Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Oh, that’s infuriating! I wonder if Miss High and Mighty Artiste would be interested in the RWA statistic that shows that 42% of romance readers have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Wait ... I bet she’d argue that all those women were in college to get their MRS degrees. Silly girls!

Bitter, much?  “I am not unhappy.”  Did they ask your state of mind or whether you were still writing?

Sarah, I couldn’t focus on the majority of your rant after the quote because the top of my head blew off. Sorry.

I have never heard of Barbara Bickmore, and I guarantee you I will never, ever buy one of her books. In fact, if she has a pen name, somebody better post it so I can be sure never to buy any of the nom de plume books either! Oh, wait. I shouldn’t know what a nom de plume is because I’m apparently a brainless idiot who enjoys romance novels.

That quote probably also stems from one of the basic assumptions many Europeans have:  Americans are stupid.

When I was a student in Germany we had to take a couple of classes with all the other international students (90% were EU, 8% US, 2% Asian).  I can’t remember what the topic was, but the instructor (essentially what we would consider a TA or Asst Prof) tossed off the line “Americans have no culture.”  No one disagreed—I was too shocked to even come up with German words for the rest of the class.  But that really was the pervasive attitude of all of the students—French, German, Spanish, British (especially the Brits—they seem to really hold us in disdain).

After that gobsmacking quote I thought I’d check out a couple of her titles on Amazon.com.  To be fair most of her reviews (the few there are, and it is Amazon…)are good, but the Publishers Weekly review for “Homecoming” pretty much tells me that she’s talking out of her ass.  Too complex indeed.  The line quoted sounds like something from the winning entry in a purple prose contest.

*As far as I can find, she does not have a nom de plume.

After that gobsmacking quote I thought I’d check out a couple of her titles on Amazon.com.  To be fair most of her reviews (the few there are, and it is Amazon…)are good, but the Publishers Weekly review for “Homecoming” pretty much tells me that she’s talking out of her ass.  Too complex indeed.  The line quoted sounds like something from the winning entry in a purple prose contest.

*As far as I can find, she does not have a nom de plume.

Personally I think she answered her own question on why she can’t find an American publisher.  And she thinks I’m stupid.

Sorry for the double post.  I dont’ knwo what happened, or how to get rid of it.

I agree, Ceilidh. That quote is a groaner!

http://www.roweweb.com/bickmore/about.html

Who the hell is Barbara Bickmore?

“I sent off a 40 page outline and the first 8 chapters of my novel, EAST OF THE SUN, and the agent sold it to the first publisher she tried… My books have been translated into 16 languages and published in 22 countries.”

She sounds like a loud-mouthed braggart. Seems to me that she’s trying to convince herself that even though nobody reads her books—because we American romance readers are too stupid—she is still the best writer evah!

OMG! Wake up and smell the lavender, bitch.

I just had to follow the link—why can I not resist the linkage? The whole “bio” stinks of “Artiste”. And somehow the voice I hear in my head as I read it is Kitten (the brilliant Cillan Murphy) in Breakfast on Pluto: “And you know little one, never once did the brilliant literary professor think that she, a humble writer who slaved away at a homely kitchen table, would be published. No my darling. But an agent just snapped us up and took us away to a magic land”

Gahhhhhhhhhhh (Not sure how to indicate gagging)

Sounds like she’s writing those sweeping saga type stories, more like Judith Krantz from the 80s than modern romance.  Some people like them.  I can’t be bothered.  I want ONE romance, not two or three.

Feklar - what makes you think she’s European? I can’t see her nationality anywhere, but the books seem to have American protagonists.
[Have to say, I don’t recall ever seeing the name, so I have doubts as to whether she’s very popular in the UK]

I’m sorry, I don’t usually post this much (I lurk and stuff), but this woman has got me riled up.

From a review of her book, Homecoming:

“Overwrought characters (including one who grins and feels “himself growing erect and hard. Very hard” as he contemplates killing a woman) and contrived plotting undermine this tale. Bickmore’s soap-operatic prose (“Adam, together we’re going to have a marvelous time, be important and powerful and have each other to talk everything over with. And we’re going to continue having the greatest sex in the world,” says Sydney to her second husband on their wedding night) doesn’t help either.”

Sounds like sour grapes to me.  She can’t sell her books in the world’s biggest market, so she puts down said market as too stupid to understand her. 

Not worth getting torqued up over.

Still…bee-yotch!

Tonda, I whimper at the mere thought of Cillian Murphy.  I’ll have to check out that film you mentioned.

>>”...too complex for romance readers.”<<

I’m just…words fail me. 

But I feel better after reading bam’s excerpt.  Much better.

Hmmm.
Bickmore rhymes with “dick more.” Coincidence?

She currently lives in Mexico, in a small Indian town as she calls it.  I’m thinking she actually is American.  Which makes it worse.

I don no whut shee meens.  I is jest as smrt as uropeeins.  I’s mad enuf to open a can a whupass on the beech.

... and by the way?  My books sell in Europe, despite the fact that I’m a culture-less, moronic romance reader.  Pbttttth, neener neener, nanny nanny boo boo, you can’t catch me….

Yet the joy, and sometimes ecstasy, is that something comes, a book is created, and I get these marvelous feelings of pride and even astonishment that I wrote what I wrote. And that somebodies pay to read it all.

Ahh, I think the word ‘somebodies’ is just too complex for me.  I have to admire the ecstatic, marvelous way she used that word.  Snort.

Why is it, when I read the entire response to the question on the link, that I hear her speaking in a rather plumy, posh, fakey-fake shit British accent like the one Madonna affects? “Oh, I rather do think Americans are so insufferably boorish because they can’t read 1,455 pages of my deathless purple prose!”

I actually think my grandmother used to read those sort of novels. She’s probably spinning in her grave, too, because Granny’s the one who taught me to appreciate the fine turn of phrase *cough, cough* in bodice rippers….  :cheese:

Judging from the Amazon descriptions, she writes sagas: you know, the kind of books that follow a woman’s life from youth to old age with all her marriages, family troubles, career struggles, etc. (No formula there.)

They were huge in the 80s and early 90s, but here’s a tip for Bickmore: people don’t read that kind of thing much anymore. Even Barbara Taylor Bradford, the queen of the sagas, isn’t as big as she was.

Now, I have a lot of sympathy for writers who write what they love and find the market disappearing from underneath them. But perhaps she could consider stretching herself and writing in a new genre, instead of complaining about the fact that her genre is currently out of style.

Couldn’t help myself from following more links . . . Sarah F is right, it appears that she writes “sweeping family sagas” which have simply gone out of style. Right now first person or deep POV are the style preferred by publishers (and presumably readers). These two styles predominate in all the genre fiction I see out there (mystery, sci-fi and romance), as well as in “literary fiction”. You don’t tend to find these styles of POV in family sagas where lots of characters share the POV.

Failure to grow with a genre leads to not being published.

As for Cillian Murphy: Makes me feel like a dirty old woman, and I like it. Rrrrow! Though my friends and I couldn’t get over how well he does femme. Breakfast on Pluto also gives you Liam Neeson as a priest, and Brendan Gleason as a Womble!

I agree with you, an author who writes what s/he loves has all my sympathy.  But if you read her page, she says she had to forget all her literary knowledge in order to write to be published.  She says she researched the formula at the library and tried to recreate it.  I may be wrong since I’m just a stupid American, but that isn’t tugging my heartstrings.

Amy said, “But if you read her page, she says she had to forget all her literary knowledge in order to write to be published. She says she researched the formula at the library and tried to recreate it.”

Yeah, just gotta love that combo of sneering at her readers while patting herself on the back for her l33t literary knowledge. For everything that happens, she’s got a ready-made explanation to preserve her ego.

One of the best essays I’ve read which (in my opinion) puts to rest the idea that genre fiction is for fools was written by Elizabeth Lowell and is on her website.  That essay knocked me on my ass for about a week.

The Romance genre is not INHERENTLY low brow but, let’s be honest, there are a LOT of seriously gay books published under the Romance banner.  For example, if I read a book where one of the characters makes a joke about chocolate being a substitute for sex, or about all the good men being gay - I start foaming at the mouth.

BEYOND A PROMISE is a book filled with lies, secrets, incest, affairs, lost loves and broken hearts.

Okay. Barbara won’t do violence but it’s okay for the relatives in her books to do each other? I’m glad I’m too stupid to comprehend the merits of family members getting it on.

I just read her auto-bio (thanks for the link), and here’s my take:

“too complex” = too wordy

Also popular in Europe

Ooh, David Hasselhoff, the compulsive chest-hair exhibitor!

Here’s the link for the Elizabeth Lowell essay (I think).  It’s amazing!  Almost enough to get me to start reading her again!  :)

Yeah.  Well, it helps if I add the link, doesn’t it:

http://www.elizabethlowell.com/popfiction.html

Sorry.

You know who else is big in Europe?

The David Hasselhoff.

SB Sarah, you crack my shit up, for realz.

Well, I’m in Europe (travel all around it as a matter of fact) Buy Lots of books there (last book I bought was Keep me Forever by Rosemary Laurey!)
and I NEVER saw Ms. Bikmore’s books. So please don’t go blaming us or shoving her off on us Europeans - believe me - we are smart enough at least not to have heard of her either!
LOL

I live in Europe, I’m an avid romance reader and I have never heard of Ms Bickmore, still less seen any of her books for sale. As far as I can see, she doesn’t appear to have a recent European publishing deal or a US one either.

I don’t want to defend her comment, but without wishing to seem anti-American, I think that certainly the British market and I suspect other European markets are different from the US market. Bickmore’s comments were insensitive and crass, and I don’t think she has hit on what the differences are between the US and the European markets, but they do exist. Writers who are huge in the US (Nora Roberts or Suzanne Brockmann) are barely a blip on the horizon in Europe - Roberts is beginning to make some headway, in that I’ve seen her books for sale in the UK, Belgium, France and Spain, both in English and in translation, but she is by no means as well known as she is in the US. This isn’t a value judgement, it is just a fact. Equally, a writer like Katie Fforde, who is pretty big in the UK, is fairly unknown in the US.

I think it would be interesting to follow up on why it is that tastes are so different on each side of the Atlantic.

And no, we do not all think Americans are dumb. There are some dumb Americans out there, just as there are dumb Brits, Frogs and any other nationality. The dumb thing is to make sweeping generalisations about any nationality.

The Powell essay was interesting and made me ask myself if I had my own prejudices against popular fiction.  Intellectually, I’m an existentialist and a modernist, and yet I have no problem with HEA’s as long as they’re believable.  90% of what I read and enjoy is pop fiction.  If it’s crap, it’s crap because the author didn’t do his or her job, not because of its genre or formula.  I can tell the difference between a bad book and a book that just didn’t meet my preferences.

Makes me wonder whether Powell isn’t setting up her own straw man argument as much as Bickmore is.  Where is the hard evidence that critics hate happy endings?  It seems like I’ve read just as many reviews that revile the relentless despair of the lit’ry novel.

Some academic should study reviews of popular fiction and see if there really is such a prejudice.  I bet that just like the SBs, most critics try their best to judge a book on its merits, not on personal preferences.

We may agree more with Powell than with Bickmore, but aren’t they two sides of the same coin?  They each denigrate those whose approval they’ll never attain. 

Reverse snobbery is still snobbery.

“... priapic scorn ...”

swoooosh

Interesting essay. I don’t think it’s aimed so much at critics—what I got is that it points out the reason the romance genre is looked down on is it’s for women.

I am, of course, biased. But that’s my take on it.

Sorry, I meant Elizabeth Lowell, not Powell.  I could try to pass it off as a typo if it just happened once, but twice?  Means I’m a dork.

It seems like I’ve read just as many reviews that revile the relentless despair of the lit’ry novel.

Yes, but in the world of writers, which is what I think most of us are talking about, a tragic romance with an unhappy ending is considered serious work, real work, good work. Whereas, a happy romance is “knocked out” fluff, with little merit, and the writers are not considered to be working all that hard.

I’m not talking about Amazon reviews, or even PW. I’m simply talking about professional respect. About being taken seriously as a writer who works hard to hone their craft and deliver a great story.

I come from a snooty literary background. And it drives me ape-shit when my peers, people I went to college with, blow me off for succumbing to the lure of writing fluff (“In it for the easy money, huh?”). It pisses me off. Offends me. I work just as hard on my romances as I did on the “literature” I wrote in grad school. I might even work harder on them. But I can tell you right now, if I wrote the SAME FUCKING BOOK but instead of finding a way for the couple to be together, I let one of the die horribly, I could get it published as literary fiction, and my peers would all be congratulating me on being the next Dunnet.

Hmm. I’ve had books sold in Europe. (The Compass Rose in French—does that make your head hurt?)So I’m special like Ms. Bickmore too? (I think I remember seeing one of her books out somewhere, nce upon a time) (durned new keybard—the O keeps sticking—and then giving me twoo…)

I don’t care for those big sagas either. I don’t want to wade through a character’s childhood. Most childhoods are boring, frankly. I want to jump right in to the juicy parts. Give me the important childhood stuff as carefully edited backstory delicately inserted into the ongoing action.

And I think that is part of the market difference between say, Britain and America. There is a market in the UK for series roomances, (Do those who read them suffer from similar sneers?) but apparently people reading bigger books want seriously BIGGER books.

I bought a whole bunch of the Jilly Cooper books—RIDERS, RIVALS, PANDORA, etc. Very popular in England. I had to order them from England, in fact. Paid more fr postage than the boks. And they’re so huge, I can’t read the suckers in one sitting, which is my preference. I liked the one I started, but it’s such a time sucker that I’ve been afraid to finish it.

I read half—the equivalent of an ordinary 100,000-word book (the average single-title novel’s length)—and I still have that much again to go. If that’s what people want, maybe my books will do well in Europe too… Hmmm again.

Sagas are big in the UK and to a certain extent in Australia. I like a good one myself. I’m worried about one of her books, The Moon Below.

THE MOON BELOW is a magnificent tale of selfless courage in an exotic land of purple mountains and silvery eucalyptus, of ancient aboriginal culture and varied wildlife, and of one woman’s quest for independence and purpose—and the price her heart is forced to pay.

After a couple of visits to Australia I cringe when people start writing about Aboriginal culture. Sterotypes and misunderstandings are the usual result.

But I can tell you right now, if I wrote the SAME FUCKING BOOK but instead of finding a way for the couple to be together, I let one of the die horribly, I could get it published as literary fiction

But to label all lit fic as depressing and pessimistic is just as inaccurate as labeling all romance as fluffy.  I’ve read plenty of lit novels that were uplifting, just as I’ve read plenty of romances that were intelligent.  Books ought to be judged as individual works, not by their genre.

(Wait, I sense an “I have a dream” speech coming on…)

:shakes self:

Tonda, I’m so sorry your peers are saying that nasty kind of shit to you.  That would piss me off, too.  Opinions of people like that don’t matter.  Repeat after me: ONLY READERS MATTER

(and editors)

I work for a large publisher of all kinds of books, though of course our bread and butter is popular fiction. I am pleased to see many of our authors with Snarky Bitch grades of As and Bs.

The general obervation of the foreign sales and subrights departments? We can’t tell why some things sell in one country but not in another. Some days the best anyone can say is that books of variety A, B, and C do very well in South Africa and Guam, while variety D and E don’t—but C and D and E do very well in Germany and Venezuela. And everyone shrugs and tries to classify the rest of our books as A, B, C, D, and E so we can target them best.

(There is phrase, “The French Exception,” that sums it up: if a book sells well in France, no one else in Europe will want it, and if it is successful in the rest of Europe, it will tank in France. No one knows why.)

(And yes, obviously there are exceptions to the French Exception. I’m just saying: General Rule.)

As to Ms. Bickmore…she makes me sad. It’s pretty clear that she’s lacking in fundamental self-confidence (witness all the chest-beating about everyone else in her life being a better writer than she, and her fear of becoming a writer), and has fallen back on the common defense of tearing down what she perceives as the competition, rather than empirically outperforming it.

I can’t even summon anger at her, only pity.

(Also: her career is not failing because of the death of her genre. Anne Rivers Siddons and Rebecca Wells still do pretty well for themselves, to judge by their Amazon sales ranks.)

I get this all the time.  I’m just finishing my undergrad in a small liberal arts school, and man, are we ever pretentious.  I’ve only met one other person who claims to read romances, and that’s it.  That’s it!  There HAS to be someone out there, hiding from the sneering faces of the academic masses.  If 42% of all paperbacks sold in North America are romances, there HAS to be more than two readers in this town.

I was told by the small bookstore owner here that romances “don’t sell”, but the used bookstore owner claims that Norah Roberts pays the rent.

Who is lying, I wonder, and why?

This was such a ramble.  I’m just tired of all the BS and flack I get for enjoying something other than television.

What’s more sad than the preferences of American readers?...probably Ms. Bickmores writing. I enjoy good writing in almost any genre, but never heard of this Bickmore ego.

Sagas?  Like watching grass grow.

Wait a minute. We have ONE woman - who’s actually American - who makes a real silly-arse comment and some of you are bashing Europe? Where’s logic in that? :P

David Hasselhoff is big in Germany, not Europe. :> He’s said that a-many times. “I is the King in Germany. I am solely responsible for the destruction of the Berlin wall! I WAS THERE! I WAS RIGHT THERE - ON TOP OF THAT WALL AND I SANG! I inspired so many to pull down the wall!”

I’m with Zeba on this one as she says here: “And no, we do not all think Americans are dumb. There are some dumb Americans out there, just as there are dumb Brits, Frogs and any other nationality. The dumb thing is to make sweeping generalisations about any nationality.”

Amen.

FWIW, in the stack of sale books at the library last night, I found a book by Ms. Bickmore and thought I might shell out $0.50, just to see what European audiences like so much that Americans do not.  After reading the back blurb, I wasn’t even willing to pay pocket change for a used copy.  The hero’s name (I assumed he was the hero, at least, maybe not) was Boomer Bannerman.  It sounds like a cowboy name from an 80s-style “epic” Western.  No thanks.

We have ONE woman - who’s actually American - who makes a real silly-arse comment

Bickmore’s obviously one of those “self-hating Americans.”

I’d like to read some of Katie Fforde’s books to see if there’s a different sensibility than American romances.  After all, Helen Fielding and Nick Hornby (the godparents of chick/lad lit) seem to have crossed the Atlantic pretty well.

Too many comments for me to know if someone else found this out, but Barbara Bickford’s work is available to us dumb Americans on Amazon. Or didn’t she know that?  Maybe she’s too stupid to realize that.

By the way, I have a master’s degree and heartily enjoy romance!

“I’m told that I write books that are too long, are about women and their problems and achievements and don’t have enough violence and action in them to interest Americans.”

I think this bothers me more than the romance comment.  Or maybe it compounds my irritation at the implication I’m stupid because I read romances.  (By the way- double degree in chemistry and environmental science and a year away from my masters- I don’t think I’m stupid :smirk: )

It disturbs me that she implies Americans think a story about a woman is automatically more boring or not worth reading.

You know, I have a Master’s degree, too. One of my professors (who, granted, taught genre lit—yes, I’m trained as a library ninja warrioress) used to encourage us to never be embarassed by what we read. All of which makes me wonder—is the rate of new book sales dropping because people are afraid to be seen in public reading fiction? Are people just not buying books because they’re almost as ashamed to be seen reading tawdry fiction as they would be to carry a copy of Playboy[\i] in public? Why are people embarassed by this? Do they really think it makes them look uneducated?