Welcome back to Wednesday Links!
I had my Romance Novel + Cheese Night on Friday and it went really well! Keep your eyes peeled for a write-up soon on how it went and what the yummy pairings were.
I’m still a little sick so my partner and I definitely put a pause on any Valentine’s Day celebrations. We even had a fancy dinner reservations planned, which we wound up cancelling in favor of eating chips and dips.
Listen, I was recording a podcast episode with Sarah and she mentioned bean dip and that was suddenly all I could think about.
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The Guardian wrote about the influx of romance bookstores popping up around the U.S. Do you have one near you? Have you visited one?
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This link came from Marlene! The New York Public Library compiled a list of new romances. I think it’s a pretty great list!
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Posted on r/HistoricalRomance, there’s a lovely tribute to author Louisa Rawlings who passed away recently.
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These leading men have the Hallmark Channel on speed dial! I definitely think it’s interesting that Hallmark often reuses the same actors and actresses. Thanks to EC Spurlock for this one!
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I’m always so impressed by people’s creativities. Look at these cool wreaths!
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
That Hallmark article was really interesting! It’s always nice to see artists find some kind of stability.
I saw “cheese night” and all I could think of was Liz Lemon singing “working on my night cheese.”
Fwiw- I see nothing wrong with staying in and eating chips and dips!
Ditto the Hallmark article being really interesting! And I say that as someone who’s seen very few HM movies (although that may change with my maternity leave coming up soon haha).
If you like the Hallmark movies/actors/actresses (and I do!), follow romance_university on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/romance__university/
It was created by Benjamin Ayres (another Hallmark actor), and they sell merchandise and donate the proceeds to charity. 🙂
If one follows the MOW industry, each network platform has a core set of actors. Some are based on what the network wants, some are based on the producers used for filming. You’ll find the better talent where the money is, and that’s why you get the better movies on Hallmark, and ones you wonder why they didn’t go straight to streaming on some lesser networks. They’ve only recently don’t multi-picture deals.
These actors have been core for several years, along with other favorite male/female/LGBTQI+ actors.
These actors care about the fanbase and they show up for Cons, too, when possible. They interact with the fans on SM.
As for Romance University, it isn’t random charity, it’s Women’s Shelters and those focused on Children. https://romance-university.com/
After the strikes were over, Hallmark gathered almost all of the core actors and pulled together an event in KC. It’s not the first time they’ve done it, but they’re the only network doing it.
Hallmark also uses brand ambassadors and SM bloggers to spread the word on movies and to help moderate online posting.
Hallmark was really clever after one of the screenwriters did a segment on ESPN comparing the NFL to Hallmark movies. Hallmark did one better, being in KC, they made “trailers” for fake movie and KC football. The actors even went to the celebration parade.
Hallmark does it best.
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having connection issues
One last thing, Hallmark is probably the biggest producer of books-to-film for MOW–I haven’t checked the exact numbers. And, the majority of those come from the ROMANCE genre. So, it matters.
For this weekend’s Jane Austen Loveuary movie, they made sure to use Vanessa Riley as the historian and a consulting producer for SENSE & SENSIBILITY. She even has a cameo.
And, no, I’m not a paid PR person. I just follow the industry carefully. I pay attention. For my own selfish reasons.
I wish I had a romance bookstore near me… the two closest are the (OG) The Ripped Bodice in LA and Meet Cute in San Diego. We try to make it out to “the beach” once a year, so I also stop in at whichever one we are closer to while out west.
We do have some great indie bookstores in the Phoenix area (Changing Hands, Poison Pen) but they don’t do romance well :/