In this week’s podcast episode, we’re looking at the ads and features in the April 2006 issue of Romantic Times, aka RT Book Reviews.
Special and massive thanks to Shannon Stacey for sending me this issue!
You can also find all the RTRW content at our category page for Romantic Times Rewind.
And, most importantly, if you want to listen and follow along with this entry, we have more detail in the audio, but you can click play and listen and read and absorb all the visual goodness:
Cover!
We have discussed this in the Reviews episode, but you can’t be in paranormal romance in 2006 if you’re not in leather pants AND a bustier.
The best Immortals After Dark cover is this one:
Mostly because of the light hitting above his belt. I can’t unsee it.
This ad for Avon books alleges that they know what women want, and apparently, what women want is…blue books.
But on the next page, what women want is a summoning circle and some hot shoes:
The Kresley Cole cover feature is massive, and very fun, and includes this bit of Florida that Amanda was very curious about:
This was the era in which the Author Photos Were Leaning to One Side.
There are many of these.
Remember Palm Pilots? There’s a letter about using a book tracking software called BookBag from Wakefield Software that would allow readers to track their books.
RT BookClub did a LOT of teaching readers how to access digital books on different platforms.
Does anyone know who Flavia Knightsbridge is? Because the book gossip column includes a blind item?! About an author who is defending themselves on message boards?
I really want to know who the heck this was because this column gets DISHY in different issues.
This was SUCH a cute feature: match the authors to their prom photos!
Look at the old review blogs!
Rakehell.com!? What a great name for a review blog.
Author photos! Leaning to One Side.
This two-page ad for HQN completely baffled us.
Ad for books? Ad for travel? Could be both?
New website with bonus content! Go dig your magazine shipping plastic out of the trash!
Yet another GoodReads predecessor.
The first sentence of this article absolutely floored me:
“FOR YEARS, vampire novels came in two she’s one of an flavors: light (and a little nutty) and dark (and a little gooey).”
Do you want your vampire nutty or gooey?
The journey I took in researching this book is A RIDE. TW/CW if you go hunting for the synopsis.
This book was published in 1991, this ad is from 2006, and it was made into a movie in 2022.
And speaking of things that Did Not Age Well:
I’m pretty sure this person is naked.
I am once again asking you and everyone, who the heck is Flavia Knightsbridge?
Flavia Knightsbridge, Enigmatic Socialite?!
Do you have a guess as to who Flavia Knightsbridge is? Please let me know in the comments.
Also: “At the end of the competition, the winner will receive a publishing contract with
Dorchester and a publicity boost, compliments of RT BOOKclub.”
Aw, hey, Dorchester.
The article on promotional tips from authors is absolutely off the wall. We’ve got old blogs and group author tours – remember those?
![Next to touring with the Dixie Divas, the GCC Girlfriends Cyber Circuit at: Gcc.Blog-City.com] is the best thing I've done to promote my book. - Karin Gillespie, author of Bet Your Bottom Dollar](https://i0.wp.com/smartbitchestrashybooks.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screenshot-2024-02-13-at-2.13.14-PM.png?resize=550%2C414&ssl=1)
BLOG-CITY. It’s like visiting the ghost towns of the internet over here.
And then there is this absolute banger of a marketing strategy:
If that’s too small:
23. How to sell your first book in hurricane-ravaged Florida? Make good friends with a local rooter. As people with blue-tarped roofs woo him with six-packs of beer, new plasma TVs and other enticing incen-tives, convince your new best friend to cart around your books on his truck and offer service only to those who will buy lots of them! The more books they buy, the further up on the wait list they’ll go. So for the cost of a few boxes of books, plus the cost of a roof, a desperate homeowner gets the job done and you’ll be a bestseller instantly, in Florida.
Goodness me.
And then there was this contest where you can Win a Date with a Zillionaire?! The prize is for three lucky winners, so it’s like a Bachelor group date?! WHAT IS THIS.
It’s so bizarre. And creepy.
The more you look at this Fern Michaels cover, the more there is to tilt your head about:
Gravity does NOT apply here.
That kitten is going to be really mad in a minute.
What is she SITTING ON. How.
This poor guy has a swelling problem:
Might want to get that checked out.
Y’all. Imagine the RT convention in Daytona, Florida.
And, the picture we were DELIGHTED by:
I found this article about Michael Ward from Ocala.com, which says he’s a soldier by day, and mr romance by night.
Here’s a picture of Elyse and Amanda meeting two of the Mr Romance contestants at RT in 2017 from the SBTB IG.
Next in the promotion of the conference: the emcee!
James Scott, formerly of All My Children where he played Ethan Cambias, was the emcee. I wonder if he remembers this experience. According to google, he has retired from acting and is now a life coach with a business called The Whisper Within.
And finally, the back cover. Ellora’s CaveMen!
We’re pretty sure that some of the models on this back cover are also in the Mr. Romance pageant page, too.
And that’s it for the ads & features! A reminder: if you join the Patreon, you’ll get access to the entire issue as a PDF.
See you next month, when we head to March 2016!
Seriously, though: who the heck is Flavia Knightsbridge?!
I had a Palm Pilot. It’s still sitting in a drawer in my office. I never used book tracking apps on it, but I did use the notepad feature to maintain a wish list for when I hit the bookstore and UBS. The PP was a handy little device in the days before smartphones.
I had one too (and it is also languishing in a drawer). I primarily used it for work, and even had a keyboard for it (it was a full size keyboard that folded down into a rectangle a little bigger and thicker than the palm pilot)
This sent me to look up Tom Perkins. His wiki does mention the book and the dating contest. He was on the ground floor of the founding of HP.
Why is Manhattan District Attorney Jack McCoy posing as a zillionaire ex of Danielle Steel?
The more you know…
Great — now I, too, long to learn the identity of Flavia Knightsbridge, enigmatic socialite.
I too have a Palm Pilot in my desk drawer, my second one. My mom had a Handspring that she used for years before finally getting a smartphone. I loved my Palms so much but they ate batteries like popcorn.
I doubt I still have my original Palm Pilot — I’m reasonably good about getting rid of obsolete hardware…eventually. But I clearly remember feeling annoyed at the clunkiness of carrying around a Palm Pilot *and* a flip-phone and telling everyone that someone needed to invent a device that combined the functions of both. (And then they invented the iPhone and I’ve never looked back.)
Presents for you! Regarding Flavia Knightsbridge:
Flavia in “Romantic Times” in 1991 (mentioned in a Tweet in 2020)
Under the Covers regular column by Flavia at the Romantic Times in 1988.
You can see many of her columns at the Weebly archives here!
@Gillian B: Oooh – thank you!! This makes the mystery even more interesting – who WAS this person?!
I had a Handspring, which I think was founded by people who had left Palm. It used the Palm OS but it came in Fun Colors! I had a decal from the company on my car for years and years – and I so remember that same frustration, Heather. I had to carry two devices, too, because I got very comfortable setting up my digital calendar and to-do list and was never interested in fully switching back to paper. I think the first devices that combined phones and planners was the Blackberry, but I could be wrong about that.
The “Redeeming Love” thing got even weirder when I confused Amy Grant, a Christian Contemporary singer, and Amy Ray, half of the Indigo Girls.
@Muffled: the sound I made when I read that. LOL Indeed confusing!