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

One book that I’ve read that has really challenged my own personal belief system is Natural Law by Joey Hill. It changed my perceptions about BDSM and won me as a reader for life for Joey Hill. She really has a gift of making a reader accept something that might be previously unacceptable. Her newest book, Mermaid’s Kiss, is due in bookstores on November 5, 2008. It’s a lighter book from Joey Hill (although that’s kind of a qualitative statement), still sexy, still different, and doesn’t have BDSM if that turns you off. But if you are curious, try out Natural Law. It might be an eye opener.
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The Power of the Male Submissive
‘service’, not ‘servile’

Months ago, before I entered the submersible known as “Deadline Hell”, Jane asked me to write an article on this topic. I was flattered to be asked. I assume she thought I’d have good insight because my Female Dominant/male submissive erotic romances have crossed the intersection and proven themselves appealing to female romance readers who traditionally prefer alpha males. In preparation for this article, I put the question …

I read on Twitter that Angela James was looking to take advantage of the Fictionwise 50% rebate offer but couldn’t find any books. I am ordering some dead tree books on Amazon and need one more to meet the free shipping. Help us out here. My shopping cart looks like this:

The Outback Stars (Tor Science Fiction) - Sandra McDonald (recommended by Heather at The Galaxy Express)
To Tempt A Scotsman (Zebra Debut) - Victoria Dahl
Fools Rush In - Kristan Higgins

Suggestions?

It’s long puzzled me that there are individuals out there that want to prevent the gay and lesbian community the joys of divorce, boring sex, and marital infidelity by enacting constitutional amendments to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.  Why should the gay and lesbian community get all the benefits of being in a committed relationship without the legal entanglements?  They should be punished by the law for making marital mistakes just like heterosexual couples.

This is why I am glad that famed sex advice giver, Dan Savage, is offering up a contest for those who donate to the cause to stop these constitutional amendments.
The six biggest Savage Love donors to either www.noonprop8.com or www.sayno2.com will see their letters in print, and everyone who makes a donation of at least $25 to either group—send me your donation confirmation e-mail along with your question—gets a personal reply from yours truly. The cutoff date for eligible letters is October 16.
Who else wants to give money so that gay and lesbians can be unhappy divorcees?

I’ve been keeping a worksheet this year to track the trends of book sales for the calendar year of 2008. It’s been interesting to see how individual categories of books have sold over the year. The biggest gains have been achieved by ebooks. Even though ebooks haven’t broke into the mainstream, ebook sales are growing expontentially.  From January through August, the ebook numbers look like this (in the millions of sales):

^26.1 (3.1m)
^6.7 (2.6m)
^58.9% (4.4)
^19.9% (3.4 m)
^24.3% ($3.3 m)
^87.4% (4.9m)
^71.1 (4.5m)
^82.9% (4.3m)

These numbers reflect increases from same month sales of a previous year (as opposed to Year to Date sales numbers).

The Children’s/YA Hardcover has been hit hard by the loss of Rowling:

Childrens Hardcover
-21.9% (33.6m)
^8.1 (40.7m)
^2.4 (48.1m)
-19.9% ($39 m)
-4.9% ($40.4 m)
^18.2% (48.8m)
-77.2% (58.6m)
-9.3% (70.1m)

That 77.2% decline is for the month of July and represents a decline of 77% in same month sales from 2007. July 2007, of course, saw the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Adult mass market sales (50% of which are represented by romance sales) are troubling:

Adult Mass Market
^17.3% (65.3m)
^0.4% (59.5 m)
-10.9 (67.4m)
^ 4.7% (53.2 m)
-9.6% ($77.2 m)
^1.2% ($71.9m)
^29.6 (78.8m)
-4.5% (70.1m)

Except for January and July, Adult Mass Market sales have either showed small …

Last week, we saw some previews of the comic book that Dabel Brothers is doing of Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series. Only when people went to pre-order the comic book, the purchase link was elusive.

Here are some details straight from the Briggs website:

You can download a preview of the first graphic novel in .pdf format. While it’s missing the text, it certainly shows the quality of the artwork and layout. The Dables have produced a press release giving more details about the series. To order the series, contact your local comic book store, or use this handy order form.

Ever the demanding person, I lamented that I thought I could just go into any bookstore and find the comic book because I didn’t know where the nearest comic bookstore was and was too lazy to click on the link to find out. So for those lazy people, you can wait until 2009 when Del Rey, in partnership with Dabel Brothers, will put out a Graphic novels (hardcover with dust jacket). The first one will be the four issue series Homecoming/the original short story Briggs penned.

Second topic is the JR Ward novella, Father Mine, which …

Remember when you were a kid and your parent told you to eat your food because there were people starving in (insert your own favorite depressed third world country here)? That is essentially what my post is about. Everyone who lives in a democracy has the responsibility to vote because it is a treasured right that millions around the world do not have. Even worse, these disenfranchised millions are often oppressed, living terrible lives. I just want to share one story of my travels.

In early 2000, Ned and I went to South Korea. During our time there, we visited the DMZ. The Demilitarized Zone is a tract of land that is 155 miles long and approximately 2.5 miles wide. In a sad irony, because this space of land has been unoccupied for over fifty years, it has become a haven for rare wildlife.

To get to the DMZ, you must take a special charter bus. You are not allowed on the bus unless you are dressed appropriately. We were also instructed to bring our passports because no Koreans are allowed to the DMZ zone unless they have special dispensation from …

What’s this you say? I read quite a few blogs outside the romance blogosphere and many of the big ones have a daily open thread where the commenters drive the bus. The rules for Author Promo Night Open Thread are as follows:

The book has to be released in that month (i.e., anything released during the last week of September would be a October release)
You can post for yourself or you can have a friend post for you if the idea of posting about your book paralyzes you .
No self published authors unless you write romance. No, I am not a POD hater, I am just thinking about the manageability of the thread.
Think about the readership. I.e., does your non fiction book about psoriasis really fit?
This one is more of a guideline than a rule, but be smart about your comment because if it is just a link to your website and the title of your book, I doubt you are going to get any interest.
DA reserves the right to delete the post if it promotes objectionable content (i.e., no daddy/daughter incest recommends are going to be allowed. Sorry.)

That’s it. Post away.

Welcome to our series called “If You Like” which will be hosted by various readers, authors and bloggers of Dear Author. The purpose of the post and the comments is to explore what we like about a particular iconic author and what other authors have books like the iconic author. This week, we are featuring Allison Brennan whose latest release, Playing Dead, was released on September 30, 2008.

Author Mary-Francis Makichen put together this wonderful contribution for us to read, appreciate, and use as a reference point for the future. Thanks Mary-Francis.

If you would like to host an If You Like piece, please email me at jane at dearauthor.com
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If You Like Allison Brennan

I can’t remember where I first heard about Allison Brennan. What I do remember is reading the The Prey and being captivated by heroine Rowan Smith—a former FBI agent turned bestselling author. Rowan gets pulled into the search for a killer when people start turning up dead just like the victims in her book. To further complicate her life, her bodyguards turn out to be two hunky brothers who both vie for her affection.

It was …

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I have a not very well thought out irk that I wanted to throw out there. One issue I have with futuristics, particularly ones that depict the end of our current civilization due to various reasons whether it be war, natural resource depletion (which would likely lead to war), population overcrowding (probably linked to natural resource depletion), disease, etc., is the governmental formation of these future worlds.

If they are post Earth, what is the likelihood that these governments would be democractic in any way? Wouldn’t it be more likely that future worlds formed after the demise of “earth” would actually reject the way in which the First World countries ran things (i.e., some form of democracy) due to the belief, rightly or wrongly, that the “old” form of running things led to natural resource waste, failure of population control, and so forth?

I guess this should be some form of poll question, but it seems to me that the way in which the government/ruling class of futuristic, or even paranormal or high fantasy, should be addressed in regards to why/how it is different. Lois McMaster Bujold once called the SFF genre as being a political fantasy.  Is …

Welcome to our series called “If You Like” which will be hosted by various readers, authors and bloggers of Dear Author. The purpose of the post and the comments is to explore what we like about a particular iconic author and what other authors have books like the iconic author. This week, we are featuring Julia Quinn whose latest release, Mr. Cavendish, I Presume, is on sale September 30, 2008. Mr. Cavendish, I Presume and the earlier release, The Lost Duke of Wyndham, form the duology of The Two Dukes of Wyndham. In a creative writing feat, the two books have overlapping scenes and plot lines. Stephanie and Mary of A Place for Originals put this marvelous homage to Julia Quinn’s books together for us to read, appreciate, and use as a reference point in the future.

If you would like to host an “If You Like” post, please email me at Jane at dearauthor.com
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If You Like Julia Quinn…

Once, in the far away land of Austin, Texas, there were two young romance readers. And by young, we’re talking before high …