Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Links! It’s like we’re online and stuff

CS Central Science has a feature about Heather Snow's first novel - a historical romance with a chemist heroine.

The CENtral Science blog is connected to the chemistry journal, "Chemistry & Engineering News."

Thanks to Karen for the link - she wrote, "I was surprised to see a romance novel mentioned in a chemistry blog, but I was pleased that the story didn't have anything negative to say about romance novels!  It was so refreshing to see an article about romance that was positive, especially in such an unusual place."

I love this kind of support so much. Yay chemist heroines!

Links and News

Via Publisher's Lunch (Free reg. req.): recipe site AllRecipes was purchased by Meredith Corp for $175 million dollars. Among the final four bidders: Random House and Amazon.com.

AllRecipes is a site I use frequently, and the strength of the community there is based on reviews and commentary on the recipes. I rarely use a recipe that doesn't have reviews and comments, especially from folks who have modified it to suit their tastes.

The strength of AllRecipes is in the community of reviewers and their commitment to critique and improvement more than just the database of recipes, and with the number of times I refer to that site in a week, I'm not surprised it went for $175mm.

Reviews, y'all. They're valuable! Who'd have thought?

What recipe sites do you use? Do you use AllRecipes?

Links, Fun & Games

To follow the proceedings of Digital Book World 2012, the hashtag #dbw12 is a mix of reaction and reporting. Alas, my reporting ended after lunch, as I had to take a break from the conference and go home. I am not sure if I'll be back tomorrow, but the hashtag is full of folks reporting from the different panels.

One highlight today; a full hour in the morning of the opening day devoted to lessons learned from romance ebook publishing, featuring Julie Cummings from AllRomance, Raelene Gorlinsky from Ellora's Cave, Liate Stehlik and Angela James from Carina Press.

The panelists discussed DRM, pricing, and the ways in which digital publishing has created a more adept and flexible publishing model that's better positioned to treat readers as customers and to take charge of their own customer service relationships. Two years ago, romance was part of an afternoon session - this year it was among the first sessions on the main stage. Most excellent.

Links and News and a few Coupons

Author Jim C. Hines has recreated several UF covers. This is so awesome, I don't know where to put my eyeballs first!

The insulin pump site is what makes it extra more awesome. High fives to you, sir!

I am waiting for the 'oops my ballgown is falling off my shoulders and is totally open in the back' pose. When's that coming, Jim?

What poses would you like to see Jim recreate?

In May 2011, a reader asked me about author Alison Richardson, who wrote a series of Spice Briefs. I was contacted by Ms. Richardson, who was very flattered that readers were looking for her. I have a message for you on the original entry from Ms. Richardson.

A Couple of Cool Links to Break Up your Tuesday

From JaniceG: Hatpin! Self defense! Hatpins as self defense tools! 

"When attacked from behind, she grasps a hatpin. Turning quickly, she is able to strike a fatal blow in the face."

This would be a good addition to steampunk. We don't need more googles. We need BIG ASS HATPINS holding on the fascinators, which themselves could double as ninja stars.

No, don't thank me, I'll be here all day. Me and my bottle of narcotic cough syrup. 

Another link! 

Somewhere in the last few days, I was tweeted this link. I have no idea where the origin is, so if it was you, you are totally awesome and made of all winsome things.

Have a look at what happens when REM song titles are made into book titles and sorted by genre. It's hilarious fun.

The "erotica" and "memoir" sections alone made me snort laugh. 

Links and Stuff

Big huge mazel tov to Barbara Vey, who will be published in "Chicken Soup for the Soul: Family Caregivers." Vey's story is about her role caring for her mom during her mom's terminal illness. If you've never heard Barbara speak about anything, go sit and ask her random questions because she's hilarious.

But if she talks about her mom, it'll make you teary, because her mom was one special lady - which is not a big surprise since Barbara is entirely awesome.

Congrats to Barbara on her upcoming publication!

Via Tina C. an amazing set of pictures: when you paint a room white and give kids thousands of colored stickers, art happens.

Back in October, Deirdre Donohue interviewed me for the USA Today "Life" section and the rest of the interview is online at the USAT Happy Ever After blog. Yay for not being restricted by column inches (huh huh. Inches).

So, what's up with you this week? Tired of being back after the vacation? What are you reading? 

A Few Coupons and Deals Today!

A handful of coupons and rebates and things involving % signs!

Harlequin has eBook daily deals through 3 January. Today, for 1 January, four featured books are all 25% off with coupon code BESL25OFF at checkout. Sarah Mayberry's Best Laid Plans and Maria Snyder's Outside In are featured today.

You can also save an EXTRA 10% on all Harlequin Ebooks with coupon code SAVE10AFFO at checkout but I don't think you can combine that coupon code with the one above.

For those ordering print books from Harlequin, you can get free shipping with coupon code FREESHIPAFFO at checkout. Print books only - because as far as I know there's no shipping charge for ebooks. Heh.

Finally, you canget $1 Off select Kobo eBooks with coupon code Kobodollaroff. It's not valid on everything but it should work on non-agency titles, and it expires at the end of the month.

Two Links for the Second Night of Hanukkah

They don't have anything to do with Hanukkah per se, but There's Two Of Them, and tonight is the second night of Hanukkah. I am wild with the connections, aren't I?

First: From the charming and clever department, Brian O'Leary's holiday retelling of The Night Before Christmas, only with ebooks.

And Second: This is a cool Kickstarter project: The Monster Alphabet Board Book, created by Darren Gendron and Obsidian Abnormal, the folks behind HelloWithCheese.

Each letter of the alphabet is a different monster - and given how many of you are (a) parents of young kids and (b) total monster geeknerds, I figured you might like to know about it.

For $22 or more, donors get two copies of the book. I'm going to keep one to read to my kids, who will be totally giddy about it, and give one away here once its published. Stay tuned in the new year for funky monster options!

Question: have you ever funded a Kickstarter before? This is my first. It was fun - and very easy!

Links! It’s like we’re online or something!

Ever wondered who your Perfect Regency Hero might be? Carolyn Jewel is here to help.

My results? The Brooding Duke, which reads in part, " chances are good he'll win you in a card game, take your virginity later that night then put you to work as his valet."

AWESOME!

Graceful curtsey to Elizabeth for the link!

Links to Sales and Hilariousness

Courtney Milan's "Unraveled," better known as Smite's Story, is on sale now. Unveiled and Unclaimed were both book club selections, and so many readers were clamoring for Smite's story - I had to make sure you knew it was available. Otherwise someone might have smote me. [ AMZ | BN | ARe ]

Also on sale now for $1.99: Teresa Medeiros' Yours Until Dawn. [Kindle | BN & nook]

...

Via many people: Daniel Abraham's Private Letter from Genre to Mainstream - it is sharp and hilarious.

My favorite part: the reply letters in the comments.

Links! They are ON the INTERNETS

There's a lot going on here there and everywhere.

The winner of the Bad Sex award has been announced. The winner was David Guterson for "Ed King," a retelling of Oedipus. The winning, ahem, passage:

"In the shower, Ed stood with his hands at the back of his head, like someone just arrested, while she abused him with a bar of soap. After a while he shut his eyes, and Diane, wielding her fingernails now and staring at his face, helped him out with two practiced hands, one squeezing the family jewels, the other vigorous with the soap-and-warm-water treatment. It didn't take long for the beautiful and perfect Ed King to ejaculate for the fifth time in twelve hours, while looking like Roman public-bath statuary. Then they rinsed, dried, dressed, and went to an expensive restaurant for lunch."

Dude. Yawn.

I'm still taking suggestions for our bad sex 2011 award, which will be voted on shortly. Email me if you have a bad sex scene to suggest. Graceful curtsey to Deborah for the link.

2011 Gift Guide: Volume 1!

Time for a few 2011 holiday gift guides, with items selected or suggested by me, and by readers of the site. I collect links and ideas all year, so get ready. There will be a few editions of the gift guide!

First: from reader Alex, a whole STORE on Etsy of literary quote jewelry, from cuffs to earrings and necklaces. JezebelCharms has quotes from Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare - there's way too much to choose from.

This edition is full of silly and fun apparel - and some techy gifts at the end. 

Links Defending The Romance

Marianne Mancusi interviewed me at Galtime, talking about how romance novels are far from being horrible influences on us young impressionable women. Yay!

But wait, there's more!

Romance author Maya Rodale self-published a defense of romance novels titled Dangerous Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation Of Romance Novels Explained based in part on the research she did for her master's thesis. Apparently (I haven't read my copy yet) it has footnotes. SEXY AUDACIOUS FOOTNOTES. It's up on Amazon and should be up on BN.com shortly. 

There's also a video - though the sound is uneven, so beware ye folks at work. It gets loud in a quick hurry. Don't get busted while rebelling against doing work by watching videos about rebellious reading. 

Assortment of Bookish Links

I really need some sort of feature image for the "links" post. I still like these guys though I don't know if I want to track down the rights to that image, since I don't think those are plugs when I glance at that picture. 

Anyway! 

From Chisai comes this link that really, and I mean it, take your breath away. In a good way. Seriously.

The Book Surgeon creates some amazing pieces of art from old books.

I looked at that page twice with my jaw hanging open and my eyes all wide, like what I was seeing wouldn't fit in them.

From Maria Popova at Brainpicker: the tragicomic truth of Male Superheroes drawn in the same style as female superheroes.

This is going to be hung on the door of my room when I'm reading. (I would have posted the image but I wasn't sure if I had permission to do so.) (I confess, Tumblr still baffles me at times.)

And finally, a link I forgot about and re-remembered today: Hot Guys Reading… read more »

50% Rebate at AllRomance Today!

I thought to myself several times this weekend while shopping online (what? crowds? No, thanks.) that it was a shame there weren't more ebook sales on Black Friday or Cyber Monday or whatever else the sale days are called. But then, I forgot that AllRomance (sponsor of the Sizzling Book Club and generally awesome at customer service) is offering a Cyber Monday 50% Rebate sale. 

That means any title that's incentive-eligible (i.e. not agency) - conveniently marked with this symbol:  - is eligible for a 50% rebate. That's Harlequin, Samhain, Kensington, Sourcebooks -- anyone but the Big Six. Remember when Fictionwise had all those 50-100% rebate titles and folks had the equivalent of the GNP of Luxembourg in their Fictionwise rebate accounts? It's like that. You gather enough ebook bucks at AllRomance, you go shopping with your balance for quite awhile. 

The individual book pages are not marked with the "after rebate" amount. You'll see the rebate total… read more »