633. RT Rewind: September 2015 Ads & Features

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Sarah Wendell: Hello there. Welcome to episode number 633 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, Amanda is with me, and we’re taking a look at the ads and features of the September 2015 issue of Romantic Times. Y’all, this is a nine-layer cake of wonderment and weird. We are going to talk about Janet Dailey and who was writing her books – we don’t know – lawyer romances, changes in cover design, and this issue of the magazine, and also Amanda, have some wonderful memories of Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention 2015 in Dallas, so if you were there you might like this trip down memory lane.

And if you want to look at the magazine, do you know what you need to do? You know what you need to do; you need to join the Patreon! You get the whole thing. All of those lovingly scanned pages; me and my flatbed scanner are here for you. You can have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches to join our Patreon.

I want to say hello to Cora – hi, Cora! – who’s one of our newest members.

The Patreon community keeps me going, makes sure every episode has a transcript from garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! – [hi there! – gk] – and you get bonus episodes, the whole PDF scan of RT every month – and this magazine is beefy – plus you get a Discord full of really lovely human beings. It would be wonderful to have you join us in the Patreon, and if you want to have a look: patreon.com/SmartBitches.

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All right, are you ready? Go back in time? 2015? One piece of information: we do know the name of the dog on the cover. We spend a lot of time talking about it, but I’ll just tell this up front, rather than putting it in the outro. Amanda and some commenters on our website figured out who the owner was. That dog’s name was Louisa. She is no longer with us, but she was a very, very good dog. So let’s go back in time to September 2015 with J. R. Ward, Louisa, and, well, us. On with the podcast.

[music]

Sarah: It’s time for the ads and features from September 2015! And we have got a dog on the cover. I have reached out to people –

Amanda: [Indistinct]

Sarah: – that I know in publishing, and I have taken a picture of this cover, and I have sent it to them –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and I have said, This is very important! Do you remember the name of J. R. Ward’s dog in 2015? Now, if someone came at me with that question, I would be like, No. Or I would be able to tell you all of the dog’s name. It would be either one or the other. This is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. I know because –

Amanda: I was going to say, Sarah knows! [Laughs]

Sarah: I know that is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel because our dog that we, that, that passed away last year, he was half Cocker Spaniel and half Cavalier, and we used to say that his, his breed was King Cock.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Buzz, his brother, is, is part Pointer and part Cocker Spaniel, so he’s Pointing Cock. But this is a purebred; this is clearly a purebred Cavalier. Gorgeous brown eyes, cute little face. Like, I know J. R. Ward is there; that’s fine. We’re here about the dog, right?

Amanda: [Laughs] Yeah, there’s something about spaniels in particular.

Sarah: Oh, they’re so great.

Amanda: My grandmother had, like, Cocker Spaniels growing up. They just have the softest ears. There’s something –

Sarah: Oh my –

Amanda: – about the ear fur –

Sarah: – God. Yes.

Amanda: – that is like velvet.

Sarah: Buzz has the softest ears. His body hair is a little more wiry, but his ears are so soft and fluffy. And Zeb had great ears; we would just play with his ears forever. Wilbur and Zeb –

Amanda: [Indistinct]

Sarah: – were good friends, and Wilbur would, like, snuggle up and, like, if Zeb was lying there and, you know, he had long, drope, droopy ears, Wilbur would get under his ear, like a blanket, and put it over him.

Amanda: Aw!

Sarah: Oh yeah, they were good buddies. Wilbur is a friend to many, many, many dogs, and Zeb was a friend to many cats.

But yeah, we’ve got a dog on the cover! This is a great cover!

Amanda: I like that.

Sarah: I’m, I’m totally fine with, like, yeah, J. R. Ward is there – DOG! Whoever decided to put the dog on the cover – I’m going to assume it was J. R. Ward –

Amanda: Yeah! I mean, I feel like if you approach J. R. Ward for a cover story and she says, Okay, but I want my dog on the cover, all you can do is say yes.

Sarah: Oh, I mean, yes. Or they were doing the cover shot of her, and she’s like, Oh, my dog’s here! And then they get a picture with the dog and it’s perfect. You do notice her jewelry, right?

Amanda: Oh yes.

Sarah: Big –

Amanda: I mean, how –

Sarah: – big –

Amanda: – most of it’s covered by the dog, but –

Sarah: So there’s a –

Amanda: – you see a little bit of the pearls…

Sarah: – triple strand, triple stand of matched pearls and some big old diamond earrings, like, big sparklers. Now, I know that she has an eye sensitivity; I don’t know the specifics of it, but she is never without sunglasses. I have seen very, very few – I think two in total – pictures of her without sunglasses, so I think she has an optical sensitivity that requires her to wear sunglasses all the time? But with the big blonde hair and the big earrings, this is a badass cover. [Laughs] Like, it’s just great!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So the first thing that I want to talk about is page six. If you look at the top left, there’s a picture of Colleen Hoover. This woman has been famous for like a decade now. Everyone acts like she just got discovered by TikTok, and I keep wanting to tell people, No, I’ve, she’s, she had crowds in foreign countries in 2014. In 2015, she’s a headliner at this conference. Like, come on, she’s not new; she’s been here.

Amanda: This happens.

Sarah: It just happens. Surprise!

Amanda: Same, same…happen.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I thought, when you said, Oh, look who it is, I thought you were talking about this man, Grigoris. I’m like –

Sarah: Grigoris! And his, and his nipple. And his – well, his shirt is buttoned, but not tucked in. I’m very disappointed in him. He does have big hair, though.

Amanda: I was like, Am I supposed to know who Grigoris is? [Laughs] I was like, I, I’ll find out later, when Sarah tells me.

Sarah: Our goal – this is from a reader letter from Kathryn:

>> Our service for reviewing indie books will be starting up by the time you receive this issue. We’ve hired reviewers, editors, columnists, and tech staff to make RT Review Source the supplemental, the supplement to the digital edition a premier source for readers. Our goal is to discover the cream of the crop, and we appreciate readers like Jonella Moore who bought eight hundred books last year and read six hundred plus, alerting us to exceptional reads.

Amanda: Okay, so…

Sarah: How does it even work with, how do you work with, how does that work with your memory? How are you going to remember six hundred books?

Amanda: But, like, that’s –

Sarah: A year!

Amanda: – six hundred plus, so that’s like two a day, right? That’s roughly two a day, maybe slightly less.

Sarah: Okay, yeah, with you.

Amanda: Most – okay, so the most I’ve read in one year, and it’s, I think it’s a pretty substantial number, if I’m remembering correctly; I was very depressed, and all I did was go to my library and pick up library holds, read them, and then go back for more. That’s all I –

Sarah: Was this when you were taking care of your brother? Like, you’d take him to school –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – you’d go to the library, you’d get a bunch of books, you’d read all day, you’d go back to the library and pick up your brother?

Amanda: Yes. [Laughs] And so that year I read 212 books in one year. That is my highest. Over six hundred? That’s something. That’s a lot. Is that physically possible? I don’t know!

Sarah: How long – well, if she’s reading small books then?

Amanda: I mean, people always ask you like, How long does it take you to read a book? Because they’re like, Oh, you, you do a lot of reading for a living; how long does it take you? And I was like, I could probably read a standard book, between three to four hundred pages, in, you know, four hours.

Sarah: Mm-hmm! But also –

Amanda: And I –

Sarah: – how dense is the writing? How many words are we talking here? You know? Yeah.

Amanda: Yeah, like, I’m not, I’m not reading academic texts –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – or anything like that. So I don’t know. That’s still –

Sarah: Quite a lot.

Amanda: – a lot –

Sarah: Quite a lot.

Amanda: – of books.

Sarah: Moving on to page 7. This is a full-page ad for RomanceAtRandom.com; we are still in the period of time when publishers all had their own blogs. Look at how many men are staring at their crotches on this cover, on all of these covers. There’s –

Amanda: Yeah, that’s very popular.

Sarah: For a, twelve covers here, fully half of them are men who have no shirts on staring at their crotches. And some of these guys look like Andrew –

Amanda: …you still see that.

Sarah: Some of these guys look like Andrew Tate, which, No, thank you. Yeah, we still see it. It’s – what, but why? Why are they all looking at their crotches? Are they, like –

Amanda: They’re –

Sarah: – surprised about something? Have they, like, lost their keys and found them in their shorts? Like, why are they all looking down at their ween – I don’t – why are they all looking down? I don’t get it. But okay.

Moving on to page 8. All right, this is fun. Tylers of Texas to continue? This is a letter from Pat Rinaldo by email.

>> I know Janet Dailey passed away over a year ago, and I’m wondering if you know whether she ever finished the third Tylers of Texas book. I am reading Texas Tough, which is the second book in the series, and I’m trying to find out if she ever wrote Will’s story. Hope you can help.

>> Thanks for writing! We’re also big fans of Janet and her Tylers of Texas series. According to her editor at Kensington, Alicia Condon, a writer friend of Janet’s, was able to complete the series by using the late author’s notes. Be on the lookout for Texas Tall in July 2016. Though Janet is gone, her books will continue to leave, live on in our hearts and bookshelves for years to come.

Okay, so here’s the thing about Janet Dailey that I don’t understand, but is, but – okay. So I’m going to drop a link to Janet Dailey’s website in the document. Everything about Janet Dailey is present tense. On her website, she’s not dead. Everything is present tense, and she has new books. She has the Calder Brand series that was, one of, the newest one was Calder Country, released July 23rd, 2014 [2024]. Someone is writing under the name Janet Dailey, and I would absolutely love to know who it is that is writing under her name, because it does not mention on her website that she is dead.

Amanda: Wow. Wowee!

Sarah: Right? And if I google –

Amanda: I –

Sarah: – who is writing Janet Dailey’s books? I remember sending an email to Kensington being like, can you tell me about this? And, and…

Amanda: They’re like, No? [Laughs]

Sarah: No, I did not get an interest. Now, Topaz Literary did do a post about it where somebody else noticed – [laughs] – Hang on, she’s dead; how’s she re- – what is this, V. C. Andrews? Janet Dailey’s website makes no mention of her death. It gives a lot of – it goes to great lengths to give the impression that Janet Dailey is still alive, which is the same thing I noticed. You can subscribe to the newsletter. So this person actually wrote and asked, and the response that they got about who wrote, who wrote Calder Brand:

>> That is a good question and one I get asked frequently. Before she died, Janet mentored a young author and taught the woman how to write in her style. Janet also left outlines of future books and outlines for the characters to work from. I guess Janet knew how her, beloved her characters were and how heartbroken readers would be if no one ever knew what happened to the Calders. We like to think the writer is doing a good job of keeping the spirit of Janet’s writing, and she is acknowledged in every book.

There is no acknowledgment in Calder Brand, not a single page. So she wrote back to this person, and this person said:

>> I don’t actually know her name. She’s mentioned in the acknowledgments, but not specifically as a writer. Believe it or not, I honestly don’t know her name.

So this person then contacted Penguin Random House and was like, Who is this? And they said,

>> In-, information regarding ghostwriters is not something that is made public.

Why are you – [laughs] – why are you making it sound like she’s still alive? Why is her website in the present tense? Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. So allegedly, the theory from this person is, the theory from Lindsay Hobbs is that the estate hired someone to write as Janet Dailey and are, are writing posthumous novels under the name, but no one knows who it is. But yes, she is still publishing! From beyond the grave. Wild, right?

Amanda: This is so weird, ‘cause I saw that, like, the, was it, the, the Topaz link that you published, and I, like, Oh yeah, normally if someone does have a ghostwriter, so they’ll mention, you know, auth-, the original author and then, like, write, or they’ll mention the, the ghostwriter writing as original author –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – or whatever.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: They’re just so weird to not mention that, and also to position her website with no mention that she’s using a ghostwriter now. Also –

Sarah: It’s creepy, right?

Amanda: – if I were –

Sarah: It’s creepy.

Amanda: Yeah. If I were ever an author – and I’ve toyed with this idea so many times of maybe I should write a book – the way my brain works, if I am unfinished with a book or series, God love whatever friend is going to try to step in, because I, I’m not a plotter, or I don’t leave any notes. It’s all just up in here, and –

[Laughter]

Amanda: You’ve got to weed through whatever’s going on in here, so good luck to you –

Sarah: I –

Amanda: – brave soldier.

Sarah: I will say, I understand the, I understand the language that has presented to me that there are notes and character outlines. I, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that; I think that someone’s been hired to write under the name because the name is profitable and people are like, Oh, Janet Dailey; I’ll buy that! I think she’s being V. C. Andrews, and – V. C. Andrews’d. Yeah. But creepy, right?

Amanda: Here’s, I feel like current readers are not picking up Janet Daileys, and I feel that also about V. C. Andrews books, that those audiences are only getting older and older. They’re not, you know, you’re not going to see a Janet Dailey on TikTok, on BookTok. So I’m very curious what might happen when those audiences are no longer around –

Sarah: Buying her books.

Amanda: I mean, I’m sure libraries will continue to stock a V. C. Andrews maybe, or a Janet Dailey, but I’m very curious about the demographics that are buying –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – Janet Dailey books, and how those numbers fare as time goes on.

Sarah: It’s very interesting. And this is 2015; it’s 2024 and Janet Dailey books are still coming out, so whoever is, whoever was or whoever, all of the people who are writing these books under Janet Dailey’s name, I’m going to assume that there’s more than one person at this point, or there has been more than one person? Imagine being the, the ghostwriter who, like, keeps up this, like, this whole charade. Ghostwriting is a very lucrative, lucrative business in romance, too.

Amanda: I could never be a ghostwriter because I am too much of a loudmouth.

Sarah: [Snorts]

Amanda: I am, I, do not come to me to have your secret kept that, like –

[Laughter]

Sarah: The other Letter to the Editor I wanted to point out was they – [sighs] – they, they like to publish tweets? They, they, they –

Amanda: I saw – [laughs] – yeah, I remember they like to do this.

Sarah: They like to publish tweets? Which is very funny, but @oh_alexrosa on Twitter:

>> I really need to get my hands on a new bookshelf if I’m supposed to get a book, a grip on all the books I got at RT.

So this was back in the days when you would go to RT and come home with an absolute butt-ton of books, and this is, this is a thing that I don’t think is possible anymore. I really don’t think it’s possible to host a conference and get that many free books for the conference- –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – -goers. I don’t, I don’t think publishers are going to do that again, but back in the day? I’m not exaggerating that I would pack a suitcase and put it inside a larger suitcase and check that bag because I knew I would be filling up the empty one on the way home.

Amanda: So I sent, I sent you some photos of R, attending RT Dallas, and one of them –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – was, like, a shot of the free books that I took, and I have another photo that I didn’t include, that I put on my Instagram, of the scale at the business center for RT ’15, and the scale was, I think it hit like thirty-one pounds’ worth of books that I had to ship back to my apartment in Boston.

Sarah: That’s like thirty-six books! I just did a rough count of what’s on your, of what’s in this picture. That’s like thirty-six books!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Oh wow. Yep, you came, you came home with an entire library of books. Those, those were the days –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – those days are, those days are gone, huh?

Amanda: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: So on the next page, on page 9, there, okay, there’s so many ads for publishers where they just put all the book covers. Like, they’re not really featuring one book or talking about it; it’s just here are all the covers. All of these covers, that’s all you get, so the covers have to do a lot of work to communicate genre and, like, heat level, and they’re all doing the job. It’s, it’s kind of incredible.

Amanda: Yeah. I have such, I wrote down that I have such nostalgia for –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – some of these? Because I read Nuts; I loved that series so much. I read the Emma Chase series pictured here. I read –

Sarah: I met Alice Clayton at RT once. I met Alice Clayton at RT. She’s delightful.

Amanda: Alice Clayton – I said this later in our doc of, like, ‘cause there, there’s an interview with Alice Clayton and, is it Nina Roachy? Who did, like, a, a co-authored book called, I think it’s Roman Crazy might have been the book? But just how much I miss Alice Clayton; like, Alice Clayton is my Meredith Duran.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Like, I want, I want to know what’s going – I think she’s doing some screenwriting? I know –

Sarah: She’s talented. She’s good at dialogue. Screenwriting’s perfect for her.

Amanda: I know one of her books is going to PassionFlix.

Sarah: Yeah, I saw that.

Amanda: But yeah, I miss Alice Clayton’s writing, and, you know, I’ve, chime in with her former publicist every now and then and be like, What’s Alice up to? Any books?

[Laughter]

Sarah: If you look –

Amanda: And she’s like, No.

Sarah: None. If you look top right, it’s After by Anna Todd, and I think that’s one of the early editions of that book, because that book –

Amanda: That’s the One Direction fanfic.

Sarah: That’s the One Direction fanfic. Which is kind of wild that there are now three movies made out of One Direction fanfic? Definitely two, possibly three. And the other thing about this collection of covers that I think is so interesting is that there’s Emma Chase, Overruled? We used to have a lot of lawyer fic contemporaries. We used to have –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – a lot of lawyers! We had Julie James; we had Emma Chase; we had, I think it was Susan Day wrote some? We used to have a fair number of lawyer romances. We don’t really have that as much –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – anymore.

Amanda: No, and it’s interesting because a lot of romance authors are lawyers or –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Amanda: – were lawyers.

Sarah: Yes.

So on page 17, there is a quiz! It is a dark quiz: The Christine Feehan Challenge, where they ask you questions about the books, and I just want to pull, I just want to pull out question six.

>> What is –

Amanda: There’s also another dog in this photo…know the dog’s name!

Sarah: Oh my God, you’re right! There’s a dog right there. I see his little face! Christine Feehan –

Amanda: It’s a giant dog!

Sarah: Christine Feehan and J. R. Ward, we are in a fight now because you have not told us the names of your dogs! We are very upset; we are in a fight!

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: I don’t know if you care; you probably don’t.

Question number six of this quiz. Like, number two is like:

>> When does Zev begin to question his purpose in Dark Blood?

Question six:

>> What’s the big twist in Cat’s Lair?

Like, that’s, that’s the question: what’s the big twist? ‘Course now I want to know what, what is the big twist?

Amanda: I wish all of these were multiple choice. I, I didn’t know, I didn’t know there’d be short answer material here. I don’t, is there an answer key anywhere?…there’s not.

Sarah: >> The first five readers to take the quiz and send correct answers to [email protected] –

Amanda: Nooo.

Sarah: >> – will win a copy of Dark Ghost!

There’s no answers!

Amanda: No, there’s no answer key. You’d have to email –

Sarah: Christine Feehan, what was the big twist? I mean, somebody wrote a spoiler review somewhere, right?

Amanda: I’m, I’m searching Goodreads.

Sarah: [Laughs] What’s the twist? Don’t tell me there’s a twist and I can’t even ask –

Amanda: I’m looking.

Sarah: – Elyse and be like, What was the twist? I don’t know! What the hell?

Amanda: Someone said:

>> I’ll admit, I never saw the twist coming.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: So what is it?!

Sarah: I need it now! Why are you not telling us? Ugh, very frustrating. And if you’re going to put a quiz in a magazine, you have to publish the answers later. Like, I think that’s just the, the rule, right?

Amanda: Okay, maybe this is the twist.

Sarah: Ooh, drumroll!

Amanda: Okay, yeah. So the hero has another identity named Eli, and he comes into the, the heroine’s life after she escaped from a terrible man that raised her since she was eleven.

Sarah: ‘Kay.

Amanda: But the hero, his fake identity is Eli, and he’s an undercover DEA agent looking to put her old, her former guardian away in jail.

Sarah: That’s the twist? He’s –

Amanda: Is that the twit?

Sarah: He’s undercover?

Amanda: Is that the twist?

Sarah: He’s undercover and he’s, like, out to get her?

Amanda: He’s act- – yeah!

Sarah: Okay! I mean, I guess that is the big twist. Kind of let down about that.

Amanda: I mean, I searched twist in Goodreads reviews, and that’s what came up. If we’re wrong, please let us know that…

Sarah: Yeah, if you know what the twist was, I, I need to know because I was tempted…knowledge of the twist, but not the actual particulars, and I am put out about it.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And you wanted to look at page 18, which is a Q&A Erotica Exclusive!

Amanda: Yeah. So Nina Bocci; that’s her name.

Sarah: Yes. ‘Cause they wrote Roman Crazy together, right?

Amanda: Yeah. So Alice Clayton and Nina Bocci do, like, the co-author thing and write Roman Crazy, and I just miss Alice Clayton! That was my only note, of, like, I miss Alice Clayton. I thought Roman Crazy was okay, but it was really interesting, ‘cause this is where, like, Christina Lauren was popping off –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – and Christina Lauren and Alice Clayton shared a publisher; they were both published by Gallery.

Sarah: Oh, that’s right! Forgot about that.

Amanda: Yeah, so I thought it was very interesting that you have Christina Lauren that’s a very popular author duo using one pseudonym, but then they also published Alice Clayton and Nina Bocci, and I think Nina was previously, she was a writer, but I feel like she also worked in publishing for a time, or was an agent? I can’t remember. But maybe I’m wrong.

Sarah: I just want to tell you something?

Amanda: But yeah, I just –

Sarah: I went to Alice Clayton’s website to see if there’s any news about new books, and –

Amanda: She has a, something from 2017; I saw.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. But the bio? Blah-blah-blah, worked in cosmetics, enjoys this, not that. Last line:

>> She has a delightful pooch named Matilda.

So we have the dog’s name but no picture. [Laughs]

Amanda: Come on! Guys!

Sarah: This is a very dog-heavy series! We need, we need names –

Amanda: What’s going on?

Sarah: – and we need pictures. We need both parts. This is unfair! We should email Alice Clayton and be like, Do you still have Matilda, and can we have a picture, please? Even, even if you don’t, I’m sure you have a picture; I would love to see your dog. We always want to see your dogs! If you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, Would Sarah and Amanda like to see a picture of my pet? Yes!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Yes. Yes, we do.

Amanda: Always.

Sarah: Always.

Amanda: I – there’s this meme that went around about how, like, dog names are so, like, lovable and sweet or, you know, they, like, fit the dog, and they’re, they’re not, like, regal, but just, like, normal dog names like Maggie and Duke!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: And then you’ve got, like, cat names, and the one was Stoven, which meant Stove Top Oven because they found the cat in an abandoned oven in, like, some junk yard, and so they named him Stoven. Like, cats have the most ridiculous names. So, you know, show me photos of your cat with their silly little names! Or if you have a reptile –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – that’s also fine!

Sarah: We want to see –

Amanda: I’ll take reptile pics.

Sarah: – pics and names. We just want, we just want to talk about your pets on the podcast. This is becoming a pets and books podcast. We’re just, we’re, we’re just here –

Amanda: We’re rebranding!

Sarah: We’re rebranding; we’re evolving; we just need pets and pictures.

Page 21, there is another full-page ad from Forever for Forever-Romance.com, and it’s all of the covers of their books, and again, all of these covers are communicating what these books are! Like, they’re communicating genre; they’re communicating the heat level; like, the covers are doing a really interesting job of communicating a lot, and I feel like that has been, I think that has been lost in a lot of new covers that are coming out, because there is a homogeny and a sameness to the color schemes? But also –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – it’s harder and harder to tell what kind of contemporary you are reading. If we’re going to have all these very specific genre terms, like romantasy and, you know, all of these very specific tags for different tropes, the covers need to communicate more than they are communicating, and they’re not communicating much at all.

Amanda: Yeah, seeing, seeing a happy dog in a canoe definitely tells me what kind of romance contemporary that I’m going to be getting.

Sarah: Fall foliage and a dog in a canoe! And then there’s another dog –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – holding a picnic basket with a cat in it. Also, I guarantee you that that –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – German Shepherd was not actually holding that basket, ‘cause that’s not how dog mouths work.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: But there’s a Kelly Bowen –

Amanda: But also –

Sarah: – here. Yeah.

Amanda: When’s Kelly Bowen coming back to historical romance? That’s another one!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: She’s on the historical fiction train, which, you know, do whatever –

Sarah: Hey!

Amanda: – brings you joy.

Sarah: Whatever works!

Amanda: But also, do what brings me joy too.

Sarah: [Laughs] Do what I want, God damn it! What the hell?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: What is this nonsense where people do their own things? That’s terrible!

Amanda: No one consulted –

Sarah: No one asked me!

So if you want to get a full-page article in Romantic Times – suppose you’re going back in time to when the magazine still existed, and you want to write an article and you want to talk about yourself, the thing that you want to pitch is an article about veterans, because between pages 22 and 26 is nothing but article after article about veterans, and I know that Kathryn Falk has a veteran’s charity.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: I really think that if you wanted to be in the magazine, you needed to write about veterans or the military or something, and then you would get all of the room in the world for yourself, your books, and a few other people, plus your author photo, and it’s, it’s really something to see them all, like all together in the magazine, isn’t it?

Amanda: That’s the secret –

Together: – yeah.

Sarah: That’s the secret!

I noticed this when we were going through the reviews? I didn’t flag this the first time I read it, or read through the magazine, but I just want to point out, on page 49 of the PDF? There’s a little ad for The Mistress of Tall Acre by Laura Frantz, and I just need to ask about this font.

Amanda: I’m looking.

Sarah: So BRILLIANT STORYTELLING is in all caps font, with WITH DRAMA AND ROMANTIC INTENSITY, but in the middle it’s –

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: – it says Sweeps Readers Away, and it is nothing but filigree and curlicues. The R –

Amanda: I don’t like that!

Sarah: – the R has, like one, two, three, four, five, six circles behind it and in front of it. Like, it loops onto itself. I guarantee you’ve seen this font on a –

Amanda: So –

Sarah: – book cover.

Amanda: – it’s all connected! The R is technically, if you follow the strokes, there is no break in the strokes. It is all –

Sarah: No, it’s all one. Yeah.

Amanda: It’s all –

Sarah: It is all one.

Amanda: I hate it. I don’t like it.

Sarah: [Laughs] Yeah.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: This font is just ridiculous! The, the A in Away goes around and then up, over, and then, I mean, it’s ridiculous.

Amanda: You don’t need to do all that!

Sarah: It’s, this font is absurd. I can’t stop looking at it. It’s like Scriptina had a baby with a historical romance font. Wow.

So on, you wanted to look at page 58.

Amanda: Yeah. So 58 and 59 –

Sarah: Speaking of font!

Amanda: – it’s just a two-page ad…

Sarah: Speaking of font!

Amanda: [Laughs] Christine –

Sarah: Hell, yeah!

Amanda: Christine Feehan books, and what I love – I think she had a book come out recent-ish-ly, ‘cause I remember seeing like a pitch or an ad for it or something, but I just love – you know, we’re in the age of illustrated covers, whatever – Christine’s cover treatments have not changed a lick, at all. And I just appreciate the consistency is all I’m saying.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah, she had one come out, she, it was part of her, like, shifter series she has, but she had, like, another one that came out, but I was like, These look the same as they did nine years ago –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: – and it’s great, and I – [laughs] – I appreciate it so much!

Sarah: Yeah, here we go: Dark Memory is a re-reissue, Dark Demon is a reissue –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and then Dark Hope is a new book on January 7th.

Amanda: Yeah, she’s got a couple coming out in 2025.

Sarah: They all look the same; the covers are all –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – the same. Everyone’s got green eyes! Really, startlingly glowing green eyes. Wow.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: And the font for Christine’s name in the magazine is very much an urban fantasy font.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Wow. Amazing! And yeah, you know what? The consistency, it is appreciated.

On page 82, I, I cannot get over how all of these books look so similar. We were talking about this in –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – the reviews, in the reviews episode, because this is the one where Even Vampires Get the Blues, with this –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – banker in a tuxedo with wings and his shirt open is standing there, but all of these books look the same. They are all the same colors; except for Vampires, they’re all teal and blue, and we’ve got Tessa Dare –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – Karen Ranney, and Jennifer Ryan writing a cowboy book, and they are all the same hue.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, it, did, did Avon’s art department just be like, The cover, the color for this month is teal. The color for next month –

Amanda: The Pantone color of the year –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: – for us.

Sarah: Well, I’m, I’m, I’m going to do a post on the color of the year for romance. I’m, like, looking forward to putting it together?

Amanda: Oh, that’s right, you’re collecting images…

Sarah: I am collect-, I have a bunch of images. I’m having a good time on NetGalley, but this is exactly like what’s happening right now where so many of the contemporary books are either orange and peach or teal and green, and, like, this is all tea-, they’re all the same. It’s weird to see them all lined up –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – and be like, Wow! Those are all the same.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So then we get to the pages about the conference, starting on page 106. The BookLovers Convention in Dallas May 12th through the 17th. That’s a long fucking conference, and people came early. There are so many pictures from this conference. A lot of, like, they call it a scrapbook? There’s Elizabeth Hoyt; there’s Elizabeth Essex; there’s Heather Graham in a costume looking fabulous! I love it. And you have really good memories of this conference.

Amanda: Yeah. I’m trying to see if, like, maybe I’m in the background somewhere! I doubt it. Yeah, this was my first RT, so some behind-the-scenes, you know: Sarah would enable the staff –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – to travel for these conferences if we wanted to go.

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: And I was so excited. This was my first RT convention. I, on my phone I actually have, like, I took a photo of my badge that said my name and my affiliation and everything. I was so pumped, and it feels so cool. But yeah, I had such a good time. I remember the mechanical bull for sure.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Amanda: I remember while the bull, the big party that they were having with the bull that was happening, you could, like, tweet or whatever, and they would show, like, a live social media feed on a big screen. So, like, you would tweet about RT, and then you would, like, see it show up on this big, like, jumbotron –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – in the building. I just, yeah! It was my first one, so I had no expectations – [laughs] –

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: – right?

Sarah: You could just let it, just –

Amanda: [Indistinct]

Sarah: – let it wash over you, all of the mantitty.

Amanda: And yeah, I wound up shipping, what, thirty, thirty-one pounds worth of books back home.

Sarah: Mm-hmm, yep. This is a, this is a –

Amanda: And I wish –

Sarah: – bygone era. This does not happen anymore.

Amanda: [Laughs] I know! It was so fun. I took a photo of, like, the key card, because everything was branded.

Sarah: Oh my –

Amanda: The key cards were branded –

Sarah: – God, yes.

Amanda: – the elevators had giant shirtless men vinyls all over the doors.

Sarah: That was one of the most fun –

Amanda: And it was all –

Sarah: – things about going early, because you’d watch them put up those vinyl wraps, and the guys who were doing it were like, Whoa, look at this one! Oh my God, this one! Look at this! And then the elevators were all book covers by the time they were all set up. Every elevator door was a book cover; they were on the windows; they were on the wall. It was incredible. The whole area was branded by publishers. It was a lot of money.

Amanda: It was always fun getting into an elevator with a family or person who wasn’t there for the concert, or the conference, and being like, What is happening –

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: – at this hotel?

Sarah: I think that key card is Avon, right? But there’s a shirtless man with a tattoo –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – in front of a bookshelf!

Amanda: Yeah! It was Avon. I think they were promoting, was it Laura Kaye’s books? Let me see.

Sarah: Mm, that makes sense.

Amanda: Because he’s on a Laura Kaye novel. Her Hard Ink series, that’s what it was for. Yeah, I’m finding the cover that he was on. He was on a book called Hard to Come By.

[Laughter]

Amanda: And it came out, it came out in 2014. But yeah, I remember being just, like, really excited. I took a photo of some swag. Yeah, little penis candy.

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: I might still have that, the stress penis somewhere in my desk.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: But –

Sarah: Yep, just handing out dicks.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: That was a very standard part of RT.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: And if you look at the pictures, like, people are, these are, these are populated events. Like, people go to the parties, people go to the stuff, and what’s funny to me is that the language that they use to describe the different things that are pictured, it matches early editions of the conference promotion in the magazine. Like:

>> Fans flock to meet their favorite historical authors and receive lots of goodies and autographed books.

And there’s lots of pictures of authors signing books in costume, including Elizabeth Hoyt and Elizabeth Essex, and then if you go down into the, the Texas Romance Rodeo: 

>> Melody Anne’s booth was beautifully decorated and had lots of giveaways.

>> J. Kenner greeted fans at her personalized booth. Her colorfully branded water bottles were a huge hit with guests.

It was like, not only are these all these people having great fun talking about the books that you love, but look at all the free shit. Like, swag and autographed –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – books and barbecue ribs! Like, they are using these pictures to promote the conference in the same way that they have for every other issue that we’ve looked at going back in time. It worked! ‘Cause people would go!

Amanda: Yeah, there’s one where it’s on 108, bottom right corner, where it has a giant table of Lexi Blake blue mugs?

Sarah: Shot glasses, mugs, lip gloss, keychains!

Amanda: I had, yeah, I had that mug for a long-ass time. I think…

Sarah: Really!

Amanda: – dropping it on accident –

Sarah: Nooo!

Amanda: – yeah, maybe like a few years ago. But I –

Sarah: Shayla Black was giving away champagne! I missed that; damn it.

Amanda: I know.

Sarah: And then if you –

Amanda: Yeah, I had that mug!

Sarah: – if you look at the, that same page, on 108:

>> Avon’s Party: A Night in Paris, Texas! Books were aplenty as sixty authors signed autographs for hundreds of fans.

Every single part of the magazine talking about the conference is just emphasizing books: you get free books, you’ll get so many books, you have to get books, there’s going to be books and swag and swag and books and also some bottles of champagne. It’s so interesting because, like I said, this, this doesn’t happen anymore.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Because the fact of the matter is, the return on investment for a publisher to give away that many books is negligible if at all. Like, I don’t think you could go to a publisher and say, Okay, we’re going to have a conference with about four thousand people, and we want to give them all of these books from your list. I don’t think publishers are going to be like, Yeah, sure, anymore. I don’t think they can justify that expense of giving away free books at this level like they used to, so I wonder if – I always wondered why Kathryn Falk ended the conference, and the, the, the wisdom that I heard from people when I asked was just like, She was ready to retire; she didn’t want to do anymore, and she didn’t want to have it continue without her. She was done; she wanted to move on. And, I mean, she’s had many careers and many specialties, so hey, sure, whatever. More power to you. But I also wonder if she kind of got the sense that the era of, like, massive amounts of books for attendees was coming to an end. I wonder if she sort of saw that coming, because conferences now, I don’t think you’re leaving any of the conferences that are happening now with this many books.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: It was a lot of books.

Amanda: No way.

Sarah: A lot of books! And, and there’s a picture of every publisher house party. Have you noticed this? There’s Kensington’s party, Bethany House and Revell’s Chocolate Festival. Like, all of these authors signing books; you get free books! Come, come, come, free books!

Amanda: Yeah, you didn’t have to bring your own. Like, you could do that for the big signing at the end, but for the most part it was free books that the author would then sign right at a table.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: You didn’t have to bring your own.

Sarah: And if you went to the signing, you would buy the books, but if you were at the conference and you went to different events sponsored by publishers hou-, publishers, those would be where the free books were. And then if you went to – I remember also if there was, like, a big keynote or a big dinner, you would go in and there’d be copies of books at every place setting, and you’re, you’re talking about like a giant ballroom full of tables. And then, do you remember the – I forget what they called it, but it was the table for books you didn’t want?

Amanda: Yes!

Sarah: What would they, what did they –

Amanda: I don’t –

Sarah: The giveaway table –

Amanda: I don’t –

Sarah: – or the swap table? The book swap table? There was a table for you to put the books you didn’t want, and you would go by it, and there would be like twenty copies of this one book that nobody wanted, and I just felt so bad! [Laughs]

Amanda: I know! It’s like, clearly we all went to the same event, ‘cause there were, there’s free food or whatever, and then you got a book and are like, I’m not going to read this.

Sarah: A lot of books.

Amanda: I just loved the, I loved the free book room, too, where you got, like, a little ticket, and it was always like –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: – Okay, when should I go to the free book room?

Sarah: Goody room!8

Amanda: When is going to be, like, the best time?

Sarah: Yes! And they had a schedule! I found this out later; there was a schedule as to when stuff would get put in the goody room. You got one ticket to visit the goody room, and you got to take things from whatever was there. But they had, they had scheduled times where those things would be replenished with other people’s things, so if you booked a goody room spot for yourself and you were going to give books and swags – I don’t know, like shot glasses – you had a time to go in and drop that stuff off. And then it would gone, and then it would be gone, and then someone else would come in, and they would have their shift. And so you would buy, if I remember correctly, you would buy a slot in the giving, in the goody room. Attendees got a ticket and just got to take whatever they wanted. Like, it was kind of like the end of Old School Wheel of Fortune where you take your money and you shop in that room and end up with a ceramic dog. There wasn’t a ceramic dog, but you got the ticket and you just took whatever you wanted from that room. And I –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – by the time I, I was going to RT, I didn’t want stuff? Like, I had too much stuff; I didn’t want more stuff. I’m not very much a stuff person? This is what happens when you grow up in a hoard house; you just don’t need a lot of stuff, don’t want to have it around, it’s too much stuff; makes me itchy. But the goody room often had snacks and food, and so did promo alley. Do you remember promo alley? There would be tables set up down the hallways, so, like, from the lobby down to the conference center or the lobby down to where the ballrooms were, and on, you would book a spot, you’d pay for a spot on promo alley, and that was your spot, and you could put promo. And this is so awful: when I was hungry, I would just take – [laughs] – a wander down promo alley and be like, Who left out snacks? And people would take the time to buy Hershey’s Kisses and put a little –

Amanda: Put ‘em in little baggies.

Sarah: Put ‘em a little, put ‘em in little baggies, little, little taffeta bags, but they would put little stickers on the bottom of the wrapper with their name and their, you know, the author URL, and I would be like, This is great, and chocolate is exactly what I want right now. I need some promo alley chocolate, but I’m not holding onto the wrapper of this Hershey Kiss, so I’m not going to remember this. I mean, I took pictures of a couple of them, because I was like, This is a weird kind of promo, and I felt kind of bad for the person who designed the stickers, printed the stickers, put them on like thousands of Hershey Kisses, went to CVS, bought the bags of candy, put the stickers on, put ‘em in bags, put ‘em in promo alley. What was the promo? Like, what was the, like, I don’t remember. I, I remember that it happened, but I don’t remember the authors who did it. The promo alley stuff that I still have is like a, a lid for cat food, and I have a chip clip, and, like, the good promo alley stuff was gone within the first hour, because if you saw somebody with something cool – [laughs] – you’d go and get it!

Amanda: I still have, like, a Shayla Black, like, nail file.

Sarah: Oh yeah! I have a –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I have a Shelly Laurenston nail file that says Keep Your Claws Sharp.

Amanda: I miss the pens, ‘cause I would –

Sarah: Ahhh!

Amanda: – stock up on pens.

Sarah: So good pens!

Amanda: And now, like, I can’t find a pen in my house to save my fucking life. Like, I cannot find a pen anywhere –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – and it’s just like a Sharpie or nothing. I can’t find a pen.

Sarah: Or a really ratty-looking pencil with a stale eraser. Why do pencil erasers get stale? I don’t understand.

Amanda: I don’t know.

Sarah: But they do! Yeah, pens. I also remember being with some people at RT and, like, pulling out a pen that I was – and people were like, Where did you get that pen? That’s a good pen. Someone’s giving away the good pens. [Laughs]

Amanda: Quality pens.

Sarah: Yeah. And those, like, I still have, I have some Janna MacGregor pens, I have a Shayla Black pen. I have a couple of pens from, from RT, ‘cause they lasted forever. Joyfully Jay, who ran a, who runs a male/male book blog, she would have custom lip balm with, with her site name on a little label, and she’d label the little, the little lip balms. Those lip balms were amazing; they were so good. I still have one; it is great. I don’t even know if she’s still –

Amanda: You’re, like, rationing it.

Sarah: Oh yeah! It’s great lip balm. There were some really good pieces of swag, and I look back and I think, As an attendee this was so fun. As a publisher or as an author, this had to be so fucking expensive.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So expensive, and when RT was the only game in town, if you became, you know, an RT author – like, Heather Graham is an example, I think, of an RT author. Her career was partially through all of the promotion and featuring in RT Magazine, and then the fact that she would host a whole, you know, she hosted a hanging or some other drama at the, at the RT convention. There, the, the way in which you would participate in the magazine and in the conference could really make a difference in your career, but I think towards the end the, the return on investment could not have been as great. ‘Cause they weren’t the only game in town anymore. [Indistinct]

Amanda: No.

[Laughter]

Amanda: We always have a boat moment in one of these books, but there hasn’t been a boat/cruise moment in this book.

Sarah: We have not had a cruise moment in this episode, no. Not in this issue!

Amanda: But you recently went on a cruise, and you –

Sarah: I did recently go on a cruise.

Amanda: You also polled the community about a Smart Bitches cruise.

Sarah: [Laughs] I did!

Amanda: I’m curious with both the, the voting and your recent cruise experience, has it tipped any scales for a Smart Bitches cruise?

Sarah: Well, I, I wouldn’t put anybody on the boat I went on. I went on one of the oldest ships in Royal Caribbean; it was extremely small. The food and restaurant options were very limited.

So would you be interested in a Smart Bitches reader cruise? Survey results.

Amanda: I –

Sarah: Thank you for asking.

Amanda: Yeah, I saw some people that it’s like, Not interested in a cruise. Not, nothing to do with you; I just don’t want to be on a boat. And I’m like, That’s…

Sarah: I don’t like cruises! Fair enough.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Fair enough. So, forty-five percent of responses said, Absolutely; I and my TBR are ready. And then No, thank you and Not sure were evenly divided, twenty-nine and twenty-six percent. So –

Amanda: Okay!

Sarah: – some people were very interested. I don’t know if I would ever do it; it would be an enormous amount of work.

Amanda: Gosh, yeah.

Sarah: And cruises have some issues, but when you want a vacation where you don’t have to think about anything, cruises are great. You know where your food is; you know where your drinks are; you know what you’re doing.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You’re sitting there; you’re doing some activities. Do you want to go do the samba? Do you want to do stretching? Do you want to participate in the belly flop contest? No? You can just go sit somewhere. I did nothing for four days in like eight different locations; it was great.

Amanda: You know how, like, trains have the quiet car.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: I just want a quiet boat.

Sarah: Oh, I, I, I go and find, like the first day, I scope out, All right, I’m standing here. There’s going to be a band there later, so I don’t want to sit here, ‘cause it’s going to be loud. If I’m here, there’s a speaker. I don’t want to be near the speaker, ‘cause I can’t control the music. I figure out where the quiet spots are, or I do research and make a little document for myself where people have said it’s quiet.

Amanda: Yeah. There’s just something that is very appeal- – like –

Sarah: Loudness is not my thing.

Amanda: Yeah – appealing to me about just waking up with not an a, like, no agenda –

Sarah: None.

Amanda: – no activities, and just finding a comfy chair –

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: – with your book or, you know, if you want to watch your Netflix or whatever –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – do that. Grab food.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: Maybe take a nap.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: Go back to doing that, grab a drink, and then go to fucking bed!

Sarah: Yes! There was one day where I listened to a backlog of podcasts that I had saved for the ship, lay there on a chair, on a, on a chaise and looked at clouds for like three hours, and by the end of it I was like, This is the greatest three hours I’ve spent in a long fucking time.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: What I would do, here’s what I want to do. I want – ‘cause I’m, we’re, we’re playing unlimited budget here? – I want to charter –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – a yacht, like Below Decks. I want to charter a yacht and have a, like, a private readers cruise where there’s food and drinks and quiet and chilling, and you can go swimming or you cannot, and we’ll just dock in different places or drop anchor. That, I’m going to charter a yacht. Rather than do a cruise, you know, with questionable environmental and labor practices that I struggle with, I’ll just charter a yacht, and we’ll have a crew, and we’ll have a little private readers cruise. That’s, you know, when a giant dump truck of money backs up to the house, that’s what I’ll be doing with it.

Amanda: Yeah. It’s like that meme that’s going around that’s like, If I were rich, I wouldn’t really show, like, you wouldn’t know, but there would be signs?

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: It’s like –

[Laughter]

Sarah: Sarah chartered a yacht. Oh, really! Interesting.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You know what else is interesting about this RT Convention Highlights? How much coverage of the cover models there are, but these are older cover models who came every year. Like, these are –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – these are people who were cover models like thirty years ago.

Amanda: Yeah! I don’t think, like, the current romance community – and by current I mean maybe, like, newer –

Sarah: Mm-hmm. The cover model –

Amanda: – has –

Sarah: – cover models are not as much a thing.

Amanda: Where there, there are no cover models, right? [Laughs] Like, it’s all illustrated, right?

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: So instead of cover models, I feel like cover illustrators have usurped cover models, because now co-, cover illustrators are recognizable in their style –

Sarah: That’s so true.

Amanda: – they’re highly sought after.

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: So I think those have replaced the celebrity of a cover model.

Sarah: Yes, you’re so right. And there are cover artists who get commissioned to do fan art to go with the cover they’ve designed or do an alternative edition. You’re, you’re totally right about that: the artists have supplanted the models. And yet you’ll still hear people being like, I miss when there were, you know, hot men on the covers. Like, this never really did it for me; I was interested as sort of like –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – objectively; this never really was my bag?

The other page I want to pull out, or pull your attention to, is page 111. BookLovers Convention Highlights, And the Awards Go to… The RT Awards ceremony. So if you go to RT and you’ve won an award and you tell them you’re going, then they’re going to present your award to you. If you don’t go and they give you an award they’ll just send it to you, but they, that won’t be part of the, part of the ceremony, and the ceremony was like two and a half, three hours long. So Cecilia Tan was presented with a Pioneer Award for her contribution to the Erotica genre. Totally appropriate; she rules. Her dress is so good-looking. It’s –

Amanda: Yeah. I’m looking at it.

Sarah: – gorgeous. It’s got this sort of illusion mesh, and then gold lace or embroidery, and then a dark skirt. It’s hot. It’s a great dress. But look who won the 2014 Seal of Excellence!

Amanda: I saw!

Sarah: Christina Lauren, Sweet Filthy Boy was Book of the Year!

Amanda: Yep.

Sarah: And there’s Sandra Brown!

Amanda: And then Meg Cabot got a commemorative plaque for the fifteenth anniversary of The Princess Diaries?

Sarah: Yep! They wanted her to come to that conference real bad.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Meg Cabot, by the way, is delightful. She is a very friendly person to meet; she’s very, very friendly. And then if you look across –

Amanda: Could you get her, could you get her on the podcast, Sarah?

Sarah: I probably –

Amanda: That’d be a good episode.

Sarah: Let me, hang on, I’ll write that idea down. That’s a good idea. Cabot?? I will write it down and see what happens.

And then if you look at the bottom, there’s award winners Brenda Novak, Laura Kaye, Jill Shalvis, Molly O’Keefe, Joanna Wylde, Cara McKenna, and Rebekah Weatherspoon, all across the bottom with little plaques! How cool!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: If you look at the next page, 112, there’s a whole page about Husbands of Romance, a special get-together. We don’t care.

Amanda: Who cares? Yuck.

Sarah: We don’t care! You’re not that interesting.

Amanda: Get out.

Sarah: And then the next year was in Vegas at the Rio.

Amanda: Yes, the Rio is in Vegas, but it’s not on the strip as we were –

Sarah: No, it was miles away from the strip, and the conference center was miles away from the hotel rooms! [Laughs]

Amanda: God.

Sarah: Ugh.

Amanda: That was brutal; that was a brutal one.

Sarah: That was a brutal one.

So that was RT of September 2015. There’s some contests, and then the back cover is Ann Brashares and Love Inspired from Harlequin; it’s not very exciting. The back cover ads are not really thrilling here.

What did you think of this issue?

Amanda: I loved this edition.

Sarah: Aw, I’m so glad!

Amanda: …say this episode.

Sarah: It makes me so happy –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – when you’re into it. Like, I, I love this. This is so much fun! This was a good issue.

Amanda: Yeah, I mean I was conscious and aware during this time period – [laughs] – right?

Sarah: [Laughs] I was, I was conscious!

Amanda: Not like, Oh, I was four years old! Yeah, having the context and the memory of a lot of these books, having read a good portion of these books –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – having attended RT, this being my first RT –

Sarah: A very memorable one, too.

Amanda: I rode a mechanical bull. Like, it was just really fun! And it goes back to, like, this was, that was what the conference was of, like, capturing the fun I had going through this magazine and remembering all this stuff, and then remembering the conference and how absurd it was at times, but just so much fun.

Yeah, and I agree that, like, the money’s just not there anymore? And if it is there, they’re spending it on putting TikTokers on a boat for nine months. You know what I mean? Like, sadly. But I really liked this one.

Sarah: I like this one a lot too. I, it’s, it, these kind, these issues kind of make me bittersweet, because I know the end is coming? You know, because I know –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – that the, the RT the convention went until eight, 2018 in Reno, and it was at the Peppermill in Reno that Kathryn Falk announced that it was over.

Amanda: You wrote a post on Smart Bitches, May 16th, 2018, titled “’This is the last RT’ – Kathryn Falk Announces End of Romantic Times.”

Sarah: Yep, that was it!

Amanda: And – yeah – and you wrote:

>> At a breakfast this morning at the 2018 Romantic Times Book Lovers convention, Kathryn Falk and her husband Ken Rubin announced that they are retiring and that this year is the last year for the RT convention.

Sarah: Yep, and I had heard that beforehand and had partially drafted this waiting for the, the rest of it. Yeah, the magazine ended shortly afterward, so I am missing some issues. Yeah, it, it’s sad to look at these and be like, Oh, this is, this is going to end in a couple of years. These, this, this magazine is, is not long for this world, ‘cause it’s so fun! Like –

Amanda: Hm.

Sarah: – I don’t think it’s financially possible to do a magazine like this? I don’t think you could –

Amanda: No.

Sarah: I don’t think – the, the time of magazines has really come to an end, which is why there are now so many magazine recap podcasts? There’s so many now? But I also will say that Google Photos showed me, like, Here’s what you were doing a year ago! It was a year ago in August that I bought RT magazines with HelenKay Dimon and Jill Shalvis. I bought two issues ‘cause I thought, All right, if I’m going to buy old issues, I’m going to start with people I know. [Laughs] So I bought the issues –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – and I was reading them, and I kept putting Post-it notes in things, and I’m like, I’m going to do something with this; I’m going to do something with this. I know what I’m going to do with this! I’m going to do a podcast about a magazine! ‘Cause that’s a new idea! (Spoiler: not a new idea.)

Amanda: When was, when was our first episode of the RT Rewind?

Sarah: Well, you know I, I have a, a spreadsheet. So the first –

Amanda: A surprise to no one.

Sarah: Yes, a surprise to nobody that I have a spreadsheet. Our first episode was the May 2014 issue, and it was episode 583 on October 6, 2023, so we’ve almost, almost been doing this for a year.

Amanda: Whole year, wow.

Sarah: Yep! They’re fun, though. I’m really enjoying this. I hope you’re still enjoying it.

Amanda: Yeah! I’m like, I’m trying to think of, like, Oh, how many issues do we have left? But it’s like the magazine ran for –

Sarah: Well, I have, in my inventory, I have a total of seventy-four issues, many of which we’ve already done? But –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – like, we will never, we will never run out. I have so many with Helen Rosburg on the cover, let me tell you. We still haven’t done February –

Amanda: Oh my gosh, familiar face.

Sarah: We still haven’t done the issue February 20-, 2006, interracial romance.

Amanda: Dohhh!

Sarah: Oh yeah. It’s a thing. We’ve got, we’ve got plenty; we’ve got many more. I might be getting more in the, in the weeks to come.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. I hope you enjoyed this very meandering conversation through a magazine. I’m having such a good time with these, and I hope you are as well.

I am curious, though: how many books do you read in a year? Do you have a personal record? Is it six hundred? How – [laughs] – how is that possible? I mean, I believe her, but whoo! Six hundred!

I also want to let you know that next month, for October 2024, we are going back to the oldest issue I have, donated to me by Mari, and we’re going back to 1988, so get ready for those.

I will also have links to all of the books that we talked about and all of the references that we dug up while we were researching different parts of this episode, and if you have not listened to Reformed Rakes’ two-part episode on Janet Dailey, it’s terrific. I definitely recommend it.

I end every episode with a bad joke because I would never leave you hanging like that. It’s the very worst part and the very best part! This joke comes from Verity.

How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?

Give up? How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?

None! They use gaslighting.

[Laughs] I can hear the groans from here! It’s amazing!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you a wonderful weekend. We will see you back here next week and next month when we go back to 1988. Until then, we wish you the best of reading. Thanks for listening. It’s really wonderful to hang out, you know, in the past with you.

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

[end of music]