Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Asshattery
May 14, 2012 | Monday | 72 Comments
WTFery of the morning, as reported by Dianna Dilworth on GalleyCat: Brevard County Public Libraries in Florida have pulled their 19 copies of 50 Shades of Grey from the shelves. Why? HuffPo has a quote from Don Walker, a spokesman for the library, who said, "it's semi-porgnographic." The HuffPo article indicated that several other libraries in Florida had refused to purchase copies, but Brevard bought 19, then took them out of circulation, sending notices to the 200 or so people on a waiting list. Library services director Cathy Schweinsberg told Florida Today: Nobody asked us to take it off the shelves.…
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April 28, 2012 | Saturday | 118 Comments
A few of us have been joking about making plagiarism bingo cards so we can check off the predictable responses to any discussion of plagiarism. It is jaw-hang depressing to see the same repeated responses, patterns and excuses, but we really could fill a bingo card at this point. AnimeJune rounded up a perfect list of responses to the clarification and comments at The Story Siren's page, and I want to focus on this one: 7. Plagiarism is not less wrong than BRINGING UP PLAGIARISM Clearly, this blogger tried to go the "silent but deadly" route but misjudged the amount…
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February 24, 2012 | Friday | 97 Comments
Since January there's been coverage of plagiarism on Amazon, with folks self-publishing works in the public domain or copying works by other authors, slapping their own names on them, and selling them. NPR and FastCompany covered the problem in January regarding plagiarised works - including in one case a word-for-word copy of Dracula - posted as "erotica" - which tends to sell rather briskly. One issue is that even if Amazon responds and removes the content, the onus is on the author who was plagiarized to seek any damages. From this article at Appazoogle: Just to give you one more…
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February 22, 2012 | Wednesday | 10 Comments
If you are reading this in a RSS reader, this entry is for you.
Feedburner has stopped updating entries automatically, and the only way it refreshes the feed is for me to go and do so manually. Most mornings I can do that, which is why you might notice entries that went live around midnight appearing around 8-9am Eastern time. Sometimes I can't, which is why you'll notice that sometimes four or five entries appear at once - and you've missed something, for which I apologize a LOT.
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February 06, 2012 | Monday | 154 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…
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January 26, 2012 | Thursday | 24 Comments
Judith McNaught is one of the romance authors whose books have been read by so many, for so many years, she's a mainstay in terms of reader best-of lists. Some readers couldn't say enough amazing things about McNaught's novels, while others struggle with the old-skool heroes, particularly those who rely on the "all women are evil" trope to justify some really shitful behavior. So compiling a list of reader favorites and recommendations for someone who hasn't tried McNaught proved a bit tricky. Based on reader comments, there are some that are loved without reservation - while those same titles are equally…
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January 17, 2012 | Tuesday | 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…
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January 12, 2012 | Thursday | 83 Comments
This book has it all, and by "all" I mean All The Cliches That Will Drive Me Nuts. Some of my recent ranting about cliches? Largely inspired by this book, I am sad to say. The story starts out so cool, and I was anticipating something truly different and amazing. In the heroine, I got some of that. In the hero and the plot, I got All Of The Cliches. All of them. I am NOT KIDDING. So please be aware, This Review Is Most Spoilery. I couldn't present the depth of amazing cliche without explaining them, so there is…
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December 28, 2011 | Wednesday | 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…
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August 29, 2011 | Monday | 58 Comments
Welcome to Everything I Know About Love, I Learned from Romance Novels, a column that pre-dates the upcoming book, but shares a title and the best of intentions: to demonstrate that many real-life problems can be examined with the strength and lessons of romance fiction. Today’s letter is about marriage. Dear Smart Bitch Sarah, I would love some advice from you and the Bitchery, regarding my rather contemporary guy problem. My boyfriend and I have been together almost four and a half years and are still very much in love. He was, and is, a wonderful, kind, gorgeous, caring man…
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May 31, 2011 | Tuesday | 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…
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May 23, 2011 | Monday | 62 Comments
A hard-to-find Loretta Chase is on Amazon for $2.99 digitally. I don’t know who “NYLA” is as a publisher, but with the square cover art and the artistic style of the image, I’m wondering if Chase self-published this book. Anyone know? First out of the gate in News From My Tweetstream From BEA was Kobo’s announcement of a new ereader with a touch screen, selling for $129 and available next month (“in time for Father’s Day”) at many retailers including Indigo, Best Buy, WalMart and Borders. I’ve been waiting to see what the new Kobo will look like, because I’m…
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May 09, 2011 | Monday | 59 Comments
I started reading this book because it contained some tropes I like, and a setting I thought I would enjoy. Vineyards! A winery! A small town/small community setting with a character returning home for whatever reason - I usually enjoy this kind of story. The problem here is that most of the characters go too far into negative territory and I was afraid that the author wouldn’t be able to get them out. About halfway through I was worried enough that I went seeking a review to see if the story would have a happier resolution than I thought would…
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April 27, 2011 | Wednesday | 168 Comments
As a rule, I recommend that every carbon-based life form online avoid the comments section of news sites, from newspapers to television stations to local blogs covering the farmer’s market, because the comments are usually overflowing with fresh awful crazysauce. In this case, I recommend everyone read the comments because they restore some sanity and hope for what is a truly disgraceful and frankly stupid news segment. WNEP, a television station from the northeast and central part my home state of Pennsylvania (OH MY GOSH I AM SO PROUD. NOT.) ran this lovely piece of crap story revealing the pen…
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April 20, 2011 | Wednesday | 75 Comments
I noticed yesterday that Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer, and I thought, “Oh, a female author won this year? That’s rather awesome. ” Then came this link to despairing Egan fan Jamie Beckman’s dismay at a Wall Street Journal interview with Egan in which she says: Over the past year, there’s been a debate about female and male writers and how they come off in the press. Franzen made clear that “Freedom” was going to be important, while others say that Allegra Goodman was too quiet about “The Cookbook Collector.” Do you think female writers have to start proclaiming, “OK,…
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