

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I can’t remember when I first started reading Meg Cabot, but it was before she started publishing her Princess Diary series. I met her once at a book signing. She wasn’t quite as famous, but she was just as endearing then as she is now. Her effervescent personality, which shines through even a photograph, is only part of the reason why she is so successful. Most of her success can be attributed to her determination and refusal to just not quit. She’s been blogging since 2003; writing dozens of books; attending movie premiers with Julie Andrews; and giving author tips on how to behave in public. If you haven’t read a Meg Cabot yet, you should. It will put a smile on your face. Queen of Babble in the Big City is in stores on May 29.
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It wasn't until my dad died suddenly fourteen years ago (I was twenty-six) that my husband pointed out that life is short: Maybe I should try to get some of the books I was always writing for fun (but never showed to anyone–including him) published.

I realized he …

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Dear Ms. Kelly,

I have enjoyed several of your books in the past, so I rejoiced to hear that you had a new book coming out. Beau Crusoe is the story of James Trevenen, a naval officer shipwrecked on a deserted island where he spent five years in isolation. To hold on to his sanity, James began observing a subspecies of crabs that he named the Gloriosa Jubilate, and wrote a treatise about them.

After his rescue by missionaries, James returned home to find his mother had died. He retired to his estate in Cornwall, but when the Royal Society wanted to award him the Copley medal for his treatise on the crabs, James decided to come to London for a two-week stay, during which he will receive the medal.

Beau Crusoe begins when the eccentric (some might even say kooky) Lord and Lady Watchmere prepare to host James in their London home at the request of Sir Joseph Banks of the Royal Academy. Lord Watchmere wants his daughter, Susannah, to act as James's escort. Years earlier Susannah ran off to Gretna Green with …

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It was a short stay at the stop for Patterson. Rhonda Byrnes, The Secret, wrestles her number one position back from Patterson’s, The 6th Target.

It was a slow week for romance book sales. Only the really big names and Hannah Howell’s, Highland Savage, are on the list.
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Susannah’s Garden, Debbie Macomber (Mira), $7.99, No. 10 (Peak No. 4 ).

Cover of Night, Linda Howard (Ballantine), $7.99, No. 17 (Peak No. 6). Paperback release.
Born in Death, J.D. Robb (Berkley), $7.99, No. 27 (Peak No. 5).
The Witness, Sandra Brown (Warner), $6.99, No. 30 (Peak 13). Last week, the book was 45 and the week before it was 60. This book has legs.

The Wrong Hostage, Elizabeth Lowell (Avon), $7.99, No. 32 (Peak No. 11) paperback release.
Baby Proof, Emily Giffin (St. Martin’s Griffin) $13.95, No. 34. I saw this at the front of the store at my Barnes and Noble in its own little stand.

Captive of My Desires (Malory Family), Johanna Lindsey (Pocket), $7.99, No. 42 (Peak 11) paperback …

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One of the first and most popular group blogs, Squawk Radio, is closing its doors. It’s all speculative about why right now. It’s hard to blog every day and think of new topics. It’s a little surprising since they recently moved to this website and since they seem to have been redoubling their promotional efforts (it seemed like I received an email from them once a week asking me to visit and bring my friends).

Perhaps the ladies at Squawk decided that with Michelle B’s increased exposure at Lifetime, they would get more exposure guest blogging at her site. I know I’ve always thought that author blogs were less important than maintaining a good website and answering emails. Good luck to the Squawkers though.

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According to Shelf Awareness, libraries account for 10% of book sales. Apparently what libraries choose to buy is a mystery. We should Wendy, The Super Librarian, and Devon, come talk about library sales. I know that Wendy buys for many, many libraries. Hmm. I feel an interview series coming on.

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Dear Ms Didion,

I found your account of your first year after the sudden and tragic death of your husband, all while dealing with your critically ill daughter’s many admissions to various hospitals, to be deeply moving yet in some ways offsetting and disjointed. I guess that’s due to intermixing the two narratives in a kind of stream of consciousness but at times it was very difficult to follow or make sense of.

It’s the telling of the story of a 40 year marriage that’s filled with joyous highs and unbearable lows and musings on death and grieving which ultimately show how wonderful a man you married and how happy you both were. I think it was the little details that struck me most: how you couldn’t let go of some of his clothes because he’d need them when he came back, how it would be the first time he wouldn’t be there to edit one of your stories, wondering what word he’d been looking up that day in his dictionary, happiness that he’d been there for your daughter’s wedding, the fact that due to her illnesses you had to tell your …

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Dear Ms. Callen:

When I first picked up your book, The Viscount in Her Bedroom, I was certain I knew exactly what would be inside. Just another Avon Regency historical. Ho hum. The back cover blurb doesn’t do much to differentiate the book from the rest of the pack. The truth, though, is that there is a very sweet and somewhat original love story between the covers.

Simon, Lord Wade, was once one of London’s most eligible bachelors until a riding incident rendered him blind. He retired from society and sought refuge at his grandmother’s estate. Simon was not one to bemoan his change of circumstances, but quietly and, with dignity, began his recovery. Only his sight never returned and while he could function at his grandmother’s estate and oversee his properties there was much that was closed to him. He could not flirt, dance, or mingle. His social circle consisted of his young sister, his grandmother and the estate employees. For a man who was at the center of attention and the object of many a society lady’s affection, Simon …

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The Association of American Publishers estimate that there is a total drop in sales from 2005 by 0.3%. Trade paperbacks increased by 8.5% ($8.28billion) and ebooks were up 24.1%($54.4million). Audio book sales were down 11.7% along with religion and book clubs. Maybe Amazon’s acquisition of Brilliance will lead to a surge in audio book sales.

Via Publishers Weekly.

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ShelfAwareness reported this morning that Amazon is on the verge of acquiring Brilliance Audio, U.S’s largest independent audiobook publisher. It puts out 12-15 audiobooks each month and is located in Grand Haven, Mich.

Amazon is no stranger to acquisitions. Two years ago it purchased Mobipocket which has the largest library of ebooks; last month it announced the purchase of dpreview.com. I guess it’s all about vertical alignment these days.

Via ShelfAwareness

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Dear Ms Thornton,

“The Vagabond Duchess” winds up your trilogy about a set of cousins who all find love around the time of the Great Fire of London in 1666. As such, it’s set in one of my favorite time eras, the lusty and bawdy court of King Charles II. Men dressed like fops but carried deadly swords. Women flirted outrageously yet still lived under many societal restrictions. The Guilds of London still ruled their members and the country was still uneasily putting itself back together after the upheavals of the Civil War. I have to ask though, what’s with this cover? The women look like Restoration beauties but are the men supposed to be playing dress up in Tudor clothes?

He’d promised to return.
But Jack Bow is dead. And Temperance Challinor’s quietly respectable life is changed forever.

Practical Temperance has no time to grieve for the irresistible rogue who gave her one night of comfort in a blazing city. She must protect her unborn child—by pretending to be Jack’s widow.

A foolproof plan. Until she arrives at Jack’s home…and the counterfeit widow of a vagabond becomes the real wife of a very much alive duke!

Temperance, a member …

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Cipher by Narita Minako. Published by CMX. Retail $9.99. Rating: Teen (some heavy issues, but little to no sex or violence; I’d say high school age personally). 7/12 volumes released in English, complete in Japan.
Dear CMX,

I think you are my favorite shoujo manga publisher. I’ve only tried a few of your series, and I love Emma and Seimaden, but even your average ones are better than everyone else’s. Cipher is a case in point.
The series initially interested me for a couple of reasons. One is that it was written in 1985, which I’m told is often considered the Golden Age of Manga. I’ve not read much from the period and wanted to try more. I thought the artwork looked pretty. It reminded me of paintings of children from the early 20th century, despite the new clothing, and I thought I might enjoy the change of pace. Also, it was set in New York City, and I always find manga set in NYC to be amusing for all they …

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Fictionwise is celebrating its 7th year in business by lopping 25% off all the books. For multi format, you get 25% off right away. For the secure books (the ones with the horrible DRM), you get a 25% micropay rebate. What does this really mean? Apparently, it means that all the Samhain Publishing books at Fictionwise (41 of them) are $3.51 are lower.

To search by publisher, go to Advanced Search and then Click the Publisher drop down box.

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• Ashley
• Rhonda

First one to email me at jane at dearauthor dot com gets choice of paper or ebook.

Winners of the RITA Balloting Contest:

• mekool
• rlbayne

If you don’t know what the Reader Ballot Contest is about, read here and here. Essentially, you fill out a ballot and have a chance to win a ton of books.

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Sometimes I’ll blog about information that seems to be directed straight at writers and I wonder if some readers think to themselves, but this isn’t for us. It doesn’t affect us. Aren’t you guys a readers’ blog? We are, but sometimes industry changes have a great affect on we, the readers.

Simon & Schuster’s announcement of its contractual changes is an example of that. Last week, it was discovered that Simon & Schuster intended to include language in its contracts that would essentially eliminate any reversion of rights. What does reversion of rights mean? A little copyright lesson. Stay with me. It’s not that boring, I promise.

When an artist creates a work of art, this art has a copyright. The copyright is a form of protection that is granted by the U.S. Congress. Essentially, the writer of a book has the right to

• reproduce the work (make a copy)
• prepare derivative works (i.e., a series of books like the Black Dagger Brotherhood series or Eve Dallas series)
• distribute copies to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, by rental, lease or lending;

…

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Dear Ms. Shalvis:

I can’t exactly recreate how I found your book, but I did a websearch about something, ended up at your site and read the excerpt for Shadow Hawk which led me directly to Harlequin’s website. I thanked the internet gods and Malle Valik for offering up the June releases a month early.

Conor Hawk has a thing for fellow ATF agent, Abigail Wells. Everything about her is sexy to him, including her elbows. The only response he gets, when she actually speaks to him, is usually cold and dismissive. Hawk doesn’t really understand because she’s so personable to everyone else, even sweet and kind on occassion. Abby is quite aware of Hawk’s virility. On the outside, she may appear impervious but inside she’s like the rest of the office women who can’t keep their eyes of his wicked body.

Abby and Hawk are assigned to a mission one evening to check out some suspicious activity in northern Wyoming related to the Kiddie Bomber case. The Kiddie Bombers were a group who taught teens how to make bombs and terrorize big corporations into paying large sums of money. …

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Alan Johnson, Britain’s education secretary, has launched a campaign to create a bookshelf for boys in every secondary school in England. The list has over 160 books from which to choose and each school is allotted 20. The list was compiled by the School Library Association and are primarily adventure books that the group hopes to appeal to the 11 to 14 year olds. The full list can be viewed here and include such titles as:

• Coraline by Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury)
• Samurai by Jason Hightman (HarperCollins)
• The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis (Hodder)
• Avenger by Andy McNab (Corgi)
• Eldest by Christopher Paolini (Corgi)

Isn’t Coraline about a girl?

Via the Guardian

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Do you remember that we are having a RITA related contest? Well, we are. If you fill out a ballot with your guesses as to who will win the RITA, you will be entered in our contest. The winner of the contest (US Residents only because of mailing costs) will recieve a bag of books of the RITA winners plus many other books. We received this box of books from Dorchester:

And this one from Harlequin (yep, all these are going to the winner).

So today, we are giving away two harlequin ecopies of RITA nominated books: Magic Study by Maria V Snyder and Irresistible by Susan Mallery to two random balloters. So go forth and guess. And win. You know you want to.

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Author Jill Shalvis is a USA TODAY best-selling, award-winning author of over three dozen novels. She's been on the Waldenbooks Bestsellers list, the Barnes and Noble Top 100, the Amazon bestsellers list, and also Ingram's. She's a Rita Award nominee, a three-time National Reader's Choice Award winner, and has been nominated for Romantic Times's Career Achievement Award in Romantic Comedy, Best Duets and Best Temptation. I’ve read four of her books so far and I love her categories. They feature smart women and the clueless alpha heroes that love them. So what does this multi award winning author have to say? Read on. Make it to the end, and we’ll give you a book. Okay, only a couple of you.
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Jane: What did you do before before writing and what made you start writing?
Jill Shalvis: I was always a writer, at least in my head. Or at least a story …

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Jaid Black, owner of Ellora’s Cave, mentioned in her previous interview that she thought the NY move into e-publishing would have difficulties because authors want to see themselves in print. In the Triskelion drama of the past week, one thing was clear and that was Triskelion appeared to over extend itself in attempting to get ebooks into print.

Patty Marks, CEO of Ellora’s Cave, shared with me some changes that are going on at Ellora’s Cave which are addressing the increasing economic difficulties for small print presses, particularly epublishers, finding their way into bookstores. I think the story can be illustrative beyond epublishing and maybe even highlights an issue of internet bookstores because right now, getting in a brick and mortar store is still important. It’s important to note that while much of the discussion centers around Borders Group Inc., it is because Borders was the first national bookstore to really believe that there was a print readership for erotic romance.

Per Patty Marks:

Here’s how Borders’ purchasing and return procedure works:…

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Dear Ms Munro,

For a book as short as this is, with three main characters, lots secondary characters and several long sex scenes, I should have gotten the feeling that every word was being used for a purpose, that every scene counted, that maximum use was made of the entire story. Instead, what I felt a a lot of while reading it was bored.

An heirloom sapphire. That’s where Sarah Walsh’s troubles began. Oh and sex. That came into the equation when she met Flynn Wangford. Now he has her sapphire and she wants it back.

Bad boy Flynn is causing trouble again. Sarah and fellow spy, sometimes lover Thomas MacIntyre are assigned to protect the British prime minister and royal guest Princess Leila from Mundavia while keeping an eye on Flynn. For Sarah it’s a chance to retrieve her sapphire. Somehow, she’ll juggle official duties and best the cocky Australian. But before she knows it, Sarah is alone with Flynn and they end up horizontal. The sex is explosive and hot, hot, hot, but she can’t stop thinking about Thomas. Two men. They’re so different yet both are delectable and very

…

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Dear Ms James,

Yippee, hooray, happy days. It’s a plain, hot, contemporary from Ellora’s Cave and something I thought was a thing of the past: an EC novel that does not feature a storyline about joining a bondage club or suddenly finding oneself hooked up with a fated alien/vampire/whatever mate! Bless you.

Paige Holister had hoped that her wilder twin sister Dorie would forget about the pact they made five years ago. No joy. Now it’s their thirtieth birthday and time for each of them to pick three of the sexual fantasies they’ve written down and make them come true. Paige finds herself with three days to fulfill her fantasies or pay her sister $1000 for each one not done. Good thing for her that Dorie is a travel agent who can get Paige out to Wyoming in a hurry so she can 1) have sex with a cowboy 2) have sex in public (hopefully with a cowboy) and 3) have sex with a tied up (cowboy) lover. Timid Paige is just about ready to venture into the rodeo crowds when her cowboy lands on the hood of her rental car.

A little …

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Dear Ms. Holcomb:

There were many other bloggers who enjoyed Rock Star, but I admit the blurb put me off. I think that there is some bias that movie stars, athletes, and rock stars are incapable of fidelity and therefore a happy ever after. I was convinced at the end of the story that the hero Rock Star and the heroine bookseller would live happily ever after. The writing was good enough to overcome that bias.

Bryan Spencer, front for hard rock band Storm Crow, has fled LA after bandmate and best friend killed himself in a drug overdose. Bryan has fallen apart and he’s in a small town Alabama to pick up the pieces.

Callie is co owner for a small independent bookstore in Maple Forks. She has a five year plan to become the Jo-Beth of the south. (This was a little hard for me to swallow given the current state of indy bookselling today). When Bryan Spencer walks in to buy a few science fiction books, she doesn’t immediately recognize him until she sees a cover of a magazine …

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The AAP reported that net sales are on the rise–1.7% for March and 7.8% year to date. The big gainers were audiobooks (33.6%); adult hardcovers (27.5%), children’s/YA Paperbacks (13.7%); ebooks (12%). The losers were children’s/YA Hardcovers (2.2% decline); scholarly books and university press books; adult mass markets (5.8%); and religion books (19.8%).

Via ShelfAwareness.

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Prize-winning multi-published British author Portia Da Costa had her first book accepted for publication way back in 1990, and has since gone on to have over 20 titles published and over 100 short stories included in magazines. She's principally known as one of the original Virgin Black Lace pioneers. Her most recent title is a reprint of her 1996 paranormal classic Gothic Blue, and in August her latest new title, the erotic romance contemporary Suite Seventeen hits US bookshelves. Later in 2007, she's contributed Buddies Don't Bite, a paranormal novella, to the Lust Bites vampire anthology and also has a new reprint of Hotbed, another steamy contemporary. You can find out more about Portia and her books at her website and her blog.
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Astonishingly enough, I can't remember the exact date, or time, or circumstances of "The Call� to tell me I'd made my first sale. All I can remember clearly is a totally amazing feeling!

My first sale story isn't like that of most romance writers. The book I sold wasn't a romance at all. Far from it… It …

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Fushigi Yuugi by Yuu Watase. Published by Viz. Retail: $9.99 18/18 Volumes released in Englis. Rated T+ for older teens (sexual situations, attempted rapes, pretend rapes, lots of death). D-.

 
Dear Readers,
Imagine if you will being stuck in the middle of the Gobi desert, thirsting for anything to drink, when you come upon a spring of clear water. You fall to your knees gratefully and begin to drink, only to choke when you find it tastes like camel piss (you know this because you drank your camel’s piss in desperation before it died the previous day). It is, however, the only water you’ve got. You drink it, ignoring everything that makes you shudder, and live to walk out of the desert. And when people ask about your journey, you praise the spring to high heaven.
That spring is Fushigi Yuugi.
You see, there didn’t used to be any shoujo manga, manga for girls, released over here. “Everyone” knew, “everyone” being male comic book sellers, that girls didn’t read comics. Then Sailor Moon came along and kicked …

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Just as a prefatory matter, I want to explain a bit about copyright law and how that works in relation to authors. Authors create a unique work to which they own a copyright. That copyright gives them the right to copy and distribute that work. Authors sell that right of copying and distribution to publishers. These rights can be very specific, i.e., U.S. hardcover rights which means the publisher who purchased the rights can only distribute the book in the U.S. and in hardcover format.

Most rights are more general and these days include all formats, including e-formats. In return for the bundle of rights granted to the publisher, the publisher pays the author money in the form of an advance. If the author earns out the advance (sells enough copies so that her royalties meet the advance), she then is entitled to royalty payments. The advance is really a prepayment of royalties.

Most contracts state that if there is a matter of time in which the book is not in print, these bundle of rights revert back to the author. Such is the case with author Michelle Albert. The rights for two …

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