Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Random Musings
by SB Sarah | May 15, 2012 | Tuesday at 2:56 pm | 18 Comments
It's May! My peonies are blooming, the air is flush with good smells and yellow dust, and my blue car is now a strange shade of pollen-coated green.
It's also time for the Brenda Novak Auction, which has raised over $1.3 million dollars for a cure for juvenile diabetes. The auction is going on all month - and there are a lot of really neat things to bid on. Let's go shopping!
In the Once in a Lifetime Experiences category, there's a two night stay at the Ritz Carlton in Lake Tahoe, and as I write this, the high bid is $165. WHAT? There's 15 days left, but hey, bid early bid often. There's also a 2 night stay at the Grand Palms Hotel in Pembroke Pines, Florida, and the high bid is $50 as of this moment. Hey? What's that over there? Nothing to see here about hotel stays.
There are also cruises, trips to Europe, and an African safari up for bidding. Good gravy.
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by SB Sarah | May 11, 2012 | Friday at 12:26 pm | 6 Comments
Brigid asked for a recap of the event I was part of last Wednesday night, Edgy Moms in Suburbia, so here's my wrap up of the evening - with a LOT of links to books I want to buy, so be ye warned. They're not romances, though, so at least that's something.
I drafted my essay (or entry or article or whatever it was I was trying to write) about four or five different times, trying to figure out what the hell was edgy about me (I am not edgy. I am very rounded in all my parts), and ended up making a few key realizations, which was the focus of what I read/said. (I write up notes and then end up talking to the audience and forget to look at what I wrote. Sheesh).
1. "Edgy" is something that is defined externally. If you're doing something, it's normal. People observing you would be more likely to define something you do as "edgy." I don't think I'm edgy at all either way.
1.5 If you look up "edgy" on Urban Dictionary, "to keep…
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by SB Sarah | May 04, 2012 | Friday at 2:44 pm | 86 Comments
So, what are you reading this week? Are you saving a book for the weekend? Still working on something you've been reading for awhile or is it New Book Time?
I had to stop myself from reading four or five books at a time - which is bad not only for my memory ("Wait, aren't there biker gangs in this Regency romance? Where'd they go?") but also bad for my ability to remain interested in all of the books. Making a buffet of books is not a good thing for me, though I know some readers can do it easily!
So, what is on your reading agenda this weekend?
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by SB Sarah | April 16, 2012 | Monday at 1:41 pm | 56 Comments
On the airport shuttle from the Hyatt Regency O'Hare yesterday, I met a young woman who was traveling home to North Carolina. I didn't get a chance to get her name and write it down (it was an airport hotel after all, and we were too busy talking about books during the 8 minute ride) but she told me a very lovely story.
She traveled to Romantic Times to meet friends she knew only online, and she came only for the Saturday Book Fair. Her home is in North Carolina, so she flew to Atlanta, then to Chicago, just for one day in the Hyatt Regency. She wanted to meet her favorite authors, and her parents thought she was insane to travel so far to go buy books. (I told her she was perfectly sane and also awesome.)
Then she told me her grandmother had gotten her hooked on romance novels, though her grandma liked historicals and my new friend preferred paranormal and urban fantasy. They both loved Nora Roberts, though, and JD Robb. When her grandmother died last year, this woman made sure to put several romances in the casket when she said goodbye.
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by SB Sarah | March 30, 2012 | Friday at 2:07 am | 56 Comments
Earlier this week, news broke that Universal and Focus Features paid a staggering amount of money for the film rights to 50 Shades of Grey - rumors are "in the neighborhood of $5 million (US)."
And on this week's Entertainment Weekly cover, readers get a choice of a cover featuring the clothed Hunger Games' Jennifer Lawrence or a very naked, mostly faceless woman rubbing her shoulder blade (or shaving her armpit) with a copy of 50 Shades of Grey.
The continued media saturation around 50 Shades, especially as it's cast alongside the Hunger Games movie, got me thinking about book-to-movie deals, and how some of them, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, and Hunger Games for example, became hugely successful film franchises. I started wondering if there's a formula, or a storm of specific elements that coalesce into film success. There are a lot of similarities between these books and their film successes.
First, all of these books have a sizeable…
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by SB Sarah | March 13, 2012 | Tuesday at 4:00 am | 82 Comments
The 50 Shades of Grey media blitz continues! From The Today Show to the AP to HuffPo and now Good Morning America. I did an interview for GMA that will air this morning. The segment focuses on how word of mouth and reader recommendation - as well as digital availability, I should think - made 50 Shades a bestseller, without any advertising and promotion from the publisher. Word of mouth was everything, online and off.
I am still baffled as to why more media reports aren't mentioning the fanfic origins, and why the publisher and the author aren't more open to acknowledging the foundation that 50 Shades is based on. As Robin from Dear Author said to me, without Twilight, this book wouldn't exist.
Some authors that I've talked to are very upset about the origins of 50 Shades, and are alarmed and outraged that a book based on the character work and development of Stephenie Meyer is achieving so much attention and profit. It raises the question of who, exactly, the characters belong…
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by SB Sarah | March 02, 2012 | Friday at 10:20 pm | 76 Comments
As Jane and I have been discussing, and as she noted at DA, 50 Shades of Grey has been collecting the type of media exposure that publicists have fever dreams about. From HuffPo to the Today Show website and television broadcast, to the NY Post and various Fox affiliates in New York and San Diego, the story boils down to: women are reading this book, it's become exceedingly popular, it's a sexually-focused romance, and the women featured share a few things in common, most notably that it's a wonderfully arousing book for them.
I didn't like the book myself, but if you liked it, and it turned your engine, more power to you. Go on with your happy reading self. Since women's sexuality and reproductive health are under political attack here in the US of WTF, anything that supports a woman's right to satisfy her own sexual curiosity is all good with me.
Moreover, I am certainly not trying to imply by asking why this book is popular that, if you liked this book, there's something wrong with…
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by SB Sarah | February 25, 2012 | Saturday at 12:45 am | 12 Comments
I mentioned in my entry about social media and discovery that the RWA had done a survey of romance readers and posted a PDF of the results online for members. I asked if I could share some of the data, and RWA granted permission. Thank you!
The following data is from RWA and Bowker's PubTrack Consumer, and all of the information is used with permission. I'm barely scratching the surface of the report, but I wanted to share the parts that really caught my attention.
I must start by saying that I have a horrible time with numbers. I remember phone numbers by the song and position on a touch pad, not the actual numbers. Navigating New York City means landmarks or writing numbers on my hand so I can keep looking at them because I can't hold numbers in my head easily at all. So looking at data for me means STARING at it and then translating it into words (oh, words, sexy sexy words) like "a third" or "half" or "a whole whopping crapton."
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by SB Sarah | February 23, 2012 | Thursday at 12:51 pm | 54 Comments
While listening to presentations at Digital Book World's Book Marketing Summit in January about the role of social media venues in book marketing, I got to thinking about how very different Twitter and Facebook are.
One slide I saw showed Twitter a distant third behind Facebook and StumbleUpon as sources of social media traffic to specific websites, but the two I find myself on most as a reader (and author) are Facebook and Twitter. I randomly mused in Notepad about how the two I use most are so different from one another, and how I am learning the language of each - and that despite both being social networks, they function quite differently.
The use of Twitter and Facebook specifically showed up yet again at Tools of Change in the presentation from Goodreads talking about how readers discover books:
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by SB Sarah | February 08, 2012 | Wednesday at 12:48 am | 84 Comments
I think there's a missed opportunity in romance land, particulary in paranormal romance land, particularly in the lucrative gifting market.
I'm talking about anniversary gifts. You know how there's a chart of what gifts are symbolic of each year of marriage, and people can get downright goofy adhering to the suggested gifts? Like, say, my husband, who, for our tenth anniversary, wrapped my present in tin foil because the traditional gift was tin/aluminum. I should be thankful I didn't also get a tube of Reynolds wrap, too.
Some of the traditional lists I've seen stop usually at the 60th anniversary, known in some charts as the "diamond anniversary," while the 75th is also the diamond anniversary. I myself am partial to the 48th US Modern anniversary, which is "Optical goods," or the 44th, which is the ever-so-romantic "Groceries." Nothing tops the 41st and 42nd anniversaries, though, which are "Land" followed by "Improved real estate," because clearly, whoever bought the land last year did not know what they were doing, and they need another shot at that gift.
Also, how does one wrap groceries? Stick a bow on the bag?
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by SB Sarah | January 27, 2012 | Friday at 3:24 pm | 127 Comments
Time again for me to be nosy and ask, what are you reading this weekend?
I have a list of things to try out, as I just read Truths and Roses in a marathon sprint. I also have a nonfiction book about storytelling arts that I want to read.
While I was loving At Home in parts, I had to stop reading it for awhile, because the discussion was often so bleak. Here are all these amazing people who invented amazing things that we now take for granted and who have been entirely forgotten by history! Oy. So that'll sit for awhile until I feel like picking it up again.
What about you? What are you reading this weekend? I hope it's awesome, whatever it is!
Oh! And is anyone going to see One for the Money this weekend? I don't think it looks "babysitter worthy," but I'm curious!
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by SB Sarah | January 27, 2012 | Friday at 2:18 pm | 45 Comments
I received the following very sweet inquiry this week, and thought maybe you'd have some good ideas to help Val out. Val wants to throw a surprise party for her mother in law, and center the party on a romance-novel theme. Here's her message:
I have no idea how to give my Mother-in-law a surprise 80th birthday party in April with a romance novel theme.
This has been her quiet hobby for at least the last 4 decades that I have known her.
She's a widow with eight grown (obviously) children, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and almost all of us have given her romance novels for all occasions, or when she's not feeling well.
I realize this isn't your usual, but would appreciate any input you have.
I think that is such a nice idea, and so generous! Off the top of my head, if Val could find out what her favorite romances are, each table or different parts of the room could be dedicated to those books, or the settings of those books, especially if they have a setting or theme in common.
But I also know that y'all…
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by SB Sarah | January 23, 2012 | Monday at 5:18 pm | 53 Comments
A reader sent me a link to a Reddit thread which reveals that the image used in a popular meme online, Sheltering Suburban Mom, is the author photo of Carly Phillips, bestselling romance author.
Cue long discussion of how romance is porn.
This is a whole new kettle of WTF for an individual like Ms. Phillips, who probably never suspected that her image was being used to portray a meme character. Her identity has been listed at Know Your Meme for awhile, and their article traces the first known usage of Philips' author photo as 5 May 2011.
I don't know if I can successfully explain a meme, but usually it's an image representing a character with various captions attached. For example: judgmental bookseller ostrich, who is that horrible bookseller we've often met who judges our reading choices.
The problem for Phillips: some of the captions are funny, some are sort of meh, and some are painfully racist and homophobic, not to mention the overarching problem of having one's image used as a symbol for hypocritical self-importance.
Not the author brand anyone is looking for.
The Reddit folks have begun posting messages on…
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by SB Sarah | January 18, 2012 | Wednesday at 9:02 pm | 35 Comments
Penguin's InterMix is now selling the Nora Roberts digital backlist, with the Donovan Legacy and the Cordina's Royal Family series on sale now.
I have not read the Cordina family series, but the Donovan series is one of my favorites to re-read. If you're looking for the series in order:
The Donovan Legacy
Captivated by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S Entranced by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S Charmed by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S Enchanted by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S
Cordina’s Royal Family
Affaire Royale by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S Command Performance by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S The Playboy Prince by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S Cordina's Crown Jewel by Nora Roberts * $6.99 * A | BN | K | S…
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by SB Sarah | January 13, 2012 | Friday at 9:20 am | 171 Comments
A reader named Sheri emailed me, asking if there were a place at SBTB she could talk to other romance readers about what she's reading, and know that folks would understand what she's talking about. Sheri wrote, I would love for there to be a place where all of us fans and romance lovers had a place to talk without a thread, just free form. I am sure there is a place like this somewhere on the internet but I ...enjoy your website and its followers so much. I really feel like it would just be an added bonus. I am going to be starting the Evanovich Plum Series and while I feel like this is a big undertaking, I am sure no one in my immediate circle would care. I am sure however that the bitchery would totally understand and give lots of humorous support.
The whole Plum series, all upteen books? Oh, yes, I know exactly what you're facing. The early books will make you laugh hard enough to consider using the bathroom, so be ye warned.
Sheri's email got me thinking,…
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