Harlequin Horizons is a vanity press where aspiring authors pay to have their books published and put into stores, whether it is a physical retail location like your local Borders or it is online retailer like Amazon.

Authors using this service may or may not have their books professionally edited. Some authors who are self published have very high quality standards like self published author Moriah Jovan whose epic romance books aren’t well suited for traditional publishing. Other self published authors or authors who use a vanity press will not put as much care into their books as Ms. Jovan. Therefore, the quality that you read from books published through Harlequin Horizons can be very uneven.

Q: What do you mean by traditional publishing?

Harlequin is not the publisher, the author is the publisher and therefore solely responsible for the quality of the content. In traditional publishing, authors go through a rigorous vetting process. First, their works must make it past a person called an agent. The agent then has to sell this book to publishers. Only a very small percentage of writers become published authors through this route. The hope, of course, is that through the traditional publishing process someone is weeding out the poor quality books or improving on the quality before the story gets to you, the reader.

Through the vetting process, however, books that publishers don’t seem commercially viable can be excluded from publication.  Some writers become frustrated with this and turn away from traditional publishing.

Q: I am a writer who wants to be published. Is Harlequin Horizons right for me.

Traditional Publishing Route

Only you can answer this. If you want to make a career out of writing, the traditional path is through acquiring an agent and selling to a print publishing house such as Harlequin, Random House, Penguin, and the like. Some writers cannot sell to these publishers because their books do not conform to the guidelines of a traditional publishing house, whether it does not conform for quality reasons or some other concern. Not all publishing houses offer the same advantages in terms of ability to market and sell your book. This is true for agents as well. You will need to do hard research when shopping for an agent.

Digital Press Publishing Route

Another path to making a career out of writing is through digital publishing. Under the digital publishing model, you do not get an advance but in exchange you get a higher royalty. (If you don’t know what these terms mean, please educate yourself by reading up). As with anything you need to do your research to ascertain what are the most reputable digital publishers out there.

Self Publishing Route

A final path to making a career out of writing can be through self publishing. Self publishing is where you, the writer, controls all the aspects of your work and you sell directly to the public or through retailers. There are many self publishing programs out there.

Vanity presses are for the self publisher who wants to pay someone to do the work for them. Vanity presses can be a costly and non profitable form of publishing for a writer.

Please do your research before committing to a venture like this. It is possible that self publishing or vanity press publishing is the right solution for you, but you must do your research. Do cost comparisons. Sit down and figure out how many books you would need to sell to make your investment worthwhile and the likelihood you can sell that number of books.

You can read more about vanity presses at Writer Beware blog or visiting the forums at Absolute Write or Romance Divas.

Some of the commenters also have important information regarding self publishing and vanity press publishing and the dangers therein.

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I was reading Rosario’s blog the other day and she was blogging about how much she enjoyed Linnea Sinclair’s Down Home Zombie Blues. As I was reading Rosario’s review, I was thisclose to buying the book but the fact is that Linnea Sinclair’s books just don’t work for me. I’ve tried her in the past (and on more than one occasion) because so many readers I admire love her work.

There are times when I read reviews by other readers, particularly readers like Rosario who I like and whose tastes I think are similar to mine, when I want to love that author’s work but I just don’t. I think its because when another reader articulates a love for a particular author or a particular book I find myself wishing to be in agreement with them.

I know Jo Goodman is like that for many people. I’ve heard complaints that her work is too dry or she is too wordy. Her books are too languorous. To some extent, the very reason people don’t like her or aren’t moved by her are the exact reasons why I connect with her work.

Shuzluva had these thoughts:

After tweeting with you briefly about this, I gave a lot of thought to the topic. I came back to the following thought: regarding those authors that I don’t like to read, do I really wish I did like them? I’m not sure if the answer is yes. I have quite a large stable of authors that I go back to time and again for everything, including writing outside of the romance genre (shocking, I know). And I am certainly willing to try out new or unexplored authors. There is always more room for love in my backlist. However, if I have found that I don’t like the writing style, characterization, plotting, worldbuilding or what have you, should I feel compelled to continue reading that particular author’s books just because everyone else is? Then again, I sit on the sidelines when certain authors have a big release and simply can’t be part of the hoopla, which makes me feel like the kid that wasn’t invited to the party. Here are a few examples:

Jo Goodman. I admit, I bought If His Kiss Is Wicked on your recommendation, and I can’t remember a thing about the book. I even went back and re-read your review. Nope, nothing. Not even why the characters are together. Let me curtail the inevitable suggestion that I probably read this back in 2007 and then had another baby and *POOF* there went my brain. That is not the case. I purchased this last spring while casting around for something to read. I remember reading the book relatively quickly. However, the author failed to elicit any sort of strong emotion from me one way or another. As a result, I am reluctant to make a foray into her backlist or new releases. People adore her, and I feel like I missed something.

Alex Beecroft. False Colors was a total drag for me. I felt that every time the story began to accelerate, the topic or scene would change and the momentum would come to a grinding halt. Then the entire cycle would begin again. In addition, while I thought that the historical settings, recounting of British Naval life, and extreme prejudices of the characters were fascinating and enjoyable to read, I failed to feel the connection between the two main characters on any level. I felt that there was a lack of intimacy between John and Alfie, and couldn’t see their physical or mental connection. Sure, it said they were attractive and attracted to each other, but for me, that didn’t come across through their thoughts or actions. This book was an extreme disappointment, especially after so many waxed poetic. The feeling that I overlooked something here continues.

L. L. Foster. Lori Foster was pretty much my go-to in the early stages of mass market red-light writing. I can’t call it erotica, but it was certainly hotter than the run-of-the-mill contemporary. Remember Wild and The Winston Brothers? When Dionne Galace asked me to review a stack of books including one by L. L. Foster, I was very excited to see how the writing style would change with the subgenre. Suffice it to say I wasn’t pleased with the outcome. I know a lot of people are thrilled and floored by Ms. Foster’s foray into urban fantasy. Unfortunately I am not one of them. From my review at www.dionnegalace.com:

I had a major squick issue going on here. To me, Gabrielle reads like a 15 year old delinquent. And her total innocence about sex in what is supposed to be an urban fantasy world creates a giant disconnect. I also don’t see any of the redeeming (or attractive) qualities that Luther sees in her, other than she’s hot.

Ms. Foster has legions of fans, and people are rabid for the Servant series. Along with about 1/3 of the vocabulary in the books, I don’t get it.

Do I really wish I liked what these authors are producing? It would be nice to have that visceral happy dance reaction to these authors that so many others have. I want to be a part of the majority, damn it, and to look forward to collecting backlists and jumping on new releases and tweeting and commenting with the rest of the romance reading community. To get over it, I’ll just go cry into the box of books I bought from BN today.

I’m with Shuzluva. It’s not so much I want to part of the majority, but it’s about wanting to be part of that community. When there is great love expressed for a book and I read it and didn’t feel the same way. Conversely, I want people I like to like the same books I have enjoyed. In fact, in emailing with a friend last night she confessed she hadn’t read either Nalini Singh or Patricia Briggs. Half jokingly I said something like “don’t email me again if you aren’t expressing anything but joy over these authors’ works.”

What about you? Do you feel a bit glum when you are out of synch with readers you like? Do you want others to like the books you like? Any suggestions on why you think that is? Any authors you wish you liked more but don’t?

(Special thanks to Shuzluva for allowing me to reprint her email to me in its entirety!)

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St. Martin’s Press and Simon & Schuster are notorious for selling its ebooks at a super premium price.  Simon & Schuster lists several of the backlist titles at $9.99 ebook price even though these books are currently available in a mass market price.  St. Martin’s Press lists ebooks as high as $14.00 for books that have a comparable print version in mass market.

It frustrates me to no end that St. Martin’s Press and Simon & Schuster place what I like to call an ebook tax on its digital copies.  I would love to access Ellora’s Cave books outside of Ellora’s Cave. I find the checkout process to be unwieldy and frustrating. Oftentimes the site will not load or the login process takes several attempts or the book won’t download and so forth.  But to charge twice as much at a third party site is not only frustrating but seems short sighted.

The core readership of Ellora’s Cave is not likely to switch their buying habits to accessing books via a third party site, knowing that the prices at Ellora’s Cave are cheaper.  Readers who do buy via  a third party but learn later that they paid twice as much will become very frustrated.  But will the ire be directed at the publisher (Ellora’s Cave) or the individual author?

Digital publishers are heavily publisher branded.  I think readers associate heavily with the publisher identity rather than individual authors when it comes to digital publishing.  When you look at the covers of Ellora’s Cave books, Samhain, Loose-Id, and Liquid Silver, to name a few, the publisher brand is carried on the front cover itself.  I sometimes think that EC and the digital publishers that came after them were inspired by the Harlequin category lines and its heavy publisher branding.

Interestingly, over at Barnes and Noble, readers are upset with the ebook prices at BN, arguing that the BN prices are too high in comparison with Amazon.

For most readers, though, the face of a book is the author. If the reader doesn’t like the title or the cover or the price, the reader often blames the author.  If there are typos and grammatical errors that occur in the post author stage because some copyeditor gets his hands on the manuscript last, the author gets blamed.   So, in the case of ebook pricing, does the reader blame the author, the publisher or the retailer?

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For Consumers

There were quite a few positive changes.  To address the concern of price fixing that the DOJ had expressed, the Books Registry no longer has any say in the pricing of books.  This is really a win for consumers and for Google.  Google now has the sole right to set prices and will do so using an algorithm developed based on market pricing.  Authors might not like this because pricing of ebooks is trending downwards but it’s a plus for consumers.  Additional revenue models have been changed to be limited to POD and PDF/EPUB downloads.

For Authors of Books in Print and Under Contract

The revised agreement also resolves many concerns that authors of books in print and under contract may have.  It has removed the requirement to arbitrate one’s cases.  Authors are allowed to dictate how a book is displayed through Google Book Search and can remove the book from sale if she disagrees with pricing or discounts.

Authors can also designate creative commons use/reuse rights, free distribution and removal of any display restrictions.

Orphan Works

Still a central feature of the Google Book Settlement is the treatment of Orphan Works.  Orphan Works are works that are in copyright but the owner of the copyright is not found.  This usually occurs because the original content creator has died and has no direct heirs or the heirs do not know of their right to copyright.

The new agreement proposes to set up an Unclaimed Works Fiduciary.  This person would be appointed by a supermajority vote from the Books Registry Board and be subject to court approval.  The Unclaimed Works Fiduciary will be vested with the power to grant use licenses for these Orphaned Works.  The money generated from the use of the Orphan Work license will be held in trust until such time as the rightful owner can be identified.  After the 6th year of existence, the Registry can authorize the use of up to 25% of the funds in that trust to locate the rightful owners.  After 10 years, the Registry can apply for court approval of distribution of funds to literacy based charities.

Essentially, the Google Book Settlement wants to create a Blackwater for Orphan Works.  Blackwater is a private company that contracts with the government to offer various military related services.  Blackwater serves as a government contractor to carry out the duties of the government that it cannot do itself.  The government engages many, many contractors.  Medicare program is administered by private contractors throughout the country.  Individual public works projects such as highway repair or building construction are also carried out by contractors.

While the Copyright Agency could carry out the tasks that are being offered by the Registry and the UWF, it doesn’t have the funding nor staffing.  Nor is there a legal structure which would allow the Copyright Agency to carry out the role of the Registry or the UWF.

The Registry and the Unclaimed Works Fiduciary wants to stand in the shoes of the government to administer a program that would allow the use of orphan works, collect money, and hold the money in trust.  If the money goes unclaimed, the Registry and the UWF would distribute the money in way that would ostensibly assist the public.  Google profits off the use of Orphan Works by establishing a larger database of searchable works than any other company.

In theory, the offering of orphan works to the public is is a social good.  Google wants to create a world library that would permit the public access to books that it would not have in the past.  However, the approval of this settlement sets this precedent.  Where the law is lacking, private organizations with money and power can come together to create a private solution and change the law without legislative process.

Let me draw this example.  Every year, real and personal property goes unclaimed primarily because people die without wills and heirs are not easily located.  This property such as land, uncashed checks, stock certificates, or jewelry or other goods is taken by various States and then kept in trust until the property can be claimed.  What if, instead of the property being turned over to the State, a private company came in and collected the unclaimed property up.  They cashed the checks and use the interest for their own benefit, but never spent the principal.  The company maybe even developed some of the land and placed a museum on it and made it open to the public so that the could see the property, enjoy the land.  If some heir came along and was able to prove ownership, the company would give it up.

What’s the problem with this?  The taking of someone else’s property for one’s own use is just fundamentally contrary to the rights of ownership upon which our legal system is based.  The government may not do this without complying with specific legal guidelines (it’s called eminent domain).  Further, laws are created and changed through legislative process, not through private agreements.  Finally, under this agreement only Google would have the unfettered right to be free of suits from Orphan Work heirs (and any other copyright holder). Only Google would be able to create a worldwide library because other companies would be subject to the lawsuits of copyright holders.

The question that Judge Dennis Chin, the judge overseeing the Google Book lawsuit, must answer is this:  Is the social good of creating a mechanism to deal with Orphan Works (an issue long ignored by the legislative process) greater than the requirement that laws are changed only through legislative process? I’m uncertain.

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There is not a more common hero archetype in historical romance than the “rake”. In my early days of reading, I always viewed the “rake” as a sign of virility of the hero.  In romance novels, the women titter about the rake’s scandalous reputation while parading their young in front of him.  The adage “rakes make the best husbands” is passed as truth.  In this post, I am making the case that the rake isn’t a very heroic trait.

What does a rake really signify?  There’s the saying “every man wanted to be him and every woman wanted to be with him.” To be a rake meant that you really made no effort to turn anyone down.  A rake is a man with few scruples.  He sleeps with widows, married women and often engages in dalliances with young unmarried women and certainly has sex with courtesans and maybe even whores of a lower class.  A rake is really a man with little honor.  By sleeping with married women, he engages in cheating.  By seducing the young unmarried women, he places his desires in front of their reputation, the most important thing a young girl had.  By dallying with servants, he takes advantage of someone who really can’t say no.  How many books have we read about the beautiful governess who is hassled by her employer.  The fact that a man is a rake doesn’t mean he is good in bed, it mainly means he’s indiscriminate.  Yet, for some reason, being a rake is something virtually celebrated amongst romance books.

One of my least favorite Suzanne Enoch books (and she’s an author I like quite a bit) is Sin and Sensibility, published in 2005.  The book opens with the hero getting a blowjob at a ball. He’s drinking whiskey while getting serviced, as if it isn’t anything more commonplace that sitting in the waiting room waiting for one’s oil to be changed.  As he is drinking his whiskey and observing the crowd, he presses his hand to the back of the neck of the married woman fellating him.  The coldness in this scene had a visceral impact on me.  I literally, from the first page, began to hate the hero.  Later, after he walks around the ballroom, he notes:

As he left, he glimpsed several young ladies following him with their eyes.  It was something he was used to, and offering the chits a slight smile, he memorized the faces for future reference.  One never knew when one might become bored with faro.

The heroine’s brothers are good friends with the hero.  Why? I’m not sure.  Why would you allow this person into the bosom of your family?  At least Deverill, the hero in Sin and Sensibility, displays his rake-like nature for the readers.  Oftentimes, the rake never acts on his rakish past during the pages of the book. He’s just given the “rake” trait as others talk about him. In other words, the readers are told that he is a rake but we aren’t shown he is a rake.  Because a rake’s actions aren’t very heroic.

I can’t remember when I started turning against the rake, began to see this usage as something dishonorable rather than attractive, a trait from which the hero must be redeemed.  In One Forbidden Evening, Cybelline seeks out Ferris because he has the reputation for being a rake.  She wants anonymous sex with someone who won’t ask questions, who didn’t care to know her identity, who wouldn’t have any real moral qualms about the setup of having sex with a woman at a masquerade when she doesn’t even want to take her mask off.  Ferris wants to be offended by this but he knows he’s at fault for building up the rake reputation because it provided a decent camouflage.

Carolyn Jewel has two books wherein the hero’s “rake” behavior actually works against him.  In Lord Ruin, the hero is found in bed with the  heroine and even if the brother would like to prevent the marriage, the hero’s reputation is so scandalous that if the heroine doesn’t marry him, the hero will be ruined.  In Scandal, the hero’s penchant for whoring and cheating prevents him from having the one woman he really wants.  The entire book is given over to him changing his ways, trying to become more responsible, convincing the heroine that he is worth the chance.

Many readers dislike Sebastian in To Have and To Hold by Patricia Gaffney because he acts despicable.  He basically rapes Rachel.  He says that she can either sleep with him or go to the gallows.  He hands her over as a sexual gift to one of his dissolute acquaintances.  He is, in short, a villain.  The story is of his redemption; his climb from the very depths of execrable character to become a person worthy of Rachel’s love.   Sebastian is a true rake, someone so dissolute that buying a woman from the gallows to serve his sexual needs is nothing.

I think the “rake” is one of the examples of shorthand in the romance genre where authors use it to make the hero exciting, dangerous, and virile.  It’s something an author tells us but what does the author show us about a rake hero?  How is being a “rake” a good thing? and if it isn’t a good thing, then shouldn’t the fact the the hero is a rake something he should overcome/come to terms with?

Do you like the rake hero? What does it mean to you?  Do you think my interpretation of the rake is wrong? or too extreme?

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In reading the Audacity to Win, the errors started in the warning stage:

Throughout the book, I found several errors, the most egregious of which I screenshot for this post. However, there were frequent missing periods or quotation marks, usually at the beginning of a sentence.  I waver between laughter and frustration.  To some extent, I’m becoming inured to these errors.  They are present from small independent epublishers like Belgrave House to the largest publishing houses like Penguin and Harlequin.

I am of the opinion that a book should be error free, but I don’t think that the casual reader really cares about this.  In taking a quick poll of my family, only my mother, a former teacher, really cared that a book was perfect in its proofing.  The three others, all big readers, shrugged.

I know that some authors are very conscious of errors in their books and will agonize over not just the right word, but whether the word should be italicized.  Seeing spelling errors in their books drive them crazy.  Oftentimes there are edits that take place after the author has seen it and before it gets to the printer.

I have been thinking that proofing or copy editing for ebooks perhaps don’t take place. Certainly a spell check would have caught “authons”, “authoris”,  ”FUnfortunately” and “oany”.

Perhaps, though, errors are actually commonplace and in a book with 90,000+ words, should we really be so concerned about a few proofing errors here or there?  Maybe proofing errors are merely funfortunate, a wry type of fun.  What do you think?

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Robin talks about this all the time. A short cut is a romance convenience, not just a convention. All genres have them but I’m most familiar with the romance genre and thus my attention is placed on its foibles.

Shortcuts are when an author relies on an archetype or trope in order to draw upon the collective memory of a romance reader to fill in the necessary motivation or backstory for a character. This often results in anachronistic behavior which confuses the reader and results in accusations of the reader not understanding. It can also result in distance between the reader and the story because the reader simply isn’t provided enough information to relate to the characters.

Despite how silly it may appear, JR Ward appears on her boards in character from time to time. She knows her male characters intimately, down to the type of liquor that they like to drink; whether they wear jeans, tailored slacks or leather pants; and if they are a boxer, brief, commando guy. Unfortunately, her heroines are not so well developed. The depth of their characters largely rests on the color of their guns and perhaps their pre-BDB employment.

In TV and movies, the actors themselves bring flavor to the character in terms of facial expressions, body language, and intonations. If an author does not provide this, the reader is required to fill in all of this information.

There are some authors who excel at characterizations: Lisa Kleypas is one. Cam is quite a different hero than Merripen even though they are both of gypsy descent. Nora Roberts and Suzanne Brockmann are equally adept at creating memorable and different characters.

But often you see a reliance on shorthand to provide the flavor of a character. It is this reliance that produces the cookie cutter feel of the genre. So much of how a character acts in the course of the book should depend, not just on the circumstances, but what has gone on before the story ever starts. What was their childhood like? In Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta Chase sets up her story by showing Sebastien as a child, eager to earn the love and appreciation of his father, only to be cast aside brutally for a speech impediment and his swarthy looks. He grows up to despise his appearance and believes that he is not loveable. Jessica Trent, on the other hand, has been a poor relation with a open minded grandmother/guardian and a hapless brother. Jessica creates some of her own messes by constantly bailing out her brother and not forcing him to make decisions for himself.

A character that springs fully formed without backstory or acts with inconsistency often provides a disjointed read. What was their childhood like? Did they have siblings? Where in the order of the family did the character place? Did the character grow up in the country? city? rural? urban? Who were the most influential people in their lives and why? Did religion affect them?

To some extent, I think the worry about writing racially diverse characters can be allayed if authors spend time thinking about the character rather than focusing so much on inserting one or two elements to prove the character’s nationality.

There should be elements of the character’s life that the author knows but we may never see. Where the backstory informs the character’s decision making process. I wish as much time were spent constructing hte character as an author spends constructing the world in which the character’s live.

Robin: It’s interesting, because at first I didn’t notice the genre shortcuts/shorthand. I read books I thought were so interesting and then I’d talk to a friend about them and she was like, “eh, I’ve read hundreds of those.” Now that I have read hundreds of those, I get it. And in many cases it frustrates me.

I understand that authors feel constricted by diminishing page and word lengths, but some of my favorite books in the genre remain the old Laura London (aka Sharon and Tom Curtis) category Regencies. Without explicit sex, often little more than a few hot and heavy kisses, these books, from Love’s A Stage to the Bad Baron’s Daughter, feel so richly layered to me, even upon multiple re-reads. Allusions to classical literature and myth, primary and secondary characters posssessing surprising dimension, interesting plot turns (how about getting the hero and heroine into an escaped hot air balloon and stranding them in a crumbling country manor house for the night?), and tight, elegant prose, books like these make me somewhat impatient with complaints about the limits of space. Especially when book after book seems to be turning out another profligate aristocrat, penniless debutante, quirky widow/divorcee with a fluffy little dog, and Navy SEAL.

Even more problematic, I think, is the was shortcuts become entrenched genre authority, passed between books so readily and indiscriminately that readers will often insist on the authenticity or accuracy of something that is, in fact, completely invented. Although I still don’t understand the system of titles and entailments, I know that these areas are a source of constant frustration for those who know intimately how it really worked, since the genre so rarely seems to conform to historical reality. I get a little crazy every time I see the maurading Viking hero presented as the exemplar of uncivilized lustiness. Or American Puritans as sexless prudes. We see it everywhere, from small examples (red hair in a heroine equals fiery and passionate; the FBI/CIA hero equals mysterious and/or brooding alpha in need of love and understanding) to large (Heyer’s Regency history has been accepted as real and has populated the genre with who knows how many misnomers and mistakes).

Although I do not believe that shortcuts reflect lazy storytelling, I do think that if we don’t spend some time thinking about whether they are still valid and useful, the genre runs the risk of getting stale and, more problematically, of perpetuating outdated and undesirable stereotypes. The sheikh as the “exotic other lover,” for example, or the virgin widow as the sensuous virgin, or the trusty Black sidekick as a dose of ethnic flavor, or the pedophilac villain as everything evil imperiling the romantic couple. And when I see resistance to taking a second look at these shortcuts, I’m always puzzled, especially when I see authors talk about how devoted to the craft of writing they remain. I know that many regard Romance as formulaic (I prefer to see its boundaries as those of form rather than formula), but every good recipe depends on fresh ingredients. If you use stale flour to bake a cake, it’s not going to be comforting and delicious – it’s going to taste like cardboard, or worse.

With all of the ways the genre riffs off its broad history, there is a vertible treasure trove (and we know how much Romance loves treasure, especially if it’s accompanied by a sexy pirate) of types and tropes to refresh and reinterpret. Sure, one day those will become shortcuts, too, but hopefully by then we’ll have moved on to the next interpretive movement within the genre.

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Earlier in this year of 2009, there was a Great Cultural Appropriation Debate, dubbed racefail09, that centred mainly around the SF/F genres. If you clicked on that link, it leads to a set of many, many, many links about race, racism, cultural appropriation and white privilege. (If you’ve never heard of these terms before – or your knee jerk reaction is to say “I don’t have white privilege!” – this is a good place to start reading.)

Romance suffers from the same problem SF/F does. It’s very, very white. It would also seem that readers are far more okay with reading about vampires and werewolves and demons and angels than characters of colour. That is not okay. Think about what this means for a second. And imagine, if you will, being erased in stories or always in the background, a victim, evil, maybe the best friend or sidekick. . .but never the hero of your own story. This is what appropriation does to people of colour. It is not diversity to have white people running around in foreign lands without much thought to the people who are native to those lands. I can’t say I find it romantic when they’re in the middle of colonizing another country either; I’m not sure how I’m supposed to root for our heroes when they’re killing or enslaving other people, or condoning/profiting from it, even if they aren’t actively participating (this is an issue even when white characters don’t visit foreign lands, but it’s a bit harder to ignore, I think, when they’re in the middle of taking over another country).

Is it possible to write white people in foreign lands without it being appropriative? I don’t think I’ve seen this done in a historical. I hesitate to say never (it’s not like I’ve read every book in the romance genre), but at the same time, there’s also the issue of creating yet another story about white people. Even if this story were remarkably absent of exoticism and respectful of the other culture, it still features white people, which means the characters of colour are in the background somewhere; this is a problem in contemporary (and fantasy) settings, as well. The stories of white people are being privileged over the stories of people of colour. If you truly mean to be diverse, write and read about people of colour. Make them the main characters of your stories. Even – or especially – in a historical romance.

I admit to reading less and less romance novels as I’ve grown more aware of these issues. I’ve also fallen out of the fandom quite a bit because there seems to be an overwhelming pressure to keep things “nice” and “polite”; I can understand the need for civil discourse, but not when tone is used as a silencing tactic so these things don’t get discussed. So I read other genres, like YA, which is still mainly white, but seems to be a bit more open to diversity. There’s this YA book I read the other day, Justina Chen Headley’s Girl Overboard, that I fell in love with. It’s everything I mean and want to see in a book when I say there ought to be people of colour in the leading roles.

Girl Overboard is about a Chinese-American teenage girl, Syrah Cheng, whose story is one of growing up, finding herself, dealing with her parents, making friends, thinking about boys, thinking about her future… And snowboarding and drawing manga. I like to think some of Syrah’s emotions and experiences are universal enough that white people would be willing to read about them and perhaps even see themselves in this character; after all, it’s what many people of colour often (have to) do. I appreciate that this isn’t a book about race or racism; they are mentioned, but are not the main focus of the story (there’s a place for those books too, but not what I always want to read). For the most part, being Chinese simply is. And it’s integrated with the American culture of the Pacific Northwest because Syrah is a first generation citizen living in Seattle. This book stands out to me not only as a fabulous story, but also as a story about people of colour by a person of colour. [/plugging]

One way to combat appropriation is to let and encourage people (writers) of colour tell their own stories. I don’t see a reason why this couldn’t apply to romance as well. It already exists, though I’ve only read it in a contemporary setting with Marjorie Liu’s books (her supernatural people don’t bother me because she has actual characters of colour in her books. I mean, I like the X-Men. I see value in metaphors, but the metaphor of alienation, being different, being treated as sub-human, etc, only goes so far when there aren’t any characters of colour in your stories, which ends up perpetuating the problems the metaphors are attempting to address.)

As a romance reader, I’ve grown increasingly wary of books set in “exotic” locations. I never know, if I read that story, if it’s going to offend or hurt me in some way. It’s easier, for me, to suspend disbelief – pretend it’s a kind of fantasy or alternate history – if the story is about rich, upper-class white people doing rich, upper-class white people things. Although this is not to say it’s a good thing to have “wallpaper history” as the setting, or that writers should aim for such a low standard or write alternate histories in which people of colour are erased. I am saying, when writing people of colour or another person’s culture, take the time to know what you’re writing about. If I never see another non-white person described as “exotic” or with “almond shaped eyes“, it won’t be soon enough. If nothing else, I think these are very lazy terms to use to describe someone who isn’t white — it’s an extremely vague description and rather insulting to be lumped together in one or two tired phrases, like all people of colour (POC) look alike (and, for some reason, we always get compared to food. What’s up with that?). I would like to think it’s possible for historical romances about characters of colour, set somewhere that isn’t England or America, and that’s respectful of the culture to exist. And that white people could write these stories alongside writers of colour telling their own stories. I’m just not sure that I’ve seen it, or, actually, looked for it.

I’m not saying writing is easy to do. I’m not saying writers will get writing other people and their culture(s) right all the time. And it’s hard, as a reader, to come across beloved books or authors and find out their writing contains racist or white privileged ideas. I’m not saying you will cure racism. I’m not saying I want authors to defend their work; I’d like them not to continue to further get stuff wrong, though. I’m not even saying you’ll be praised for your efforts (especially if you get stuff wrong — your intentions are only as good as the outcome). I am saying you should try, regardless. And I think supporting or reading books by and about people of colour is one way to do this; as is being more aware of when cultural appropriation, racism and white privilege are occurring in your fiction and perhaps even talking and educating others about it.

Janine adds: Handy Hunter, our guest blogger, has requested that we add this video of a speech given by Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie, titled “The Danger of a Single Story,” to the bottom of this opinion piece. You won’t regret watching it. It’s truly excellent!

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• REVIEW: Sheikh’s Forbidden Virgin by Kate Hewitt
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• REVIEW: Scandal in Copper Lake by Marilyn Pappano
• Solutions for Greater Equality in the Romance Market or We Can Haz Help?
• Literary Segregation or Market Specialization?

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Amazon for example, says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device. That factor is up from 2.7 in December 2008. So a reader who had previously bought eight books from Amazon would now purchase, on average, 24.8 books, a rise from 21.6 books.

We romance readers know that from our own experience. Many of the early adopters of ebooks have been romance readers who buy more books than any subset of readers out there.

The negative takeaway from the Times article was that there was a reader who shared a Kindle account with someone else. She was quoted as thinking she was probably taking advantage of a loophole.

Ms. Englin has linked her Kindle to the Amazon account of some nearby friends, allowing all of them to read books like “The Lost Symbol” at the same time — while paying for them only once.

“I read much more, I tend to read faster for some reason, and I read a greater variety of things,” said Ms. Englin, adding that this is nearly the same as lending a physical book to friends. “We haven’t really looked closely at Amazon’s terms of service. But I do suspect we are breaking the rules.”

This caused some authors to start calling her a thief and trying to shame her. I pointed out that the Kindle Terms of Service allow for up to six devices to be registered to a single account.  A number of authors did not believe Eglin was acting lawfully or ethically:

Ross continued:

• We’re in total agreement. RT @zumayabooks: @JoAnnRoss If you’ve only PAID for 1 copy, you’ve stolen the other 5.
• @NinaPierce She says it’s not stealing. But she’s wrong. I commented on the blog, will see if she allows it and what she says in response.

Ross checked with Amazon:

When you hook up a device to a Kindle account, whether it is an iPhone/iTouch or Kindle, every user of the registered device has the ability to charge books to that account so only those you really, really trust would register a device on the same account.

Then the discussion segued into more general copyright issues.  Elizabeth Burton, a publisher, had this to say:

and this:

The problem here is that the very same law that gives authors a property right to their creative work gives consumers the right of first sale and fair use privileges.  Let me state that again.  The VERY SAME LAW that creates intellectual property for authors gives readers rights too.

Here’s how it works.

• COPYRIGHT LAW  gives a bundle of rights to AUTHORS.
• AUTHORS sell that bundle of rights, including the right of distribution and copying to a PUBLISHER in exchange for money.
• PUBLISHER exercises its purchased rights by making many copies and selling those copies in a few ways including, but not limited to, the following two:

1. A SALE which results in a consumer purchasing the book and gaining the RIGHT OF FIRST SALE and FAIR USE RIGHTS granted by same COPYRIGHT LAW.

2. A LEASE which is bound by the terms of an agreement.

In the Kindle instance, the purchase is of a lease of a book for as long as Amazon deems it appropriate for you to have access to a copy.  The contractual terms between a Kindle owner and Amazon allows for up to six devices registered to an account to simultaneously share that book.  This is not infringement as so many authors (looking at you, Toni Blake, and others) have suggested.  What Amazon is allowed to share with a reader is dependent on the rights that are granted to Amazon by publishers.  Hence the turning off of Text to Speech and conversely, the allowance of 6 simultaneous downloads.

To unapologetically call a reader a THIEF when she is exercising a right granted by Amazon and therefore by the publisher is terrible. It’s an affront to all readers.

No laws are being skirted.  No laws are changed.  Except that readers are being given the shaft.  Because some readers prefer to read digital books, our rights have been erased.  We cannot resell a digital book because no one trusts that we have deleted the originals.  We cannot be allowed to share a book because the fear is that pressing the email button with an attachment being feared we are using it as a copy button.  WE ARE PRESUMED TO BE DIRTY, THIEVING CRIMINALS.  I AM VERY TIRED OF IT.

The default position is that we ebook readers are always engaged in some form of wrongdoing.  We are charged more.  We don’t get the book at the same time.  We are constrained in how we use our books, on what devices we read them on, with whom we can share them.  We are not considered legitimate customers if we do not leave our house and buy a paper copy.

Sharing is a fundamental part of reading.  Sharing is a reader’s way of saying “try this, I think you’ll like it. There is no risk here.” It’s a way of building a relationship with another reader so that the next time you are reading a book, you can say, “get this” and that person will go and buy it, solely on your recommendation.  From one reader to another, there is no greater expression of trust than to buy on another reader’s recommendation.

Sharing is part of creating the reading community. Sharing seeds reading.  It creates and generates more interest in reading. Why is this important? Because the biggest threat to authors’ livelihood is not piracy.  It is not casual sharing.  It is a declining readership.  It is rising rates of illiteracy.  It is alternative forms of entertainment.

I am not arguing that piracy is right. It is not.  But sharing between people on one Kindle account is not piracy and to equate piracy with sharing is incredibly insulting and frustrating.  As an ebook reader, I have given up so many rights.

Thank god for people like Courtney Milan and Tessa Dare who blogged about readers’ rights too.  Discovering what seemed like so many authors ill regard toward sharing, that so many would leap to the conclusion that sharing amongst even six readers is piracy, is so offputting that I am reluctant to foster anyone else’s joy in reading.   If authors want us to respect them and their rights, they need to start respecting us and our rights.

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• Author Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Text to Speech Functionality
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• Tuesday Midday Review Links: Kindle is everywhere but Canada (WTF?)
• Wednesday Midday Links RoundUp: Big Changes at Simon & Schuster
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I loved reading the lists that people made up of their top 16 books this past week in honor of Kathleen Winsor.  In making up my own lists of top books (either for the end of the year or for something else), I struggle with competing concepts.  There are my favorite books.  There are books that I think are well written.  There are books that I find to be groundbreaking.  These three types of books don’t always overlap for me.

Favorite Books

I have books that I love to re-read time and again.  Are they the best books ever written in the romance genre? Probably not.  For example, Savage Thunder by Johanna Lindsey is one of my favorite romances.  Savage Thunder is about a half breed who is hired by Jocelyn Fleming, a recently widowed virgin duchess.  It seems hard to believe that Lindsey was able to fit all those iconic (ironic?) tropes into one heroine, but she did.   The hero’s name is Colt Thunder. I know!  It’s hard to type that without giggling.  Despite the cliches, this book works for me.

One of the things I loved about this book was Jocelyn’s world view.  Sex is something to be enjoyed.  She has few prejudices which is believable given that she spends three years traveling around the world.  She decides she wants to take a lover but she cannot take one who may have known Edward, her deceased husband.  She doesn’t want anything to impugn his memory.  When her entourage was in Mexico, she found several men attractive but her interest wasn’t returned.   When she was in the Middle East, she was too raw from Edward’s death.  (She found the boldness of the men to be “sheer arrogance and audacity”).  Now she longs for a bold man.

Instead Jocelyn gets Colt Thunder who aids Jocelyn’s group.

“I’m not associated, as you put it, with anyone, lady. Christ, what is this with all the questions? Either you want out of there or you don’t. Now, I can understand if you feel you’d be dirtying your hand putting it to mine for a lift up”—the impatience turned distinctly bitter here—”but I don’t see much alternative just now—unless you want to wait for the next fellow who comes passing by.”

“Not at all,” Jocelyn said with relief, certain now he meant them no harm. “A little dirt can be easily washed off,” she added with a smile, having misunderstood his meaning.

Colt has been the subject of terrible racial violence.  As a half breed, he is viewed as a non person by both groups.  He has barely recovered from being nearly whipped to death for having the audacity to touch a white woman.   He views whites with suspicion and has a hard time wrapping his head around Jocelyn’s seeming indifference to his half breed status.

“I was born in this country, but folks got a different name for me, lady. I’m a half-breed.”

“How interesting,” she said, aware his tone had turned bitter again, but choosing to ignore it. “It sounds like something to do with stock and crossbreeding. What does it have to do with people?”

He stared at her for a moment as if she were crazy; then he swore under his breath before snarling, “What the hell do you think it has to do with people? It means I’m only half white.”

His tone gave her pause, but still she asked, “And the other half?”

Jocelyn’s refusal to accept Colt’s prejudice (either his own or other’s toward him) provides a great source of humor throughout the story.   Savage Thunder has a heroine looking to rid herself of her virginity; a half breed with a chip  on his shoulder a mile wild; and a secondary romance between the heroine’s best friend and companion, a sexually experienced woman, and one of Jocelyn’s guards.  This book was published in 1989.  I found it awesome when I first read and I get a little thrill each time I crack it open for a re-read.  But is it one of the best books that has been written?

Well written books

One thing that I never really noticed or even paid attention to before I got online was layering or theming in a book.  I never really understood character arcs, patterns or even plots.  I joined Jennifer Crusie’s yahoo group  in 2001 and her contribution to that list provided some of the most illuminating information about writing I have ever read.   I started thinking about romances more critically.  Over the years, I’ve learned to examine books a bit more clinically but I respond to books from my gut.

There are times when my gut and my head don’t work in synchronism.  Flowers from the Storm (pub. 1992) is  book that I can recognize as being an amazingly well crafted story.  When I see it on “Best of” lists, I nod my head in agreement. It is a well written book, probably one of the best in the genre.  If you were to give this book to someone who doesn’t read romance, I think that person would be hard pressed to find that there is anything about it that norms the stereotypes.

The hero is Christian Langland, Duke of Jervaulx, who spends most of his time drinking and whoring, living the life of luxury and ease.  He was also a brilliant mathematician who had been working on a paper with the father of Archemedia Timms.  Maddy, as she is known, despises Christian for his lifestyle and for the attention that he receives from her father.

Christian suffers a stroke after a duel and his family decides to institutionalize him in order to seize control over his assets.  Maddy finds him there and knows that he is neither mad nor stupid, but unable to speak and with diminished hearing.  Maddy is moved to help Christian.

Neither Maddy or Christian are delightful characters. Christian is a selfish cad, even after he suffers his stroke.  Kinsale does a superb job of showing us his personal anguish at being taken for a madman and placed in an institution.  Maddy is self righteous.  She is unbending from her faith and her beliefs even unto the end, although her love for Christian, a non Quaker, is the basis of her greatest break with her religion. The constant criticism that Christian and Maddy receive from external forces (his family, her Quaker friends) only serves to strengthen their bond.

Stunningly, Kinsale maintains the characters’ mannerisms even in their narrative dialogues. In other words, Maddy’s personal thoughts are still in the Quaker-ease, using the thees, thous, and other mannerisms.  Ditto for Christian.  There is nothing trite or frivilous in this book. It’s a serious examination of vulnerabilities, growth, questions of faith, and acceptance of personal frailties.

Having said that, Flowers from the Storm is a book I’ve only read a couple of times.  I find myself curiously detached from the romance.  It’s not an easy read and I don’t count it was one of my favorites.  It’s not even my favorite Kinsale (For My Lady’s Heart and  The Shadow and the Star vie for that).

Groundbreaking Books

There are a few titles that, in hindsight, I find to be rather groundbreaking within the genre.  Groundbreaking for me is a book that sets off a rash of imitators or brings a certain sub genre into popularity.  Some groundbreaking books in my opinion include: Stephanie Laurens, Devil’s Bride (pub 1998); Christine Feehan’s Dark Prince (pub. 1999); Julia Quinn’s Duke and I (pub 2000).

Devil’s Bride wasn’t the first book to feature the hero in pursuit, but I believe that it’s popularity led to a decade long worth of novels featuring the hero doing the pursuing.  Duke and I marked Quinn’s rise to stardom. Did you know that it wasn’t even an NYTimes Bestseller?  In fact, Quinn did not make the NYT list until An Offer from a Gentleman, the third in the Bridgerton series.  Avon has tried to replicate the tone and voice of Quinn in a number of regency romance releases since the 2000s but Quinn is a one of a kind.  Dark Prince by Christine Feehan made the whole paranormal romance subgenre popular.

By virtue of being groundbreaking, to exclude these books from a best of list seems somehow negligent; yet, Dark Prince and Devil’s Bride have been done so repetitively (by the original creators no less) that re-reading the books is almost a chore rather than a pleasure.  Duke and I doesn’t even rate on most people’s list as their most favorite Bridgerton novel.

In composing best of lists, do you choose your favorites, the best written, the most groundbreaking?  Does it matter? Do you think there are conflicts between those categories? Would you categorize the books differently?

Related Posts:

• Best of 2008 List: Reviewer Joan/Sarah F

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