Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

An Interview with Jodi Thomas

At Romantic Times, I sat next to Jodi Thomas on the contemporary romance panel I wrote about earlier, and because I'm horrible, I got all up in her business about her position as Writer in Residence at West Texas A&M University.

A romance author as a writer in residence? That's awesome! Thomas is only the second writer to fill the post. Prior to Thomas, the writer in residence was Loula Grace Erdman, who wrote novels about the settlement of the Texas Panhandle.

I thought the idea of a romance author serving as writer in residence was very cool, so I asked Ms. Thomas if she'd put up with all sorts of nosy questions. Fortunately for me, she agreed, and I think this is a wonderfully inspiring interview. 

Let's start with basic questions: How long have you been the writer in residence? 

10 years

New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction

In March, a book of acdemic essays was published by Mcfarland titled New Approaches to Popular Romance Fiction (McFarland | Amazon). There are many different perspectives included in the book, including an essay I wrote about the use of the word "bitch" to describe ourselves, the website, and its community. I asked Sarah Frantz and Eric Selinger, the editors of the book, some questions about it so they could share some information about it and how it might be of interest to more than just the academic community. 

What are 5 things the average romance reader who is not an academic might find interesting in this book? 

Eric Selinger: There are four amazing essays about individual romance novels:  The Kadin, Flowers from the Storm, Dark Lover, and Joey Hill’s Holding the Cards.  If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if an English professor or a history professor finally took  a romance novel seriously, really thought about the history in it, or the ideas about love, or the way that a book can capture the spirit of the times, these… read more »

Lisa Kleypas’ Rainshadow Road: An Interview and a Giveaway!

Lisa Kleypas' Rainshadow Road comes out in February, and her publisher has offered 10 finished copies to give away. Whoo! And not only do we have books to give away, but Lisa Kleypas was kind enough to answer several inane questions from me via email. Hooray - bonus interview!

Rainshadow Road has magical realism while Friday Harbor did not. Why add it to this novel? Did you plan to go this way all along with the series? 

Well,  when I first visited Friday Harbor with Greg and the kids a couple of years ago,  I really felt a sense of "otherness" or magic in the air. It's a misty Brigadoon-type place--but you're probably too young for that reference,  unless you're a show tune queen like me. San Juan Island is unique place--a mixture of steep hills and bluffs, forests, rolling farmland, sandy beaches,  and all of it is protected by the Olympic mountain rainshadow. And I'd read and loved so much magic realism in the past,  including "Like Water For Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel,  and "Garden Spells" by Sarah Addison Allen,  that I really saw this as the… read more »

Ask the Editor: Questions and Answers, Part V

We're back with more answers from the editor who is living a very fine life in my basement. She installed a wine cellar, and says it's a job requirement. I presume editors everywhere are nodding at that idea. 

Tessa asked: 

How much do the business considerations drive your acquisitions?  I expect it varies by publisher, even by the imprint, maybe by the quarter? Do you often find yourself reading ms you love, but are unable to purchase, because projected sales don’t meet a minimum?  How are those numbers derived?

Ask the Editor:

We don’t acquire to lose money. We acquire so that we can publish books we love and so everyone can keep their jobs. Have I bought books from authors who didn’t sell so well because I loved them? Yep. One author. For small money & small print run and they at least had a proven track record. And I didn’t lose money on the deal.

However, we often find ourselves unable to buy particular projects (the ones that got away!) It’s part of the day to day. That can be because without rights to certain countries (perhaps the project sold to UK… read more »

Ask the Editor: Questions and Answers, Part IV

The editor I kidnapped is still in my basement, though I've moved a wine cellar and some fruitcake down there so  my sequestered editor has plenty to eat. And she's consented to answer more questions for you, in the fourth edition of "Ask the Editor."

Taylor L. asked:

What tips a book from the maybe pile to the yes pile as far as acquisitions go? How much more scrutiny do you give a first time author than an author you’ve worked with for a while?

Ask the Editor:

Voice, honestly. And how much more scrutiny? I hope I’m being equally hard, but I know in some cases I haven’t been. (Because there’s the ‘trust me, you know I can deliver’ factor.)

Kim asked:

There’s a big name author that signed a 3 book contract in 2004. She published book 1 under the contract in 2005, but the second one has been repeatedly delayed. How much time does a publisher give an author to complete the terms of the contract before they ask for part of the advance… read more »

Ask the Editor: Questions and Answers, Part III

Don’t worry - I do let the editor locked in my basement come outside for fresh air and a nap and some wine and whatnot. She’s a freerange editor when she’s not answering reader questions here!

J9 asked: How has the explosion of the e-reader and e-book market changed publishing, especially acquisition, marketing and sales expectations?  And related, has the e-book market caused editors’ job duties to change?

Ask the Editor In a nice way, it’s given us other avenues in which to find readers. And in another it makes it insanely easier for us to bring books home to read. Every editor I know has a manuscript bag. (In the case of my old roommate, Kate Spade, paid for by a nice author) Now, fewer of them! It hasn’t really changed our job duties except that the negotiation for digital rights can take longer as part of a contract negotiation, and of course social media exploration/use is part of what we do too. And as I said, it’s now another area to review for potential authors.

And a last positive point—some types… read more »

Ask the Editor: Questions and Answers, Part II

She’s still in my basement (which is dry, thank heaven) and I’ve still got a lot of wine for bribery purposes, so Editor X is happy to answer more questions. Here we go with installment two of “Ask the Editor.”

Anony Miss asked: My question: why aren’t there more scratch-n-sniff contemporary novels? I think it’s a whole niche market being totally ignored.

Ask the Editor  Speaking as a person who had to research the embedding of a music box thingie in a book cover, I can say that it’s too expensive. We’d print in China/Singapore, which means it’ll take me a year to make that book, and scratch & sniff won’t store well on a shelf with all the anklebiters in Walmart scratching away at books they don’t buy. Lord, I’m grumpy today. I need more wine!

Ask the Editor: Lots of Questions, Lots of Answers

Remember that editor I have tied up in my basement? She’s been fed and I shared my wine supply because I’m not TOTALLY evil, and she’s consented to answer some of your questions from our original entry. I’ve got quite a few answers - she’s really freaking wordy, my GOD - so I’ll break them up in to several posts.

Kim in Hawaii asked Do you read bloggers’ reviews and readers’ comments?  If yes, does their feedback influence how you acquire and edit future books? 

I think readers do grow frustrated that they take the time to express their displeasure with a trope, plot, character, or even cover to the point that readers do not want to see “it” again.  Yet “it” appears again in the following year’s crop of books as if readers’ opinions don’t count. 

Ask the Editor We do read some of the reviews—those our author forwards to us and those we find online—I’ve read the PW, Booklist, Library Journal,  Amazon ones and the B&N, etc. ones on the books I work on too.

However,… read more »

Lending Kindles at the Library

I admit, I’m terribly curious to find out what the Kindle on-device library lending will look like, whenever it arrives this fall. But I learned recently of another library lending program that totally knocked my socks off. At the Cudahy Family Library in Cudahy, Wisconsin - where is that, you ask? It’s right here - the librarians have the Most Interesting Lending Program.

They lend Kindles.

No, really, they lend Kindles. Preloaded with a ton of books, each device devoted to a different genre.

I will let Michelle Gibbs, the Adult & Administrative Services Librarian (or, as I called her, Superpowered Librarian), explain the program.

Michelle Gibbs:  We’ve got 6 Kindles that we loan out for 3 weeks at a time, and each is pre-loaded with 30-50 titles within a particular theme: Mystery and Suspense, Romance, Book Club Favorites, Nonfiction and Memoir and two Young Adult (different titles on each one).

Each Kindle has unique content; we made sure that we only loaded one copy of each book that we purchased, and if we had wanted the… read more »

Interview with Courtney Milan: Self Publishing Her Next Novel

Yesterday when I was formatting my review for Courtney Milan’s Unlocked, I put the author’s name in both the “author” and “publisher” field. I have a feeling I will be doing that more and more often, and I know I’ll be doing it again for Milan. Read on for an interview (as usual, a nosy one) about Milan’s decision to self publish the third book in her trilogy.

So what’s the story? You’ve shared why you’re choosing this option: Your readership, your fans, and your dislike of the digital royalty rate. What you think a publisher could have offered to bring you a print contract you’d be interested in?

I would very much like to discuss your point of view and reasoning however you’d like to share it publicly.

Milan: The digital royalty rate (8% of digital cover price for Harlequin) was a sticking point. And under the terms of the contract and the current market, this would have given them the rights to my backlist for the rest of my working life. You can see people break down the math elsewhere as to how that works out… read more »

Questions? Questions? Upcoming Live Event Interviews with Gena Showalter and Nalini Singh

Two interview events, one now and one coming soon!

First, as I mentioned last week, this evening at 6:30pm, I’m interviewing Gena Showalter at the Apple store in Soho, New York City (103 Prince Street). The interview will be about 40 minutes with time for Q&A, and will be taped for a podcast to be released later.

Also: Tuesday, 24 May at 10:30am in the Sourcebooks Booth, #4356, I will be signing advance reader copies of Everything I Know About Love, I Learned From Romance Novels. After that, I’ll be haunting the romance publisher booths. One year at BEA I wandered into a Gail Carriger signing and the clamors for books via Twitter led me back to the Carriger tea twice to send copies to people. That was fun. 

Not at BEA this week? Not to worry - here’s another event to plot and plan for! It’s in early June in NYC, so you can start planning now. 

Nalini Singh is going on a World Tour (which means she’s leaving New Zealand and coming here and other places, including, I… read more »

One Was a Soldier: An Interview and Giveaway

Are you breathlessly anticipating the next book in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s series? Curious to see how Clare and Russ survive her deployment? Well, over the past few months, Julia and I have been working on an interview (really, this email has been going back and forth for AWHILE) and she’s got

5

8 ARCs to give away this weekend. She’ll ship them out anywhere so you’ll get a copy zippy fast.

Just leave a comment below to enter - and add to the Julia Spencer-Fleming Series Drinking Game (or, if you’re not so inclined, just leave a comment and tell us what you’d do for a copy of the book). Drinking Games make a little fun of things that appear frequently in a series or movie. Here’s some sample items for the JSFS Drinking Game:

Any mention of Clare’s haircolor: 2 sips Any mention of Clare’s haircolor by Russ: 1 sip Any mention of Clare’s haircolor in terms of alcoholic beverages: CHUG.

Russ cleans his glasses: 1 sip Russ pinches the bridge of his nose: 1 sip Russ asks where the facilities are: 2 sips Someone tells Russ to see a doctor… read more »

The Blind Teaching the Reader: An Interview

One of the sessions I attended at Tools of Change was from BeneTech, which works to make books accessible to those with significant physical obstacles to reading, such as visual impairment or learning disability. Listening to that presentation, I tweeted some of it and heard back from a reader named Sassy Outwater, who agreed with some of the points and offered to school me on what blind readers need and have to facilitate their own reading enjoyment.

I know absolutely squatnada about blind readers. And so I asked a bunch of really ignorant and obvious questions, and Sassy was kind enough to humor me - as she said, “no question is ignorant or not. The more in the publishing/review biz who know, the more I get to read.”

Boy oh boy howdydamn, did she ask for it.

What do you like to read, romance-wise?

Sassy: Blame it on a short attention span, or a career where I have to hang out with a lot of men… but I like romance when it’s woven into something else. My… read more »

Behold! A Video Interview with Jesse Petersen!

Jesse Peterson won the author interview I offered for the Brenda Novak Diabetes Auction, and she wanted to talk about her book Married With Zombies, which comes out 1 September 2010.

I decided it might be fun to do a goofy video author interview, and ask Jesse about her book, and what’s next in zombie fiction. She totally went along with my bizarre questions during the RWA conference - we’re in the lobby of the hotel, which fit the odd and silly finished product. Enjoy!

Winners of Liu and Armstrong Books

The winners of the newest books from Kelley Armstrong and Marjorie M. Liu are:

Kaye and Jen H.

Please contact me at sarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOTcom with your mailing address - congratulations!

I’ll reopen the comments so anyone who would like to talk about the new Liu and Armstrong books can have at it - thanks for entering the contest!