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

Wall Street Journal wakes up and discovers that vamps are sexy to readers. (thanks Kay)
Quotation marks are lacking in elegance.  Really?  I appreciate punctuation.  (thanks again Kay)
Archaeologists may have found the campfire of a real Robinson Crusoe.
Brazillian designer selling lingerie that has a GPS locator so your stalker can find you with ease.
And for you political junkies out there, a map of poll closing times.

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to vote.

For romance writers, the RITA is the equivalent of a writing Oscar. This year there were changes to the qualifications for the RITA awards including one that effectively eliminates ebooks from competing. The RITA contest will not be open to any book that is not “mass-produced by a non -Subsidy, non-Vanity Publisher in print book format.”  What does mass produced seems to exclude print on demand books which how ebook publishers fulfill their orders.

I’ve also been told that the Lambda Awards which recognize excellence in the GLBT field explicitly excludes ebooks but will accept self published books.

These awards should be about quality of the book and not print runs and formats.

Upon the recommendation of others, including, Blog Happy, I picked up the November Harlequin release of Lori Borill titled Unleashed. I enjoyed it so much that I went and downloaded two other Harlequin ebooks by Borill, Private Confessions and Putting It to the Test. When I sat down to pen the “lightning” reviews, they ended up being much longer than a paragraph but I felt that given that I don’t have space constraints on the blog, I’d throw up the entire thing rather than revise to one paragraph each.

For those who don’t want to read the tome below, I’ll sum up. Private Confessions and Putting It to the Test had awkward, credulity straining setups that the writing managed to overcome but it’s Unleashed that has put Borrill on the autobuy list for me.
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Putting It to the Test 

Carly Abrams is a web designer who, until the arrival of hot shot programmer, Matt Jacobs, was her company’s favorite daughter. Since Matt was hired, though, all the choice projects have gone to him. The latest project is one for a online dating company and in …

Carly Phillips, Hot Property, is available for FREE through the Harlequin eBook store.  Add the book to your cart and type in the coupon code HALLOWEEN at the checkout.

Harlequin posted revenue gains of 2.4% in the third quarter.  There was a decline of earnings due to "unfavorable exchange rates" and flat profits. Sales continue to slide in the North American direct to consumer division (which is, I believe, it's subscription and direct sales through its site to consumers) but there have been strong gains in the retail market and the digital manga sales in Japan.  Harlequin believes it will have a good fourth quarter despite the flagging US economy. Via PublishersWeekly .

Simon & Schuster had a 5% sales gain in the third quarter after two negative quarters.  S&S benefited from selling the execrable book, The Obama Nation by Jerome Corsi which should have been marketed as fiction for all the made up facts Corsi included in the book (many facts had been sourced from his own previous works). Of interest to Dear Author readers is that Play Dirty by Sandra Brown was a book that was cited as selling well enough to assist in a strong third quarter.  Sales were up in July and August but fell in September.  A sign of consumer spending declining, however, were the soft sales of trade paperback backlist titles.  Via PublishersWeekly .

Book Depository , an online retailer based in the UK, said that 96% of the election books that have been sold recently are Obama titles.  According to the Book Depository's global book-buyers: Democrats read, Republicans don't; Palin isn't popular, Biden is invisible. If the Book Depository's customers were voting it would be an Obama landslide,' said Mark Thwaite, managing editor of the site." Don't forget to vote on Tuesday or if you are in an early voting state, you can vote now.  Via ShelfAwareness . 

Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. New York Times Bestselling Author, Marie Bostwick, writes stories about women for women. Her latest release, A Single Thread, is in stores now.
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When my agent, Jill Grosjean, called to tell me that Kensington Publishing had indicated an interest in buying my first novel, I was elated. But as weeks and eventually months passed without an offer, my confidence began to waver.

“If they really wanted it,” I moaned to Jill, “they’d have said so by now. They hate it. Not the editor, she’s great, but somebody else. Someone in accounting. Or the mailroom. Or…I don’t know who, but someone read it, hated it, and put the brakes on the deal! Probably the editor hasn’t called because she doesn’t want hurt my feelings!”

Jill made that growling sound she emits when she thinks I’m being overly dramatic, a sound I hear pretty often. “Don’t be ridiculous. Editors have no problem telling authors a book has been rejected. It’s their …

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Nearly every author has a biography in their book.  Does that make a difference to you?  I’ve got my thoughts on that and I’ll be talking about that on Tuesday.  Let me know your thoughts.

Dear Ms. James:

Angela James (no relation, I assume), Editor Extraordinaire at Samhain, has been Twittering about your book for weeks as she edited it, saying how good it is.  She then had a Twitter competition to give away five review copies of the book and while I missed out on that, she sent me a copy anyway (because she’s such a sweetie!).  My Twittered response the next morning.

Trevor and Chassie Glanzer are happily married Wyoming ranchers, trying to make ends meet as they work hard on their small family ranch.  Edgard Mancuso, hot Brazilian cowboy and Trevor’s old roping partner on the rodeo circuit, shows up one day and Chassie invites him to stay for a while.  Problem is, Edgard is gay, Trevor’s former lover, and still in love with Trevor.  His own life has fallen apart (although you don’t find out about that until the end of the book) and he’s come to visit Trevor to see if there’s anything salvageable of their old relationship.  Three and a half years ago, he left Trevor because Trevor refused to give him anything …