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

      
New March eBook Promotions at www.eBooks.eHarlequin.com

1.

Exclusive eBook Offer: $5 Savings
Link ID: 10654322 
Start and End Dates: March 1-31, 2009 
Promotion: Exclusive eBook Offer: $5 Savings. March 31.

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Lucky savings: Up to 50% Off
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Start and End Dates: March 1-31, 2009 
Promotion: Exclusive eBook Offer: $5 Savings. March 31.

 

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Blazing Hot eBook Offer: Save 20% & get a FREE eBook
Link ID: 10654649 
Start and End Dates: March 1-31, 2009 
Promotion:Blazing Hot eBook Offer: Save 20% & get a FREE eBook. Ends March 31.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warner Forever is offering Larissa Ione’s book, Pleasure Unbound, for $1.00 during the month of March. This special should be available whereever ebooks are sold. (Note that Hachette does not control which retailers choose to pick up this offer, only that they make it available).  Larissa has two other releases to watch for:  

 
Desire Unchained   will be available 3/1/09
Passion Unleashed will be available 4/1/09

 

Other Hachette specials this month include:

• To celebrate the new Carrie Vaughn titles that came out back to back:  Dead Man’s Hand (Book #5) and Kitty Raises Hell (Book #6), if you buy either of the titles, you can get the other free during March.
• Also, if you buy the diet book, Engine 2 Diet, you get 12 extra recipes with the ebook.  I love the idea of extra content with the ebook. 

The links for the $1.00 special are as follows:

Pleasure Unbound Larissa Ione – Available for $1 for 2 months

• Amazon Kindle
• Sony 
• Fictionwise
• Ereader
• BooksonBoard
• stanza.fictionwise

Orbit $1 Promotion:  Empress By Karen …

Chicago Sun Times has a run down of some winners and losers in the recession.  According to Borders spokesperson, most of the sales are flat except for American history books (Obama?), romance novels, science fiction and fantasy books.  

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.
***

I always knew there were different worlds alongside my own:  places of angels or demons.  But this feeling went away over time.  It had long gone by the time I turned twenty and struggled home from work on the bus – with two tote bags of groceries and a pair of platform sandals rubbing blisters on my heels – only to find an intruder in my apartment.

My keys jingled in the lock.  I nudged the door open with my knee.  The tote bags slipped from my hands and thudded to the threadbare carpet.  The smell of bruised celery wafted up.  My stuff lay strewn all over the place:  paperbacks, clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, shoes, dolls, shot-glasses from my state-by-state collection, and glossy fashion magazines.  Someone had overturned the crappy couch I’d bought for five bucks at a yard sale.  I let out a little scream and groped for my cell phone clipped to my belt.

Then I saw the symbols glowing everywhere.  They looked like runes …

Dear Ms. Balogh:

I’ve read you intermittently for maybe fifteen years.  Some of the books you’ve written I’ve adored and re-read dozens of times.  For some of your out of print books, I’ve paid outrageous sums of money.  Some of the books, though, I’ve found a bit tedious.  First Comes Marriage falls on the high end of the spectrum.   While not perfect, this marriage of convenience story was a great start to a new series.  

Elliot Wallace, Viscount Lyngate, travels to the village of Throckbridge in Shropshire to find the Huxtable boy and inform him that he is now the Earl of Merton and in possession of a huge fortune. He’d like to capture the boy and get back to London to find the bride that he had promised his grandfather he’d acquire by the age of 30 which is now upon him. The last thing he wants to do is spend time in this tiny village, attending dated village soirees, and engaging in decidedly boring village conversation.

The Huxtable family, however, won’t let Stephen go with a quick pat on the back. The four have been barely surviving in genteel poverty for …

My First Sale series. Each Friday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between.  Award winning author Charlotte Hughes began her writing career publishing newspaper and magazine articles before becoming a New York Times best selling author. Charlotte makes her home in Beaufort, S. C. Best known for her FULL series with Janet Evanovich, she has written over 40 books, ranging for the 3 mysteries she wrote for Avon to Mira’s HOT SHOT. Her newest release, NUTCASE centers on Atlanta psychologist Kate Holly and the humorous antics of her friends, family and patients. In the process she learns that the life of a psychologist is enough to drive anyone nuts. Readers are invited to visit Charlotte online at www.readcharlottehughes.com, where she also blogs regularly. As part of the introduction of her newest work, NUTCASE, Charlotte is doing a virtual blog tour VIRTUALLY NUTS in February and March.
***

I ran a licensed daycare at the time of my first sale. It was a way for me to earn income and stay home with my two little boys, both under the age of …

(Based off of Shakespeare’s famous sonnet)

Shall I compare thee to the A Grade?
Thou art more grating to my skull
A good contemporary should be a lively parade
But I find this book amazingly dull.
Sometimes the heroine whines about life
And the hero pretends to be a jerk
Round after round of endless sniping strife
I despise both and hope it does not work
But just when the lies cannot get any thicker
Georgie decides that she loves Bram – it’s fate
Though they do naught but f&ck & bicker
I hate both of them – hate hate hate hate hate

All say, “Good contemp? Read a SEP!”
A great writer, but I hate your MCs.

C

This book can be purchased in hardcover from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers beginning January 27, 2009.

Dear Ms. Minton,

I’ve just recently begun to watch bull riding on ESPN. Wow, I can see why it’s called one of the most exciting yet dangerous sports today. I’ve also put a few DVDs about the sport in my Netflix queue and was happy to see some of them featuring interviews with and information about the stockmen who supply bulls for the rodeos. It’s easy to see that these people take their job seriously and take care of the animals in their charge. So when I saw the description of your book, I knew I had to read it.

Willow Michaels has faced adversity for a lot of her life. Though born to a wealthy family, she learned early on that her hearing loss was a source of conflict and embarrassment to them. Her only true source of support came from her aunt Janie. After a failed marriage during which her husband also made her feel inadequate, she’s now seeing the results of five years of hard work to establish her own stock business. She’s proud of the bucking bulls she raises, the fact that she’s been accepted into this world and that she’s …

Dear Ms. Featherstone,

My love of Joey Hill’s books aside, I normally don’t read erotic fiction, but your novel’s cover description caught my interest.  A novel exploring opium addiction?  Really?  Since I’m currently trying to expand my reading horizons, I thought I’d give your book a shot.

Anais Darnby and Lindsay Markham have known each other since childhood and have loved each other for nearly as long.  When they finally confess their feelings to one another, their future happiness seems assured until another woman puts Lindsay in a compromising position.  Unfortunately for him, Anais catches them, jumps to the worst conclusion possible, and flees.  Lindsay chases after her but when his pursuit results in failure, he journeys east where he loses himself completely to his opium addiction.  A year later, he returns to England, determined to find Anais again.  But he’ll have to make a choice about which he loves more — Anais or opium — because he can’t have both.

I love the friends to lovers trope, so Anais and Lindsay’s story predisposed me to like this book.  Because of their history as childhood friends, I was able to suspend my disbelief when it came …

I’m of the opinion that this looks like a 10 year old and I feel dirty looking at it.  Angie James posted it on her twitter and wanted to know what the genre was.  I guessed wrong.  What about you?

Dear Ms. Laurens:

What can I say? I can’t quit you. (Note to self, this is becoming the most overused phrase in the english language, a close second behind “maverick” and “change” so please try to eradicate it from your vocabulary). Temptation and Seduction is like 50th in your Cynsters series and it features the brother of Phyllda who married Lucas Cynster. I stopped reading the Cynster books after the twins’ stories but I have been enjoying, to varying degrees, the Bastion Club series.

Jonas Tallent is rusticating in the village of Colytons, the home of his family, trying to sort out some business for his father. He’s down from London because he tires of the endless balls, the clubs, and managing mamas. Jonas is eager to “take up the reins” of the family affairs because he’s felt empty and discontent. One of his most tasking challenges is to find an innkeeper for the village inn, Red Bells. It’s fallen in disrepair under the management of the previous innkeeper, now deceased. Jonas has had trouble filling the position because Colyton is …

Dear Ms Grant,

While SF isn’t what I read the most, I still enjoy an occasional foray into the genre. I like that I don’t have to worry about historical accuracy since the very nature of the beast allows you, the author, to literally make it up as you go along. All I have to do is hang on for the ride.

The war is finally over. But Wren’s life is in tatters. The only living offspring of the notorious Drakken Warlord, her genes could very well start a new dynasty of terror. And the Coalition can’t have that.

She alone holds the key to finding a legendary treasure. Having seen enough bloodshed, shy, petite Wren vows to destroy it before anyone, Drakken, Coalition or Earth, can get their hands on it—but she’ll need help.

The Drakken’s ruthless evil turned Aral toward the Coalition years ago. War is all he knows, until he finds passion and love in the most unlikely of women—the Warlord’s daughter. But will trusting each other with their secrets risk not only their hearts, but their lives?

One of the things I like so much about this series is that a reader doesn’t have …

Dear Ms. Armstrong,

While I’m quite familiar with your Otherworld novels, your non-paranormal Nadia Stafford books are a recent discovery for me.  But as I said in that review, sometimes being late to the party can have its advantages.  Namely, no long wait in between books!  And unless I’m mistaken, almost two years have passed since Exit Strategy was published.

Nadia Stafford is a former cop who lost her career when she killed a suspect on the job.  These days, she runs a lodge and has been rebuilding her life.  But it takes a while to make a business profitable so to keep the lodge afloat, she works as a hitwoman for a small-time New York mafia family.

These days, things have been going well.  She’s making enough money now that she can hire an assistant.  It’s true the assistant in question is not the most personable or responsible of employees, but Nadia wants to help the girl, who’s a teenaged single mother and comes from a family known for being bad news.  Everyone else in town has given up on the girl but Nadia refuses to be like them.

Then …

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Jane and I are back with yet another podcast. Victoria Dahl joins us to talk about switching genres from historical to contemporary, living in small towns, and writing heroines with sexual authority.

Then, we discuss talking dirty – in novels.

Sarah says, “Damn, Beavis.” Jane says she doesn’t have a wide vocabulary of a very special nature, and we float the potential of a Very Special Instructional Podcast in the future. (Not really).

You can subscribe to our feed at Feedburner or at iTunes If you have content suggestions, tips on how to do this whole thing better, or general wtf-ery comments, email us. It’s all welcome because a) we are new to this and b) we don’t really know what we are doing so the wtf comments are probably all valid. The email address for the podcast is sbj.podcast@gmail.com.

This podcast is brought to you by the letters T, D, and M, and by Morgan from Miss Media Productions. Thanks, Morgan!

Dear Ms. Dalton:

This is a very well-written book. You have strong, fully realized characters, an unique plot, a romance that is slowly developed and deeply felt, and a solid, believable happy ending. I think you have a lot of writing talent and a good eye for the genre. That said, this book made me feel dirty–not in a fun, sexy way, but in an unclean, depressing, angry way.

Seth’s best friend Kaden drops a bomb on him one day: not only is he dying of pancreatic cancer, but he’s asking Seth to step in for him as his wife’s dominant after he dies. Seth, who had no clue that his best friends were involved in BDSM, let alone in a 24/7 Master/slave relationship, is understandably blown away and completely weirded out. But he agrees, moves in with his friends, learns to be a dominant, slowly falls in love with Leah (or, rather, admits to himself and his friends that he’s always loved her), shares her with Kaden, watches Kaden sicken and die (the whole story takes about 18 months, I’d say, maybe a bit longer), after which he and Leah learn to live …

Last winter, I posted that I would love to hear from readers, writers, bloggers about why they read, write and blog. Bev Stephans was one of the first to come forth and share her story with our community about why she reads.
***

I don’t have a blog and I don’t write books, but I love to read and I love to talk about what I read.

I have been reading since I first learned how in school. My Dad used to take me to the library once a week and it was a magical place. All those books and I could only choose a few each time. In time, I had read all the books at my reading level and started on the next level.

Then we moved and we had a library nearby that I could walk to all by myself. What a treat. This wonderful library not only had more books than the previous library, but they had a marvelous doll’s house that I spent hours looking at.

Then we moved again and there was no library nearby. I was devastated and started stealing my mother’s …

 

  
BooksonBoard unveils Qik ClikTM technology which allows users of iPhone and iTouch using Stanza to enjoy a one click checkout.  The consumers’ credit card information is saved and you only need to enter your login information for security purposes. BooksonBoard also has an iPhone friendly site to make browsing easier.  Any purchases you make via Stanza are also downloadable to your desktop in eReader format or non DRM’ed ePub.  Kudos to Books on Board for making buying books easier.

Janine and Jennie discuss Alisa Sheckley’s urban fantasy novel, The Better to Hold You:

Janine: The Better to Hold You was one of my most anticipated books of 2009. I’m a big fan of Alisa Sheckley’s wry, satirical chick lit novels which were published under the name Alisa Kwitney. I remember picking up The Dominant Blonde back in 2002 and being so delighted to discover a new-to-me-author who had written such an intelligent, funny and touching book. Sex as a Second Language is also a big favorite of mine.

Jennie: Yes, Kwitney has probably been my favorite contemporary/chick lit novelist for a while now, ever since I read The Dominant Blonde (at your urging, I believe, Janine!). I’ve enjoyed all of the books I’ve read by her since then, particularly Sex as a Second Language and On the Couch.

Janine: In discussing her books with a friend, I once said that this author never flinches from showing her characters in embarrassing situations or portraying them making unwise choices, but their witty observations and wobbly egos always save them from appearing less than bright. Instead, they come across as intelligent, insightful people …

EBOOK EXCLUSIVE:
GET READY FOR PARANORMAL ROMANCE AUTHOR NALINI SINGH’S UPCOMING NEW SERIES WITH AN EBOOK-ONLY PREQUEL! New York Times Bestselling Author Nalini Singh Provides Readers With A
Sneak Peek Into A World Of Beauty And Danger Where Angels And Vampires Coexist   New York, NY (February 23, 2009) �Penguin eBooks announced today the release of a never before seen novella called ANGELS’ PAWN from Nalini Singh, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Hostage to Pleasure.  
What’s next for fans of Nalini Singh’s bestselling Psy/Changeling series? They’ll get a taste of it in ANGELS’ PAWN, a prequel to Singh’s all-new Guild Hunter series, that will only be available as an eSpecial.  The novella introduces readers to the world of the Guild Hunter�a world of beauty and danger where angels and vampires coexist.  Angels’ Blood, the first full-length novel in the Guild Hunter series, will be available in bookstores on March 3rd. 
With the Psy/Changeling series, Nalini Singh quickly garnered praise from both readers and critics for her masterful world-building skills, intricate characterization, …

Dear Ms. Early,

When I read the blurb of your latest book, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

The man Mary Anne Drew wants is marrying someone else! So to win him back, she buys a love potion. Mary Anne’s not convinced spells and potions work, but still, she has to do something.

Too bad the wrong man—aka Graham Corbett—drinks it.

Then strange things begin to happen….

Graham has never shown any interest in Mary Anne. In fact, their arguments are legendary. But now Graham is acting anything but hostile! Could the potion really work? Or was Mary Anne looking for love in the wrong place all along?

Was I going to get a funny book? A silly book? A paranormal? After all, we are talking about love potions here. I think you managed to add some lighthearted feeling to a book that is actually full of serious issues.

Mary Anne truly feels that she and Jonathan Hale would be a perfect match. They both have journalistic backgrounds, work at the local radio station and Mary Anne has always felt a “zing” around Jonathan. But I did wonder, if she’s mooned over him for so long that even …

Night Hawk by Lora Leigh is an exclusive Elite Ops
short story that St. Martin’s Press and Leigh are giving away for free.  You have to give up your email address, but what’s your privacy when it comes to free literature?

This post is now closed.

Sony Reader in Red

There are those people who own and covet many different types of devices simply for the love of the technology. I am not one of those people. Not that I dislike technology; I am, in fact, easily seduced by the lure of a cool new gadget. But my technological promiscuity is a result of happenstance more than anything else. I got my first ereading device (that wasn’t my laptop!), a Treo 650, because I wanted an ereading device that could also function as a phone, and the Treo was pretty compatible with my Mac. Then, more recently, I got an iPhone because a dear friend of mine upgraded from the first generation device to the G3, and she generously gave me her old phone (and I use the term “old” loosely, as it looked like a brand new phone!). And my Sony reader came to me because of Jane and Ned’s (and SB Sarah’s) ingenuity and interest. So here I am with four ereading options, …

I’m continually amazed at the number of people that fear free digital content, believing that free digital content now will ultimately lead people to believe that all content is without value, that all consumers of books will somehow refuse to pay for digital content. The conflation of free and digital is one that is tossed around frequently, often based on the decreasing revenues of print newspapers and their inability to leverage or monetize their digital content.  However, I don’t believe that the format defines whether content has value.  The format might change the amount of the value expressed in monetary terms but I don’t necessarily believe that the digital form of content equals free.  

Nigel Farndale, in the above article, suggests that the iPod has killed the music industry, never mind the billions of dollars of revenue that digital sales have contributed.  According to a 2005 PEW study, teens are as likely to purchase music as they are to participate in peer to peer sharing which means that even if there is free content out there, people are still making purchases.

At least one report suggested that …

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.
***

I managed to shoulder my way inside the last Boneyard transport just before its deeply scarred doors slid shut. Breathless and relieved, I snagged a cracked strap and did my best to ignore the dull ache of a cramp throbbing under my ribcage. Then the crowded car pulled from the station with a lurch that sent me stumbling.

“Watch it, bitch!” someone snarled. A hard shove connected with my shoulder blades.

Cue face plant into greasy trench. Nice. I grimaced at the men in apology, backing away and trying hard not to gag while the vinegar of old booze and recycled sweat burned through my nose. Well, tonight certainly got off to a less-than-spectacular start. And it’s headed nowhere but downhill, Lane. You expected otherwise? I thought. I turned my head to watch Capitol City flash past the graffiti-coated windows.

The sun had just dipped below the crumbling skyline in a florid display of gauzy pinks and reds and oranges by the time my date had staggered …

Dear Ms. Morin,

I too love “The Three Musketeers” so it was with anticipation that I began reading your book, “The Courtier’s Secret.” Though set during the reign of Louis XIV instead of his father, Louis XIII, I had high hopes for swashbuckling, handsome musketeers and daring do as they fought to save the life of the Queen. While “chick in pants” books aren’t my favorites, with enough verve and skill, I can sometimes overcome my skepticism of their believability.

Jeanne Yvette Mas du Bois has managed to get herself kicked out of the convent in which her parents have placed her for the past few years. For young women of good family, convents are the only source of education, limited though that is, during most of the 17th century.
But Jeanne is sick of the restrictions and toadying she finds there. At seventeen, it’s time for her to take her place at the glittering court of Versailles.

However once there, she discovers a world of toadying on steroids. And quickly learns that her ghastly father plans to marry her to a weak fop. After having found some freedom during the fencing lessons given to her by …

Dear Ms. Pappano,

One thing I’m trying to do this year is expand my reading horizons.  I usually stay within my favorite genres of fantasy, paranormals, and young adult, but sometimes you need variety to keep things interesting.  So when I was glancing through the eHarlequin website earlier this month, your book caught my eye because of the interracial couple on the cover.  I normally don’t read romantic suspense but my interest was piqued and Harlequin/Silhouette books are short enough that I don’t feel like I’m making a massive time commitment if things don’t work out as well as I’d hoped.

Anamaria Duquesne comes from a long line of psychic women.  When she was a little girl, she predicted her mother’s death.  Now over twenty years later, she returns at her grandmother’s request to learn more about the circumstances surrounding that tragic event.

Robbie Calloway is a lawyer who’s been hired to keep an eye on her.  When you make a living by telling fortunes, you can’t help but end up accused of being a swindler, even if you’re the real deal.  And make no mistake, Anamaria is the real deal.  (I guess I wasn’t able …

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.  Jade Lee writes romances for both series books for Harlequin and paranormals.  The Dragon Earl from Leisure and The Concubine which was a February Dear Author Recommended Read. Dragonbound is due out in April.
***

The story of my first sale is a long and torturous one. For those people who have sold their first manuscript at auction for a ton of money…I say BTTTH! That wasn’t me. It took me fricking forever to break in!

It begins with a terminally bored technical writer we’ll call Sad Jade. Sad Jade loved romance, especially regency era. One day, she read a very badly written book. Sad Jade said, I can do better! And went on to write her very first screenplay.

Yes, I said screenplay. Sad Jade wasn’t so bright. Actually, I just thought that film was way cooler than novels, and so that’s what I wanted to …

Borders has filed a motion to dismiss in the lawsuit filed by Ellora’s Cave. The motion to dismiss mentions, among other things, that the number of returns EC incurred was due to EC’s own failure to provide full shipments. Instead, EC engaged in a practice of short shipments. From the Motion to Dismiss:

It is also Borders’ policy (specifically for Waldenbooks) to hold any “short-shipped orders”-i.e., those in which the quantity shipped by the publisher is less than the amount ordered by Borders’ invoice-in its warehouses. If the seller does not supplement the order to satisfy the quantity requested by the Borders/Waldenbooks invoice, the entire order is shipped back to the seller. Throughout its commercial dealings with Borders, Plaintiff short-shipped orders. As a result, Borders was forced to warehouse the short-shipped product and, if not supplemented, to return it to Plaintiff. Plaintiff’s practice of short-shipping its orders therefore resulted in a number of returns from Borders.

In 2007, Plaintiff began to complain about the volume of returns it was receiving from Borders. As a result, a conference call was held on April 18, 2007, in which Borders and Plaintiff agreed that, to simplify the order and return process, Borders

…

Two years on the run
Lissa and Rose return home
Vampire boarding school

You know the drill here
Hot boys, bitchy rivals, and
Vampire PE class

The tale? Not so fresh.
But before you haters scream
I still liked this book.

Rose is a dhampir
Half-vamp and a mental bond
With Princess Lissa

Rose in Lissa’s brain
Kind of like Dragonriders
But without tent pegs

Dimitri? Cuteness.
Christian? Emo cuteness.
Mason? Ginger. Bleh.

Vamp society
Unique, complex and detailed
Mead outdid herself

Wanted more strigoi
(and maybe just a little
More Dimitri sex)

Adults will enjoy
As well as teenage girls
My vote? Solid B.
This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

While there is no official announcement, one Borders employee has twittered that layoffs occurred today.  The good news is that Borders is still in business and has been given a financial extension to April 15.  The bad news is that more people are losing their jobs.

Dear Ms. Hardy:

I generally don’t read many books from the Silhouette Special Edition line. I can’t say exactly why. I enjoy the Jessica Bird category books and those are SSE. I think I equate the blue and gold covers with babies and the red covers with career women? Whatever the reason, I consciously went there this month to be more Jayne-like. She’s trying everything under the digital Harlequin sun and I want to try to be more adventurous.

Larkin Hayes is a bit of a jetsetter who has come on an Alaskan cruise at the request of her father, Carter Hayes, in order to repair a five year rift between the two. Larkin welcomes this opportunity for the strain has caused her much personal pain. When Larkin’s mother and Carter’s wife died when Larkin was 12, Carter sought to recreate the magic he had with his lost wife by remarrying. In the last 15 years, Carter has remarried 4 times and each time has brought further separation from his daughter. His last marriage resulted in a huge fight that ended with Carter and Larkin not speaking …

Dear Ms West,

While poking around among the drafts for “Reviews I’ve Just Never Got Around To” I discovered that I’d neglected to write a letter for the last book in your Men of Pride County series. It’s a major oversight on my part and one for which I apologize. If ever a series deserved full measure, it’s this one and “The Pretender” is a fine wrap up to it.

Deacon Sinclair was a Confederate spy during the recently ended Civil War. While on a mission, he met and fell in love with Garnet Davis, daughter of a Union officer. Forced by circumstances to choose between the woman he knew was The One for him and his duty to his country, he chose country. The decision was agonizing when he made it and even more brutal to him when he returns to her house to find it in ruins and she no where to be found.

Now it’s some years later and Pride County Kentucky is suffering for her support of the South during the war. Well, just everyone in the South is when it comes down to it. Deacon’s sister …

 

An ebook publisher contacted me about the post I had regarding  ”What An eBook File Should Contain“.  Specifically, many of us asked for a blurb or excerpt to appear at the front of the book.  The publisher isn’t sure where to put it though.  The blurb and excerpt are going to be listed in the table fo contents, but should the blurb and excerpt be separate files? Should it be placed at the front of the book?  In what order? ie., blurb first, excerpt first? Would it be okay to be in the back of the file?  What’s your thoughts?

Dear Ms. Andrews:

I’m participating in Keishon’s TBR challenge. Last year I signed up and did all of one challenge read. This year, I was determined to be more consistent. It helps that two of other compadres of mine here at Dear Author are participating as well. While technically not in my TBR pile, this Not Without Her Family fulfilled two requirements. It was given a DIK review at AAR and it was available in ebook form. Rike gave it a straight A grade.  

Kelsey Reagan has come to Serenity Springs to try to forge a relationship with her half brother, Dillon, who went to prison for killing their stepfather over 10 years ago. Dillon served five years in a federal prison and then took off, leaving virtually no trial behind. Kelsey was able to track Dillon down, though, in a small town in New York. (It’s never mentioned how an unemployed waitress was able to track anyone down, particularly an ex-con who didn’t want to be found).

Dillon is working as a carpenter/handyman around Serenity Springs. His current job is helping to …

Dear Ms. Turner,

Last month Jane, Jia and I embarked on Keishon’s TBR challenge 2009. This time Keishon’s suggestion is a book that AAR has rated as a DIK (Desert Isle Keeper). While scanning through AAR’s list of DIK reviews, I was excited to unearth Rike’s review of your Thief Series.

Back in July of 2007, I reviewed the first book in this series, The Thief, and in January of 2008, I reviewed The Queen of Attolia. While neither book received an A grade from me, the ending of The Queen of Attolia was so compelling that I was salivating to read the third book when I finished the second.

But other reviewing commitments delayed my reading it and then my life got so busy that I barely had time to read a thing. The consequence was that The King of Attolia has languished on my bookshelf far too long. Happily, the TBR challenge was the excuse I needed to pick it up and finish this set of reviews.

It is impossible to discuss the third book without giving MASSIVE SPOILERS for the …

I often hear about authors’ critique groups.  Some authors hire beta readers.  Some rely on random readers and some have a trusted circle.  Ian McEwan falls into the latter group.  His first readers are poet Craig Raine, historian Timothy Garton Ash and philosopher Galen Strawson.

Ian McEwan, it turns out, has a triumvirate of friends whom he entrusts with his novels before anyone else, with the poet Craig Raine scolding him whenever his writing becomes too formulaic (the pair will mark FLF, “flickering log fire”, in the margins of each other’s work whenever it falls into cliche). McEwan won’t even let his friend and fellow novelist Martin Amis near his books before completion, preferring to trust it to Raine, Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash and philosopher Galen Strawson.

The Guardian via ShelfAwareness.

Dear Ms. Jones and Ms. Bennett,

Like my fellow Dear Author bloggers, Jane and Janine, I’m participating in Keishon’s 2009 TBR Challenge.  Unfortunately, I seem unable to follow directions and completely failed to meet this month’s theme.  Again.  That sound you hear in the distance is probably Jane laughing at me.  Again.  In my defense, your book does meet the barest requirement: it was in my TBR pile.  I was in the mood for a traditional fantasy, so I dug it out and dove right in.

For over a hundred years, the country of Volstov has been fighting a war against the Ke-han Empire.  As might be expected from an extended conflict that spans multiple generations, it has periods of active conflict interspersed with lulls.  It’s against the backdrop of one of these quiet periods that Havemercy opens, introducing us to the lives of four men.

First, we meet Royston, a magician who gets exiled from the capital of Thremedon for a scandalous homosexual affair with a foreign prince.  It’s not so much that he engaged in the affair; Volstov is generally more accepting of such relationships.  The problem is that his …

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I think I’ve mentioned before that anthologies usually make me twitch. I know I’m usually looking at a few great stories, some good ones, a few ‘meh’ ones and a couple that make me shudder. Depending on how many are in the collection. It’s rare that I read an entire anthology. It’s even rarer when every one of the entries is good. Congratulations.

I won’t discuss every story – for that I’ll say people should check out Elisa Rolle’s review – but I will talk about why I like them. Because the writing is good, the characters are people I could walk down the street and see at any street corner. Okay, maybe not the historical molly house party goers, the men in the French Foreign Legion or the Prince from the fairy tale but most of the rest are just ordinary people, living their lives, trying to do what we all attempt in life.

Some have found that special someone and have relationships that have lasted for years or mere days. Others are still searching. Some have experienced loss, either through death, divorce or social pressure. They’re having problems …

A new small print publisher is offering a subscription service for an experimental imprint, Paper Egg.  For $20, a reader receives two books per year, either novella, flash fiction or short story with illustrations.  The print run of each book will be dependent on the number of subscribers and made available only to the subscribers.  I’ve been thinking about the subscription idea for some time now and don’t know where I fall.  How about you guys?

Dear Ms. Robb:

I have had an up and down relationship with the In Death books since the series went hardcover.  Happily for me, Promises in Death marks an upswing, an effective blending of the police procedural and personal aspects of Eve Dallas’s life and a particularly moving storyline featuring everyone’s favorite ME, Morris.

When Eve is called to a homicide scene in an apartment basement, she is shocked to find fellow cop and current Morris squeeze Amaryllis Coltraine the victim.  Stunned to death with her own weapon, stripped and divested of her ID and weaponry, and left on the cement basement floor of her own building, Coltraine offers very few clues about what happened and why.  Was it a rat?  Was it someone she helped put away?  Was it another cop?  No matter who ended Coltraine’s life, her death is particularly difficult for Eve.  Not only does she have to tell Morris what happened and pry into their relationship for clues, but she also has to look at other cops as possible suspects and deal with the resentment of Coltraine’s own squad, who are shut out of the investigation, except as subjects for questioning.  …

Authors’ Guild wants its authors to withhold ebook rights until AG is done looking into the matter, but Publishers Weekly has an article about why ebooks are here to say and how different publishers are experimenting with concepts to harness technology to boost sales.

• 80% of teens have a cellphone
• Publishers are using ebooks to seed viral campaigns that promote paper book sales
• Brand authors like Meyer’s Twilight series is getting its own iphone app that has audio and ebook samples
• Sourcebooks has released an enhanced digital picture book with  Laura Duksta’s I Love You More.  This is not the first of its kind as PW has forgot about Kidthing which features animated digital picture books with audio.  My tot listened to Horton Hears a Who every day for a month and with a few prompts was able to recite the book  in its entirety.
• Still challenges with cost, availability but book should equal content, not housing of the content.

Authors’ Guild is peeved about Kindle’s Text to Speech function and the Federation of the Blind is pushing back.

“The National Federation of the Blind supports all technologies that allow blind people to have better access to the printed word, including the ability of devices like the Kindle 2 to read commercial e-books aloud using text-to-speech technology.  Although the Authors Guild claims that it supports making books accessible to the blind, its position on the inclusion of text-to-speech technology in the Kindle 2 is harmful to blind people. …  The key point is that reading aloud in private is the same whether done by a person or a machine, and reading aloud in private is never an infringement of copyright.

Via MediaBistro.

Source Interlink was granted a temporary injunction disallowing publishers and distributors from denying shipments of the magazines.  Source Interlink and Anderson News form 1/2 of the national distributing chain of magazines and books.  Source Interlink and Anderson News wanted to impose a 7 cent per copy surcharge.  Publishers balked and refused delivery of its weekly magazines.    Last week, Anderson News ceased normal business operations but Source Interlink filed suit.  Last week, Source Interlink filed suit against publishers alleging antitrust violations.  Recently the court granted temporary injunction with a permanent injunction hearing to take place on February 23.  

Rumor is that the Anderson News fiasco is preventing books from getting into the stores and that March/April and possibly even May titles might be affected.

more animals

We’ve blogged about ethics and reviewing in previous articles. We’ve discussed bias. We’ve talked about the intricate relationship between the author and the reader. All of these things work together to form the fundamental basis of my philosophy of reviewing here at Dear Author. I believe that no one person is without bias. It’s virtually impossible, I think, to reach a certain age and not be predisposed toward one thing or another. How you are raised. What you believe. Where you are in life. These all converge and influence one’s outlook or the filter through which everything is viewed.

Because I operate under the premise that no person is without bias, I believe that no review is unbiased. No book is read in a vacuum. If you have certain political or personal beliefs that are in direct conflict with the thesis of the story then it is unlikely that you will respond positively. Indeed, the more talented the author, the more negative your response might be.

The antidote to bias then is threefold: transparency, consistency, and community. …

Dear Readers,

I’d been eyeing this book after it was promoted on the eharlequin website and this month, I decided “why not. Sounds interesting.” Interesting indeed. This book is “the truth is stranger than fiction.” Two young English women become enamored of opera, travel the world to see and meet their favorite opera singers and, through two of them, start to arrange safe passage for persecuted people out of an increasingly dangerous Europe in the years before the beginning of WWII. Now, who’d believe that?

It’s not fiction. It’s the life of Ida and Louise Cook, two daughters of an English civil servant who were, themselves, also initially civil servants. While both were working in low paying jobs in London (£10 a month sound like enough to live on?), Louise first heard a phonograph and decided she must have one. Trips to nascent record stores followed where the sisters were first introduced to vocal music which lead them to fall immediately in love with opera.

Nothing would do but they must then go to live performances. Here they heard Lita Galli-Curci sing a recital and learned that she only sang in operas in New York City. …

Dear Mr. Crutcher,

I picked up your book DEADLINE because my middle teenage daughter has a problem sitting still for long enough to read her required books for English, and when she does read them, she needs help absorbing them. She started your book, handed it to me and demanded to know “Is the main character really dying????”
As in she couldn’t believe her eyes. So I opened the book and read.

Yes, the main character is dying. Almost stopped reading right there because my kid-in-jeopardy tolerance is pretty low. But here’s the thing. I couldn’t. You sucked me right in with your easy, sardonic wit and devastating charm coated in a bluntness that as an author myself, I loved. Our hero is Ben Wolf, a pint-sized, eighteen year old who lives in a small town in Idaho. He has big things planned for his senior year, big things that don’t include a fatal blood disease.

But he takes the cards he’s dealt. Because he’s eighteen, he’s allowed to keep his terminal disease a secret from his crazy mother, distanced father and beloved brother. It’s a decision …

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.  Today, of course, is Monday and we have an extra special First Sale letter because I double booked.  Carrie Vaughn writes the New York Times bestselling series about Kitty Norville, a werewolf.  Her most recent book, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand is out now with another release Kitty Raises Hell will be released March 1, 2009.  

The first three books in the series is available in a bundle from Sony for $13.98.
***

I didn’t sell the first novel I wrote. Or the second, or the third. In retrospect, I think I could have if I had tried a little harder, but a funny thing happened: by the time I started getting rejections on the first novel, I’d written the second, and it was a lot better. So I stopped sending around the first one and started sending the second. Then it happened again — the third novel was much better than the second. I also wrote …

Sorry for the lack of poll changes last week. I got busy and then I couldn’t think of any decent poll question. Seth Godin surmises that the era of the Professional Reviewer is over and that the citizen review is now the most influential. The question for romance readers, whose genre is rarely the subject of professional reviews, is whether these reviews are influential. What do you think? (Please let me know, too, whether you consider RT reviews and the like “professional” and whether they have differing impact on you. Actually maybe that should be a separate poll?)

So, I was the lucky recipient of a shiny new Sony PRS-505, in a very lovely shade of red. I’ve never owned an ebook reader, and in fact my experience in reading ebooks has been fairly recent and rather limited. I have tried both reading on the computer (which is convenient sometimes, but obviously not at others) and printing out ebooks (paper-wasting and cumbersome, but at least I can read them in bed).

I was a little intimidated by the Sony PRS-505 at first, I will have to admit. I think of myself as sort of in the middle, technology-wise – not a Luddite but not a tech geek. I can usually figure out how to do what I need to, but there is a lot I don’t know. I was unsure about all of the various formats that ebooks apparently come in, and what would be needed to convert files for uploading to the reader. Jane was very good about giving clear instructions, and the only slight problem I had at the start was caused by my not reading her instructions carefully enough.

But within a few …

There’s something wrong with this picture.  Read the article to find out what.

Background

Back in the nineties auto manufacturers began to realize that it was missing an important segment of the auto buying market: women. Today, women purchase over 50% of all cars (new and used) and influence 95% of all auto purchases.

Video gaming is also on the rise due, in part, to the increase of females playing video games. Women represent 38-40 percent of all gamers and average approximately 7.4 hours per week. (I have some thoughts about whether the increase of female gamers might be proportionate to the decline in reading).

One of the most popular console today is Nintendo Wii. It has been making money where other console manufacturers have not. 55% of new console sales were Nintendo Wiis. Wii Fit sold over 10 million units. In nearly every Wii commercial I’ve seen, a woman is in it. In almost every Wii Fit ad I’ve seen, it features a woman. Nintendo specifically targeted women with its Wii Fit marketing. EA Inc. hasn’t made a profit …