Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Ranty McRant
February 06, 2012 | Monday at 9:13 am | 147 Comments
Another day, another article about genre fiction, including romance, selling quite happily in digital format. And the reason?
Wait for it….
Reader embarrassment!
Kindle-owning bibliophiles are furtive beasts. Their shelves still boast classics and Booker winners. But inside that plastic case, other things lurk. Sci-fi and self-help. Even paranormal romance, where vampires seduce virgins and elves bonk trolls.
The ebook world is driven by so-called genre fiction, categories such as horror or romance. It's not future classics that push digital sales, but more downmarket fare.
Lovely.
Here's the thing:
I hear from many readers weekly that they do feel embarrassment about their love of romance. Sometimes they are conflicted about finding that their feelings of loving what they read are at cross-purposes with their feelings of dislike or even revulsion when they identify problematic elements within it. Others say they feel shame and embarrassment about what other people say or think about the romance genre, or better yet, the people who read it.
The people who write to me about these subjects do not ever, and I mean EVER, include a statement that they are embarrassed because they…
read more »
February 04, 2012 | Saturday at 3:06 pm | 140 Comments
Late last night, links and fiery tweets went around about Romance Writers, Ink, an Oklahome-based chapter of the RWA. They've stated that for the 2012 "More than Magic" competition for published writers, they will "no longer accept same-sex entries in any category."
Way to be bigoted!
read more »
February 02, 2012 | Thursday at 10:50 am | 54 Comments
First: NEWS! Which isn't new news, but I'm still thinking about it.
Literary god Jonathan Franzen decided that ebooks are horrible and immoral and paper books have a tangible longevity that is superior to digital.
Yeah, whatever. Here's my question: I think there needs to be a term for book format prejudice, and it works both ways. There are snide comments made about paper by ebook lovers, and equally snide Franzenesque comments about digital from those who prefer paper. Folks who like audiobooks also report snide comments, so there has to be a term to sum them all up, one that's as inclusive and descriptive as possible. I mean, do people grouse about large-print books being for all those amoral people who can't see the .8 font size of a mass market paperback? It's ridiculous.
Theresa Romain suggested Bookotry, a pastiche of "book" and "bigotry." I also like Book Bigot.
Heather Ponzer suggested Printist, and comments like Franzens would then be labeled Printentious.
Llmysticowl suggested Biblioformist.
Maggie Robinson suggested Page Rage, which also works. And Tina suggests Biblio-biased.
What do you think? What would be a good term for the cross-format prejudice?
read more »
January 17, 2012 | Tuesday at 10:25 am | 25 Comments
Tomorrow from 8am EST until 8pm EST, Smart Bitches will be joining Reddit, Wikipedia English, Cheezburger, Failblog, Regretsy, Wordpress, Cakewrecks, BoingBoing, Tucows, MoveOn, DeviantArt, Mozilla, Twitpic, and many, many others by going dark to protest SOPA in the US House of Representatives, and PIPA in the US Senate, two bills that I feel threaten freedom of speech, privacy and internet development.
The purpose of the bills is to address and attempt to curb online piracy. As written, the bills allow corporations and the US Government to block entire websites based on poorly-defined terms. In my opinion, the bills give too much power to those who have much to gain by overusing it, granted by politicians with too little understanding of what these bills mean. The FAQ by CNET explains in greater detail, as does the BBC.
On 16 January, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor promised that SOPA would not be brought to the floor, but PIPA, the…
read more »
January 02, 2012 | Monday at 12:20 am | 118 Comments
I thought we'd gone over this in the past few years enough times that folks knew this information already. But it seems like we need a review because authors still don't seem to know where the hell the hymen is.
We went over this in the Bosoms for about six pages, and we've joked about it here for pages and pages more.
But it seems that the hymen still eludes us, specifically WHERE IT IS.
It is NOT Up the vaginal canal by a few inches.
IT IS NOT INTERNAL.
IT IS EXTERNAL.
read more »
December 28, 2011 | Wednesday at 9:13 am | 139 Comments
As was reported in the NY Times back in 2007, the NASCAR Harlequins have some specific rules by which they must abide: no sex, no crashes, no drugs, no alcohol use in the content of the story.
Back in 2007, Mark Dyer, VP of licensing for NASCAR, said in the article,
“Look at our stats. Forty percent of our fans are women, and among younger fans it’s trending toward 50-50.” He added that according to Nascar surveys 72 percent of female fans enjoy reading and are more likely than nonfans to purchase books.
This is particularly interesting (and somewhat laughable) in light of Kasey Kahne's Tweetstream yesterday, in which he called a woman breast feeding "nasty":
read more »
December 14, 2011 | Wednesday at 10:54 am | 150 Comments
After reading a scene in which the heroine was a surprise virgin (Surprise! Virgin!) I tweeted about how tired I was of the Surprise Virgin afterglow conversations.
Picture it. The hero figures out the heroine is a virgin because he encounters some resistance (which, don't even get me started) and she flinches and of course he Is Very Alarmed and tries to stop but she tells him not to so it's ok for him to get on with it.
Then after they've crested and reached peaks of joy and done the dance as old as time, he says something about how if he'd known she was a virgin, he'd have done it all differently, been more gentle or something.
read more »
December 12, 2011 | Monday at 12:26 am | 101 Comments
I really, really dislike clichés. I dislike them a LOT. And it's not just in writing that I dislike them. I hate when I'm talking to someone and suddenly a chain of corporate speak comes out of their mouth. Sometimes, I overhear people on business conference calls on the train and it's ridiculous, between the touching base, the face-to-face, the circling back, and (my favorite) the calenderize-ing.
Yes. Calendarize.
In romance, there isn't so much calendarizing (though I think if anyone did calendarize something, it would be a villain, or someone rather hapless) but there is no shortage of cliche.
Recently I came across "she drew him like a moth to a flame," and I may have pulled a lateral rectus muscle rolling my eyes. First, moth to a flame? Really? That's the best language we have?
read more »
November 21, 2011 | Monday at 4:49 pm | 46 Comments
As reported on Twitter and on Dear Author, Penguin has removed lending capabilites from its digital library for the Kindle. In other words, no digital lending for Kindle - and, per a statement at Library Journal, no new books will be available for digital lending, either. Overdrive's statement on their site reads in part:
In the interim, OverDrive was instructed to suspend availability of new Penguin eBook titles from our library catalog and disable “Get for Kindle” functionality for all Penguin eBooks.
That now makes four out of six publishers who do not allow lending of digital titles: Penguin, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan. I had originally optimistically remembered two, but alas I was wrong.
Anyone want to take bets as to when the last two will follow suit?
What a terrible decision. I've spent a lot of time this year speaking at librarian conferences, including the national convention of the American Library Association and local conferences of the Connecticut Librarian Association. In every case, there were sessions devoted to working out how to serve the patrons who want to borrow digital materials, and how to best serve…
read more »
August 30, 2011 | Tuesday at 10:14 am | 538 Comments
Catriona wrote in the Heyer/Grand Sophy thread:
Sarah, can we do a thread on romances that we want to love, we should have loved, everybody else loves them…but that we can’t stand because something just left a bad taste in our mouths?
I like this idea for two reasons. No, three. First, we’ve done it before. But let’s do a new one. It’s been years.
Second: not enjoying a book that it seems like everyone loved or enjoyed can be an isolating experience, but as I’ve learned on the internet, you’re never alone in your likes and dislikes, no matter how outlandish they might seem. 0_o
And third: everyone’s buttons are different (woo, kinky!). What ticks me off may not bother you in the slightest, and vice versa. For example, and I’ve used this example before: there are many who are intensely bothered by historical inaccuracies in romances. I am not one of these people. The Duke can in fact drive a Porsche to Almack’s, and I’m fine with it. Whatever.
read more »
August 18, 2011 | Thursday at 11:56 am | 94 Comments
One thing I have noticed in the past year or so is that the more romance readers are online speaking with one another, the faster we all get a working understanding of the publishing process. We learn more about how a book is produced, in other words, the more we speak with writers, editors, and publishing professionals.
Remember Navarro’s Promise, where the promised sex scene was entirely missing? That scene is available as a download on her site.
But alas, it seems the error-filled Lora Leigh books continue: the reviews for her latest book, Midnight Sins, are cringeworthy.
But what is interesting is that some reviewers spread the blame for the terrible finished product across several parties, including the editors and the publisher.
read more »
August 15, 2011 | Monday at 9:19 pm | 42 Comments
It takes a lot of balls to copy someone’s work word-for-word. It also takes a lot of balls to pass that work off as your own. But it takes a whole pile of balls to copy a book nearly word-for-word and both change the main characters’ name to “Edwards” and “Bella” and change the point of view from first to third. Because making it TwiFic makes it all better, right?
Lucky for Cynthia Eden (except not at all) that’s exactly what someone did. A fanfic writer named “misconception76” took Eden’s story Deadly Heat and turned it into TwiFic. And the fanfic rip off was so good that folks made (and then have since removed) Bella-as-a-firefighter fan art. The reviews were all positive until the plagiarism was spotted.
Jiminy Christmas.
My understanding of the fanfic community is that they have an extremely low tolerance for plagiarism in their community, because shoddy work like this helps the reputation of fanfic not at all. Yet this work is still available. WTF? Many a commenter to the original story has said they’ve reported it, but the story is still up. I tried to join the community…
read more »
July 07, 2011 | Thursday at 5:04 pm | 112 Comments
Good morning! Everyone ready to point and laugh? Get your finger ready - no, not THAT one, the OTHER one - to mock with abandon specious research and shoddy statistics pointing out a supposed flaw in our love of romance novels.
Ahoy! What steaming pile of crap through yonder website breaks! Women still in grip of idealised love and sex, purveyed by romantic fiction.
Oh, no, are you ok? Surely you didn’t hurt yourself pointing and laughing already because there’s a LOT MORE COMING.
Susan Quilliam, who is not a scientist but instead a “broadcaster and agony aunt” ( the hell does that mean?!) and relationship psychologist who recently authored “The New Joy of Sex,” contributed this article to the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.
Mmmm. Irony. The author of a book about positive sexuality for men and women mocking and lambasting a genre that is also about… positive sexuality for men and women.
The summary of the article has the standard smacks of the genre: that sex and relationships are idealized, that women readers are too influenced by the genre and need to “put down the books…
read more »
June 16, 2011 | Thursday at 5:51 pm | 78 Comments
Every now and again, I receive an epic rant about a book that not only displeased the reader but set her off in a truly hilarious fit of rage. I call them ‘Book Rants,’ because sometimes ranting about a book that made you furious is the only way to squeeze a little good out of an altogether horrific reading experience. Today’s Book Rant comes from Dora, who was not pleased by this book.
This book just got me so angry I started typing this, and before I knew it… well, I thought maybe you might be interested in hearing what I thought about it. Here’s the review with my admittedly shameful grade of DNF.
Whenever I dislike a romance novel, I always have to try to temper my reaction with the knowledge that it probably wasn’t for me. I’m an intermittent bodice-ripper gal at best, and a lot of my purchases in the genre tend to be made on impulse on the “Best Seller” wall in the local supermarket, a stop I usually make on my way for kitty litter and inappropriate carbohydrates. Rushed to the Altar by Jane Feather was…
read more »
May 31, 2011 | Tuesday at 7:43 pm | 112 Comments
ETA: Thanks to Carolyn Jewel for the link: it seems most of this article is plagiarized from a letter to the editor from 2007. OH THE HILARITY. So not only does Sayer Giles have her head up her bum BUT she’s a plagiarist, too? WOW. JUST WOW.
Another day, another disparaging article about romance novels. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the link that set Twitter on fire this morning and insulted so many of us who read and write the genre: Romance novels can be addictive as pornography.
What set my hair on fire about this article is that this is EXACTLY the attitude I was trying so hard to combat in my upcoming book, the one where romance readers and authors worked together to help me defend against this crap.
At least it’s a bit more rare to see the asshattery displayed in flaming colors like this. Used to be weekly. Now my blood pressure has time to level out to somewhat normal numbers.
Kimberly Sayer Giles, of LDS Life Coaching, outlines that romance is porn, some women are addicted to it, and conveniently she has…
read more »
