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

The rules for Author Promo Night Open Thread are as follows:

The book has to be released in that month (i.e., anything released during the last week of April would be a May release)
You can post for yourself or you can have a friend post for you if the idea of posting about your book paralyzes you .
No self published authors unless you write romance. No, I am not a POD hater, I am just thinking about the manageability of the thread.
Think about the readership. I.e., does your non fiction book about psoriasis really fit?
This one is more of a guideline than a rule, but be smart about your comment because if it is just a link to your website and the title of your book, I doubt you are going to get any interest.
DA reserves the right to delete the post if it promotes objectionable content (i.e., no daddy/daughter incest recommends are going to be allowed. Sorry.)

That’s it. Post away.

Amazon is banking on the idea that dedicated eBook readers are what will drive paper book readers to the digital format. A recent article in September’s Searcher magazine argues that it is not. Nancy K. Herther, an anthropology and sociology librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries, took a look at the history of ebooks, ebook readers and the current market devices and determined that for so many reasons, even the most perfect dedicated eBook reader won’t move the market forward. (Thank you so much, Jody, for bringing this article to my attention).

For anyone interested in ebook reading, this article is a must read. Herther has a two page, historical timeline of ebooks. The article is chock full of statistics, quotes by leaders in the industry, and most importantly, some great insights into the ebook market.

Herther isn’t saying anything an ebook reader herself hasn’t said. Essentially, there are so many issues that plague the publishing industry as it relates to ebooks that perfecting the hardware side will not solve the impediments to ebook reading for many individuals.

On one side of the ebook equation, we have the hardware or ebook reading device itself. …

Dear Ms. Janzen:

I really liked the first Steele Street stories. One thing, in particular, is that they sounded very modern. Over time, however, because the books are similar to one another, I stopped being impresed by the fresh tone because, well, it wasn’t fresh anymore. And with extended exposure to anything, the flaws in the series began to stand out. This is particularly true when the flaws are consistent from book to book.

Loose and Easy is focused around a twenty four hour period that starts when Johnny Ramos, former street kid and gang member, turned superfly military guy spots a high school crush apparently turning tricks. Nicknamed Easy Alex due to the lock she had between her legs, Esmee Alden is the last person he thought would have gone from Valedictorian to well, insert your own tasteless “head” joke here.

Of course, Esme is not a hooker but rather a purported expert in art recovery. She’s doing a job in Denver to get her father, who loves to gamble, out of hock for the last time. The job is pretty complicated. Get a piece …

Welcome to First Page Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. You may comment anonymously.

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I glanced out at the Great Lawn as I sat alone on an iron park bench, trying to be inconspicuous as I waited for the Man, sure that I was sticking out like a sore thumb. I had some bad habits—modern habits—that are hard to break. Until he returned, I wasn’t free to slide Steamside, as my companions had christened our own slice of late Victorian hell.

The Punks love naming things, including calling themselves punks. It fits some of them. But you have to cut them a break. I mean, we’re stuck in 1890, at least half the time. I’m not sure when the other half is, or if it is a when.

I’m not even sure how many dimensions Steamside really has, but if I think too hard about that I get heart palpitations. The less I think, the better off I am. I think. Even the hardiest psyche sometimes has trouble adapting to the little …

Two more Author Talk videos. I forgot to put the Kessler up last week.

Last month we received an unusual request at Dear Author. We were asked to review something other than a book — a DVD set called “The Romance Collection: Special Edition.” The 14 DVD set, which can be found here, retails currently on sale for $49.98 and contains nearly 30 hours of programming (not including the special features) from A&E’s romantic films and miniseries.

The eight titles included in “The Romance Collection: Special Edition” are as follows: “Pride and Prejudice” starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, “Victoria and Albert,” starring Victoria Hamilton, Nigel Hawthorne, Jonathan Pryce and Sir Peter Ustinov, “Emma,” starring Kate Beckinsale, “Jane Eyre,” starring Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds, “Lorna Doone,” starring Martin Clunes, Richard Coyle, Aidan Gillen and Amelia Warner, “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” starring Richard E. Grant and Elizabeth McGovern, “Tom Jones,” starring Max Beesley, Samantha Morton and Benjamin Whitrow, and “Ivanhoe,” starring Steven Waddington and Ciaran Hinds.

Directors: Metin Hüseyin
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number of discs: 2
Rating: Brief nudity, sexual situations, bawdy humor
Studio: A&E Home Video
DVD Release Date: March 26, 2002
Run Time: 300 minutes

People expecting a gentle …

Someone sent me twelve chapters of Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun (the story of Bella and Edward told from Edward’s POV) a few days ago.  There was a bit of speculation as to whether this was an authentic Meyer voice or whether it was fan ficced. I leaned toward the latter.  But apparently the chapters circulating on the internet are authentic and Meyer has acknowledged that it is.

Whether she will “punish” the fans and the leaker by not finishing remains to be seen, but if you want to read chapters 1-12 of the Edward/Bella saga from Edward’s POV, it is online.

Starting October 1, Comcast will start capping its customers' Internet use.  The cap will be set at 250 GB which is quite high.  It's the equivalent of 124 standard definition movies.  Comcast has, in the past, blocked traffic without informing consumbers by blocking peer to peer applications like BitTorrent.  Time Warner and Comcast will look at usage billing, much like cell phone companies. It is a bit of irony that cell phone carriers are moving to all you can eat pricing while broadband companies are moving backward to consumption based billing.  I can't help but wonder if this will move individuals toward buying broadband service from cell companies.  My Sprint Wireless access is under $50 per month and has no caps and I can take it on the road with me.

Libraries are having two issues.  First, patrons aren't returning books.  Second, when the books are returned, they often come with a variety of junk inside them. An Arizona librarian reports everything from cash to toilet paper to muscle relaxants to a check for $10,000.00.  Many libraries will keep the personal items to return to the patron but few patrons do return them.  So if you've used a photograph for a bookmark and have since lost it, you may want to check with the library's lost and found.

I read somewhere that Debbie Macomber has a mailing list of over 75,000 readers who receive postcard updates of her latest releases. Her first sale, HeartSong, was the first ever romance to be reviewed by Publishers Weekly.

It’s hard to imagine that someone like Ms. Macomber ever worried about being published. But Macomber, like every author and every aspiring author, began with one sale and the story that she tells for us is not that of the sale of her first novel, but rather a different kind of first sale. Her most recent book, 8 Sandpiper Way debuted on No. 8 on the New York Times.
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I’m sure all writers remember the sale of their first book. For me, that fateful phone call from New York came on September 29, 1982 (at 4:39 p.m.)–but what I want to tell you about is my very first official sale.

I’d been pounding away at the typewriter for nearly three years, and I’d completed two and a half manuscripts. They were returned so fast that I often tell people they hit me in the back of the head on the way home …