593. Romantic Times Rewind: July 2004 Ads & Features

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Sarah Wendell: Hello there and welcome to episode number 593 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell. With me is Amanda, and we are going back to July 2004. We are taking a look at the Romantic Times Book Club Magazine and the ads and features. It’s a wild ride. I mean, I say that every month, but this is particularly true. We are going to learn about a bunch of different bookstores that are still in business and encounter a lot of ads for small presses that are, unfortunately, long gone. There is a lot of romance history in this issue, plus I solve a HaBO for Amanda live, which never happens. I’m very proud of myself.

You can find all of the visual aids, and there are so many; please do not miss the visual aids. There’s Ellora’s Cave covers, y’all. Like, there’s Poser covers. It is a beautiful piece of absolutely bonkers romance history, and I cannot wait to share it with you. You can find a link to the visual aids in the show notes or at romantictimesrewind.com. Or rtrewind.com; I bought both.

Hello and thank you to our Patreon community. If you are a member of the podcast Patreon, not only do you get the full PDF scan of this issue – and there’s so, so much! – but you get bonus episodes and you get a really lovely, welcoming, happy Discord.

I have a compliment this week for Kathy O:

You know those gift exchanges where everyone brings something and you trade or you barter? Everyone will always want whatever it is you bring to the gift exchange, because everyone knows you have terrific taste in every respect, but especially gifts.

So thank you, Kathy, for being part of the Patreon, and if you have joined, thank you! You are keeping me going; you’re making sure every episode has a transcript from garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! [Hey, Sarah! – gk] – and you’re making sure that every episode is accessible to everyone.

I also want to say hello to Candace H, who just joined us. If you would like to join, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

Support for this episode comes from Lume Deodorant. If you are thinking of holiday gifting, you may not be thinking deodorant, but Lume is at the top of the most-wished-for lists on Amazon under Personal Care, which I did not know and think it’s very cool. And we have a special offer: new customers get five dollars off Lume’s Starter Pack with our exclusive code. For a limited time, returning customers can get five dollars off their next purchase of thirty dollars or more, too. Use code SARAH30 at lumedeodorant.com. That’s L-U-M-E D-E-O-D-O-R-A-N-T dot com. I have been doing a lot of research for beauty products for the gift guides, and I have encountered so many people with so much online love for Lume. For people who are stressed about body odor or really struggling over self-consciousness, they really love Lume because of how well it works. On a more personal level, I like it, and my teenagers like it too, also because it works. The teenagers like it because it “doesn’t smell all weird,” and because it lasts a really long time, up to seventy-two hours. Lume’s Starter Pack is perfect for new customers, too. It comes with a solid stick deodorant, cream tube deodorant, and two free products of your choice, like a mini body wash, deodorant wipes, or something else. And free shipping! As a special offer for listeners, new customers get five dollars off Lume’s Starter Pack with our exclusive code and link. For a limited time, returning customers get five dollars off their next purchase of thirty dollars or more, too. Use code SARAH30 at lumedeodorant.com. That’s L-U-M-E D-E-O-D-O-R-A-N-T dot com, and thank you to Lume for making this holiday season smell a whole lot better.

Okay. Are you ready to go back in time? We got ads; we got bookstores; we got digital presses; we’ve got Poser. It’s going to be great; let’s do this. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: We are back with the July 2004 issue of what is called Romantic Times Book Club Magazine, The Magazine for Women Who Love Books. Now, we talked a little bit about the cover in the first episode, two weeks ago.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: It, it’s still a glorious, glorious mess.

Amanda: Yeah. Also, I just noticed –

Sarah: What?

Amanda: You know, there’s trends, right? There’s all sorts of trends that we go through, but peep those French tips! On the, on the model’s hand. I haven’t seen –

Sarah: Oh my, oh!

Amanda: – a French tip like that in forever!

Sarah: That’s a French tip looks like a pencil eraser!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Wooow!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So we’ve already kind of covered the cover. It is the stor-, The Secret of Shabaz by Jennifer M-Aca, Macaire? M-Acare? Okay, first of all, the kerning is terrible, and the font choices are not great here, but I’m assuming that’s what the cover says. The image itself is a woman in a coral gown with a hood and a medallion on her forehead and some really straight cross-the-front bangs, kind of Xena-Warrior-Princess bangs. As Amanda has noted, a fabulous French tip, and a whole-ass unicorn. It is a sparkly –

Amanda: So –

Sarah: – unicorn.

Amanda: – the, The Secret of Shabaz; the word Shabaz is giving me, like, weird, like, single-name soda like Shasta?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Or, like, Tab? Like, it’s a, a soda that was around in the ‘70s or ‘80s that no one makes anymore? That’s the vibe I’m getting from the word Shabaz.

Sarah: You can buy this on paperback. It is –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – it is still available. There’s a 4.1 average with six reviews! Okay! On Amazon.

Amanda: Look, you know, we’ve got to get that unicorn. It’s royalty; it’s keep –

Sarah: That’s – keep the unicorn and its sparkles!

Amanda: – getting that horse paid!

Sarah: It’s got, it’s got sparkles it needs to maintain.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: So the inside cover is an ad, and I apologize for the crookedness of the scan. The inside cover of the a-, of the boo-, of the magazine is an ad for Diana Palmer’s Renegade, but the image is a shelf of books, and over on the right you can see a Betty Neels novel and a Maggie Shayne novel, but the Diana Palmer copies of Renegade are, like, flying off the shelf; like the book is open and the pages are waving, and, like, it’s, like, all falling off the shelf like there’s been an earthquake, but only the Diana Palmer books are affected; and the tagline is:

>> Diana Palmer’s latest will be coming soon and leaving just as fast.

Amanda: I hate the taglines that did not understand what they’re talking about. And then when you read the, like, copy at the bottom?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: They’re like, Oh yeah, the romance will be sure to fly off bookshelves everywhere. Kind of like, You need to get this book because it’s going to sell out immediately and you won’t be able to find a copy.

Sarah: The true irony being that Harlequin series books are monthly – a lot of them, anyway – and so they come soon and leave just as fast because there’s another crop of books coming in and booksellers have to move them out of the way.

[Laughter]

Amanda: But, yeah, I did not like this tagline because I’m like…

Sarah: What does that mean? Like it’s coming soon and leaving? Like, what, what does this mean?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Then there’s an ad – I mean, we’re only on, like, the, the thir-, the third page. There’s a lot here, but there’s a full-page ad for New York Times – excuse me, USA Today bestselling author Patti Berg’s I’m No Angel. It’s an illustrated style of cover that is very early 2000s, where the people are so thin – [laughs] – like, they’re so thin, and they’re so sharp and pointy; their features are pointy, their noses are tiny, their heels are high. Like, everything is pointy and sharp and so stretched out. She looks like she’s a piece of taffy and somebody just –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – grabbed her ankles and her head and stretched her out. It’s such a very specific time capsule of illustration.

Amanda: I, I cannot remember the series, but – or, like, the name of it. I could describe it and someone – this is like a HaBO, I guess.

Sarah: [desk drum roll]

Amanda: My mom would read these books, and they would have, like, chick lit illustrated with, like, weird proportions, but it was about the woman who was, like, realized that she was, like, the princess of Alaska or something like that?

Sarah: Oh, that’s, that’s MaryJanice Davidson.

Amanda: Yes! That’s what this art style reminds me of is MaryJanice Davidson covers.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s the Alaskan Royals series, starting with The Royal Treatment, and yes, these are the long and skinny, pointy illustrations. That is the exact right way to describe it.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Yep, you’re a hundred percent right.

Then we have page 6. Page 6 is –

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: – an ad for Medallion Press. Marjorie Jones presents – okay, I think this says The Jewel and the Sword, but when I tell you this font is illegible, it –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – it has tentacles. The capital letters have tentacles. And then if you look at the cover – [laughs] – this, I mean –

Amanda: I hate it.

Sarah: Oh –

Amanda: Like, who is this man?

Sarah: [Still laughing] He’s wearing, like, alligator pants!

Amanda: Who is this man?

Sarah: He’s wearing alligator pants and some knee armor. The cover is still available in the, or the book cover is still available to look at. I, we’ll definitely put this in the show notes. He’s wearing alligator pants!

Amanda: There are so many, like, Cover Snark contenders –

Sarah: In this one issue.

Amanda: – in this issue –

Sarah: Oh –

Amanda: – alone.

Sarah: It is just a bounty of snark. You are not wrong.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Then we have the Editor’s Letter. There are no tips for longevity in this one, I’m sorry to say. One thing that I thought was very quaint, in about the middle of the paragraph:

>> We did it. Finally, we’ve added ISBN numbers to the rating pages in response to many requests from booksellers and librarians over the years.

Amanda: We did it. [Laughs]

Sarah: >> Plus, these numbers will make it easier for readers to order books.

Amanda: Oh my God.

Sarah: And then later on:

>> In addition, we’ve got two hundred and fifty new reviews with ISBNs to plump your to-be-read piles.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Together: Plump.

Amanda: Ugh! What a…

Sarah: That’s not a verb you want. Only thing they should be plumping –

Amanda: No!

Sarah: – is cushions, really.

Amanda: [Laugh]

Sarah: Absolutely terrible.

So moving on to page 10. I just need to tell you I had to scan page 10 like four times. It would not, it would not scan, and I wanted it to because of the letter on the right: A Blog a Day.

>> I enjoy –

Amanda: Oh my.

Sarah: >> I enjoyed reading Katie McAllister’s “Look Who’s Talking” article in the May issue, page 19, on authors and their blogs/journals. Is there any chance RT Book Club will do one next for readers and their blogs and journals? For anyone interested, I keep one at madforrombooks.blogspot.com.

And this is from, I don’t know if it’s [Fatten] or [Fa-teen], and they have been part of romance forever. Forever and ever and ever. And the answer is:

>> Thanks for this suggestion! At some point in the future, RT would like to cover how both readers and authors are taking advantage of new web and digital technologies. Readers, of course, can dish about favorite authors on countless message boards, including romantictimes.com –

With the WWW, of course.

>> – and share their deepest musings by personalized weblogs. Thanks to the accessibility of small presses and e-publishers, aspiring authors can take better control over their publishing future by releasing their own novels. Anyone who’d like RT to spotlight their weblog in the magazine –

[Laughs]

>> – is welcome to write us at editor –

Amanda: Weblog!

Sarah: Okay, first of all, Fatin just asked you to talk about reader blogs, but they’re like, No, no, no! Come to our bulletin board at www.romantictimes.com.

Page 11 has an ad for Kresley Cole’s The Price of Pleasure, where the guy’s nipples are tracking the boat.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: I, I – it’s a full-page ad, and this is even before the Immortals After Dark.

Amanda: Yeah, this was way before!

Sarah: Way, way before.

Amanda: Well, I don’t, I don’t know way before. I don’t remember when Immortals After Dark just started. ‘Cause I know the first book was like in an anthology?

Sarah: Yeah, the lord, The Warlord Wants Forever was in an anthology.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I think it was originally published, yep, February 2006, so this is two years away from the first, first, first one.

And then we have a full article about Medallion Press goes for the bronze with the launch of a new YA imprint. One of the interesting things about this is it says in the second paragraph:

>> Dorchester author Rosburg turned to self-publishing after her idea for an illustrated adult fairytale wouldn’t sell. The project became Ellie and the Elven King (November 2003), Medallion Press’s second release, and this special project inspired bigger dreams for Rosburg’s fledgling company.

And now she’s publishing a whole bunch of stuff, and here’s a feature article about it.

Amanda: Medallion Press filed for bankruptcy in 2018?

Sarah: Oh God, I didn’t know that! I thought they were still going!

Amanda: Yeah! ‘Cause I was like, I’m curious what they’re, like, current selection of books were. Like, what are they publishing? Yeah, but it looks like they filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

Sarah: That is a shame.

Amanda: Yeah. But I also, like, made a note that there’s a lot more black and white in this issue?

Sarah: Yes! There’s a lot less –

Amanda: Like –

Sarah: – color pages. Isn’t that interesting?

Amanda: Yeah, like, even some of the, the header images in a column or feature are black – like, the clip art –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – is black and white.

Sarah: So much clip art! So much clip art!

Amanda: Lot of clip art. A lot.

Sarah: Weird clip art! Like, really grotesque, kind of semi-offensive clip art in some of these.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So then on page 14 there is an ad for Cruising with the Authors, the book lover’s cruise of a lifetime; Get Caught Reading at Sea. Now, I do a lot of, like, looking at the URLs that are in this magazine, and get, www.getcaughtreadingatsea.com no longer exists. Cabins started at $749, and there, this was a seven-day cruise on Carnival with a whole bunch of romance authors.

Amanda: I mean, that doesn’t seem too bad.

Sarah: You know, there were, there used to be a bunch of author cruises. At one point I went on a cruise, I want to say it was a three- or four-day cruise out of Florida with one of the Florida Romance Writer chapters, and a friend of mine went with me, and they did the book signing in the main sort of promenade area?

Amanda: Oh!

Sarah: So you could, like, buy a book to read on the ship and get it signed by the author on the ship. And they had, like, the conference, the rom-, the writers’ conference on the ship, so they would have, like, Happy Hour, but then they had conference facilities aboard, so you’d have like sessions where you gave a presentation. I think I gave a presentation.

Amanda: And they had some pretty good names for this one, like –

Sarah: Laura Kinsale.

Amanda: – Jo Beverly.

Sarah: Yep! That, that Macomber –

Amanda: Lee Child! Lee Child went on this one.

Sarah: Yep. Christina Dodd. Heather Graham.

Amanda: I love a readers’ cruise –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – where you’re not expected to do anything. If you just want to sit and read by the pool, that’s all it is! I would love –

Sarah: I could organize a Smart Bitches cruise. I bet we could, I bet we could sell out a, a few cabins.

Amanda: Oh, for sure.

Sarah: But also, we would all just be, like, not talking to each other, reading books! [Laughs]

Amanda: Which is fine!

Sarah: Yeah, sounds great.

Amanda: Like, to – I’m a person in, like, relationships, friendships, like, we don’t have to be actively engaging? We can just be in the, in the same space doing separate things, and that is fine with me.

Sarah: Yes. Not sure I would want to put together a cruise. That sounds like a lot of coordination.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Now, on page 15, there is an ad for a press that no longer exists. It is Awe-Struck e-Books – A-W-E dash struck dot net. I don’t recognize any of these books, with the exception of Janet Quinn. That sounds sort of familiar.

Amanda: Well, we talked about that one, ‘cause when we were, like, looking at reviews in the previous episode and they were listing the publisher?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: This is the one that they reviewed, and, like, the publisher was literally http:// –

Sarah: Slash – get the whole URL in there.

Amanda: – www.awe-struck.net.

Sarah: Which says a lot about how they are, and how the magazine is instructing its audience to go online. Like, they needed all that information.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: This was still very new.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: On page 17, there is Book Lovers Day. This is so interesting to me:

>> If you’re a long-time subscriber to Romantic Times Book Club, you’ll remember that back in the mid ‘90s RT first organized Book Lovers Day to bring together readers and their favorite booksellers to celebrate our passion.

So it was basically independent bookstores having romances, romance authors come in and celebrate romance. I –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – am fascinated by how they are talking about different bookstores. So the first bookseller that signed on was Merry Cutler from Annie’s Book Stop in Sharon, Massachusetts. Does that book, does that bookstore still exist?

Amanda: I don’t think so. I haven’t heard of it, but it’s – oh! It might, it might?

Sarah: No, Annie’s Book Stop! It’s in Worcester!

Amanda: That’s got to be the same one! So the Annie’s Book shop, Book Stop in Sharon is closed –

Sarah: Ahhh!

Amanda: – but I wonder if this is their new location?

Sarah: Or a spinoff. But here is something that absolutely charmed my socks off: if you look at the, after the article, one of the, first of all, one of the things that Merry says about Annie’s Book Stop is that they do home-baked goods; she brings in her own lemon bars; and even though we can only handle four authors at a time, we do shifts from 1 to 3 and 3 to 5 to get more authors involved. And I’m like, That’s so sweet! These tiny little spaces for people. At the bottom it says:

>> Other participating booksellers and stores are Cheryl Fournier, Booklovers in Westport, Massachusetts; Sandy Brackeen, Books & More in Denton, Texas.

Now, that is where my older child goes to college, and if you look, please, Amanda, please –

Amanda: ‘Kay.

Sarah: – please click the URL that I put in the document. I –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – I am going to put this in the show notes. Everyone needs to experience this absolutely glorious –

Amanda: Ohhh my God.

Sarah: – glorious retro website, and this bookstore still exists.

Amanda: Good for them.

Sarah: I’m, I sent this URL to Agatha from She Wore Black, ‘cause she goes and looks at bookstores all over Texas, and she’s like, I had no idea Denton was as cool as it is. They have a massive used bookstore full of romance, and would you look at this glorious website!

Amanda: Did you see the comment at the bottom? It says:

>> The Romantic Times Book Club Magazine has the latest reviews and upcoming releases of romance, mysteries, and women’s fiction, along with author profiles, tips for writers, and publishing news. Get your copy here each month.

Sarah: I love it so much! But yeah, Books & More on University Drive in Denton, Texas, still exists. I put that in my – ‘cause we have a Discord just for my family, and I put it out and was like, We are going. I’m going.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You can, you can come with me or not, but I will visit this store. Look at the pictures –

Amanda: I will be going.

Sarah: Look at the pictures of all the used books!

Amanda: I know.

Sarah: Oh my God, I love it so much! Oh, they have vinyl and romance. That sounds like a, like a chick lit novel, right? He wanted to open a record store –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – she wanted to open a romance bookstore. They decided to do both! And then –

Amanda: Oh my God.

Sarah: – shenanigans.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So on page 19, “Under the Covers” with Flavia Knights-, Knightsbridge. This seems like a gossip column for the industry?

>> One. Dara Joy’s worried fans can relax. The self-published book That Familiar Touch, which the author was selling on her website back in December for a spring release, is finally almost ready!

And there’s, like, all of this:

>> Joy’s webmistress reports the novel is still in production. Joy, who’s mired in legal battles with former publisher Dorchester and recovering from the recent death of her father, thanked fans in advance for their support. Copies will ship in approximately four weeks.

So the fact that Dara Joy’s book was late was industry gossip. But then, here’s, here is a bit of history:

>> A Low Blow to Erotica: Erotic romance publishers could be hurting after the recent announcement by online company PayPal that they will no longer facilitate sales of erotic romance. PayPal, which handles secure credit card payments, is used by many popular small presses that sell erotic romance, including Ellora’s Cave and Liquid Silver.

That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: >> Fans of erotica are crying censorship and wondering if Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl boob-boo has something to do with the decision.

Amanda: Yeah. I was like, Are you kidding me? [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow, gossip column.

Amanda: The series rap sheet, which is also on this page, is a lot smaller –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – than the newer one.

Sarah: It is a lot smaller.

Amanda: And it’s named for a person; like, a person runs this; and I don’t remember that being the case in the later issues.

Sarah: No.

Amanda: Like, this is called “Sheri Melnick’s Series Rap Sheet.”

Sarah: The other thing that I think is really interesting about this little authors on location thing? This is so, so smart – although I understand why you cannot do this now.

>> Throughout the summer, Manhattan’s long-running off-Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change will host book signings with free champagne before curtain time and during intermission at select Tuesday night performances. At press time, Melissa Senate, See Jane Date; Valerie Frankel, The Not-So-Perfect Man; and Leslie Carroll, Temporary Insanity, were slated to sign on June 1st, 8th, and 29th, respectively. Mari Kassner of SRO Marketing came up with the clever idea to tie the show, a comedy about the ups and downs of a relationship, to humorous fiction and nonfiction books that explore the theme. Everyone has a lot of fun, and often the older people will buy books for their still-single kids. For more information, visit the website loveperfectchange.com.

Now, I remember that show, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. Book signings at intermission and beforehand with free champagne?

Amanda: Free champagne.

Sarah: And a pillow drop party at the Trump Plaza and Casino? Look at the budget that we are dealing with here.

Amanda: I know!

Sarah: Look at the book budget we’re talking about here. That’s wild!

Amanda: It’s just like – even going to RT, the amount of money –

Sarah: Oh my God.

Amanda: – being thrown around.

Sarah: Parties, catering, alco – I mean, open bar, even a limited bar at a hotel is expensive. So. Much. Money.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Incredible, right?

So on page 23, we have Book Sleuth. It’s the HaBO!

Amanda: Book Sleuth.

Sarah: Seek, two Seekings and two Solveds!

Amanda: So sweet.

Sarah: But –

>> Seeking: A young red-haired woman goes to work for the mother of a millionaire as a librarian help out on his yacht.

‘Kay.

Amanda: What? [Laughs]

Sarah: >> The woman and the millionaire marry, despite each thinking the other is not in love. The unhappy couple moves to a remote island where she’s isolated from everyone and he’s always traveling. In one scene there’s a birthday party for the hero. In the end, she attempts to leave the island by the only boat –

Why would she do that?

>> – and he stops her, and they reconcile.

I hope somebody recognized that.

Amanda: Imagine having a boat so big that you need a librarian.

Sarah: For your boat.

Amanda: For your boat!

Sarah: Yeah. You need to – okay, I volunteer as yacht librarian?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I haven’t watched Below Deck, so this may be a mistake, but I volunteer as a yacht librarian if you wish.

Amanda: I want to talk about the Book Barn? Also on that page.

Sarah: Oh, please go back and talk about the Book Barn.

Amanda: Which is like a pilgr- – it’s still, still in business, and –

Sarah: Oh my gosh, really!

Amanda: Yeah, yeah. So the Book Barn and the Book Mill, which I think is in Massachusetts, but both are, like, sort of pilgrimages. Like, I’ve had friends who have gone to the Book Barn.

Sarah: It’s in Niantic!

Amanda: Yeah! And driven down to look for, like, great used old paperbacks.

Sarah: And the Book Barn in Niantic, Connecticut is still there?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Wow!

Amanda: It says:

>> Containing over five hundred thou- –

Is it five hundred thousand? Yeah.

>> – used & rare books, as well as cats, gardens, farm animals & more.

Sarah: It’s a whole destination.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Wow. Several themed –

Amanda: It’s cute!

Sarah: >> …several themed buildings, as well as gardens, goats, and cats.

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: And then there’s Chapter Three, a mere three hundred feet from the Main Barn, and then there’s the down- – wow!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: This is amazing!

So if you scroll to page 24, here is an interesting thing that I think is very, very cool. This is very cool. RT got this right way before other people did.

>> Dear RT Book Club: I want to thank you for your report on Ellora’s Cave. I have found so many wonderful stories. Is Ellora’s Cave the only e-publishing company that you review, or are there others?

Now, this may be a planted letter. Maybe this letter isn’t real, but –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – here is what I, I was just so impressed by this. This is the answer:

>> Ellora’s Cave, a successful erotica eBook company that’s looking to expand into other fictional genres, isn’t the only eBook publisher we review. We’ve been reviewing eBooks of all genres since their inception several years ago. Readers won’t find them listed separately, because our book reviews are categorized according to genre, not format.

Fuck yeah!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: That was a big deal in 2004. I remember that.

>> But within our review sections, eBooks are indicated in review heads and on the rating page. You can search for eBooks in our online review database. You can also find eBooks by visiting the websites of eBook publishers. Check out Hardshell Word Factory, New Concepts, LTD Books, Awe-Struck, Wings ePress, and Liquid Silver, to name a few.

I don’t think any of those are still in, in operation.

Amanda: Yeah, I was going to say, I don’t think any of those are around anymore.

Sarah: We review by genre, not by format. Awesome! They got that one right. Well played.

Page 28: do you remember when you were talking about the special hardcover price for the Laura Giffin book?

Amanda: Yeah. [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: So we have a full-page ad from Zebra:

>> Take a chance each month and fall in love with these dazzling new stars of tomorrow, all endorsed by New York Times bestselling authors, available at an affordable price of $3.99.

So Zebra, which is part of Kensington, would pair a new author with a New York Time bestseller to, like, give them a cover quote, and then their special value price was $3.99. I remember –

Amanda: $3.99.

Sarah: I remem- – can you imagine? – I remember, I want to say that Victoria Dahl’s first historicals were published through Zebra, and she had a little special value, $3.99 value banner across the top. So all their debut authors would be in mass market at $3.99.

Amanda: I hated when books would, as part of the cover design, put, like, the price as, like, a fake sticker on the front.

Sarah: Oh yeah! That was –

Amanda: I hated that.

Sarah: – super annoying. It was very annoying. All right.

Amanda: We’re going, we’re doing it? We’re committing?

Sarah: We’re going to page –

Together: – 46.

Sarah: We’re going to spend some time with this page; we’re just going to jump to it. We’re, we, we’ve got a lot to talk about on page 46. What do we find on page 46?

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: Ellora’s Cave Presents Manaconda, an Anthology of Epic Proportions!

Amanda: This is a naked man.

Sarah: This is a naked man’s butt. With a snake wrapped around him, but I don’t think that snake was there originally. I think that snake has been added in later.

Amanda: But the, the butt is being covered by the phrase “Now available in print and eBook.” [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes, but the B in eBook is capitalized; that’s now, that’s how you know it’s legit: it’s an e capital B book. I am going to have to find a lot of these covers, because these are all covers generated in Poser. These are Poser covers.

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: Poser was like a three-dimensional modeling software that I think artists used to sort of devel- – like, you remember those little like, like dummies, like the little wooden dolls that you would pose –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – for human, like, a little posing, like, drawing doll? Poser was like a –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – 3D computer version of that, and a lot of e-presses used it for book covers, and they create these weird, plastic-looking, Uncanny Valley –

Amanda: It reminds me of Second Life. I always think of Second Life.

Sarah: It is very Second Life, yes. Look at Promises Keep by Sarah McCarty down at the bottom.

Amanda: Promises Keep!

Sarah: They’re so shiny?

Amanda: …Sarah McCarty. [Laughs] Yeah! She wrote really sexy erotic Westerns.

Sarah: She sure did!

Amanda: Yeah, what was the series I read? Sarah, Sarah McCarty. They’re, I’m willing to bet they do not hold up at all?

Sarah: No!

Amanda: But what was the series? Hell? The Hell’s Eight.

Sarah: Oh, Hell’s Eight. Hell’s Eight. Now that I see these covers, I absolutely remember them.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Oh, oh, oh, and we have a close-up on some jeans and a crotch that looks a little bulgy.

Amanda: Yep!

Sarah: Yep. But if you look at these covers on the Manaconda page – first of all, Jaid Black is –

Amanda: Haven’t heard that name in a long time. [Laughs]

Sarah: – is the founder of Ellora’s Cave; that’s the person who founded the whole press. She was one of the original writing alien-fucking books, for sure, but if you read these –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – these are some serious Poser covers. Like, major Poser vibes here. It’s incredible.

Amanda: [Laughs] If you didn’t know what Po-, that Poser was, like, a program? You’re like, Major Poser vibes.

[Laughter]

Amanda: Like. wow, that’s…

Sarah: No, they were, they were legit. Early, early Ellora’s Cave, they had so much money. They had their own booth at BEA. They had a big RV full of cover models, and you could, like, get on the bus and go hang out with them, and it was like, the whole side of the bus was covered with Ellora’s Cave –

Amanda: I remember one of the first Book Expo Americas –

Sarah: At the Javits. I already have to pee –

Amanda: At the Javits.

Sarah: – and the bathroom is far.

Amanda: There was an Ellora’s Cave booth –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – and they had two models in very tight black T-shirts or just shirtless in a leather vest –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – working the table?

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: And I’m like, This is not the vibe –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Amanda: – of Book Expo America.

Sarah: I mean, this is all people in publishing! It’s like –

Amanda: Yeah, this is before Book Con happened –

Sarah: Oh yeah, this was not –

Amanda: – right?

Sarah: – a reader event. This was –

Amanda: So this is not a fan event.

Sarah: This was, this was an industry event. This was like executives and publicists with box cutters getting – and it was all –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And the thing about BEA, especially then, was that it was all publishers flexing at each other. We’ve got this guy! We’ve got this guy! We’ve got this banner.

Amanda: Now we literally have people flexing. [Laughs]

Sarah: Now we literally have people flexing, yep.

If you would scroll to page 52, I want to ask you, are the people –

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: – on the cover of this book actually having –

Amanda: Yes. I already know exactly what – yes…

Sarah: Are they, are they fucking? Is this coitus?

Amanda: Well –

Sarah: Are they –

Amanda: – they’re not –

Sarah: – actually doing it?

Amanda: I don’t think there’s any insertion, just by where the guy’s hip is, unless he’s very well endowed.

Sarah: That’s true. But that’s a whole lot of flank, right?

Amanda: If we want to find the hypotenuse of this fucking triangle of –

Sarah: [Laughs] Hypotenuse of the fucking triangle! I’m sorry; hang on. Hy-po-te-nuse –

Amanda: Like, how long is, is this man – [laughs] –

Sarah: – of the fucking triangle.

Amanda: How long is this man’s member? How long does it have to be to reach the intersection…

Sarah: So this was erotic, this was an ad for New Concepts Publishing, based – and it’s, that gives you the address: Humphrey Road, Lake Park, Georgia. This was interesting because there were both historical and, contemporary, historical, and future by the same pairs of authors. There’s two Julia Keaton books and two Jaide Fox books? Look at the cover for Intergalactic Bad Boys. What is going on?

Amanda: I’m too busy looking at Tears of the Dragon, who, he looks like an actor from the like ‘80s and ‘90s, and I can’t place –

Sarah: Oh God, yes, he does. He does –

Amanda: Who is that?

Sarah: – look like somebody. Also, if you scroll up to the prior page, Jaide Fox, His Wicked Ways – are those Jonas brothers? I think those are Jonases!

Amanda: Were the Jonases even born?

Sarah: No, probably not, or they were very young, but those –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – those two cover models? That looks like Kevin Jonas – [laughs] – on the left and –

Amanda: Ah.

Sarah: – Joe Jonas on the right! [Still laughing]

Amanda: See, this is, that’s where they got the cloning material for the…

Sarah: Yeah, but they were from His Wicked Ways by Jaide Fox.

>> Darcy and Nicholas know that to prove who is England’s greatest lover, there can only be one contest: to seduce the woman most completely immune to their charms, Bronte Dunmore.

Okay, so that’s –

Amanda: Romance loves a woman who’s immune to the, to a man’s charms.

Sarah: Yep. Yep, yep.

All right, who does Tears of the Dragon look like?

Amanda: I can picture him!

Sarah: Joey from Friends. It looks like Matt LeBlanc.

Amanda: That’s not who I’m thinking of. Who am I thinking of? Popular ‘80s and ‘90s, dark hair, very thick eye- – no. It’s going to bother me. He’s in the contingency of, like, Dylan McDermott/Dermot Mulroney family.

Sarah: [Laughs] He’s a Dilmot, Dylan McDermott Mulroney type of actor? All right.

Amanda: Yeah. We’re going to be here for a while…

Sarah: We are. There’s, these covers, I mean, wait until we put these in the entry. Like, these are the ones where I’ve got to go hunt down obscure websites that still have these covers and, and load them onto my server for safekeeping, because these covers are ancient art.

Amanda: Oh, I think I found him. Who is this man? Who are you? I’m going to screen share, ‘cause it’s not telling me who this man is, and I don’t want to click through. This is who I’m thinking of. Who is this man?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Who is this man?

Sarah: Oh! Oh, fuck, that’s one of the, um –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Shit! [Laughs] ADAM?

Adam: What?

Sarah: COME HERE A SEC! I NEED YOU TO TELL ME WHO SOMEBODY IS! I think that’s a Brat Pack person. Can you come in here and tell us who this is? Who’s that?

Amanda: Who’s this man?

Sarah: Who is that? [Laughs] We stumped Adam too!

Adam: Okay! No, hold on!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Adam: I recognize them.

Amanda: Was he, like, the, The Warriors?

Adam: I recognize –

Sarah: Is that, that’s not Scott Baio, is it?

Adam: Definitely not Scott Baio.

Amanda: No. Not…

Sarah: It is an ‘80s heartthrob.

Adam: Hold on. Oh God, is that Matt Dillon?

Sarah: That might be Matt –

Amanda: Ooh, I think it, yes!

Sarah: Oh, Matt Dillon!

Amanda and Sarah: Yes.

Sarah: That is Matt Dillon! You are the man! All right, thank you, Adam.

Amanda: I told you! Dylan McDermott, Dermot Mulroney.

Sarah: [Laughs] Dylan McDermott, Dermot Mulroney, Matt Dillon! Yep, all right, so we have identified the, the guy on this cover here –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – looks a lot like Matt Dillon. All right, good job!

Amanda: He’s got a Matt Dillon face!

Sarah: He’s got Matt Dillon face. He’s giving Dylan McDermott Mulroney Matt Dillon. Thank you, Adam!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: There’s a lot of articles about craft and writing and how to write –

Amanda: Yeah –

Sarah: – a romance.

Amanda: – so many!

Sarah: There’s so many instructional ones. There’s one about, like, there’s a Q & A from editors and what they’re looking for, and then there’s writing advice from Alice Orr about submitting your best work? Again with the clip art. Weird clip art; like, very ‘80s clip art. But there’s –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – a lot of writing advice here!

Amanda: Yeah, I don’t remember, I feel like RT, it’s interesting because the conferences that I attended were very clear that this is reader-focused, and if you were a writer and you were looking for more craft or networking opportunities, you would go to RWA. Right? And so the swim lanes were definitely more defined once I started going to, like, RT. I only went to one RWA, but you see that in the later magazines of, like, there’s barely any, like, craft writing stuff.

Sarah: No, there’s really not.

Amanda: Yeah, I wonder, like, as more books were coming out and they were shifting their focus to be more review-focused –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – if this just, like, fell by the wayside, and they were like, Well, there’s RWA. What do we need to do this craft stuff for?

Sarah: I remember my first RT. This was the one that was in Pittsburgh, and it was deeply embarrassing ‘cause the hotel wasn’t done, and I used my local knowledge to direct everybody to where, how they could walk to Mercy Hospital because all the people with asthma were having a very bad time, ‘cause nothing was done, and there was dust everywhere. And that was when I first met Kate Duffy from Kensington in, in person, but she told me that in her estimation, RT was where people would push the editors out of the way to get to the authors, and RWA was people, where people would push the authors out of the way to get to the editors, and she much preferred the former. At one point –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – they had her registered as a reader instead of as an editor, and she’s like, This is the best conference I’ve ever been to. No one is talking to me; I love it; I’m having a great time!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: She died several, several years ago. I really, like, there are some people who have died since we started the website and, who were big, big voices in the romance community, and I always wonder, like, what would they make of romance right now? What would they make of what is, what is popular and what is happening, and, like, Kate Duffy –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – is one of them. Monica Jackson: what would, what would she think of it? L. A. Banks? What would L. A. Banks think of all this?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: L. A. Banks would also be running things at this point. She was –

Amanda: Oh, for sure.

Sarah: – so smart.

Amanda: I think she was, like, really ahead of her time in the books that she was writing, too.

Sarah: Oh, a thousand, a thousand percent agree, yes. She was way ahead of her time.

So looking at page 58, there’s a full-page ad for something called Sex, Lies, and Videotape. What do you call three amateur sleuths who work as a wedding planner, a pro golfer, and a video producer? Sex, Lies, and Videotape, of course! So –

Amanda: No, you don’t. [Laughs]

Sarah: – this is so wild to me. If I am understanding this ad correctly, what they are doing is three authors, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Roberta Isleib, and Deborah Donnelly, have got together and do book tours as the Sex, Lies, and Videotape trio for their books. So they do, they do book tours, the three of them together. Again, this was a period of time when book tours, like, there was a budget for them.

Amanda: I know. People did book tours; geeze louise.

Sarah: But I, I was like, Oh, okay, let – there’s some http://; let’s go see if these websites exist. Deborah Donnelly dot – okay, first of all, deborahdonnelly.org is cracking me up. She’s got a nonprofit suffix on her URL, which is still the case. Her Wedding Planner series was made into a Hallmark movie!

Amanda: Wow. Wedding Planner Mystery.

Sarah: Yeah! Was made into a Hallmark movie. Isn’t that wild?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Page 60 is an article by Diane Snyder called “Murder Takes a Holiday.”

>> Where in the world are the best mysteries? Take a cross-country sleuth tour and decide for yourself.

And it’s basically a long list of names of where different sleuths are set in the United States, divided by region.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So there’s New England; there’s New York and the mid Atlantic; there’s absolutely none in New York City. I’m telling you, no New York City sleuths: none, zip –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – zero, none, none. But I would really just like to point out that I of course looked for the western Pennsylvania to see if there were any Pittsburgh sleuths. Spoiler: there are not. There’s some in Philadelphia.

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: But I will read you the following paragraph, because there is no name greater than this:

>> As you travel west through Pennsylvania, don’t count on Bubbles Yablonsky slotting you in for a quick wash and cut. Sarah Strohmeyer’s Lehigh hairdresser has been honing her reporting skills in hopes of finding a full-time career change.

Bubbles Yablonsky.

Amanda: Bubbles has to be a nickname. It’s got to be!

Sarah: Bubbles Yablonsky. And so I went and, like, they, that, does sarahstrohmeyer.com? Yes, the Bubbles Yablonsky series: a beautician-reporter-sleuth and blazing star of the establishment-bashing debut of Strohmeyer’s career as a mystery writer. Bubbles –

Amanda: Oh my God.

Sarah: – Yablonsky. I can’t top it; it is too perfect. Well done; no notes.

Amanda: One of the description for the first one is:

>> Abetted by a quirky array of social castoffs and fueled by Doritos, Velveeta, and Diet Pepsi.

Sarah: That sounds like Saturday!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: That sounds like Saturday in my house. Then there’s Southern Comfort; Go West, Young Sleuth; Chicago Midwest; California. It’s a cute concept for an article, but it’s like basically a list of names –

Amanda: It’s a lot.

Sarah: – and, and like…

Amanda: It’s like a listicle before listicles.

Sarah: Yes.

Page 76, there is a big feature article announcement for the launch of Bombshell. Anyone listening who remembers Bombshell, this was a new line from Harlequin. Harlequin does this a lot; they do a lot, they just, they just did one like this year; it’s called Afterglow. But they –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – launch a new line, and Bombshell was, like, action heroines. The, the heroines were doing rad shit, and the thing was, I don’t think Harlequin was clear enough on which ones weren’t actually going to have romances in them in the first one, or if they were part of, like, a series from that writer. When you have a main character who is doing things like a freelance photographer/CIA spy battling ecoterrorism! There’s a lot of plot there; where are you going to put the romance?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And these are not long books, so one, the Bo-, the Bombshells that I read that I was frustrated ones, by didn’t have a lot of romance in them, but Bombshell was a really fun line. Secret agents –

Amanda: Lot of power suits on these covers.

Sarah: Lot of power suits. Lot of power suits, lot of pant suits, lot of running around in heels. But Carla Cassidy wrote a Bombshell called Get Blondie, Carla Cassidy of course being the author of Pregnesia, the greatest book ever written.

Amanda: [Laughs] There’s Bertrice Small again! They have a feature about this weird book, Private Pleasures, but yet in the review, still got her name wrong.

Sarah: Yes. In the review they got her name wrong, but in the feature they got it right! Like five times –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – they got it right.

Amanda: They literally have a feature on her, and then she has an ad. It’s the whole back cover. But they still messed up her name!

Sarah: In the review!

Amanda: I can’t, I can’t get over that.

Sarah: I’m sure that even from the Great Beyond, Bertrice Small herself is not over it. That’s, that’s something that would piss her off!

Amanda: I’m with you.

Sarah: Especially if she bought an ad, for heaven’s sake.

Okay, here we go: page 78. Men with Pens: Kings –

Amanda: Unnecessary.

Sarah: – of the Jungle.

Amanda: Why Kings of the Jungle? Like, if these were adventure books or even set on, in a jungle somewhere, I would understand. But why, I don’t understand why the subhead is Kings of the Jungle; I don’t get it.

Sarah: I don’t understand either. In the world of publishing, it’s a jungle out there.

>> From a spellbinding thriller to a sweet love story to comic lad lit –

Amanda: Lad lit, there we go! It’s back!

Sarah: >> – to the retelling of a biblical story, the male species is showing off its prowess of the pen.

Oy! Oy! Calm down! I think this whole thing happened because that was when James Patterson joined RWA because he was writing, like, Suzanne’s Diary for stuff and some other guy wrote some stuff for some chick, and yeah, he joined RWA. The, the quote at the end of the little quadrant for James Patterson is really something.

>> Writing in a woman’s voice came easy. Patterson cites being raised in a household of women, his mother, grandmother, sisters, and even two female cats, as firsthand research. “I still have the buzz of their conversations in my head. As an adult I have more female friends than male ones. I just love the way that women talk.”

Okay.

Amanda: I’m sorry, are female cats, do they communicate differently? Like –

Sarah: Kate?

Amanda: – Linus, Linus and Toast have very feminine meows, so I don’t think –

Sarah: [Snorts]

Amanda: – you could tell that they’re boys or girls.

Sarah: I haven’t had a female cat since 2014, 2015, and so we have Katy now, and –

Amanda: There’s a little bundle of rage sometimes.

Sarah: She’s just a little bundle of murder, so she’s not communicating; she’s trying to bite you on the ankle if it’s, if it’s murder time and she wants you to go get her toy.

Men with Pens. Why?

Okay, so on page 85, there is an ad for Downtown Press, which has a bunch of books; clearly they’re sort of chick-lit-coded. The font at the top, I would like you to know that that is the font of the original masthead of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I could spot that font at thirty feet.

Amanda: Awww!

Sarah: That is the same font –

Amanda: What was it called?

Sarah: I do not remember. Maybe it was like Lipstick or something. But yeah, that was the original font for Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I could spot it from a mile away. Like, oh! I know that font. And it’s kind of sad that I’m like, Oh, a font, I recognize it, but this is where my brain is now.

Amanda: [Laughs] There’s a, like, Let’s Play YouTuber that I watch religiously, and he used to be, he used to work in advertising –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – and his favorite thing is to, he can, like, call out any font in a game that he’s playing.

Sarah: Oh. Oh, dude –

Amanda: He usually plays like horror games. He’s like, This one’s…

Sarah: Don’t, don’t let him near Scriptina; he’ll lose his poor mind in Romance Land.

Amanda: [Laughs] Like, that one’s Papyrus!

Sarah: Oh, Papyrus.

Amanda: This one’s called whatever. Like, it’s so funny.

Sarah: On page 89 – this is a little bit of Smart Bitches history – there’s an ad for BooksFree.com. Now, first of all, at my house this website was called Books Not Free, because you did have to pay to subscribe. But basically you subscribed on a tier, Bronze, Silver, or Gold, and the tier was how many books you were allowed to have out at a time. It was basically an online used book library, and you would, like, tell them what book you want, and they would media mail it to you, and you would read it and send it back, and your tier determined how many books at a time you were allowed to have. And Smart Bitches started because I was looking at old romance novels that I got from BooksNotFree.com, and I was reviewing the books that I got from the service, and that was one of the reasons why the site started, ‘cause I was using Books Not Free. It is so wild –

Amanda: This is –

Sarah: – to see an ad for them.

Amanda: It reminds me of, like, early Netflix, when they would send you the DVD in the mail –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – in, like, a little envelope –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – and you would have to send it back!

Sarah: Yep. Books Free is now booklender.com, and apparently you still have plans. There’s a Limited and an Unlimited plan. You can get unlimited paperbacks for – whoo! – $9.90 a month, two at a time, multiple orders. Or you can get CD or MP3-CD audiobooks.

Amanda: I’m curious how many users they still have.

Sarah: I don’t know. Like, where’s their warehouse? I use, I remember, we used to watch so many movies when Netflix started, and we would get the CDs, we’d get the DVDs in the mail within like twenty-four hours. We used to joke that Netflix had a –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – distributing center in the basement, because we’d send the boat, send the movie back, order a new one, and it’d be there the next day, and, like, Oh, they’re in the basement! Okay!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: On page 93, there was something that I thought was like the weirdest example of industry speak? In, on page 93, in that little green bubble:

>> Harlequin Temptations in-line subseries Heat gets a hot new cover look beginning in September.

What does that mean? Why are you telling readers this? What is an in-line subseries, and what, what is that?

Amanda: I don’t know what that is.

Sarah: Super weird. Also, that, the ad next to it, for Steeple Hill Café Hip Lit? That font, Steeple Hill Café, I remember seeing that –

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: – all over the place in the ‘90s. Little curly letters?

Amanda: Yeah! But, like, hip lit? I said –

Sarah: Lad lit?

Amanda: – What in the youth pastor?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: ‘Cause inspirational hip lit just gives me youth pastor energy.

Sarah: >> Steeple Hill is comparing its new venture to popular shows like Seventh Heaven and Joan of Arcadia, which are mainstream but still showcase Christian values.

For the record, Joan of Arcadia did not necessarily showcase Christian values, because the premise was that God could talk to Joan, and no one else understood that God was talking to her, but God would appear in different angel forms and give her instructions, but it was dealing with school shootings and drugs and trafficking and prostitution.

Amanda: Also, Christian morals of Seventh Heaven did not age well.

Sarah: No! They did not. Those are bad Christian morals right there. Ugh! TRIGGER WARNING for all of Seventh Heaven.

Then if you go to page 102, this is just so funny to me:

>> Discover the acclaimed voices of women in fantasy from Tor books, and down at the bottom is Juliet Marillier.

Amanda: I’m so pleased to see her. I love her books so much!

Sarah: Have you read either of these?

Amanda: I have not read Wolfskin or Foxmask. I tapped into the Sevenwaters series. That was my very first –

Sarah: Ahhh!

Amanda: – and I’ve read a lot since then, but I think Sevenwaters – I don’t know how old. I don’t know if they pre-date – I just remember we had the series at my high school library, and so that’s where I picked them up from. But I don’t remember Wolfskin or Foxmask, so I have not read either of those. I’m assuming it came after, ‘cause one of the book blurbs says:

>> A lush tale of love, honor, and magic from the acclaimed author of Daughter of the Forest.

And that’s the first book in the Sevenwaters –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – series.

Sarah: But this is a full-page ad from Tor – women writing fantasy.

Amanda: How dare they…

Sarah: Fantasy romance, can you imagine?

Amanda: Romantasy!

Sarah: Oh my God, it’s romantasy!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: On page 112, there is an ad for a book called My Long Tall Texas Heartthrob, which appears to be part of a series including My Big Old Texas Heartache. Now, first of all, the font that has been chosen for this cover is terrible. Look at the X in Texas. It looks like an A and an E.

Amanda: Yeah, it does look like the conjoined A and E.

Sarah: Te-, TeAEas. Te, Ta, Te, TeAEas. [Laughs] It’s not a good thro-, not! I also think that My Long Tall Texas Heartthrob is the type of title that you really don’t see any more.

Amanda: I made a joke in the dock of, like, Is, is he the boot?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: ‘Cause the boot’s long, tall, and Texan?

Sarah: Little Texas flag sticking out of it? Yeah, maybe, maybe he’s the boot, and then the other one –

Amanda: And then –

Sarah: – this, this, the heartache is the hat. [Snorts]

Amanda: The hat! Did you ever see that SNL sketch called “The Wishin’ Boot”? It’s like a country song about someone discovering a magical cowboy boot that makes wishes? [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, as you do; sure.

Amanda: The Wishin’ Boot, and this is, I’m getting Wishin’ Boot vibes –

Sarah: This is a Wishing Boot!

[Laughter]

Amanda: – from this ad! It’s the Wishin’ Boot! I’ll put it in the show notes.

Sarah: There was a, one of those Reddit threads like What is the most wholesome prank you’ve ever pulled? And this one guy was like, I did this to my roommate, and to this day he doesn’t know that, that it was me? He had a box of cereal; he bought a box of his favorite cereal, and you know cereal’s, like, super fucking expensive? So his roommate bought another box of the cereal, and when the cereal box that his roommate was eating out of got too low he’d start refilling it a little bit, and so that cereal box would never run out of cereal, and his roommate was, like, completely baffled by the magic cereal box!

Amanda: [Laughs] Like, a magic cereal!

Sarah: And at one point the guy writing the story was like, I heard him just say, How is this possible? How are you doing this? It would never run out because his roommate kept refilling it! How wholesome is that?

Amanda: That’s a very sweet prank.

Sarah: If you look on the next page, on 113, there is an ad for a book called In Your Eyes by Laura Moore.

Amanda: Don’t do that, lady. Don’t sit on the fence like that.

Sarah: All right, so she’s sitting on the fence; she’s wearing, like, a sheer nightgown; she’s got really long legs; it’s very model-y. Okay, what genre is this?

Amanda: She’s going to get a splinter in her cooter is what’s going to happen.

Sarah: She’s absolutely going to get a splinter in her cooch. I mean, no question.

>> Seeing is believing in love. It’s always the thrill to discover a marvelous new talent in romantic fiction. One look and his heart was lost. New from the acclaimed author of Night Swimming.

What is the, what genre is this? The, this is the most –

Amanda: It’s romantic fiction!

Sarah: Like, if you were going to design a generic romance ad, this is your ad! Like, what, what, what genre is this? I don’t know; she’s in a nightgown, so soon there will be fucking, until she gets that splinter in her butt, and then there’s not going to be, no, no sexytimes until the splinter heals. Like, what, what genre is this?

Amanda: It also looks very uncomfortable, that…

Sarah: Oh, deeply uncomfortable.

And then look at the ad at the bottom of page 114.

Amanda: Saw that. I was like –

>> Use the promo code NOVEL and you can get a twenty percent discount.

The offer expired 12/31/2004. Sorry, sorry, everybody. You cannot –

Sarah: Harlequin’s Executive Editor –

Amanda: – redeem it anymore.

Sarah: – has written Romance Writing for Dummies. Now, I will say, this podcast exists because I borrowed Podcasting for Dummies from the library and read it so I learned what I had to do. But I kind of love that this exists, and it’s still available! There’s a new edition. I think Leslie Wainger is, like, credited as a co-author, and it’s been taken over by somebody else, but yeah, there’s Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies.

Amanda: Very curious if it’s helpful.

Sarah: I’m going to guess no. As a guess.

Amanda: Okay! [Laughs]

Sarah: As a guess.

Page 117 –

Amanda: This just, I was caught by the cover? ‘Cause in this one we have a, a lot less cover inserts –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: – for the reviews?

Sarah: When I start gathering all the covers for the books that we talk about, I’m going to be like, Oh, that’s interesting! That’s not in the magazine! There’s no covers, none.

Amanda: No. But there’s one for a Linda Howard book in the contemporary romance section, and the title is Kiss Me While I Sleep –

Sarah: No.

Amanda: – and that’s an awful title. Do not do anything to me while I sleep.

Sarah: The woman at the bottom looks dead!

Amanda: Yeah. She’s not sleeping.

Sarah: No, she looks, she looks no longer alive.

Amanda: No, it looks bad. I hate this title; I hate the cover.

Sarah: Well –

Amanda: It’s jarring.

Sarah: [Laughs] Kiss me while I sleep – no! Do not!

Amanda: Don’t do that!

Sarah: Do not do that!

On page 127, there are classified ads. There’s a lot of them! If you notice, in the last episode we talked about how the classifieds were one to ten lines for seventy-five and eleven to twenty for ninety-five? The same prices here! All the same prices. But –

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: – of the websites – like I said, if there was a website I was totally seeing if it still existed – there was readable, rereadables.com. That still exists. Rereadables.com is an online used bookstore. There are so many online used bookstores now! And they still exist –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – but look over on the right. Books I’ve Read: A Journal for Avid Readers.

>> Keep track of books you have read. Organize your favorite authors. Includes binder tabs, a hundred author pages, and a reader’s shopping list. $14.99 plus $3 shipping and handling. Unfortunately, booksiveread.com does not exist anymore.

Amanda: My mom was a big series reader. She read a lot of Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, like, Christine Feehan, tons of series, and she, before Goodreads, would have a spreadsheet that she would keep track of all of the upcoming books. Like, what series they were part of, when they came out. Like, she, she went hard –

Sarah: Wow.

Amanda: – for organizing her, her books and, like, what was coming out and what, like, she needed to, to get next or where she left off.

Sarah: Now, you noticed an ad on this page, too.

Amanda: Book Quest! I looked at, just to see if the website was still available? No, it is not, unfortunately. But it says:

>> We specialize in hard-to-find romances. Send your list and a self-addressed, stamped envelope –

Sarah: Ooh!

Amanda: >> – and we’ll send you prices for the books we have and search for any we don’t. Reasonable rates, no obligation, so stop wishing you had those books and start making your wishes come true!

So, like, if you were looking for difficult-to-find books, you could send this list to these people, and they would try to find these books for you, and I think that sounds very cool!

Sarah: That is a very cool service. I like that.

On our last episode, we had an ad that you called your attention to. I think it was for Open Road, and it was an excerpt from a book, and we were joking about how, you know, this is the kind of thing where someone would email us and be like, I read this excerpt in a magazine, and it was this –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and it was, it was a long excerpt. There is an excerpt for chapter two of a book. I don’t know what book it is, because it does not tell you, but it is –

Amanda: It doesn’t tell you; you’re right! Shit!

Sarah: It doesn’t tell you what the book is, and it’s really not good. It’s so not good.

Amanda: And there’s a, there’s a horny dragon who’s making sexy eyes –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – at you.

Sarah: And his name is Faiggor.

Amanda: Don’t love that. There’s a, there’s a line of dialogue. Oh! I don’t think this is an excerpt from a book. This is from Medallion Press, and then someone’s – like, there’s a line of dialogue:

>> “I just hope you can be as helpful to mom and the veep –

Sarah: What?

Amanda: Like a vice president?

>> There isn’t enough cheese in all of Medallion Land to go with their whine.

W-H-I-N-E.

Sarah: Is this an ad for the press? What is this?!

Amanda: This is an ad for the press. I don’t think this is a book excerpt.

Sarah: >> It’s been a long time, and you’ve grown, little one. You’ve become quite lumpy, I see.

What the hell does – [deep breath] – what is this? Okay, this is a weird ad.

Amanda: Wait. So the woman who owns Medallion Press, does she look like the woman in the princess outfit in the bottom left-hand corner?

Sarah: Oh God, I don’t remember; maybe?

Amanda; What, what was her name?

Sarah: Helen Rosburg? You know what? That is her! That is absolutely her. Yep! That’s her!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Wow.

Amanda: It is –

Sarah: So this is an ad for the press, like the press has a dragon doing acquisitions? What?

Amanda: Yeah. Sure, I guess!

Sarah: O-, okay. What – ? Why, why?

Amanda: We cracked the code!

Sarah: Why? But why? Why, why, why?

Amanda: No clue!

Sarah: Not a clue. There’s another article –

Amanda: Because, because they could.

Sarah: Because they could. They, they had the page; they had the money; they could. There is an ad for the RT Book Lovers convention in 2005, which is in St. Louis, which I did not attend, but if you look at the party snapshot, there is a lot of military, salute to military spouses, there’s a lot of mixers, and then 5 to 7 p.m.: Cover Model Competition. It’s the man-geant!

Amanda: Oh boy.

Ooh, do you see the Aussie party, invitation-only –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – Connie Mason party, invitation only?

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: Wow.

Sarah: And if you look on Thursday, April 28, costume extravaganza in the Rosburg costume ball. That’s Helen Rosburg of Medallion Press.

Amanda: French theme.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And then the next thing –

Amanda: I’d go as a mime.

Sarah: Heather Graham’s Oz party; then Saturday night is the Dorchester Speakeasy. Yeah, look at all of the money that is being spent here. It’s, it’s a lot, right?

Amanda: So much drinking.

Sarah: And then you wanted to look at page 135, which was more ads for the conference, and you noticed something really weird.

Amanda: Yeah! So they’re talking about genre programs –

Sarah: Right.

Amanda: So:

>> In addition to the dozens of workshops outlined on the previous page, there’ll be numerous two-hour sessions about writing for various subgenres. Spotlighted below are just a few of them.

So below they have paranormal –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – featuring Deb Stover, Pam McCutcheon, and Pam Binder for the paranormal workshop; mystery and suspense is Susan McBride; Eileen Dreyer, Dreyer; and Nancy Martin?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: For chick-lit, they have Carole Matthews, Alesia Holliday, and Michelle Cunnah? And then they have Vampire with Laurell Hamilton –

Sarah: It’s its own genre!

Amanda: Yeah. Laurell K. Hamilton, Heather Graham, Christine Feehan.

Sarah: All right.

Amanda: So why is Vampire separate –

Sarah: I don’t know, but I one hundred percent –

Amanda: – from Paranormal?

Sarah: – I would one hundred percent smoke a fat blunt with Laurell K. Hamilton, Heather Graham, and Christine Feehan, ‘cause you know that would be a good time. [Laughs]

Amanda: That would be wild.

Sarah: I can’t even smoke things.

Amanda: Also, I’m willing to bet that’s probably the most popular of the four.

Sarah: I cannot smoke things, ‘cause I have scars in my lungs from having had pneumonia too much, but I would totally sit down with a blunt for those three people, absolutely.

Amanda: Or just some edibles.

Sarah: Sure, let’s take the easy way out. But why is Vampire separate?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Why is Vampire separate from Paranormal, and yet there’s no Paranormal or Vampire in the review sections; it was New Reality.

Amanda: Yeah! So they’re not using their own same language.

Sarah: No!

Amanda: But this was also, 2004 was –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – really, like, early 2000s was huge for paranormal, huge!

Sarah: Oh yeah, because –

Amanda: That’s –

Sarah: – Smart Bitches started January 20, 2005, and I went to, I think my first RWA I went to was 2007, because I was ex-treme-ly pregnant; I gave birth like six weeks later. I was a little planet orbiting the lobby in Dallas.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And it was paranormal all the way down. Just leather pants everywhere. Yep.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Wild, right?

Amanda: It was super popular. I would be willing to bet this was like right on the cusp of when it, like, really became popular?

Sarah: Yep. I bet you’re right.

Amanda: So they’re starting to do stuff to, like, promote it as its own thing, but –

Sarah: I bet you’re right, yeah.

Amanda: – it’s not quite there yet.

Sarah: So this was really a different issue, wasn’t it?

Amanda: Oh, one hundred percent!

Sarah: So different, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And it, well, I guess it –

Amanda: Quite a different magazine experience.

Sarah: Completely different magazine, completely different set of books. A lot of language where I was like, Oh, that doesn’t hold up. And –

Amanda: I know!

Sarah: – just, when I, when we go through the – like, I, I wanted to go back farther in time because doing two issues back to back in 2014, there wasn’t a lot of change and development. It was just like, Here’s new releases, the next book in a series or whatever. This is so different.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So different.

Amanda: And this was, like, pretty close to when I started getting into romance?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: So I started reading it around like age fourteen, fifteen, so right around this time, and I don’t know half, like, in this workshop page alone, where they’re talking about the different workshops, I don’t know half of these people.

Sarah: No! No, it’s a completely different set of names, and, and, and the, the historical is so much American historical, so much time travel –

Amanda: Yeah. There’s a lot.

Sarah: – and Indigenous American. It’s a completely, it’s weird, like, it’s a weird time capsule. And I’ll send this, I’ll have to send this issue to Bowling Green, ‘cause they don’t have this one. It’s a shame –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – this unicorn needs to be seen by many researchers.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: If you’ve got romance novel research, this’ll be in their collection soon enough.

Amanda: Needs to be preserved!

Sarah: Yeah, right? Thank god I used the flat scanner and didn’t cut the spine.

Amanda: [Laughs] This was a weird one!

Sarah: This was a weird one.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of the podcast, and that sort of jingling noise in the background is Wilbur, who decides that he needs to eat when I am recording, so that is what that lovely noise is. Thank you for the sound effects, sir.

Thank you to Amanda for hanging out with me. Thank you so much to Kay Sisk for sending us this issue. This issue is going to end up in the Bowling Green Popular Culture Library, because they do not have this one. This is a very rare thing that I’m taking very good care of. So thank you to Kay Sisk for sending this to me. July 2004 was quite a trip. Please do not miss the visual aids, which you can find at romantictimesrewind.com or at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 593.

[rattle]

Sarah: Wilbur is absolutely going to town on his dinner, and he has reviewed the cat food as satisfactory: please give me more.

And speaking of reviews, I asked for some because all of my reviews on Apple disappeared, and boy, did y’all come through for me. Thank you. I realize how big of an ask that is, and I’m so, so thankful that you did so. I want to say thank you to LivelyPsyche, who wrote:

>> I’ve been listening to this podcast for years. If you want to know about poisonings, romance novels, book trends, book publishing, and who knows what else – the poisoning episode really stuck in my mind – this is the podcast for you.

Thank you, LivelyPsyche! I actually have two poisoning episodes. Isn’t that wild? Maybe I should make that a continuing theme. [Laughs]

Either way, thank you, thank you, thank you if you have taken the time to leave a review. It makes a massive difference, and it means that I have ratings that didn’t disappear, which is a really big deal! So thank you.

As always, I end with an absolutely dreadful joke, and this joke is from Sue by email, and Sue writes:

>> This is from my five-year-old friend Wesley. It is unclear if he made it up or he heard it.

Are you ready for five-year-old Wesley’s joke? You’re not, but, I mean, I’m going to tell you anyway.

What kind of sandwich says achoo?

Give up? What kind of sandwich says achoo?

A grilled sneeze.

[Laughs] That is such a five-year-old joke! I love it so much! A grilled sneeze! And if you’re thinking, gosh, I don’t know what to have for dinner, let this be an opportunity for you to make grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner, because that is a delicious dinner. [Laughs] Grilled sneeze!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week with holiday wishes!

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[cheerful music]