Dear Author in 2016
In the coming weeks, the Dear Author reviewers will be posting their Best of Lists. We’d love to hear from the readers here about their books of the year. If we haven’t reviewed it, maybe you’ll consider submitting a guest review for the DA readership to enjoy.
Next year, we’re making a big change. We’re downsizing a bit and we aren’t hosting ads. The ads are kind of a big hassle which I’ve pawned off on my husband in past years.
Despite the revenue, it’s not worth it to us to keep soliciting them and managing them each month because of the costs associated running the blog. Plus, there’s always the pressure to keep posting new reviews.
As you might have noticed, some of us (me!) have greatly reduced their reading and reviewing contributions placing a great deal of stress on Jayne. So I proposed that we nix the ads, reduce the number of posts a day and present a slim-downed version of Dear Author in 2016.
That’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to foot the bill for the hosting costs here at DA. One review will be posted each day from M-F starting in January. Janet will be offering up one or two opinion pieces a month (and sometimes those op ed pieces will be a long discourse about one book). You’ll still get daily deals 5 days a week, a Saturday first post for critique so long as we have them, and the weekly new releases.
We’d love to host more guest reviews so if you have one, please send them. Otherwise, DA will operate the same. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments or email me privately. (jane@dearauthor.com)
Thanks, Jane, for letting us know what’s up. And thanks for continuing to host this site.
Thanks for the update! I can only imagine how much time and effort goes into running a blog such as this one on a daily basis. I think it’s a smart decision.
After the stressful year you’ve had, the changes totally make sense.! Last December, my husband almost died from sepsis and cancer, and as we went through the months and months of his recovery, we made a lot of adjustments in our priorities. Sounds like you’re doing the same.
Good luck! And thanks for the update!!
Thank you Jane and the rest of the contributors for all the work over the years. I can’t imagine how much effort it must have been, and completely sympathise with the need to streamline the site. Best of luck for 2016!
I look forward to reading DA every morning, checking back to see what’s new later in the day. I am grateful you’ll still be here and thankful for everything DA, all of you, have given us. There have been a couple of books I thought about offering as a guest review, primarily because I want other people to read and enjoy them as much as I did. Perhaps it’s time to do just that.
Thank you so much for the wide variety of material you’ve had at DA for so many years, so consistently and with such high quality. I know it’s time consuming, and I completely understand your decision, even though I wish you weren’t.
I really value the industry round ups – are those gone? If DA’s not going to do them, do you have a couple sites you recommend for that type of round up? So that I can follow a couple and figure out the right fit. I liked that you included traditional and digital and self pub, publishing in general as well as romance, a little bit of personality-driven news but mostly business, and a variety of commentary. Is there another site with a similar fit that doesn’t have lots of trolls?
Thank you, everyone at DA, for this amazing site, and for letting us know your future plans.
But I’m with Anna Richland — your “Industry News Roundup” is the first website I check every weekday morning (after my mail). It’s such a great mix of links; I’d miss it if it went away.
But for other industry news junkies, the most similar sites I can think of are the weekly News Of The Week from the ReadersAdvisor blog (http://www.readersadvisoronline.com/blog/) but that’s pretty library-oriented, and the DBW Newsletter (http://www.digitalbookworld.com/category/industry-news/) but that’s solely digital books. GalleyCat (http://www.adweek.com/galleycat/) is also occasionally interesting, but its a bit promo-based for my interests.
HTH!
Best of luck with the new changes!
(Just throwing this out there — I, and I bet a bunch of other readers, would have zero problems with Dear Author implementing more general ads. Like the ones you plug in code for and don’t have to manage, and they serve up ads from a bunch of sponsors, instead of tailoring it to books and publishing. There are decent options out there that are better than Google Adsense and it’s a big hassle taken off your plate.)
I love this site so big thanks from me.
As to fave reads from 2015 (many of which came from DA recs)
Kulti by Mariana Zapata which I loved so much. Very slow burn set in the world of women’s soccer
Just once by Julianna Keyes. Read all Julianna’s books this year. Loved all but this was my favourite of those. A just once fling that grows into something more.
The Deal by Elle Kennedy. Sports hero and musical heroine in college romance
Hold by Claire Kent. Novella set in outer space jail. I think it was rereleased this year. Dark but I loved the hea.
Dark Horse by Michelle Diener. Also sci fi setting. Earth heroine kidnapped by aliens and escapes with the help of an AI and connects with the captain of another space crew.
Nil by Lynne Matson. This might have come out last year. Teen read. Teenagers get transported to the island of Nil and have one year to escape or die.
Jesse’s Girl by Miranda Kenneally. Also YA. I am a fan of her Hundred Oaks series and I enjoyed this hook up between a country music boy star and a schoolgirl who gets to shadow him for a day. Sweet.
Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy. Not usually a MM fan but I make an exception for anything Sarina Bowen writes. Enjoyed all her books and this collaboration was no exemption. 2 ice hockey players reuniting on a summer camp.
I had a complete Joan Wolf regency glom phase and particularly enjoyed A London Season and Golden Girl. The plots are often similar but I like her strong heroines and it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure read.
Sweep in Peace by Ilona Andrews. These authors can do no wrong in my view. I enjoyed reading this in free instalments on their website and of course bought the final book too.
First of all, thank you Jane and DA. And of course I support a scaled down version, and perhaps this will inspire me to actually write out and send in the couple of guest reviews that I keep writing in my head.
Let me add my voice to those who love the daily news links. I will miss those, and honestly, I’d rather have the daily news (or a weekly version of it) than the weekly new releases.
To Jane and all the wonderful DA regulars: Jayne, Janet, Janine, Sunita, Jia and many others, thank you so much for years of great reviews and wonderful book-related news and conversations. I was almost expecting this announcement, and completely understand where it is coming from. I hope all of you who have made such important contributions to the online book community will continue to be around. I’ll definitely continue to visit DA, and may even try my hand at writing a guest review!
Understandable about reducing the content, thanks for the heads up.
Chiming in as another who liked the variety of the daily news posts – is this completely going away?
I’m another who comes here daily. Thank you for all your work.
If this means more conversation about the genre and its books, I’m all for the changes to come. I think I’ll miss the industry news, but to be honest–even though I’m an author, the discussions about the nuts and bolts of publishing can be tiresome. So in 2016, I’m looking forward to a deeper dialogue about reading, about romance subgenres, about authors and their books, about the romance genre culture.
I’m going to try to keep the news posts going, although I may end up posting more or fewer stories each day depending on what’s going on.
@Janet/Robin – yay!
I get most of my romance recs from DA so thanks for that! Which means that as far as best of lists go, almost all of my favorite releases for 2015 have already been reviewed at this site. I would like to add my love for Julianna Keyes to that of @Cait‘s and say that her book Going The Distance (which was released in January) has been one of my absolute favorites this year and definitely merits a review. Other than that, Anne Calhoun’s latest release, The Muse, also makes the cut for my best of 2015 list. I’m waiting for Kaetrin to review that one so I can gush all over the comments section :)
I never really read much romance (mostly YA and some NA) before this year, but I’ve become completely hooked throughout this year. Your blog has helped guide me through all of the books out there. Thank you for that! This year has been the year of self-published books for me—my two favorites were The Deal by Elle Kennedy, which I have you to thank for because I won a copy through one of your Twitter giveaways (and have since proceeded to attempt to read everything else she has written—this weekend, I read Him, which was my first m/m romance) and Kulti by Mariana Zapata.
Dear Author and SBTB are two websites I check every day – especially for daily deals and reviews. I admit I rarely read the news links articles so would have no problems to see them gone.
According to Goodreads, my favourite books I read in 2015 (not necessarily published in 2015) were:
– The Duke’s Guide to Correct Behaviour by Megan Frampton (I loooved this book);
– A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare;
– Hero by Night by Sarah Jane Stone;
– Ravishing the Heiress by Sherry Thomas
– Lord of Scoundrel by Loretta Chase (yes, I hadn’t read it yet:)
– Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas (ditto.)
@ Janet/Robin
Thanks, I think it’s fine even if it goes down to once per week or a few times per month.