Archive for May, 2009
The Orbit $1 special for June is Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan, original retail price $10.99.
Warner Forever is launching its special $1.99 Sizzling Summer deals. The following titles are available in June for $1.99
- A Hint of Wicked by Jennifer Haymore (a new release)
- My Wicked Enemy by Carolyn Jewel (this is a crackalicious series)
- Between the Sheets by Robin Wells (I really enjoyed her newest release, How to Score).
- Too Far Gone by Marliss Melton
Get your credit cards out folks. It’s hard to turn away from these deals.
For the orphans of BEA, there has been great internet coverage from established publications and from the new media (aka bloggers!).
Smart Bitch Sarah attended the Harlequn Art Show. Harlequin had awesome swag including vintage covers on matchbook type notepads. She (and Harlequin) are giving away two bags full of this awesome swag.
Publishers Weekly had these articles that I found interesting although almost all were worth a read:
- Publishers and Booksellers agree that things are bad in publishing but there are few solutions. One suggestion from Bob Miller of HarperStudios was that booksellers start publishing. Praveen Madan, a bookseller, asked for a digital catalog of publisher books to assist booksellers in selling online. Dominique Raccah asked for independents to give more shelf space to small and mid sized presses which account for 54% of all sales (as opposed to the big 6).
- There was a packed house to hear the blogger panel which was composed of all women and quite a few YA bloggers. Katiebabs attended this panel and said that much of what the bloggers were pushing for had already been accomplished in the romance blogging community. (Visit Kate’s site for more BEA musings. It’s worth a
…
It’s hard for me to tell exactly how many of the readers of Dear Author are from outside North America, but it is not insignificant despite the fact there is no localization of the blog. In other words, we are an English blog that can be run through a translator but is not translated directly. Likewise, on a much greater scale, books have international appeal even without translation.
In this age of digital publishing, books can easily be transmitted from one country to another. In the digital publishing world, there are no borders. This is a wonderful thing. It means that the market for a creator’s works is not merely limited to an aging, dying, decreasing number of North American readers. It means that those who live in the UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Africa, India, China, and other countries are potential markets for publishing growth.
Yet publishing operates under an antiquated rights system that divvies up rights primarily according to geographic territories despite the fact that translation rights have long been a part of the contractual bundle of rights. Given the mobility of the economy, particularly when it comes to digital books, hewing to artificial geographic limitations is harmful …
Dear Ms. Michaels:
 Angela James made me buy this book so blame her for the review. We were chatting on Twitter the other night about twincest, incest, groupcest, and the like. Within the menage ouvre, there does seem to be an awful lot of brothers who enjoy sharing women. In at least one review of a similar book, one commenter suggested this was incest. Given that they don’t have any sexual contact, other than through the woman that they share, I’m not certain that it is incest (and neither was the twitterverse although that could mean we are all deviants with no moral code).
Ms. James suggested that this was a book that dealt with the psychological concept of sharing more than other menage books. When I went to purchase the book at Fictionwise, I noticed right away that it had 508 reader ratings with the great majority of them “Great”, the best ranking Fictionwise offers. The warning includes “This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: ménage (m/f/m) with twins sharing a partner without being sexually involved …
The Annual Brenda Novak Auction ends tomorrow and with it the chance to advertise on Dear Author, an opportunity that is not offered to individual authors or publishers. The auction is here. The ad will appear on any month you desire in the sidebar to the right.
Dear Author is one of the top ranked blog on Alexa.com for traffic in the romance community at 122,882. In comparison romantictimes.com is 115,197 and AAR is 169,739.
In the month of April, Dear Author had 112,278 unique visitors with an average of 9 pages viewed per visit for a total of 2,047,051 pages viewed in April.
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.
***
The assassin began a silent countdown. Two hundred yards away, looking through the rifle’s scope, made the mark seem an arm’s length away.
Conrad Andersen pulled a hooker over his lap and playfully spanked her ass. The middle-aged tramp shook her head and kicked her legs in false protest. She slithered against his portly belly, gave him an exaggerated kiss, and then vanished from the scope.
The john wiped his mouth and traces of the hooker’s lipstick smeared across his face. Frowning, he got up moving out of view.
Lucky used the free time to ease the tension built up after a two-hour stakeout. First, a stretch and twist sideways popped a few vertebrae. Flexing both hands and rotating both ankles brought the circulation back. Then Lucky wondered if military snipers did similar exercises when they watched a target.
Doubt any of them ever had to watch an Olympic, Viagra-induced, sexcapade.
Lucky eased back into position as Andersen appeared in the scope again. He was dressed in his …
Earlier this week, we posted an author online don’t list and to be balanced, Maili suggested we do a reader/reviewer online don’t list. Brilliant idea, I said.
***
Taste is subjective.
When someone criticizes or slates one of your favorite books, they aren’t criticizing you or your taste, they are making their opinion heard. Don’t ever suppress the opinion of another. If you disagree with their view, there’s nothing to stop you explaining why it works for you and how. Vigorous disagreement can be a thing of beauty.
I love the smell of constructive criticism in the morning
Constructive criticism is always good in a book discussion, but remember this golden rule: do not make it personal. As in, do not attack a person’s IQ or personality. If a character is stupid, it doesn’t mean its creator is stupid as well. Likewise for readers you disagree with.
Don’t assume some readers are uneducated if they couldn’t build coherent responses. Don’t pick on posters’ grammatical errors during a heated debate. It’s a pointless distraction. Don’t try to intimate them by waving your college degree or your ‘I’m an Academic!’ flag. Not only it makes you look a pompous ass, it defeats the point …
Yes, I am looking at my feed this morning. Gizmodo has a video of another impending eink device, this time from Plastic Logic. I suspect that Plastic Logic is the hardware manufacturer behind the reader coming from Barnes and Noble. The thing that might set this device apart is the ability to doodle on the screen.
Gizmodo takes a look at the Pixel Qi news of its impending fall 2009 release of a e paper like lcd screen. Not only is it in color, but lcd screens are much cheaper than the current eink technology from Vizplex. Maybe that $100 color eink screen isn’t too far off. 2010 would be my best guess.
This article by James Love is worth a read.
I am attending a meeting in Geneva of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This evening the United States government, in combination with other high income countries in “Group B” is seeking to block an agreement to discuss a treaty for persons who are blind or have other reading disabilities. …. The main aim of the treaty is to allow the cross-border import and export of digital copies of books and other copyrighted works in formats that are accessible to persons who are blind, visually impaired, dyslexic or have other reading disabilities, using special devices that present text as refreshable braille, computer generated text to speech, or large type. These works, which are expensive to make, are typically created under national exceptions to copyright law that are specifically written to benefit persons with disabilities.
Conversational Film Review: Silther (2007)
Genre: horror comedy
Reviewers: Jaili and Dionne Galace (a.k.a. Bam)
I asked Bam if she would do a conversational review with me. Without a blink, she agreed. She even did an awesome summary:
Slither (2007) is a splatter-horror and dark comedy about a beautiful, hapless schoolteacher Starla Grant (Elizabeth Banks) and her husband, the small town’s wealthiest douchebag and the unfortunately named Grant Grant (Michael Rooker), who falls prey to the mind-altering alien slug that burrows itself into his chest after he pokes it with a stick while out for a moonlight stroll with the town slut, Brenda.
In the light of the morning, Starla feels guilty for being a bad wife and attempts to make it up to Grant by seducing him to the tune of “Every Woman in the World” by Air Supply, but Grant returns from his evening walk… changed. Suddenly, he’s a little more aggressive, ravishing Starla senseless. And then there’s his unyielding appetite meat, the bulk of which he buys from the local grocery store and the rest he takes from his neighbors and by that I mean their pets. He stocks his meat supply in the basement and puts a giant lock on …
 Loading ... Book Expo America is underway. It is one of the largest (if not the largest) trade shows for the publishing business. For those of us stuck at home, we can follow along the attendees activities on twitter by searching the hashtag #bea09.
Conventions are a mainstay of the science fiction/fantasy genre but only in the past few years have various romance related conventions started up. Lora Leigh has a very popular reader appreciation weekend called RAW and Lori Foster hosts a similar reader/writer convention. There is the RT convention I just attended and the RWA convention in DC coming up in July. Have you attended a convention and if so did you enjoy it?Would you go again? What are you looking for in terms of a convention?
For me, I’m more interested in the cutting edge of publishing so I plan to attend Tools of Change next year and possibly BEA.
On Saturday, September 26, 2009, President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama will host the National Book Festival on the National Mall. This is the ninth annual event and the last two years saw crowds of 120,000 plus. Somehow I think that DC better order up a whole fleet of porta potties for the crowd that is likely to descend.
Former first lady Laura Bush, a retired teacher and public school librarian, started the festival in 2001, modeling it after events she held as first lady of Texas.
This year’s festival will feature about 70 award-winning authors, poets and illustrators in pavilions dedicated to specific genres of writing, ranging from history and biography to mysteries, thrillers, poetry and prose, and books for families and youngsters.
Julie B sent me a link to this article regarding romances. It cites some of the old statistics with Harlequin’s fourth-quarter earnings up 32% but also indicates that romances are still up into the second quarter of 2009.
For the week of May 10, romance book sales overall were up nearly 2.4 percent compared with the same week last year, according to Nielsen BookScan, which covers 75 percent of retail sales.
Of course, Bookscan counts James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, Emily Giffen and Kate Jacobs.
Bookscan, however, did show a decline in almost every other division of books in May:
Travel book sales were down 16 percent, detective/mystery and self-help were each down 17 percent and adult fiction overall, of which romance is a subgenre, was up 1 percent.
The article quotes a number of NY editors. It’s a quick and interesting read.
Beware: There May Be Spoilers Ahoy.
I’m going in blind
Never read your HP fic
Bought for hot cover
 Looking for a fix
I need a new series to
Get my ‘crack’ fix on
Sorry – this ain’t it
I tried, I really did try
But you soon lost me
Here’s a quick recap
Clary sees a cute boy at
a club…and he’s killed
But his killers? Hot!
And only Clary sees them!
Plot unfolds from there.
Right away, I have
Many, many issues with
Heroine Clary
She’s a hardcore Sue.
Clary Sue can see ‘Hunters
She is SPECIAL, guys!
- Show quoted text -
Miss Perfect? Miss Chosen One?
Misses the big clues
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER (maybe this should be spoiler-cut all the way to
the end)
Clary Sue’s mom was
Married to the bad guy and
Then ran away, hid.
Never told Clary
Sue about her missing dad.
Big “Who is dad” plot.
IT’S THE BAD GUY. WHY CAN NO ONE SEE THIS BUT ME. WTF.
Ahem. Sorry. Cough.
That’s the big ‘gasp’ plot reveal
She is evil’s kid.
Cue lots of ‘oh noes’
And then? Epic wallbanger
moment happens here.
Hot hero guy Jace?
She’s been kissing? Get ready.
‘Nother big reveal
Won’t spoil it here but
It rhymes with TWINCEST. So. Yeah.
Book hits wall. I’m done.
DNF.
This book can be purchased in mass market from an independent bookstore or …
Dear Ms. Brady,
 After I bought your book, I pulled it up on my Sony and began to read the opening scene. Which is where I stopped, more than a little afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to read a book which seemed to be headed towards over sensationalism. A screeching vehicle bringing in a badly wounded person who a young doctor is determined won’t die on her watch? Hmmmm, let’s read a different book first.
But something made me give it one more try. One chapter, I promised myself, and I’ll know whether it’ll work or not. Good thing for me I tried again because from that point on, I was hooked.
I have endless admiration for those who are in the front lines of emergency medicine. They get it all – from people in the wrong place at the wrong time to those with a long history of destructive behavior which they then expect doctors to fix with a cure all pill. And then there’s the daily grind of sore throats, chronic diseases and assorted ills which bring patients in to see the doctor.
Working in a …
Dear Ms. Adrian:
 I really fell in love with your series with the book featuring Tegan and Elise, Midnight Awakening. I believe it was in that book that we were introduced to Andreas Reichen. Andreas is a German vampire whose entire “family” was killed during a purge of Darkhaven homes who are perceived to be impediments to the ultimate rule of the bad vampires.
Andreas “gift” is overtaking him, spurred in part by his loss of control following the eradication of his family. Andreas is pyrokinetic and his rage literally fuels the fire. As he seeks out revenge against those he knows betrayed him, he loses his ability to harness both his gift and his bloodlust.
Claire Roth is the wife and breedmate of Wilhelm Roth. Roth and Andreas have always been at odds. Roth has been promised power in exchange for helping to eliminate those who stand by the Order, a group of Generation One vampires who hunt down rogue vampires and engage in an ongoing battle to keep humans safe. (As I was writing this review, I had to go back and look at previous books because there …
Harlequin is celebrating its 60th Anniversary this year and are exhibiting THE HEART OF A WOMAN: HARLEQUIN COVER ART 1949 – 2009. Per the press release. “These pieces offer a unique insight into the profound political and societal changes that have occurred in women’s lives over the past six decades and will give you a glimpse of what to expect at the gallery.”
The WHERE: Presented at Openhouse Gallery
The WHEN: May 29th to June 12th, 2009
Report back if you go. I’d love to hear what it looks like in person.
Dear Ms. Overton,
 Did someone describe your book as being about cooking? Sweets? Falling in love? Oh, yes. All of the above. And since I have no “won’t” power when confronted with anything sweet, I was so there about getting it. And reading it. It was just writing a review that took me awhile.
For bakery owner Sophie Mayfield, life is getting sweeter by the minute. She’s managed to keep her family’s cherished business from being acquired by mega grocery chain Fulton Foods. And her new employee Eliot Wright is as appealing and oh so chocolate fine as he is hardworking and talented.
But then Sophie discovers that Eliot isn’t exactly who he says he is. And she’s sure he’s hungry for only one thing: her boutique bakery’s bottom line. Now a lovestruck Eliot will have to do whatever it takes to win back Sophie’s trust and prove that he truly is her Mr. Right….
Mmmm, I can almost smell the aroma of the baked goods lovingly described, especially the wedding desserts. Good thing I don’t have anything like it in my kitchen or I’d be stuffing my face.
The way …
Dear Ms. Wells:
 It’s hart to recommend a funny book because everyone’s idea of funny is different. Jayne didn’t love Between the Sheets and I would be hardpressed to argue that she would like How to Score. I did, however, enjoy this book and I’ll try to articulate why I liked it so readers can judge for themselves whether the funny works for them. Or not.
How to Score relies on physical and situational comedy which ordinarily I don’t like but worked for me.
The heroine is this art curator who is super nice and having assertiveness issues and relationship issues. She sees an ad for a life coach and a free session and calls up Luke Jones. After one session though, Luke has to go into witness protection after seeing a mob hit. His brother, an FBI agent, takes over as the life coach, pretending to be Luke. Chase owes Luke because Chase is the reason why Luke has to go into protective custody anyway.
Chase had been staking out this one restaurant because of purported mob activity but nothing panned out. One night when Luke and Chase were christening Chase’s new plasma TV, they …
Random House and Penguin are creating mobile platforms for their ebooks. Of course, this means just one more DRM but who cares about that right? Joe Wickert noted on twitter an article that announced Random House had launched its own iPhone App.
Most significant of all for Random House is the launch, today, of its own app. Download it to your iPhone or iPod and any book from the Random House e-book list can be yours. The app allows you to customise the size of the text and the colour of the text, the font, the look, the feel of the electronic page. It’s reading all right, but not as we know it. With 2,500 Random House titles available by the end of the year, many with ‘rich’ content, these steroidal ’super-books’ are making a serious play for literary attention and our cash.
This is great, but the fact is I can’t find the app anywhere in the iPhone store. Neither can Joe Wickert.
Bookseller.com reported Penguin has partnered with Mobcast, the operators of mobile platform Gospoken.com. GoSpoken has relationships with Vodafone, 3UK, and Orange. There is also a Blackberry App. No Iphone or Android App yet. …
NetGalley has come up with a creative way to get publishers, authors, agents, and others in the industry to meet and great bloggers. At BEA, you can stop by Booth 4077 to meet a blogger and enter a drawing for a Sony Reader.
“It’s a new twist on an age-old publishing idea, and it’s stirring up lots of chatter in the Twittersphere.
This week at BookExpo America, NetGalley will be hosting continuous “blogger signings” in Booth 4077. Nearly 45 bloggers covering a multitude of genres will be on hand to meet-and-greet, exchange ideas and even blog live. The complete schedule is available from NetGalley’s Follow the Reader blog at: FollowtheReader.
Borders sent out a press release updating the world on its improved financial status. It has reduced debt by 44.9% by the end of the first quarter even though sales were down by 12.1%. Read more at Personanodata.
The new CEO, Ron Marshall, plans further changes to Borders stores, increasing the children’s section and focusing on cooking and health section while reducing or eliminating the music and movies. Further changes include ordering only two weeks worth of books at a time instead of the normal twelve week supply. This will wreak havoc with print runs at publishing houses as the publishers rely on orders in determining how many books to print initially.
Read more at Publishers’ Weekly.
Loading ... Maili (@McVane) had a great comment yesterday regarding the promotional benefits for authors on Twitter. I love Twitter for all the reasons I don’t love blogs. You get a real sense a person’s individuality and personality because of the spontaneous (as @PortaDaCosta said) and organic nature of Twitter (as Maili termed it). I’ll be doing a full post on this later in June, but I’m curious how many people here are on Twitter.
Each year, RWA recognizes excellence in romance writing through the RITAs, considered the top honor in the genre. Though awards are presented in a dozen categories, a writer has just one shot in her career to win the Best First Book award. This interview series focuses on the debut authors nominated in that category. Alyson H undertook to bring this idea to Dear Author and completed all the interviews. Alyson is a great interviewer and elicited some fun information. Alyson makes you, the reader, interested in the interviewee. It’s a great skill. Thanks Alyson and I hope the readers of Dear Author enjoy this six part series.
***
 Jean Marie Pierson’s No Good Girls had its first incarnation as a screenplay. If you were watching it on the big screen, you’d be spending a lot of time elbowing your best friend to share a laugh, and when the lights came up, you’d need to check each other’s mascara. The novel’s main character, Geri O’Brien, is sort of a chick lit anti-heroine. True, she has the single-in-NYC thing happening, but the hip-and-trendy thing isn’t. For Geri, fashion reaches no higher than Burlington Coat Factory, and …
Dear Mrs. Hartman,
 After the A grade I gave the last book of yours I read, I had high hopes for this one. Perfect heroine and slacker hero find love fifteen years later despite having to overcome the mistaken images they’ve maintained of each other over the years? Okay, I can go with that. Heroine who lies to the people for fifteen years, including her own daughter? That, I had trouble with. Lots of trouble with.
Hailey Maddox was always seen as perfect. A popular cheerleader who had all the boys in knots over her, no one was more surprised than JT McNulty when Hailey agrees to go out with him. But Hailey is keeping secrets including the fact that she’s sleeping with someone else.
After she gets pregnant and the father renounces their clandestine relationship, she turns to JT who lies to both sets of their parents about being the father. But when Hailey rejects his offer of marriage and his parents throw him out, JT leaves town.
It takes the death of his mother to bring him back. Then dealing with his father’s injuries to induce him to stay for a few days …
Publishers Weekly looks ahead to the upcoming books in the paranormal subgenre, some featuring romantic threads and others that are true romances. It starts out with statistics for Sherrilyn Kenyon’s books. She has over 17 million copies of her books in print in 35 countries and has managed six #1 placements on the NYT bestseller list in over a year.
After paying homage to Kenyon, the article turns toward the pesky problem of labeling but provides the following for differentiation between the multiple sub genres dealing with other worldly creatures.
Avon executive editor Erika Tsang explains: “In paranormal romance the relationship between the couple is the focus of the main plot. In urban fantasy, the world that the couple exists in is the focus.”
The article notes a number of releases upcoming include the Pamela Palmer ones which I’ve heard to be JR Ward like for werewolves. (not sure about the crackiliciousness of the books only the plot and strange naming conventions).
Dear Ms. Thomas:
 I read 18 A-level romances in 2008, an unusually rich year for me. Two of those 18 books were your first two romances, Private Arrangements and Delicious. Needless to say, your books have vaulted to the top of my “most anticipated” list. So I settled down to read Not Quite a Husband with high hopes. I’m happy to say that I was not disappointed.
Bryony Asquith and Leo Marsden have known each other forever, their family estates in rural England being adjacent. Their childhoods were very different, however, and Bryony never paid much attention to Leo, who was four years her junior (a detail I really appreciated because it was unusual and gave their subsequent relations some unexpected dimensions). Bryony finally notices Leo when he returns to London as a young man of about 23, handsome, charming and feted for his mathematical genius and his travels.
Bryony is an odd duck, on the shelf due not just to her advanced age (she’s in her late 20s) but her unusual profession: she is a doctor. In the 1890s, both female doctors and noblewomen practicing a profession were quite unusual. Thus Bryony is doubly alienated.
Jane …
Capitalizing on a growing global market (or maybe just exploiting the existing one), Harlequin is making comic book adaptations of its novels for mobile digital distribution in China. The digital comics are currently distributed by SoftBank Creative Corp., a leading Japanese digital content provider. Currently, nearly a million Harlequin digital comic files are downloaded each month by Japanese consumers. Given that the Chinese population is exponentially larger than Japan, this could be hugely profitable for Harlequin.
The digital comic titles sold in Japan are now translated into simplified Chinese characters and made available in Celsys’s ComicSurfing format for mobile digital distribution on a Wireless China mobile site. Wireless China is one of the largest mobile portal and E-channel providers in China. Launch titles include comics based on books by New York Times bestselling authors such as Debbie Macomber, Sharon Sala and Betty Neels.
Harlequin Comics are digitalized into a ‘frame-by-frame’ format utilizing innovative new technology that allows the user to see each comic frame individually and then slide forward to the next frame. Each frame can be easily enlarged or shrunk via the touch screen.
Fortune takes a closer look at Amazon’s vision for the future of publishing but doesn’t come up with anything new. As the article states, Bezos is “relentlessly on message.” The article is worth a read, however, as it confirms that Amazon is aiming to be the gatekeeper of written word.
Fortune suggests that not all Amazon experiments have been successful with internal sources indicating that the music and video download programs have been failures thus far. Kindle’s success has been its wireless program and price point.
If the success of Apple’s iTunes Store offers any guidance to Amazon’s grand plan, it’s that consumers will pay for content when the bar is set low enough. Sure, there’s still plenty of piracy, but for many of us the ease of buying digital music has rendered file sharing a quaint anachronism, a past transgression stored away next to memories of that drug-fueled summer following sophomore year.
 see more Lolcats and funny pictures
At RWA, I along with SmartBitch Sarah, Ann Aguirre, Barb Ferrer, and Carrie Lofty (ABC Girls) will be giving a seminar regarding online promotions. I’ve been paying attention to online promotion around the internet so I can say something worthwhile at the panel. I’ve been online, perusing the online community and bumping into authors here and there since 1997. Here are few of my observations regarding Author Online Promotional Don’ts.
1. Don’t say that most the novels in x subgenre are awful and that’s why you decided to write a novel in x subgenre. You are just asking for everyone in x subgenre to rip your work apart.
2. Don’t enter a reader discussion regarding a) books they like, b) books they don’t like, and c) topics they are interested in reading with a recommendation for your books. It’s intrusive and rude. The readers are engaging in a discussion and if you haven’t participated before it looks like you are hijacking a thread for your own selfish purposes instead of engaging readers in a conversation….
Notice: The whole review is really a summary of what the fuckedness so if you plan to read the book and don’t want to be spoiled, click away.
Dear Readers:
 I can’t remember who chose this book for me to read during #RRTheatre (wherein I roast bad porn) but the premise was “have sex or die.” We thought that the plot promised some hijinks at least. Grammatically this Ravenous book wasn’t as poor as previous titles, but the editing was still abysmal. I had a feeling that this was supposed to be some kind of campy send up of futuristics but because it lacked any coherency, it was just a mess inducing unintentionally hilarious moments.
The basics of the worldbuilding that I could glean from the story is this. There was a Great Fall and society split into Blacks and Blues. Blacks were more technoliterate and Blues had more money. There was a renewable energy source namd pilox that was the subject of much dissension between the Blues and Blacks. There is a revolutionary group that no one knows about and there is the ability to infect someone with vampirism as well …
Loading ... I’ve been thinking about getting new cards for Dear Author. When I go to conferences, people are always asking for my business card and the ones I have, I don’t really love. I read this article about how business cards suck and everyone is spending outrageous amounts of money in attempting to get their card to be noticed. In this day and age, why not use electronic services. I particularly like Dropcard which allows me to email someone my information that can be automatically saved to the user’s address book or TextID which allows me to text my information to a user. I’m interested in hearing whether in a regular business context, if this is an appealing way to obtain a person’s contact information.
 Welcome to the My First Sale series. Each Monday, Dear Author posts the first sale letter of bestselling authors, debut authors, and authors in between. Jackie Barbosa is one of those new crop of historical authors that are making the future of historical bright and shiny. Her first print collection, Beyond the Red Door, is officially out tomorrow but may be in stores for purchase right now.
***
Well, it’s really a tale of two sales, not one.
The first manuscript I ever sold was a short story called Carnally Ever After. I originally wrote it for an Ellora’s Cave call for submissions in early 2007. (Ann Aguirre must take partial credit for my ever having written it, since it was through her blog I found out about the call.) Ellora’s Cave didn’t contract the manuscript, and because it was less than 15,000 words long, there were only a limited number of other publishers I could submit it to. When I did receive a contract offer, it was from Cobblestone Press, and that offer came within eight hours of submission. (The acquiring editor said the title caught her …
 There are a couple of new eink readers on the market. The COOL-er ebook reader mimics the look of the colorful iPods for the exterior casing of its 6″ ebook reader. It reads EPUB, TXT, JPEG, any kind of PDF, MP3 for audio, and eight languages including Russian and traditional / simplified Chinese. It is both Window and MAC compatible. It’s definitely a product I would take a second look at if I were thinking about buying a new dedicated reader these days.
Kindle App for the iPhone has an update which allows tapping or swiping to advance pages, landscape mode, and a choice of three different color schemes: white on black, black on white, and sepia.
Sony Reader 700 is part of the Oprah Summer Giveaway. I’m not sure what, if any, kind of buzz the Sony Reader will get from being featured in this way.
For ebook readers, you’ll want to bookmark this site. It allows you …
At the suggestion of Peter Brantley of the Internet Archive, I offer up this Frequently Asked Questions for Authors regarding the Text To Speech (TTS) functionality that is the subject of debate. This may be an evolving document as more people provide input so that it adeqately addresses the issues. Please feel free to offer suggestions and/or revisions in the comments section.
***
Q: I’ve heard that there is some debate over Kindle’s Text to Speech Function. What is it and should I be concerned?
A: When Amazon released it’s Kindle 2 in February, it announced that it had included the ability for every document/book/written work on the Kindle to be real aloud using a robotic voice (either girl or boy). You can hear a sample of it here as read by Wil Wheaton. The TTS functionality was switched “on” as a default. Author’s Guild objected to this on the basis that the right to read a book out loud was an audio right, a derivative right of authors under the Copyright Law.
Q: What exactly is the legal argument that Authors Guild is making?
A: Ideas cannot be copyrighted, only their …
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.
***
1941 – The Russian Front
The coldest winter in a hundred years…
It was madness. The noise all around, screams and garbled orders that no one understood anymore. The never-ending thunder of gunfire and shelling. Dodging, and ducking, slipping in the slush of mud and snow and blood. Friend or enemy, all looked alike in the swirling white of the cold.
And it was cold.
A soldier dodged behind the burnt-out carcass of a tank, and looked around. He was lost, disorientated by the foulness of the bloody Russian weather. There were bodies, some still moving, piled around the snow. Bodies of his countrymen and bodies of the enemy, turning blue beneath the weight of the winter. And what a winter! Never in his life had he seen such cold, such biting winds.
He gripped his gun harder, and glanced around again. Gott im Himmel, if he could only see something through the snow. It was just a swirling mass, with shadows moving behind it. His friends, or the …
Dear Readers,
 Frankly, before I read Ida Cook’s memoirs describing her life before, during and after WWII, I had never heard of her or her alias as Mary Burchell, Harlequin author extraordinaire. It was during the discussion of “Safe Passage” that several of her long time fans chimed in about their favorites among her many books. When Janine and I expressed an interest in reading one, Sunita, Queen Amongst Readers, generously offered to loan us her copies. Staggered by her willingness to mail off her own books, I stammered my thanks and looked forward to discovering just what it is about Burchell that still calls to readers decades after these books were first written.
Gwyneth Vilner eagerly awaits her marriage to Van Onslie. As she’s unpacking her wedding gown, her cool, collected and very unlovable mother drops a bomb. Gwyn’s aunt has decided to attend the ceremony after all and with that news, Gwyn is wrenched back to memories of six years ago. Then she was a silly, shy young woman of seventeen who fell for a bounder.
Terry Muirkirk, serial cad, took rich Gwyn for all he could then …
Dear Ms. Byrne:
 I cannot recall what my impetus was for buying this book but I did and I was glad for my impulse. I have been in a paranormal romance reading lull and frankly, my appetite for vampire romances is at an all time low (near flatlining, to be honest). I will admit I had to block the cover image from my mind as sulky boys are not my thing.
Gregor Faustin is the middle vampire in a family of vampires. They live a fairly normal, albeit wealthy, existence in New York. He’s enjoying his life and getting ready to open his newest New York City nightclub when his mother announces that she dreamed of his perfect mate, along with her name. Gregor is not excited about this:
In ye olde tymes, Gregor would have taken the slip of paper with his intended’s name on it, sought her out that night, carried her to his castle, fucked her senseless and drained her half dry. The next night he and his new bride would have celebrated by eating their own serfs or something.
Thankfully the dark ages were over. Marriage
…
Apple has decided to get into the censoring business. It refuses to approve the Eucalyptus ebook reading application because you can view a Project Gutenberg book on there about sex! It’s not like Apple hasn’t approved ebook reading applications with the same power before: Stanza, Bookshelf, and Kindle. Further, there are far more naughty books that can be bought and viewed with existing Apple applications including books about butt sex and orgies.
Apple is said to be reading a device that might shock and awe the reading crowd but the reading crowd hates censorship. Just don’t do it.
The UK high court sided with eBay in a suit brought by L’Oreal. The cosmetics company tried to hold eBay liable for damages for the sales of counterfeit L’Oreal products. eBay has won similar cases in Belgium and France. The implications for authors is that pirated works will continue to be sold and its up to the authors to use the tools that eBay provides to get those auctions removed.
The downside for eBay is that if it doesn’t rigorously police its offerings, people might begin to lose confidence in the products sold.
Via Techcrunch
There is a very nice profile of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series in the NYTimes. Harris admits that the vampires are “a metaphor for gays in America. Harris had written two different mystery series (Shakespeare mysteries and the Aurora Teagarden mysteries) which hadn’t really taken off (maybe because Harris killed off a main character in the Teagarden series, not that I am still bitter some many years later or anything) but that the Sookie series gave her a real “neener-neener-neener moment.”
You can read the entire article here.
While Barnes & Noble saw a decline in sales and store traffic, the fall wasn’t as steep as expected. Sales declined 4& to $1.11 billion and a net loss of #2.1 million for the first quarter 09. April was the best month in terms of sales and that non fiction bestsellers had an “uptick”. B&N.com sales were lower despite increased traffic because of “lower conversion rates of visitors to the site.” The CEO notes that digital books are a growing competition to in store sales. See more at Publisher’s Weekly.
Books-A-Million actually posted a 2 % increase in sales during the first quarter, with revenue hitting $118.2 million with same store sales falling just slightly. “The decline in comp sales was attributed to sluggish store traffic and price-sensitive consumers.”Publisher’s Weekly.
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Update: Pam Jaffee, Avon’s Publicist, responded to the AAR interview here. As stated in my article below, I have had a good relationship with Avon’s publicists.
Dear Avon Books:
I’ve come to understand that you don’t have much of anything good to say about the “online world”. Yesterday Katiebabs pointed me to an interview that two editors from Avon Books did with All About Romance. During the interview, your editors a) were dismissive of the impact that the internet had on sales and b) evinced no understanding about the ability of publishing to harness the internet to create brand identity and loyalty.
First, let me address the concept of ranking because according to Lucia Macro, she’s shocked at how low some blogs rank. I’m not sure what services that you are using but the fact that you use ranking to determine the value of a blog misunderstands the internet community and how it works.
I’m not sure that the vast majority of readers recognize all the online sites. When checking their rankings I’m often surprised at
…
Dear Ms. Blackwell,
 I didn’t realize this book is part of the “Everlasting Love” line until I began to read it. Which shows how much I pay attention to the “icon” on the front cover. Anywho, since my house has been a renovation project in the works for years now, that aspect of the book description caught my eye.
Alyssa Franklin just knows that the run down old Queen Anne house is meant for her, even if it will take her life savings to buy it, months to restore it and probably cost her a long term romance that, actually, is on its last legs. At first, she’s entranced with the idea of the love affair between the original owners of the house – the scion of what used to be the most prominent family in the area and the daughter of a seamstress. I mean, they must have been deeply in love to thwart social conventions. But as she tackles the issues of the house with the help of a hunky handyman, the truth of that marriage as well as Alyssa’s hopes for a new romance, begin to be uncovered.
Managing to …
The analysts are getting high on Kindle numbers. Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal predicts that Kindle revenues will be approximately $300mm this year. Piper Jaffray says that 2009 revenues will be $405mm. Mark Mahaney of Citibank to Techcrunch that 10% of all books sold in 1Q 2009 where Kindle ebooks.
Get your Kindle/Amazon stamp or wallow in ruin? (As an aside, the Persona Non Data blog is not to be missed).
Dear Ms. Thomas:
Thank you for sending me a copy of your third book. Not Quite a Husband treats the reader to the same rich and evocative prose that filled the pages of your previous two works. In mentioning new historical authors to be excited about, your name should always mentioned.
Bryony Asquith, the granddaughter of an Earl, was an extraordinary woman who fell in love with an extraordinary man, Quentin Leonidas Marsden, the youngest son of the Earl of Wyden. He was a brilliant mathematical mind who was published and presented at the mathematical society; and she was a surgeon, one of few women practicing medicine, particular one of the few women born of her lineage who actually worked.
While the lede of this review might be their accomplishments, the existence of the accomplisments tell more about the characters than the accomplishments themselves. Bryony chose to be a surgeon not so much because she loved saving people but because it was nearly a necessity for her. Bryony had grown up alone without companionship and in order to survive she withdrew well within herself, drawing a cloak of self sufficiency so …
Note: This is Janine’s entry for Keishon’s To Be Read challenge.
Dear Ms. Frierson,
 It is 1953 in Plumville, Georgia, and seven year old Benjamin Drummond considers four year old Coralee “Ceelee” Simmons his best friend. Little Bennie loves to read to Ceelee and is determined to protect her from the bullying of Tommy Birch. But when Bennie announces that he wants to marry Ceelee when they grow up, his mother insists that Ceelee’s mother stop bringing her to their house.
In Florence Drummond’s eyes, it won’t do for the two children to remain close. Coralee’s mother, Patty, is Florence’s housekeeper, while Florence’s husband is a state judge in whose footsteps Benjamin is expected to follow. But that can’t happen if Benjamin remains so openly friendly toward Ceelee. Benjamin is white; Coralee is black. The two must be separated.
Flash forward fifteen years to 1968. Benjamin and Coralee are both attending the newly integrated Solomon College in Bakersfield, not far from Plumville. Twenty-two year old Benjamin is a senior political science major, football team quarterback, and a member of a “Good ole Omega Kappa Psi” fraternity. …
Dear Ms. Miller,
 Well, this one certainly lives up to the “Blaze” standards of sex, more sex and ultimately true love. And the heroine has a cool profession/trade as well as there being a hot cop hero.
Jack Riley is just looking for someone to arrest to take the edge off his anger at almost blowing a drug king pin take down. Being called “grandpa” by a hotshot new officer on the Nashville Police Department didn’t help matters either. When he sees a young woman being harassed by two college boys, he dives in to help.
Alex Morgan hasn’t had many romantic interactions with men since a disastrous event in her teens. Now these two drunk guys as well as the cop thinks she’s a hooker. Once they get run off, she and the cop get a chance to check each other out and quickly satisfy the explosive heat between them.
Months later, Jack finds himself in the small town of Dahlia, looking to avenge his fallen partner by busting the drug ring who’ve been smuggling drugs into the area and discovers the young woman he’s had hot nights of fantasies about. Alex hopes Jack …
Dear Ms. Solomon:
 I have to share with you a problem. Every book that I’ve read of yours, I have liked, One Deadly Sin being no exception to that rule. For some reason, though, I never have the “must read” urge strike me when I come across a title of yours. In this case, I received two copies of this book in advanced form and one in finished form but never cracked the spine of any one of those copies. I went ahead and bought the ecopy because I knew I wanted to read you yet it languished on my reader.
I need to reinforce in my head what a good writer you because every time I’ve read a book of yours, I always close it with the thought, “this chick can write.” I haven’t quite figured out the “why” of my hesitation but I’m telling myself right now that the next time your book comes in I should read it. This is my personal string on the finger reminder.
One Deadly Sin is about Edie Swann whose father committed suicide because he was accused of embezzling funds from the town factory. Her …
|
|
Open Threads at Dear Author. Want to know what new releases are out this month and what readers are excited about reading? Check out the threads below. 
We don’t like to censor comments nor do we endorse the comments of any poster. We do reserve the right to moderate comments but most of the time will not, believing, as Justice Brandeis did, that the greater good is in “more speech, not enforced silence.”
