Archive for March, 2008
I read on an author’s blog the other day that she had an MS Word catastrophe. I think we’ve all had those at one time or another. Google docs doesn’t really solve the MS Word catastrophe but it does allow a person to write and edit documents without relying on your own personal computer. The problem was that you had to be online, connected to the internet, to use Google docs.
Not anymore. Google Docs is now useable offline. Any changes that you make while not connected to the internet will automatically be synchronized with the online document once you connect again. I love this idea and can imagine using Google Docs for more than just blogging and maybe for work as well.
Via Ars Technica.
Want a Sony Reader? Join the editorial staff of a major publishing house. Random House is the latest publishing to join the ereading ranks with Hachette, Simone & Schuster, St. Martin’s. Each publishing house is providing eReaders to its editorial and sales staff to read galleys and other “preview material.”
I asked one insider about why the houses were all going Sony Reader and not Kindle and was given a response that in essence said that Publishers didn’t want pre published info or interoffice info on the Amazon servers. Makes sense to me.
So when will Penguin, the eternal foot dragger in the eWorld, and Harlequin, the leader in epublishing, join the ranks of the rest of the big publishing world?
Via Publishers Weekly.
There was an Australian library (I think) that once hosted single’s parties which I thought was a brilliant idea. Apparently, though, some of the Literati* think that book tastes are more of a turn off than a turn on. Self help books are apparently something that would likely make women keep their clothes on. One male editor at Harper recounts the tale of giving a girlfriend Nabokov’s “Ada”, a book that is apparently about incest at its core. The relationship didn’t last, but the girlfriend’s love for the book did.
I think a boyfriend giving me a book about incest could give a weird message, like, I’d like to screw you like you’re my sister or, alternatively, I think of you like a sister and thus, this is my kiss off book.
As for Ned and I? The big fiction that we tell everyone is that we met at the bookstore (or was it the library). We didn’t but it’s something that the parents like to hear.
More at the Times.
* I know some in the cubicles of publishing might object to the term Literati, but I wasn’t the one who coined the term.
Dear Ms. Clare:
 I admit to having some reservations about starting this book because I had a real hard time with the heroine in Hard Evidence. However, the gritty and realistic feel that emanated from the pages of this book were captivating and made the book hard to put down. I read that you had gone into lockup overnight so as to experience what it was like incarcerated. Even that short time clearly had an impact in the writing of this story.
Marc “Hunt” Hunter and Sophie Alton had a moment in high school and then Hunt disappeared from Sophie’s life, seemingly forever. Fast forward twelve years and Sophie is a journalist celebrating the release of a female inmate whose life Sophie had been following through her writing and Hunt is a felon doing hard time for the murder of a federal agent. Sophie had begun reporting on Megan’s life in prison when she heard about the stillbirth of a different inmate’s baby. When Megan was released, Sophie was to meet her and help Megan adjust to post incarcerated life and to reunite Megan with the baby she birthed in …
 Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews. Both Jane and Jia would recommend this sophomore effort by newcomer, Ilona Andrews. The “Magic” series features a smart mouthed, sword wielding Kate Daniels who helps to enforce the law in an alternate universe Atlanta. For the crossover genre reader (i.e., the romance reader that likes to cross the genre aisles), Curran, the Beast Lord of the Pack of Atlanta, plays the alpha male who likes to tweak Kate’s chain. Jia particularly likes “how their relationship is unfolding slowly, developing over the course of what I hope will be several books. It makes things more believable considering the two people involved: the Beast Lord of the Pack and the lifelong loner with a dangerous heritage.”
 First You Run by Roxanne St. Claire is recommended by Jane as a fast paced road romance featuring a hot Austrialian bodyguard and a Mayan scholar. The suspense revolves around the end of the world theory that some believe is predicted by the Mayan long calendar. So you get a bit of historical facts, a bit of suspense, a bit …
So, this Amazon thing. It sounds bad. For those who might have missed it, Amazon decided to stop stocking Print on Demand books that do not use Amazon’s own service, Booksurge. I’m not sure who falls under a Print on Demand service. I have always viewed PODs as any publisher who has print books but does not have a print run. This can vary from printing to order (i.e., if the bookstore orders 1000 copies, the publisher prints 1,000 copies) or it can be a simple as a book that is printed, bound and shipped upon each individual sale.
Small print publishers like Samhain and Whiskey Creek Press use POD services but in different ways. Samhain partners with Ingrams that prints stock to fill orders and keeps some inventory on hand. Ellora’s Cave used to do it this way but bought their own printing presses. Whiskey Creek Press and NCP use POD in yet another way but it appears that some of those booksellers retail agreements with Amazon are in jeopardy. Whiskey Creek Press and another epress, Pawprints, have seen the “buy” links on their book pages disappear. Samhain and Amber …
Poll is closed. Results are as follows. See the updated standings at the Official DA BWAHA site.
The Elite Eight books are:
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Dear Ms Hart,
 I was checking my ebook reader to see what books were on it and came across this one. I’m embarrassed to say how long it’s been sitting there, patiently waiting to be read so I won’t. But I found once I got started reading it, the pages just clicked along.
I’m not sure if there’s any place like this in existence, an island retreat for burned out government agents to allow them to regroup, talk with counselors and deal with the issues of their jobs gone bad. It’s nice to think so. I like the small touches to remind us it’s still a gov run facility such as the showers not working in Zane’s original room and the slightly run-down air. But hey, it’s a free week at the beach so I could deal with it as Zane and Kendall do.
I like that you don’t force these two to be together — well beyond being on the same small island — in order to heighten their conflict as there’s enough there already. And Kendall’s already beginning to admit to herself that Zane isn’t really to blame for her despised …
Sadly there is no query for today because no one wants to play with us. I can do a couple of things for query Saturday. I can solicit queries from debut authors who have books coming out soon so that it serves as an example for aspiring authors and promotion for those debut authors. Or, we could do blurb Saturday where I pick out a couple blurbs and post them here, blind, and we can talk about what we like and/or don’t like about the blurbs.
Or we can do something else entirely. I’d love to hear your suggestions.
Poll is closed. Results are as follows. See the updated standings at the Official DA BWAHA site.
The Elite Eight books are:
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 Drop Dead Gorgeous by Kimberly Raye. The premise was that geek girl saw her geek boy bestfriend get super hot, super confident, and super sexy and she wanted that too. Except the reason that the geek boy bestfriend got super everything was because he got bit by a vampire and now he too was a vampire. As a vampire, he could make a woman want him. His nerd body transformed into a hard body that everyone in town wanted. I was disappointed that there was no emotional makeover other than that incited by his paranormal makeover. In other words, this guy would have never broken out of his shell if not for his supernatural power.
Geek girl, Meg Sweeney, has been making herself over since high school to turn from jock into girly girl, but she hasn’t been successful enough to make it onto the hot bachelorette list, “Tilly Townsend’s infamous Hot Chicks.” This bothers Sweeney so much that she attends humiliating classes with other members of her small town to discuss her orgasms and lack thereof. This book is over the top in nearly every …
Poll is closed. Results are as follows. See the updated standings at the Official DA BWAHA site.
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In what I like to think of as the “cock block” Amazon has said to self published authors that only those POD books that use Amazon’s POD service will be for sale through Amazon. Before, if you were a POD, you could have your books fulfilled by Lulu.com or any other POD service. Not any more.
I wonder what effect, if any, that has on epublishers who use a POD service.
Wall Street Journal via Shelf Awareness.
I had lunch with Nicole yesterday and like good bibliophiles, we stopped at Barnes and Noble. Nicole bought a book, Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews and I bought one, Compromised by Kate Noble.
Both our packages were put in clear plastic bags. Is this the future of Barnes and Noble packaging because that might affect how many people continue to buy books at the bookstore?
Meredith Duran’s first sale might be known already. She won the first Gathers.com/Borders/Simon & Schuster romance writing contest. 500 manuscripts were submitted and Duran’s was the cream that rose to the top. Her winning novel, Duke of Shadows, is in stores now.
***
 Back in third grade, Mr. Butzen wrote a mysterious word on the chalkboard—QWERTY—and then asked each of us students to write a one-page story about this word. I decided Qwerty was the name of a donkey who very much wanted to become a horse. Mr. Butzen liked my work; when he handed it back, there was an “E” for “Excellent” written at the top.
After a suspenseful twenty-four hours, Mr. Butzen finally spilled the secret behind QWERTY. I was disgruntled to learn that it referred to something as pedestrian as keyboards; my donkey was far more interesting. I decided to prove this. And so began my extended harassment of poor Mr. Butzen.
Every morning, for several weeks, I would march into the classroom with a new installment in …
On Thursday 27 March: Novel with Romantic Elements & Historical go head to head again in the Elite Eight.
Then on Friday 28 March: GLBT and Erotic Romance/Erotica.
There are some big match ups here at Smart Bitches and at here. So vote and reload a few thousand times. I’m right there with you.
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Dear Mrs. Thomas,
 By now I’m sure you’ve heard the accolades from other review sites of how this title might herald The Return to Great Historicals of yesteryear. How it takes a Victorian setting plus two well thought out lead characters and mixes them to yield a scrumptious book for those of us tired of yet one more Regency set historical much less those who’ve given up on historicals at all. True, it’s flush with Dukes or near Dukes but I’ll forgive you those since you don’t inflict a nobleman spy on me. I’ll allow much authors who resist that worn out and threadbare plot.
Gigi and Camden are not perfect people. Far from them. Gigi is almost breathtaking in her pursuit of a man she, in her budding youth, feels is the perfect man for her. One Duke has slipped through her fingers at the last minute by slipping off a four story building after a night of drinking. She’s not about to let his cousin do the same. Much less when he’s so wonderful a man. His long-standing bespoken arrangement with a spineless young European aristocrat is too tepid to be allowed and an …
Galleycat apparently has confirmed that some aspiring authors are getting rejection letters signed by fake editors, a hoax at Del Rey that included listing the fake editor’s name as an acquiring editor. You’ll have to go to Galley Cat to read the story about Urban Del Rey.
Mostly, these rejection letters are purportedly sent to unagented submissions.
Poll is closed. Results are as follows. See the updated standings at the Official DA BWAHA site.
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Yesterday, the 2008 RITA Finalists were announced. We posted the results and encouraged others to provide congratulations. This post and the comments that follow will likely be critical of the process, the finalists, the judging. Please be aware of this. I do not mean to diminish anyone’s accomplishments, but I am going to be giving an unvarnished opinion about what I think and some may be offended. You’ve been warned. Don’t click on the more link if you want to simply celebrate the RITA finalists.
Anonymous comments are okay.
Dear Ms. Thomas:
I know your debut book, Private Arrangements, has already been reviewed well here and elsewhere, so I don’t know if I can add anything new to the chorus, but this book made such a positive impression on me, especially in your crafting of the heroine, Gigi, that I wanted to review it simply to articulate my appreciation for such supple and nuanced characterizations.
Philippa Gilberte Rowland is a young woman with no particular confidence in her womanly charms but a strong and practical faith in the appeal of her considerable fortune. Saved in a most bizarre fashion from marriage to a dissolute duke, Gigi becomes quickly captivated by the duke’s young cousin, Camden Saybrook, who may be at least one death away from the dukedom but who is intelligent, handsome, and as immediately taken with Gigi as she is with him. Between the strong mutual attraction, however, lies a promise Camden has made to another woman, an incredibly shy beauty who continued to waffle on a final decision to marry Camden, despite his honorable intentions to wait her out. Gigi is not so patient, however, and despite Camden’s refusal of her proposal, …
Poll is closed. Results are as follows. See the updated standings at the Official DA BWAHA site.
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Penguin will be releasing a new book “Wolf Totem” that was first written and published in China. The book sold nearly 6 million copies in China. What did Penguin pay for these rights? The rights were acquired in 2005 and the estimated cost was $100,000. Seems like a good investment. Wolf Totem was written by Jiang Rong. Jiang seems like an interesting character, he has no interest in self promotion for himself or his book. His book has already spawned a childrens story and also a potential future movie.
Via Publishers Weekly.
Dear Mrs. Dodd,
 Despite the promise of eccentric aunts and zany robberies, I decided to try this contemporary novel. The conflict between sensible Nessa Dahl and undercover bank investigator Jeremiah MacNaught sounded intriguing, especially with the implied show down once the truth was revealed. And at first, things worked great but then slowly the eccentricities took over and ended up dimming my view of the whole book.
Books which feature lead characters with whom everyone is seemingly in love usually irritate the crap out of me. It just seems so Mary Sue-ish. Nessa could have annoyed me if you hadn’t have immediately paired her with Mac who doesn’t fall for her as she’s used to. Or at least he doesn’t let her know what his feelings are for her. He added the necessary tonic to balance out the setup that everyone in NO loves the Dahl women. And then the bank vault scene…my, oh my. That was hawt. Amazing that they didn’t melt the steel door. One question though. Don’t most banks have cameras in their vaults? Even eccentric NO banks that are in old, converted homes?
I loved watching …
HEA 1042 is a new Indiana law which requires any seller of sexually explicit materials to pay a fee of $250 and register with the secretary of state. This information is passed on to local officials so that they can monitor the businesses activities. “Sexually explicit materials” is defined as follows in the bill:
Sec. 2. (a) For purposes of this chapter, materials, products, or services are “sexually explicit materials, products, or services” if:
(1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that:
(A) the dominant theme of the materials, products, or services, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest in sex; or
(B) the materials, products, or services depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct; or
(2) the materials, products, or services are designed for use in or marketed primarily for:
(A) the stimulation of human genital organs; or
…
2008 RITA for Best First Book Finalists
- Dead Girls Are Easy by Terri Garey
HarperCollins Publishers, Avon Books – (978-0-06-113615-3)
Erika Tsang, editor
- Graffiti Girl by Kelly Parra
Simon & Schuster, MTV Books/Pocket – (141653461X)
Jennifer Heddle, editor
- Prime Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Harlequin Enterprises, Harlequin NEXT – (9780373881352)
Ann Leslie Tuttle, editor
- Prom Dates From Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Random House Publishing, Delacorte Press – (978-0-385-73412-7)
Krista Marino, editor
- Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn
Harlequin Enterprises, MIRA – (978-0-7783-2410-2)
Valerie Gray, editor
- Snow Angel by Jamie Carie
B&H Publishing Group, B&H Fiction – (978-0-8054-4533-6)
Thomas Walters, David Webb, editor
- Thief With No Shadow by Emily Gee
BL Publishing, Solaris – (978 1 84416 469 1)
Mark Newton, editor
- Treasure by Helen Brenna
Harlequin Enterprises, Harlequin Superromance – (0373714033)
Johanna Raisanen, editor
Dear Ms. Vincent,
 Like Jane, I found myself disappointed by your debut, Stray. I think my expectations had been raised so high by the pre-publication buzz that there was no possible way the actual product could have met them. That’s a danger I sometimes encounter with the internet, which offers up so much information about books well before they ever hit the bookstores. But while I agree with most of Jane’s criticisms, I wanted to give your werecat series another chance. From past experience, I know it can take a couple books for an author to hit her stride and when it comes to paranormal series, often times the writer simply needs space to develop the world.
Rogue picks up where Stray left off. Faythe Saunders has returned to the suffocating environment of her werecat Pride, taking up the responsibility of being the next generation’s mother as well as beginning her training as the first female enforcer from a North American Pride. Complications arise when strays start turning up dead. When they discover there’s a connection between the dead strays and a …
Gizmodo has an article about an over the counter DNA Paternity test. Each shiek, billionaire, and cowboy should have one of these next to his razors because you never know whether the baby your ex-girlfriend, wife, one time shag in the back of the Lear jet, presents five years later, may be yours.
Here’s the upcoming schedule of voting. We’ll be holding the votes open from noon to midnight for each round from now until the finale.
Round 3: March 27-28 (Sweet Sixteen)
Round 4: March 29-20 (Elite 8)
Round 5: April 5 Final Four
Round 6: April 7 Championship
Don’t forget we have 2 tourneys going on. The first is the original DA BWAHA with the finalists (the author of the winning book and the owner of the winning bracket) getting mad props, big ups, books, feathers and a dirty locket or whatever she chooses from Lochers.com.
The Second Chance tourney was set up for the poor fools whose bracket was kicked out of competition early on. We are giving the second chance bracket winner some random prizes like books, both paper and audio on CD and – hooray! – from Bruce Wilder’s Turn the Page bookstore, a $25.00 gift certificate for any book that TTP has in stock. Or they can order. Or they can whip one up really damn fast because he knows this author? Who writes like the wind? Yeah. Anyway. TTP is in the house.
Give it up for …
I read the Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction report and I had to check the date, twice, because of what it contained as it related to romance. Steve Axelrod, agent to romance heavyweights like Suzanne Brockmann, Jayne Ann Krentz, Julia Quinn, Christine Feehan, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, was interviewed on the topic of what was hot in romance and according to Axelrod,
“The vampire is the new alpha male,” says Steven Axelrod, a romance agent for the past 30 years. “He’s definitely alpha—after all, he wants to suck your blood.”
Aren’t vampires on their way out? I can’t read another vampire story. I’m into shifters and in a poll I had a few weeks ago, shifters were preferred 3 to 1 over vamps.
He also stated this about erotica:
“You give a group of romance writers a couple of drinks and they’ll admit it’s pornography,” he says. “It’s hard to see it as true romance, and it has a limited audience—they can’t seem to grow it. Very few good storytellers seem to be staking their careers there.”
I know that agents before have said that there is a capped audience for erotica and erotic romance, which is essentially the same …
Dear Ms. Callen:
 I really liked Viscount in Her Bedroom. I appreciate that you try to tackle some serious problems. Viscount featured a blind hero. This one tried to tackle too many issues: gambling, blackmail, a girl who flirts too much, the devastated mother who shuns society, grief, etc. Ultimately, my real problem was the hero.
Grace Banbury’s family is in financial dire straights. Her mother and brother have serious gambling problems to the point that all of their property is gambled away except for Grace’s dowry. Grace goes to London to seek out her brother and see if there can’t be something done to save the Banbury family when she meets Daniel Throckmorten. Daniel has won the deed to her family’s London townhome in a game with her mother along with a valuable violen. Daniel and Grace enter into a wager where Daniel has two weeks to seduce Grace, because he can seduce anyone.
Let me be honest here. Is there anything heroic or even sexy about a man who intends to ruin a woman’s life by making her a whore just …
The SBs have two links where results are being posted as they trickle in.
I’ll open a thread tonight to kvetch about the results. How about I do one thread where only nice things can be said and another where we can bitch and moan about the results?
 see more crazy cat pics
A legitimate criticism of romance as serious literature is it’s often cavalier treatment of important life topics. Too often, war, separation, human indignity, are treated as plot devices, conflict mechanisms, and not given the attention and treatment those important issues deserve. How many romance books are thought provoking? How many challenge your personal concepts of right and wrong? How many portray multi hued individuals as both heroic and villianous? Surely within the umbrella of the romance genre, there is room for these books.
Now, this is not to say that I think we should be preached to. Nor am I saying that romance should be about more serious issues. What I am saying is that the lack of these types of books within the genre does not help its image as frivolous literature.
Let me provide some examples. I tend to shy away from books about war and terrorism and I think that either authors are not writing these books or publishers are not buying them because I’ve seen a decline. The Navy SEAL became, for a short time in romance …
Dear Ms. Koomson:
 This was a book that Karen Scott reviewed a while back on her blog. It was available only for sale in the UK at the time and while Karen’s review was compelling, it wasn’t quite enough to get me to pay for the international shipping. I was really excited to have this book land on my doorstep. It was everything that Karen said it would be. It made me cry and laugh and cry and then laugh through my tears. I adored Kamryn and her insecurities, her guilt, her anger. The reason, though, that this book does not get at A is due to the last third of the story.
Kamryn Martika and Adele Brannon were best friends despite wildly different backgrounds: Kamryn being standard middle class with a loving family and Adele, the poor little rich girl. From the moment that they met, though, Adele and Kamryn found a commonality with each other and forged a bond that seemingly nothing could sunder. Adele and Kam both had issues with the opposite sex. Adele slept around, finding satisfaction with no …
Poll is closed. Results are as follows. See the updated standings at the Official DA BWAHA site.
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We’ve put together a new list that includes references to the NYT placement.
***
Book Title
Author
Publisher
Price
Rank
Peak
NYT
The Other Boleyn Girl
Phillipa Gregory
Touchstone
$16.00
3
3
25
Remember Me?
Sophie Kinsella
Dial Press
$25.00
12
4
3*
Naughty Neighbor
Janet Evanovich
Harper
$7.99
38
20
3
Thigh High
Christina Dodd
Signet
$7.99
44
31
12
The Alibi Man
Tami Hoag
Ballantine
$7.99
55
19
8
Strangers in Death
J.D. Robb
Putname
$25.95
66
2
9*
Predatory Game
Christine Feehan
Jove
$7.99
71
12
10
Absolute Fear
Lisa Jackson
Zebra
$7.99
78
30
16
Mysterious
…
Shadowrose Press has apparently cut off communications and are not responding to authors requesting a return of rights.
Dark Eden Press is closing because of an illness of the owner. It is a tragedy for the owner, but also shows the instability of some epublishing businesses. If your career depends upon the owner’s health, then there should be concerns about your professional writing career.
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