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

Back in June or so, some bloggers formed a group blog called DIKladiesrule. It’s a fun place that features interviews with authors and alot of book chat about the bloggers’ favorite books. About late June, Dear Author started a feature called “If You Like” based upon the shelftalkers at bookstores. It came to my attention last week that Laurie Gold was unhappy about the use of both phrases because we did not give proper attribution to her site, All About Romance. But, really, I thought nothing of it. It did not seem like a big deal to me.

On Thursday, Laurie put up a post on her personal blog frustrated that she and AAR were not getting the proper attribution for the term DIK. If You Like was left out. Feeling like she hadn’t gotten enough responses, she then posted at the AAR board. She did not gain universal support there either. Not leaving enough alone, she is now asking for a web campaign to drive other bloggers and sites to dun the DIK ladies into . . . something. This is my response, since Laurie …

We talk alot about Keishon here at Dear Author because she is a dear friend to many of the Dear Author bloggers. She is also one of the primary influences on my reading (as well as others here) for outside the romance genre recommendations. She got me started reading PJ Tracy and Karin Slaughter (although I’m a little peeved about that one still). She has urged us to read Julia Spencer-Fleming whom Janine reviewed earlier this week.

Keishon’s latest love is Chelsea Cain (Wendy, the Superlibrarian, loves her too) and Keishon has an interview of Ms. Cain on her blog.

more animals

Do you remember the movie “Election,” with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick? In the first scene Mr. McAllister asks his high school class about the difference between ethics and morals. Ironically, of course, the one student who eagerly attempts to answer the question is also the one who proceeds to make mincemeat of both ethics and morals during the course of the movie, her ambition a veritable engine for her imagination and willingness to do almost anything to secure her class presidency. Tracy Flick sees the future open before her, dependent on winning that race, completely indignant when someone dares run against her, amazingly unself-conscious about the levels to which she’ll ‘stoop to conquer.’

In fact, Tracy continues to see herself as a good person, earnestly praying before bedtime for her “Dear Lord Jesus” to “go that one last mile and make sure to put me in office where I belong so that I may carry out your will on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.” In this Tracy exemplifies the difference between morals and ethics: morals relate to one’s personal value system, while ethics relate …

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In the past few weeks, we here at Dear Author have talked about author ethics and it occurred to me that we haven’t talked alot about blogging ethics.

While I do think that ethics is a community issue, I am not trying to force my ethics on anyone else in the blogging community. What I am trying to do in this post and subsequent posts on this issue is to explore the idea of blogging ethics and what that means.

The internet has been referred to as the Wild West. It’s ungovernable but vibrant. Alive with colorful personalities and outspoken individuals. The idea of placing limits on anyone on the internet is a bit of anethema.

But I have always been an advocate of criticism. I feel like one cannot grow without criticism or self examination. I can see, when I look over the posts of the past two years, that I have grown as a person and as a blogger. That my opinions and stances and voice has changed in response to my connection to those who have come to share in the community …

A new study indicates that bloggers and social networks could have a direct impact on album sales. The research indicated that there was a direct correlation between the amount of “chatter” prior to the release of an album and its eventual sales. The more chatter, the better the album sold.

Based on the volume of books Dear Author receives on a weekly basis it seems publishers are also trying to utilize these non-traditional advertising channels.

Via ars technica