Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years which related a Jewish child’s Holocaust experience including trekking 1900 miles across Europe with a pack of wolves (I know, I thought I saw that Disney movie too) is apparently not a memoir but a pack of fiction (or pack of lies, but I thought that was too [...]

Dear Ms. Dimon:
I mentioned before that your trademark seemed to be really great dialogue, snappy flirtatious banter. This book was no different. The problem was that while it had your trademark dialogue, it just had too much of it. I guess there really is too much of a good thing.
Gabrielle Pearson thought [...]

Celeste Bradley has been a series girl from the start. Her first series, Liars Club, was published by St. Martin’s Press. Since that time, she has written 11 books. Her most recent series is a trilogy called “The Heiress Brides!” Desperately [...]

Dear Mrs. Eagle,
Your books have been favorites of mine for years. When I got back into reading romance novels about 10 years ago, “The Night Remembers” was
one of the first books I read and from there I started to collect everything you’d written. Your latest book, “Mystic Horseman,” reminds me of the best of [...]

Maybe Oprah inspired the industry or maybe Cory Doctorow and Baen Publishing’s long maintained message is finally breaking through, but the free keeps piling up. This time its Random House who is giving away Beautiful Children, a New York Times bestseller. You don’t even have to give your name or email address away. Just [...]

There is an article in MSNBC this morning about re-virginization. For the low low sum of $5,000 you can have your hymen “repaired” so that you can give the “gift” of virginity.

“Have you already unwrapped the priceless gift of virginity and given it away?” asks the Web site for the Pregnancy Resource Center of [...]

Dear Ms. Walker,
While I’ve read and enjoyed novels about supermodels in the past, I was a bit leery when I received your book. On one hand, I’m fascinated by the fashion industry. On the other hand, I hate the message it sends to teenaged girls about body image and here we have [...]

Dear Jane,
Thank you for inviting me to write this review of Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace. After reading your review last month I was eager to read this and even more delighted to win one of the 20 ARCs you gave away. I am happy to report that I enjoyed the book as much as you did.
[...]

Individuals who are, or once were, associated with PublishAmerica are suing  the Preditor & Editors site for libel. Barbara Bauer is an agent who claims that P&E libeled her by calling her a scammer.  Victor E. Cretella, an attorney with PublishAmerica and a member of the Maryland Bar, is suing P&E for harming his reputation.
Barbara [...]

Dear Ms. Thomas:
I first learned about you when Sybil sent me a link to your excerpt (this is a link to your blog because your website? It is gone!). It was enticing but your book wasn’t due out for months and months so I tried to put it out of my mind. [...]

Dear Ms. Willig,
Oh, what I’ve been missing by not reading your books earlier. Now having devoured “Pink Carnation” and the newest in the series, “The Seduction of the Crimson Rose,” I’ve been sucked in by your witty style, your fun characters and the entire world of early 19th century flower spies. What I still wonder [...]

Dear Ms. Collingwood,
I both liked and didn’t like your novella Lieutenant Samuel Blackwood (deceased).
I was attracted to it as soon as Jane offered it to us, because your email mentioned it was a penny-dreadful styled ghost story, and I love the ghost stories of the Victorian era (it’s set in Georgian times but the style [...]

The question of whether there is a divide between authors and reader/blogger/reviewers has been discussed and debated here and elsewhere. To me it seems clear that it does, at least in some quarters. Some reader/blogger/reviewers, including some of my fellow bloggers here on Dear Author, have called out some authors for behaving badly. [...]

Reed Business Information (in its guise as Publishers Weekly) was a co-founder of the Quill Awards which was one part Oscar, one part People’s Choice with Publisher’s Weekly putting up a slate of nominees and the readers voting on that slate. Nora Roberts won Book of the Year in 2007 for Angels Fall.
Publishers Weekly [...]

I find this so interesting. Last year in Japan 5 of the top 10 selling books were “cell phone novels”. These novels are entirely written on cell phones using all of the abbreviations emoticons that I have so much trouble understanding.
These are very short novels but very successful.  In fact the number [...]

Those of you who loved the novel can now enjoy the upcoming movie The Other Boleyn Girl on February 29th. The book was originally reviewed by Jayne and received high marks. I believe three or four of the Oscars this year were adaptations of books. Lets hope this movie is as good.
And [...]

Dear Ms. Thurman,
I can’t remember exactly how I first discovered your books. When your first novel, Nightlife, came out a couple years ago, I dismissed it as just another straight urban fantasy. We already have Jim Butcher and Simon R. Green for that. Then I read a couple favorable blog reviews that [...]

Dear Author is going with The Billionaire’s Secret Babes for our Harlequin reading challenge group name. Robin picked it so we are giving away two GCs to random commenters from the previous post. Ann Bruce and Whey are the winners of our Fictionwise GCs. Please send me an email with the [...]

This is only to note that despite the poor sales of previous blogger books, certain types still sell. A significant deal in PublishersMarketplace parlance is $251,000 - $499,000. Part of the deal could have been based on her years as a columnist and not as a blogger.
NYT health columnist and “Well” blogger Tara [...]

Today’s guest review comes from author K.Z. Snow. Ms. Snow’s myspace profile indicates that she is a 100 year old woman from Wisconsin and from this guest review, appears to love Susan Fromberg Schaeffer’s The Madness of a Seduced Woman (Plume).
***
(All direct quotes from the text are taken from the 1991 Plume trade edition.)

The [...]

In the 1980s, Sony and Matsushita engaged in a battle over VHS v. Betamax. Sony lost that battle but has emerged the victor in home entertainment fight club battle 2.0. Last week, Toshiba announced it would “no longer develop, make or market high-definition HD DVD players and recorders.”
In the early 2000s, the movie [...]

Dear Mrs Wells,
What happens when you take an intriguing idea and mix it with nice characters but throw in very standard plotting? A reader who ends up feeling manipulated. Oh, I know that’s what a romance book is supposed to do - get you to root for the characters and sigh at the [...]

A fire on February 22, 2008, consumed the Historic Boonsboro Inn that Nora Roberts and her family were restoring.  The blaze also damaged six other buildings in the small town. No one was injured but there was an estimated $1.5 to $2 million in damage.
The Smart Bitches reported on this yesterday and Nora dropped in [...]

Welcome to Query Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a query to be read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. Published authors may do so under their own name or anonymously.
Readers, though, the way that I look at it is this: Would the [...]

I think this is old news but Harlequin is seeking authors to submit short stories (10,000-15,000 words) for electronic publication under the Nocturne Bites line. You can submit your manuscript online to NoctureBites@harlequin.ca.

If you have ever wanted to get in the mind of an editor the new podcast from Harlequin may be your ticket.  Harlequin plans on producing 20-minute “Meet the Editor” podcasts.  The first podcast is  with Melissa Jeglinski  who is the senior editor for Silhouette Desire, and Diana Ventimiglia,  associate editor for Silhouette Desire and [...]

Dear Ms. Grady:
I thought that I had read you before and that you were jmc’s secret pleasure which was why I bought this one. Unfortunately, this was a case of mixed up names. I was thinking of Robyn Donald but must have fixated on Robyn, forgetting the last name. It’s not the first [...]

Do some of us buy too many books? Do you find yourself having books in your personal library that you have never read? Are you running out of space for all of your books? MSN Money listed 10 ways to save money when buying books. Here are a few of my [...]

Medallion press is coming out with a fully illustrated romance in November. It is titled Passion’s Blood and has an expected print run of 10,000.
I have not seen an illustrated romance book before but I do know I like my fantasy “picture books” when done properly. Any opinions on Medallion’s other illustrated [...]

Catherine Delors has a unique story that the readers haven’t heard before. Delors’ first language is French but her first published novel is in English. How hard must that be? Delors graduated from the University of Paris-Sorbonne School of Law, became a member of the Bar of Paris at 21, got married, [...]

Dear Mrs. Raybourn,
I remember when historical mysteries first started to become really popular. Then after that it seems that every possible time period and social class of historical sleuth got turned into some author’s hero or heroine. And I got a little bored with the genre and annoyed at thinking about Queen Elizabeth, Jane [...]

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 [...]

Dear Ms. Frank,
Let me be honest. The first two books in your Nightwalker series didn’t impress me much. So when I received the third book, I honestly wasn’t expecting to like it. But to my surprise, I enjoyed the romance between Siena and Elijah. Unfortunately, their relationship wasn’t able to overcome the other flaws [...]

I think this is an interesting concept but have not decided yet why it’s needed (except maybe for greed?). Some authors and publishers will be mimicking what Hollywood has been doing concerning product placement in their television shows and movies. That is getting paid to mention their products in their books.
Enter first time [...]

Dear Mrs. Blake,
Years ago, I read one of your earlier historical books and kept in mind the unusual setting of early 19th century Louisiana until I found a replacement copy for the one I lost. Then I don’t think it was so noticeable as now when almost no time exists for publishers except Regency [...]

When I first read this article from the Washington Post, I thought oh no, not another cancer scare. It seemed ridiculous at first. The study showed that those women who live in areas that are brightly lit at night have a higher rate of breast cancer.
At this point I was thinking, come [...]

Dear Ms. Banks:
I know that alot of people give up on authors after one or two books. I also know that I have “hot button” issues that will make me leave an author behind even after one book, or a portion of a book. I had real issues with the portrayal of the [...]

Dear Ms. Briggs,
I’ve been putting off writing this review for some time. As readers, we each have our own preferences and quirks in what we like to read. We also have our personal hot buttons with regards to what we don’t. While I liked the first two-thirds of Iron Kissed, the last third hit my [...]

Dear Ms. Roberts:
I discovered the In Death series almost 20 books in (at the publication of Portrait in Death), so I had the opportunity to read a big chunk of Eve and Roarke’s story all at once. I was immediately and completely caught up in the fictional futuristic world, from the tumultuous adventure of [...]

moar humorous pics
In the past few weeks, we here at Dear Author have talked about author ethics and it occurred to me that we haven’t talked alot about blogging ethics.
While I do think that ethics is a community issue, I am not trying to force my ethics on anyone else in the blogging community. [...]

Many of you may have heard of this book “And Tango Makes Three”.  It is a children’s book based on a real story about two penguins in the Central Park Zoo in New York.  I guess what happened in real life was that two penguins were observed trying to “hatch” a rock.  When the zoo [...]

moar humorous pics
The news recently has been all about free ebooks lately, mostly stirred by Oprah’s Valentine’s Day gift of Suze Orman’s bestselling book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny. More than 1 million copies of the books were downloaded. The news reports have been mostly positive as Yahoo [...]

Back in November, 2007, B&N was in their 3rd quarter and predicting little if no growth in same store sales for their upcoming 4th quarter.  Now in their 4th quarter, JP Morgan is predicting negative same store sales.  They downgraded B&N stock to neutral from overweight.  B&N states that poor music sales is the culprit.
Via [...]

Dear Ms Davison,
I had been eyeing your book “Duking Days Rebellion” at Fictionwise before you offered it to Dear Author for review. It was actually on my wish list there just waiting for my next paycheck when Jane forwarded me the review request. Talk about nice timing! It took me back to my early [...]

Want a free ebook every week from Tor publishing? If you sign up for their newsletter, Tor will provide you the link, every week, to a free ebook that can be downloaded. The first book was Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, the winner of the 2006 John W. Campbell Award for Best [...]

Today’s guest review comes from author Jennifer Estep. Estep pens funny novelizations inspired by the comic book ouvre featuring Bigtime and the super heroes/heroines (Karma Girl and Fiera, for example) and ubervillians that inhabit the city.
***
Donald E. Westlake is the funniest writer you’re not reading.
Never heard of him? I probably wouldn’t have either, if [...]

Last week, Harlequin sent bloggers an email letting us know about the Harlequin reading challenge. If readers read and blog about 100,000 books in 2008, Harlequin will donate 100,000 books to the National Center for Family Literacy, a donation valued at approximately $700,000.00 US.
In the comments, many expressed a desire to participate. Here [...]

Dear Ms. Cohen:
Your book, Driving Him Wild, came to my attention when it was announced as one of the RNA nominees for best category romance of 2007. As Sarah from SBTB notes, the lovely Harlequin folks decided that they would change the title for us Americans to His For the Taking. Driving Him [...]

Welcome to Query Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a query to be read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. Published authors may do so under their own name or anonymously. Readers, though, the way that I look at it is this: If the [...]

Due to increased competition from both brick and mortar and online bookstores, Borders opened a new concept store it hopes will eventually increase sales.  Most of the store looks like the competition except for an area described as a digital center.    At this new digital center one could download music to their mp3 player, [...]