A few links! Because it’s been awhile and my inbox is full of awesome.
First, in case you were under a large rock or on vacation like I was, the RITAs and Golden Hearts were announced – and Twitter pretty much exploded about it, too.
What do you think? Have you read any of them? I’m pondering reading at least one from every category and challenging myself to get them all done (and reviewed) by the date of the RITA ceremony. Anyone want to take the RITA challenge with me?
Over on the Carina Press blog, Angela James has big news: author Shannon Stacey’s “Yours” trilogy will be published in mass market print by Harlequin HQN in early 2012. I’ve read Yours By Design and I loved it. LOVED it. And Exclusively Yours was one of my Sizzling Book Club picks in 2010, so you know I liked that one a whole lot, too.
Operation Auction is going on now, and the items up for bid are awesome. All proceeds benefit Fatin and her family as they recover from the terrible loss of her husband.
There’s books, ARCs, signed collections, baskets, jewelry, meals at different conferences, critiques, design services, character naming – dude. The complete donated collection is amazing.
There’s one item in particular I want to call some attention to: Tessa Dare has donated a customized book video “shot on location in the Darelings’ bedroom.Tessa will provide all props, materials, and (admittedly amateur) production.”
Dare’s Stud Club trilogy video was a fiesta of adorable cuteness with VERY nice sweater vests. I hope whoever wins Dare’s video auction gets a sexy sweater vest in the video.
To support the auction and the continued use of Ken in a sweater vest, I will host the winning video as produced and created by Dare here at the hot pink palace of Bitchery – which makes me think, perhaps that sweater vest could be pink? Nothing says romance hero like a pink sweater vest, right? Right.
Samhain Publishing has announced a RetroRomance™ line of out-of-print romances from the 70’s onward. Oh, that sweet, sexy backlist of potentially profitable books.
And finally, in a raging case of What Not to Do, via Twitter at the hands of Evil Wylie, comes this cautionary tale of author Jacqueline Howett responding to a negative review at Big Al’s Books and Pals in an epic, jaw-drop fashion. There is totally a drinking game or six in those comments. Wowser.
ETA: I totally timestamped this entry wrong- so if it moved on you, my apologies.
I hadn’t thought of that possibility, and I suppose it could be so. But her strategy still seems deeply misguided. Contrary to the cliché, it is not always true that all publicity is good publicity. To throw hysterical tantrums and hurl abuse at a serious reviewer is likely to put most potential readers off reading her work altogether. They’ll remember her name, all right, but not in a good way.
I would have had a little more sympathy (though not much more) if the reviewer had been careless, flippant or even totally negative, but he/she was not. That was a considered review by someone who had read the book, and who looked for the good in it as well as the bad.
The appropriate response from the author would have been something like, ‘I am really disappointed that you gave me only two stars, though I am glad to know that you enjoyed the story itself and the characters. That gives me some encouragement, and I hope you will like my next novel better’.
We have occasionally published no-holds-barred criticisms of certain novels here, and then been somewhat disarmed when the author has posted a reply with courtesy and self-deprecating humour. That’s the sensible and mature way to deal with criticism and correction. Not stamping your feet and shouting expletives.
Gallas isn’t a sex worker – she’s someone who makes money off sex workers. That’s not the point I was making. I can’t think of a (legal) occupation less concerned with the educational potential or attainments of its participants, and if you don’t find the contrast between that and the increasingly manic and obdurate assertions by Gallas on that thread about the absolute importance of holding a BA before one dares to put pen to paper, utterly ludicrous, then that’s too bad. I do. I thought from the pompous way she was going on and on about her education and ‘in her experience’ yadda yadda, she had to be some kind of higher education bureaucrat, if not a teacher herself.
From what I can tell from the blurbs on her books – you couldn’t pay me to actually read them – her education, whatever that turns out to be, hasn’t done much for her writing ability, so why she’s so adamant on this point, I have no idea.
By the way, she’s *still* ranting, but now someone called Lady Lucretia is sending her up delightfully. Bring popcorn.
I see The Guardian has jumped in on the dogpile on Howett. I am beyond disgusted by all this. The media won’t hold the feet of corrupt politicians and dishonest bigots to the fire nearly as much as they could and should, but let one unimportant civilian throw a tanty in public and they crucify them because they know there’ll be zero blowback or threat to their position. Same goes for the various big name bloggers and writers joining in. Shame on all of you.
AgTigress – I agree with everything you said. I just found Howett’s behavior so over the top that it made me wonder, you know?
I’ve not had much authorial traffic through my humble review blog, but I was very impressed by Anton Strout’s response to my highly unfavourable review of his novel:
I have no doubt it was a difficult review to read, and I so appreciated his professional response that I’ll try reading another of his novels (which I wasn’t planning on before). Jacqueline Howett, take note!
OMG. Was that Jacqueline Howett thing real or just an early April fools thing? Crazycakes!
I have to admit, I do want this Jacqueline Howett mug:
http://bit.ly/gwKeFm
I feel like that every time I get a nasty review even if it’s of a technical manual.