Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Links, News, and some WTFery

First, via Katiebabs and KatiD on Twitter: More from Plagiarism Chutzpah!

YA Author Sarah Cross has a guest blog about plagiarism and how it sucks a lot (which it does). It's not a bad post, as it discusses the different types of plagiarism.

But it's a guest post on Kristi Diehm's site, The Story Siren, where plagiarism occurred last January, and was discovered last month. Unfortuantely, this guest post, if you're keeping score at home:

1. includes as a description the exact thing Kristi Diehm did when she lifted content from fashion bloggers Beautifully Invisible and Grit and Glamour.

2. includes, as pointed out by AnimeJune, a copyrighted, trademarked, and totally uncited image from Disney's The Little Mermaid… four paragraphs north of the phrase "ARTISTS ARE PEOPLE, TOO."

3.. includes no commentary or introduction from Kristi Diehm offering context for the post, which is a breathtaking display of chutzpah, as Jane Litte described it, on its own.

4. has already attracted plenty of WTFBBQ posts in the comments

I emailed Sarah Cross about the post, to ask if… read more »

Links, and some WTFery

As the Washington Post reported, romance author Adele Dubois received a "notice of copyright infringement" from Google, which then removed a post from the Romance Books R Us blog based on the entry "ADELE + EXITOS."

The e-mail from Google stated, “Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the copyrights of others.” The e-mail lists the copyright owner as Sony, the copyright work description as “Adele + Exitos” and the “location of the infringing material” as the post by Dubois, which was removed by Google Blogger.

Who instigated the complaint remains a mystery. A “sworn statement” at the end of Google’s e-mail simply says “[private]” under the signature. The statement says, “I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.”

Adele the singer has a recording contract with Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Although names cannot be copyrighted, they can be trademarked. And Adele is trademarked, according to the Trademark Electronic Search System.

I contacted Dubois, she explained… read more »

A Handful of Links, and a Ton of Sales

Be Ye Warned, HarperCollins has put an epic ton of books on sale today, including a pile of Barbara Delinsky's backlist, and some lovely books by Brenda Joyce. I'm sorry in advance.

But first, links!

I don't know how I ended up reading about women in the pornography industry, but this link came from Darien the day after I'd read for hours online about how women work in the porn industry - and not in front of the camera.

First, I read this article about women who work behind the scenes (no pun intended) including one woman who is the makeup artist for all the naked people, and another, Anna Span, who directs films:

In my teens, I was very anti-porn. I thought women were being exploited. But when I went to college to study fine art, something clicked.

Men were able to use their sexuality. Why not help women take advantage of theirs?

Now I’ve shot over 200 explicit scenes, and my films are among the most popular with UK women.

I use… read more »

Links: Book Club Chat, Amazon Reviews, and Jim C Hines Rules The World With His Backside

First! A friendly reminder: the Sizzling Book Club Chat for Tamara Morgan's Love is a Battlefield is Thursday night at 9pm! Need a handy button to add that to your trusty calendar? Here you go:

I hope you'll join us! I'm trying to figure out if I can simultaneously host the chat at the SBTB Facebook page, too, so you may be able to hang out at Ye Olde Face Booke and join in from there. I have been on a serious contemporary romance kick lately, and I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did.

Jim C. Hines rocks the cover model gig again - and it's as good as the last time.

GO ON WITH YOUR BAD SELF JIM. 

His poses are in response to this amazing piece of image commentary from Emily Asher-Perrin, titled "Hey, Everyone. Stop Taking This Picture. No, I Mean It."

Not to mention the Avengers Booty Ass-emble by Kevin Bolk.

Links and Random Data

Data and deals, we have! 

First: Rainbow Romance Writers are doing a survey of romance readers and asked me to pass along the link to you. I enquired what the survey data was going to used for, and they told me, "we're mostly just gathering intel. It's sort of piggybacking off of the survey that RWA did recently but with a few more specific questions, with some focus on LGBT romance, although we're looking for a pretty broad range of responses. Some of what we do with what we find will depend on what the data reveals, but we may use the findings in chapter literature and in public advocacy with vendors and the media. (And responses are anonymous.)" If you're interested in participating or looking at the questions, the survey is online.

Winners and Links!

First, I typed up the entry but it didn't go live - my apologies! I think the next technology I'm going to find is voice-activated blogging. "Post, go live, OK SUCCESS!"

Anyway, the winner of a free six-month subscription to Sourcebooks' new "Discover a New Love" community is Karen H Near Tampa.

Congrats Karen H, who is lucky to live near Tampa, since St. Pete Beach and the Tampa zoo are two very awesome reasons to live near Tampa!

And now, Links that are All About the Joy and the Beauty!

Links and News and Stuff

I have a ton of links and interesting things to read. Isn't it awesome how the internet is full of words to read and things to look at? 

From Janice G. an online game based on Pride and Prejudice, wherein you role play your way through several different options.The game is called Matches and Matrimony and, among other things, it promises "Emotionally stirring Music!" The fact that it's emotionally stirring AND that music is capitalized gives me much curiosity, I confess. 

From Jennifer B comes an article that details the history of banned books in Australia - what was banned and why few people knew about it - from a book by Nicole Moore titled The Censor's Library:

Intrigued by rumours of a censor's library, literary historian Nicole Moore went searching for the old customs archive of banned books. In 2005, she tracked down the collection seven storeys underground in a huge repository in western Sydney. Thousands of banned books, all neatly covered and catalogued, filled 793 boxes. As Moore shows, such secret collections have accumulated in many parts of the world, often carefully… read more »

Links on Art, Brains, and Reading

I linked to this on Twitter but I think I neglected to link to it here: Mills & Boon is running a survey about cover art, asking folks to choose their favorites from four choices:

I believe the ones on the left are the current Riva covers, and I confess to really liking the split on the diagonal. But I dislike cartoon covers, especially the preternatual thinness of the women, like they can floss their teeth with their fingertips and use their legs to pick a lock. Which do you like? If you haven't taken the survey, it's still live. 

If you entered the Sherry Thomas Beauty Bonanza giveaway, the entry is updated with the winners names!

Second Chances, Congrats, and Deals!

First: the DABWAHA Second Chance Tournament is up! Bracket busted? You get a Second Chance! Starting with the Sweet 16, pick your winners - and there's prizes for this tourney, too!

This is a separate contest - your picks in this tourney don't override your picks in the main tourney, in other words. The winner of the 2nd Chance Bracket will receive a Kindle Fire, a $100 Amazon giftcard, and an ARC of Echoes at Dawn, book 5 in the KGI series from author Maya Banks.

2nd place in the 2nd chance will receive a $50 gift card to either Amazon or B&N from Sarah Frantz and Eric Selinger, who are celebrating the publication of their academic collection of essays titled New Approaches in Popular Romance Fiction. 

Have a look at the prizes page for more information on what's going to be awarded with each round. And, yes, there is absolutely a "Wooden Spoon" prize for the worst bracket overall, so if your bracket is hopelessly broken, aim low and vote against yourself to try to score that prize.

The second chance… read more »

Links and Deals and Other Stuff

Via Tina C comes this link about Little Free Libraries popping up around the world. Have you seen one? Is there one in your town?

March 14-18, an assortment of romances, including some Stephanie Bond contemporary tiles and some paranormal romances as well, will be free as a St. Patrick's Day promotion. See anything you might want to try?

Staples has a speed-reading test online that compares your results with the average battery life of popular ereaders. I was pretty spanking fast, but I think the speed of what I'm reading depends on whether I'm enjoying it.

From Cheryl M comes this Tor.com entry from award-winning author Jo Walton, titled How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Romance.

Walton explains her conflicting feelings about the romance genre, but what also grabbed my attention was the discussion about worldbuilding in Regency Heyers and in science fiction taking place in the comments. Fascinating.

And finally: deals! 

Paypal and A Few Links

First: Paypal. I've received a few messages asking why I haven't talked about Paypal's decision to dictate terms to booksellers about what they can and cannot sell. If you haven't read Jane's summary of all the important facts, that's the best source of information I've found.

Paypal's decision baffles me. I do not understand why they're attempting to dictate content sold by publishers. I do not understand why they're doing this, and it makes no sense on several levels. And of course the terms under which they are attempting to restrict content are all focused on sexuality, and not violence. 

But it's not like Paypal has a great record for being logical. Paypal screwed over Regretsy and didn't reverse their decision until the wrath of the internet was visited upon them, and they've shut off services for over other small businesses that sold erotic content. Paypal is doing what Paypal has done for awhile - in other words, like my husband says when someone does something that isn't surprising but drives me nuts anyway, "Expected behavior is expected." 

So my own best option is to not do business with Paypal if I can avoid it. I do have… read more »

Links for Fun

Links of fun and enjoyment for you from the internet! 

From P.G. for every romance editor currently working, this is for you. Print this out and frame for bad days, eh? 

Links and Picks and Stuff on Sale

Let's travel! First stop: all of the world's most beautiful bookstores. I think a world tour is in order!

Thanks to Daisy for the link.

Publisher Barney Rosset died this week at age 89. His obituary is truly amazing: he published titles like Lady Chatterley's Lover in the US and defied censors to do so.

He defied censors in the 1960s by publishing D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer,” ultimately winning legal victories that opened the door to sexually provocative language and subject matter in literature published in the United States. He did the same thing on movie screens by importing the sexually frank Swedish film “I Am Curious (Yellow).”

Mr. Rosset called Grove “a breach in the dam of American Puritanism.”

Beyond being sued scores of times, he received death threats. Grove’s office in Greenwich Village was bombed.

In 2008 the National Book Foundation honored him as “a tenacious champion for writers who were struggling to be read in America.”

Other mentions were less lofty. Life magazine in 1969 titled an article about him “The Old Smut Peddler.” That same year a cover… read more »

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?