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

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This is the third in a three part series of what part the author plays in the marketing of a book. In the beginning of Crystal Hubbard’s book, Mr. Fix It, Hubbard’s heroine suffers a crisis of confidence. She is a romance writer but has stopped believing in love, let alone romance. Because of this, she doesn’t know that she can be a writer of romance books anymore. She feels that she is a fraud, writing about love and togetherness and happy ever after when she doesn’t believe in those concepts anymore.

The question is a great one. Does an author have to be in love to write romance? Extrapolating this a little further, does an author who writes from a male point of view be a man to have an authentic voice; does an author have to be gay to write the m/m books for the stories to be authentically homosexual; does an author have to be married, wildly in love and a parent in order to write romance; does an author have to experience the out of the mainstream lifestyle in order …

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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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This month of November, I’m going to explore some marketing issues I have involving literature. Essentially, I want to explore with you authors and readers whether the personalization of marketing converts writing into a performance art. While it may seem like some of these opinions tread close to the personal attack grounds, I want to make it clear from the outset that what I am examining and what I am inviting you to examine is the author as an advertisement for her own books and not the author as a person.

Today’s topic is author biographies. Almost every book contains some sort of author biography whether it is a page devoted to “About the Author” or whether it is simply a one paragraph on the book flap or on the inside of the back cover. Knowing something about the author is evidently important for readers. Why is that?

In other words, if a book is all about the book regardless of the creator then why the need for the “About the Author” information? I always find it fascinating to read the bios because of what they say. …

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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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What do Diana Peterfreund, Lauren Willig, Julia Quinn, and Eloisa James have in common? They are all Ivy League educated authors. Peterfreund is a graduate of Yale University. Willig, Quinn and James are Harvard educated. They are all, to varying degrees, commercially successful writers.

At the both ends of the reading industry spectrum, from the publishers to the readers, the Ivy League pedigree can matter. It is believed, I am certain, that Ivy Leaguers know how to write it better. Slap Harvard, Yale, Princeton on the biography of the author and the books are instantly viewed to be of a certain quality. I think its like a dog whistle. We readers see that and have a certain instinctual response.

Maybe it’s because for most of us, an Ivy League education was simply not in the cards whether it was because of lack of funds, not high enough test scores, or not being able to write a good enough entrance essay. Because the Ivy League education seems unattainable, the ones who attend and graduate are afforded some instant literary god like status. And that works, initially, …