Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

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We had a previous post and poll regarding our favorite tropes and now I wonder what your least favorite tropes are.

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I’m pretty much a sucker for the friends to lovers theme as well as the marriage of convenience one. I hate the virgin widow trope and generally dislike the secret baby one, but can let that one slide under the right circumstances. Oh, I also like the reunited lovers trope. Must add that to the poll.

more animals

This is the second in a three part series about the author as a consumable part of the book. It’s a look at how readers respond to current marketing tecniques and why.  This series is more a reflection of the reader and the reader’s mindset and not meant to be a criticism of the authors themselves.  (As an aside, I find it interesting that no matter how many times I say this, some authors still take this as a personal attack.  It’s not, I swear.)

Off the top of my head, I can think of three authors whose publicity photos differ according to their pen name:

Jessica Bird v JR Ward
Nora Roberts v. JD Robb
Eve Silver v. Eve Kenin

In these six publicity photos, a reader is being sent a different message. Essentially, in the first set, the authors are warm and friendly. In the second set, they all have an edge to them. Presumably the message here is …

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I was reading two Harlequin Presents published in the 1980s. One was by Susan Napier and the other by Charlotte Lamb. In both books, the heroine slaps the hero in a rage and the hero hits her back. I think Jo Beverly had a very controversial book wherein the hero hits the heroine. It sparked a huge debate on AAR on the issue of whether physical violence by the hero should ever be considered acceptable in romance books. Even if slapping is not considered kosher these days, plenty of books contain spanking (both sexual and non sexual) and the threats of spanking. Why is hitting someone on the ass more acceptable than on the face?

In any event, I was kind of shocked reading those scenes in the books. I prefer my heroes to be non violent but is there ever a place for physical reaction? Is it wrong to call the slapping “violent”? Should heroines who slap at the heroes expect the same in return? The following is the hero poll. We’ll see how the results shake out.

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It’s hard to believe that election day is finally here.  For months, nothing has been more prominent in my mind and my reading than this election.  I feel so blessed to not only  have the opportunity to vote, but to have cast my ballot for Obama via mail two weeks ago.  I hope that if you have the right to vote, you exercise it no matter who your candidate is.  Don’t stand on the sidelines this time.  It’s too important.  Please drop a comment below and tell us about your voting experience.  I’ve loved reading those anecdotes on other sites, particularly if you had to wait in line.

Joe Esposito, a very smart mind in the publishing and epublishing world, argued a week or so ago that the Kindle and its “kin” would reduce overall book sales. I admire Esposito and his thoughts about publishing but in this case, I find his argument to be, well spotty at best.  His argument is thus:
because the architecture and business model for the Kindle support a “buy only when you need it” frame of mind, aka “just in time” inventory management. In the hardcopy world, where many books (no one knows how many) are bought “just in case,” the number of books purchased exceeds the number of books read. The Kindle will remove the excess, adding to the legions of misfortunes of publishers and authors.
The gravamen of this argument is that digital purchasers are less susceptible to the impulse buy. I would argue that the nature of the instant gratification of digital books actually makes the impulse buy occur at more frequent rates.

Esposito argues that a brick and mortar shopper will browse for a specific title that brought him to the store but may also …

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

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I’m not a fan of the holiday themed books but guess what? Jayne likes them. What about you?

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Some people see a need for an aggregate review site for all books, particularly digital and POD titles. While this would be a great service to a reader, the question is who would edit and maintain such a site and how would the contributors be compensated?

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I invited Joey Hill a while back to do a guest opinion on the Male Submissive, a trope which I think she might write better than anyone else. I held it so that it could serve as a promotional bit for her November release, Mermaid’s Kiss. I’m thinking of soliciting other “guest opinions” on topics. Would you like to see that or do you think that it’s content you could read elsewhere and you want to read what DA has to think on Tuesdays?