Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Author LA Banks introduces President Obama at a Healthcare Summit in Philadelphia. Banks writes the popular The Vampire Huntress series published by St. Martin’s Press and a new angel based series for Pocket. H/t to Rose Fox.
Ms Banks blogged about her experience and it’s pretty moving:
But my speech had gone out of my [...]

Explicit sex is hard to write well and even if you do write it well, it means you are just packaging up pornography for women. Also, bla bla bla, romance books are killing romance bla bla bla. All according to this  article by Alan Elsner.  I don’t plan to comment over there because Alan [...]

Q: I’m a reader and I’ve heard about Harlequin Horizons but I don’t know what it is or what it means for me.
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 [...]

I emailed Malle Vallik to ask her three questions which pertained the biggest question I had about brand dilution:

Will the books be sold through the eharlequin store?
Will there be any HH branding on the book, either on the cover or in the copyright page?
Are you (Harlequin) concerned about brand dilution?

This is Ms. Vallik’s response. She [...]

I couldn’t resist the wordplay for the title.  In any event, it appears that authors really are unhappy with the announcement of Harlequin Horizons. I’ve heard that some published authors are asking for the RWA board to examine whether Harlequin should be a recognized publisher.
Essentially it appears that Harlequin is lending its name to a [...]

Harlequin is launching Harlequin Horizons through a partnership with Author Solutions, Inc.
Through this strategic alliance; all sales, marketing, publishing, distribution, and book-selling services will be fulfilled by ASI; but Harlequin Horizons will exist as a division of Harlequin Enterprises Limited. Harlequin will monitor sales of books published through the self-publisher for possible pickup by its [...]