Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Fanfic
March 13, 2012 | Tuesday | 82 Comments
The 50 Shades of Grey media blitz continues! From The Today Show to the AP to HuffPo and now Good Morning America. I did an interview for GMA that will air this morning. The segment focuses on how word of mouth and reader recommendation - as well as digital availability, I should think - made 50 Shades a bestseller, without any advertising and promotion from the publisher. Word of mouth was everything, online and off. I am still baffled as to why more media reports aren't mentioning the fanfic origins, and why the publisher and the author aren't more open…
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March 02, 2012 | Friday | 76 Comments
As Jane and I have been discussing, and as she noted at DA, 50 Shades of Grey has been collecting the type of media exposure that publicists have fever dreams about. From HuffPo to the Today Show website and television broadcast, to the NY Post and various Fox affiliates in New York and San Diego, the story boils down to: women are reading this book, it's become exceedingly popular, it's a sexually-focused romance, and the women featured share a few things in common, most notably that it's a wonderfully arousing book for them. I didn't like the book myself, but if you…
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November 21, 2011 | Monday | 54 Comments
So many readers have recommended this book to me. SO MANY. It has a 4.49 average after 1,728 ratings on GoodReads and 4.5 stars after 100 reviews on Amazon. Readers on Twitter have told me how much they adore this book, how they love the hero, love the story, love every one of the 200k pages of this book (which ends on a cliffhanger and continues in volume two, Fifty Shades Darker). Alas, this book didn't work for me. I kept trying, and going back to it more than I normally would because of the number of people who adore…
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August 15, 2011 | Monday | 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…
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November 02, 2010 | Tuesday | 64 Comments
Anonymous forwarded the following to me, and of course, I have to inflict it on the rest of you. Enjoy. Kerrelyn Sparks’s Eat Prey Love is, in my opinion, a What Not to Write, but the “werepanther spooge” part sticks out. Some background: Our hero is a shapeshifting werepanther, and when he is killed, he comes back to life and kinda goes up a level in strength, abilities, etc. all Marty-Stu-like. And when he comes back to life, he needs sex. The first time he dies, he hasn’t quite hit that point with our heroine yet, so he has to…
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July 26, 2010 | Monday | 45 Comments
Gotta love it when I stick my foot in my mouth! Last night I did an interview with 744 ABC Melbourne about erotic fan fiction. During the interview with Alan Brough, he asked me about why erotic fan fiction so often pairs two characters of the same gender. What I meant to say was that in most countries, popular culture reveals a general discomfort with homosexuality, and that frank portrayals of homosexuality are not common. What I said was that “most people in the world are uncomfortable with homosexuality.” Clearly, these are not the same things. Yes. Everyone in the…
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July 23, 2010 | Friday | 15 Comments
Heads up Melbourne, and Aussies with a web connection: I’ll be on 744 ABC Melbourne radio on Sunday. It’ll still be Saturday here, but I believe 8:30 pm EDT is 11:30 am in Melbourne the following day, right? Either way, 11:30 am in Oz is when you’ll likely hear me talking to Alan Brough about erotic fiction and erotic fan fiction. I believe the broadcast is streamed online at the ABC Melbourne website, so you should be able to listen in, even if you’re not in Melbourne. Got recommendations of your favorite, particularly erotic fan fic retellings? Which pairing rocks…
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