641. RT Rewind: November 2015 Ads & Features

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Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 641 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, Amanda is with me, and it’s time for the ads and features from the November 2015 issue of Romantic Times Magazine. Our cover story is the tenth anniversary of Samhain Publishing. We’ve got articles on series bibles and rugby romance and a lot of ads back when YA covers were all white girls in giant dresses. So come back in time with us. We had a lot of fun chatting about this issue, even though it was a bit of a snooze. Just wait for the cover with the gun on it. Trust me; it’s a great moment.

I am very, very grateful to all of you who contacted me to say that you saved the episodes for election day and the day after. Thank you for that. I am really honored to keep you company, and it is an honor for me to know that you are listening, so thank you for listening.

I also have a compliment this week, which is always a delight.

To Roxana G.: Satellite imagery of all of the places that you have walked in the world spell out the words TRULY EXCELLENT, FANTASTIC STYLE, and most importantly, WONDERFUL FRIEND. And even your footsteps have good penmanship. What’s up with that?

If you’ve supported the show with a monthly pledge, thank you. You’re keeping me going, you’re making sure that every episode has a transcript hand-compiled by garlicknitter – hey, garlicknitter! – [hey, Sarah! – gk] – and you’re, well, keeping me going! Thank you. It means that you value the work we do here, and I am very, very appreciative of that. If you would like to join, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

Support for this episode comes from EveryPlate. Oh, a new advertiser! Hooray! If you are looking to save time and money this time of year – and honestly, I absolutely am – may I suggest EveryPlate? EveryPlate has low prices you can count on, and they are the most affordable of any meal kit. They have fresh, pre-portioned ingredients that are often cheaper than groceries, so you have more money and less waste. EveryPlate has a rotating menu of more than twenty-five weekly recipes, so when it’s time to order you can choose from entrees that are thirty minutes or less in prep time or family favorites, and of course vegetarian options as well. Thanksgiving is calling with easy sides like apple pie crescent rolls and sweet potato casserole. (Now I’m hungry.) With EveryPlate you get pre-planned, easy-to-make recipes, and everything you need to enjoy them delivered right to your door. You can simplify your schedule, take dinner planning and a lot of the grocery shopping off your plate, with hassle-free meals from EveryPlate! With affordable dinners for just $5.99 per serving plus fifty percent off your first box, EveryPlate helps you save money for a stress-free holiday. Get this amazing deal by going to everyplate.com/podcast and enter code TRASHYBOOKS599. That’s code TRASHYBOOKS599 at everyplate.com/podcast. There will also be a link in the show notes should you need it. Thank you to EveryPlate for sponsoring this episode, and thank you for supporting our advertisers.

All right, are you ready to go back in time? It’s only nine years; you know, November 2015. Things were a little different. So yeah, let’s go back and talk about rugby and publishing and series bibles and lots and lots of cover discussion. On with the podcast.

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Sarah: I think we said in the reviews episode, this is not a very exciting issue. I was hoping for a lot of nostalgia; I was hoping to be like, I remember that book; I loved that book. Either it was a month full of books that I wasn’t really enjoying very much, or this was just a boring month of releases for me? But this issue is also pretty dull.

Amanda: Yeah. I would agree. For anyone who listened to the reviews episode, there wasn’t a lot of diversity in grades?

Sarah: No.

Amanda: A lot of things were four stars –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – there were three stars, but rarely any two stars; definitely no single, single stars.

Sarah: Yes.

Amanda: So, and then even, like, the reviews weren’t very informative, right, so it’s a bit of a nothingburger. [Laughs]

Sarah: It is; it’s kind of dull.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: So let’s get started! You can’t wait to listen to this, right?

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: The cover is –

Amanda: …we preface with, it’s like, Ooh, what a boring issue. Let’s talk about it for forty-five minutes!

Sarah: Yeah, this was, this was not exciting; however, we are very exciting.

The cover is Samhain Celebrates 10 Years, and the 10 and the word Years are a collage of Samhain covers, which can tell because they had a little yellow corner flipping off at the bottom. The collage itself is very funny, because there’s so many pieces of abs. There’s just a bunch of abs. Just, you can’t tell what book it is; you don’t know what the author is; you can’t even see their heads; it’s just, Oh, there’s some abs. At least eight different abs are on the, on, in this collage.

Amanda: My eye is, like, drawn to the Piper Huguley cover? Every single time, and I recognize that cover, like, so quickly.

Sarah: It is, it does stand out, ‘cause it’s partially, I think, because it’s in that beautiful blue-gray tone, and also that model is gorgeous and has a neck. Like, whoo!

Amanda: And no abs!

Sarah: No, no abs. What is that? Virtuous something. I forget the name of this book. [A Virtuous Ruby]

Amanda: But Samhain’s not around anymore, right?

Sarah: Mm-mm.

Amanda: Samhain’s closed, shuttered.

Sarah: They’re gone. They’re gone.

Amanda: Okay.

Sarah: Lot of on, out-of-context abs. I mean, not that there’s a lot of abs in context in romance, but there’s a lot of out-of-context abs.

Amanda: Yeah, I feel like that’s sort of, you know –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – par for the course with romances.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: [Laughs] Out-of-context abs.

Sarah: And on page 2 is an ad from Kensington for Rebecca Zanetti’s book? I think it’s from Kensington ‘cause at the bottom it says Kensington Publishing, America’s Independent Publisher. It was for the Wicked Ride and Wicked Edge books? But this was an era when there was a lot of Photoshopped tribal tattoos on cover models. Everybody had that grayscale filter to make these tattoos look like they were on these guys, and you could tell that they were not. It’s a lot of tribal tattoo Photoshop. That’s the era that we’re in.

Amanda: …bad, too, ‘cause it’s, it’s showcasing two covers.

Sarah: Yep!

Amanda: Both cover models are shirtless on motorcycles.

Sarah: Which I can’t say I recommend, but okay.

Amanda: No. The amount of, like, bugs that are just whipping against your skin.

Sarah: [Laughs] You get off the bike, and you’re just covered with…

Amanda: Covered in welts and dead bugs.

Sarah: Look, their, their motorcycles don’t even have windshields. There’s no windscreen. It’s just dead bug city! [Laughs]

Amanda: That one guy, you can see his face, ‘cause he’s sort of like leaning down a little bit?

Sarah: Yeah, I know that model, too.

Amanda: Just faceless. He doesn’t get a face on his cover.

Sarah: Mm-mm.

Amanda: So sad.

Sarah: And it’s just, his eyes are gone. The cover, the cover is from, like, his, the top of his nose down. Like, it’s really weird! [Laughs] They’re covered with bugs!

Amanda: Right. Yeah, his face is just covered in bugs!

Sarah: On page 6 is the Letter from the Editor. This marks the first RT Review Source, which was their publication to review indie books, which, which you had to pay for those reviews. She talks about the glamorous –

Wilbur would you like to know, he does not like this. What? What’s the problem? What is, is it, you don’t like the, you don’t like the Vegas? ‘Cause she’s talking about the, the glamorous Rio Hotel.

Amanda: You’re valid, Wilbur. As someone who stayed at that hotel, you’re so valid?

Sarah: Yeah, he, he disagrees. He’s like, That’s terrible.

So this, I didn’t know this was going on, but I noticed this in the letter? She’s promoting everything that’s going to happen at RT in Vegas at the Rio, and one thing about this issue is, they are really pushing how far in advance and how, how far after you should stay to get every single experience. Like, you’re going to be there for a while if you do everything that’s in this magazine for the conference.

Amanda: These conferences were long.

Sarah: They were long by the end, yeah.

Amanda: …long.

Sarah: >> At 7 p.m., twenty-two fans will join bestselling historical romance author Sabrina Jeffries for a thirty-minute ride in a private High Roller cabin on the High Roller observation wheel.

It’s like a big Ferris wheel.

Amanda: Oh, okay.

Sarah: >> As the, as the cabin gently ascends skyward, you’ll be able to enjoy an unforgettable view of the city at sunset while mingling with Sabrina and your fellow fans. At 7:30, a separate group of twenty-two attendees will board a bus to the Link for the same excursion, except this High Roller ride will be with YA and New Adult superstar Jennifer L. Armentrout. Each private –

Amanda: That would be a hazard today.

Sarah: Can you imagine? There’d be so many people fighting to get in that pod.

>> Each private event will feature surprise goodies and a stocked bar, complete with bartender, all compliments of the author.

And it’s thirty minutes, so you’ve got thirty minutes to get your drinks in! [Laughs]

Amanda: I remember – and I don’t know if it was at this RT – it might have been a previous one – but I went to an event, and it was sort of like a, a bunch of round tables and I think it was mostly for bloggers or, like, people who cover romance novels, and so we were all seated at tables, and I remember –

Sarah: I remember that.

Amanda: – the only author I remember sitting at our table was Jennifer L. Armentrout!

Sarah: No kidding!

Amanda: And she was very lovely. The only thing I remember about the conversation that she had with us is that she, I don’t know if she still is, but she has a fear of flying, and she was talking about her flight out –

Sarah: Oh no.

Amanda: – wherever it was and how, how much turbulence there was and how it just exacerbated her fear of flying. But the fact that Jennifer L. Armentrout sat at a table, just a small, round table with like maybe six or seven other people? I don’t know; I can’t think of an even that would allow you to get that close or that amount of one-on-one face time with an author these days.

Sarah: That was the thing about RT: if you were an author, if, even if you were a big name, there was going to be an event where you were just at a table with a bunch of people hanging out. That was something that definitely happened at RT, like, I just sat down at a table and there was so-and-so! Oh my gosh!

Amanda: Or, like, waiting for your coffee at the Starbucks and, you know, running into an author –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: – that, like, you’ve read and loved, because everyone’s wearing their badges, and you’re like, Oh shit, I’m standing in the line next to so-and-so!

Sarah: Yep! The other part of this Letter from the Editor:

>> Just remember what happens at the RT Book Lovers Convention stays in your heart.

[Snorts]

Amanda: No.

Sarah: [Laughs] Okay.

Amanda: I put that shit all over Instagram.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I’m telling everybody. I’m telling everyone that the hotel doesn’t have trashcans –

Sarah: Oh, that hotel was terrible.

Amanda: – coffee makers.

Sarah: That was a terrible hotel. It was awful. It was super gross.

So the feature on Samhain is on page 10. Happy Tenth Anniversary, Samhain Publishing, and it’s mostly interviews with the president and authors who write for them and how much the publisher does for those authors, and it’s clearly directed at prospective authors and not readers. Like, there’s nothing in here that’s interesting to just a random reader fan, unless you really want to know, like, the, the inner workings of everything. One thing I, I did find, this little time capsule in the article?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: >> With every purchase made on the Samhain website, the reader is given access to the books in all of their digital incarnations for the lifetime of their Samhain account.

Which, as you might know, publisher’s out of business, so you don’t have one anymore.

>> Please note this does not apply to Samhain titles purchased from other electronic retailers.

So the benefit of buying directly from the publisher is that you would be getting the access to the book. You wouldn’t be getting a license to read the book on your device, the way you do with Amazon or other retailers; you got the book itself? Lot of publishers at the time were like, Nonono! Buy from us! We get a larger cut, and the author gets a larger cut, but you also just, you get the eBook file, and if it’s updated you get that too.

Amanda: I also think – this is a focus on Samhain –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – I don’t think you could do a publisher focus these days. I think, you know, ten years ago, I feel as if publishers had sort of like a distinct voice in what they were publishing and the kinds of romances they were publishing.

Sarah: Yeah, they had, they had distinct, they had distinct lanes.

Amanda: Yes, they had distinct lanes, and so, like, if you loved historical romance, it’s Avon, right? You’re going to go to the Avon parties, ‘cause it’s all going to be historical romance authors, yada-yada-yada. And it was easier, I think for me, to hear an author or see a book and automatically, without even checking the spine or – what is that called? The colophon?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Is that what it is?

Sarah: Yeah, the colophon.

Amanda: Yeah. Colophon about, like, who publishes this? I could probably look at a book cover, look at a name, look at the genre, and immediately tell you, Oh, this is St. Martin’s, or this is Gallery at Simon & Schuster, or whatever. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.

Sarah: I think a lot of the publishers have merged and become so corporate that there isn’t as much of a presence or voice in the community, but also the lack of a conference and the lack of getting to know the people who work at a house, thereby giving that, that house a personality, because, you know, Oh, that’s where your friend so-and-so works, that has also ended it too. Like, I know who to reach out to at most houses? But, you know, everyone switch, switches places at a publishing house when someone rings a bell, and –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – there’s not that many people working between layoffs and contraction. Publishers are just more anonymous monoliths now?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s pretty, that’s pretty incredible in nine years, right?

Amanda: And sad. [Laughs]

Sarah: And it, and it fits with the era of social media, too, because at the time, on Twitter especially, brands were trying to have, like, character voices? Brands were trying to have a style –

Amanda: Oh.

Sarah: – and brands were trying to be, like, personalized? And that doesn’t always work. It certainly doesn’t work as well now.

Now, you, you wanted to talk about page 12. Tell me everything.

Amanda: So 12 is another feature about rugby heroes, Tackling Rugby Heroes, and I remember when, like, everyone thought rugby was going to be the next big thing in sports romances. Spoiler: It’s not. And that made me a little sad! I thought that was a really cool concept, ‘cause it’s sort of like football adjacent, right? But it never took off, or only took off for a certain amount of time, but they interviewed five authors for the piece, so. They had Kat Latham, Rosalind James, Nalini Singh, Mina Carter, and Donna Gallagher, and I’m mostly familiar with Kat, Rosalind, and Nalini, and I looked to see if Kat Latham was publishing anything current. Sadly, no. The last thing that she put out, she was part of a romance, a charity romance anthology in 2022? So it looks like she’s left the, the rugby scene. I liked that little period – [laughs] – romance trends. I thought it was really interesting.

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: I’d go back to it. Is anyone writing rugby romances these days? Drop ‘em in the comments!

Sarah: Ro-, Rosalind James has that whole series.

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: And it’s great. I mean, if you want to mentally travel to New Zealand, it’s kind of cozy contemporary; the stakes are not huge. It’s not like, you know, there’s killers or, or, you know, menaces. It’s just, you know, Hey, I’m visiting New Zealand, and it’s really far from home and, Ho, hang on! This rugby player’s really hot and into me; what do I do? It’s, it’s very different now, isn’t it?

Amanda: I know!

And then after that feature, on page 20 –

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: I mean, there’s other features, but they’re all womp-womp, boring. Yasmine Galenorn is talking about her series bibles, and I’m fascinated by this concept. So she’s talking about how these series bibles are where she sort of collects details about characters –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Amanda: – settings, stuff like that, because Yasmine writes, like, urban fantasy, so a lot of her series have, like, a lot of worldbuilding, and they continue for several books. Like, I’m thinking of, like, Immortals After Dark by Kresley Cole; I can see why that would be helpful.

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Amanda: I mentioned this guy three, three books ago; what color are his eyes? I would love to look at these. I want to see how they’re laid out. I want to see how they’re structured? I would love to get my eyeballs on these puppies, and if any writers are listening and you do a series bible, I’d love to see photos of how you structure these. Yeah, I’m just fascinated by –

Sarah: You would be so good at that, by the way.

Amanda: Thank you! – by people’s, like –

Sarah: Because your memory was, would be like, Boom. Oh, that’s –

Amanda: [Laughs] Yeah! I’m, I’m curious how people organize? I love knowing different sort of organizational stuff that works for people?

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Bullet journaling? I’m, I can’t do that; that doesn’t work for me? I get so hung up on the aesthetics of a bullet journal that –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – I don’t start? ‘Cause I’m like, Oh no! I’m –

Sarah: Yeah, you just –

Amanda: – I can’t draw; I’m not creative like that. Mine are going to look ugly! And then I get – [laughs] – frustrated! But yeah, I think these are fascinating. I’m also curious how they’ve transitioned to digital now?

Sarah: Yeah. But it’s a cool article, isn’t it?

Amanda: I thought it was fascinating. I’d love to know what people are doing in 2024, if people are using series bibles?

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: But I also think a lot of people aren’t starting to write dozens-long series anymore. I don’t –

Sarah: No! I don’t think it’s easy to sell them, either!

Amanda: Yeah. I mean, you have people continuing, right? Like Kresley Cole’s continuing hers, but I can’t see people starting to write or work on a series or release a series that just keeps going and going and going. You might have like a trilogy or like maybe five-ish books, but I don’t see any really, really long ones anymore.

Sarah: Page 33, and also on page 35, I just wanted to touch on these two, because these are ads from the publishers. They want you to go to their blogs; that’s the era we’re in. We have one from Ballantine, where you visit smittenword.com, and then Harper was epicreads.com, but these are just collages of books; here’s what’s coming out. The Smitten Word/Ballantine/Bantam/Dell/Loveswept ad is twelve books, and they are so of-this-time, right?

Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. I remember seeing a lot of these.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I read a lot of these. Like the M. O’Keefe one I read for sure. And then they have a YA one; like, Dumplin’ is on there? Like, Dumplin’s –

Sarah: Yep.

Amanda: – a movie now!

Sarah: Yep! And look at all of the, on the YA one for Epic Reads from Harper, look at how many of these have white girl in a gigantic dress covers.

Amanda: Yeah. That was –

Sarah: Like –

Amanda: – certainly of a time.

Sarah: – complex hair, big ol’ gown.

Amanda: Also, look at the social media images.

Sarah: Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, is that Snapchat? Vine, and Kik? Oh God –

Amanda: Yep, Snapchat, Vine, and Kik.

Sarah: I think it’s very funny, though, that on these covers, you’re using all of this fabric and all these giant dresses to convey a very specific, you know, aesthetic, and that is still true when those dresses were worn. Wearing that much fabric and having that much fabric on your body was a sign of Hey, I’ve got money. Money, money, money.

Amanda: Yeah. It’s like a royal fantasy, right?

Sarah: Yeah. Big old – and listen, if I’m going to wear a dress – I don’t like wearing dresses – if I want one, I want one with a long skirt. I want a big, long skirt. All of the dresses that I’ve had, that I have, that I’ve kept, have big skirts. I like big skirts. Not like a, not like a ball gown. I don’t have, like, panniers, and I can’t rest anything on my, on my hips, but I like a long, wide skirt. It’s like wearing a nice, big blanket. I love a long skirt –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – so I love these! And then if you look at the, the Smitten Word, all of the sort of New Adult contemporary are shirtless guys, shirtless women; all of these people are touching each other.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: They’re all touching, they’re all kissing, they’re all, like, the, even the Jennifer Haymore Highland Heat, they’re, I don’t know what – is he kneeling? Wrapped in a –

Amanda: It gives this, like –

Sarah: – plaid?

Amanda: – you know, intensity vibes, right? Like –

Sarah: But she’s, like, lying on her back, reaching up, and he’s leaning over her and reaching under her, so they almost form like a, almost like a yin-yang symbol with their bodies? But they’re all lying on green plaid, so obviously it’s Scottish, plus Highland Heat. Covers now, even with people on them, they’re hardly touching.

Amanda: Yeah, that’s true.

Sarah: It’s very visually chaste now. And here they’re, like, practically licking each other.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: You had the next note. What did you want to look at?

Amanda: It was just page 59. It’s a big, full-page Debbie Macomber ad? And they’re advertising a fucking hardcover –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: – Debbie Macomber book.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: And I’m like, I can’t remember the last time I saw a Debbie Macomber in hardcover? I’m curious if they still produce her books in hardcover? Like, maybe for large print, but for normal hardcover? I don’t know if this was like, Let’s try it out, ‘cause Debbie Macomber definitely has a dedicated reader base, in my opinion?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: I don’t know if they’re going to be shelling out money for a hardcover.

Sarah: I don’t – well, a library certainly will.

Amanda: Oh, that’s true, yeah.

Sarah: What this image –

Amanda: I was just surprised. I was like, What?!

Sarah: This image – so the, the, the ad, and I’m, I’m thinking this ad came from Debbie Macomber, not her publisher. Or I could be wrong; it could be the publisher. But the ad is just for the one book, Dashing Through the Snow, and it is a scene of a very small, like, village with, there’s one building that has a barn roof and a bunch of, like, colonial-looking buildings. They’re all trimmed with lights; there’s snow all over the ground. All of the trees and bushes and wreathes and everything are all lit up, and there’s a Golden Retriever standing in the snow with a big, red bow on his neck. And I’m looking at this, and the street scene is also the background of the ad, and I look at this, and I think of that article that we just saw about how all of the fall cozy images are AI? And my –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – first thought when I looked at this was, Is this AI? No, this is too early for AI! Somebody assembled this; this is not AI. [Laughs]

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: But doesn’t this have that same sort of soft-focus aesthetic?

Amanda: Oh, I can one hundred percent see that if they were to recreate a similar cover now?

Sarah: It would be AI.

Amanda: It would, it would be some kind of generative tool, for sure.

Sarah: Yeah. The dog would only have like three legs and two tails, and we’d, like, stare at it and be like, Wait a minute, that’s weird.

Amanda: Like a gazillion teeth.

Sarah: [Laughs] I know!

Amanda: Some kind of eldritch horror dog.

Sarah: Yep. On page 61 is another assembly of covers. I mean, if you’re going to buy a full-page ad, advertise all the books you got coming out that month! It’s a good way to reach readers, especially because, even in the PDF, in the color version – like, this magazine is full color, but it’s PDF; they don’t reproduce all the covers, and you could, with the reviews, show the covers so that people will remember the visual of what book it is, but there, there’s only a handful of covers in the review sections. This assembly of covers, again, so much small town. Two people about to kiss, touching, all over each other, in a field, on the grass, in the snow. Small town is two people about to neck in a field. Like, that’s the cover formula.

Amanda: And I don’t know why it is now, but with illustrated covers, I love an illustrated cover that sets a scene and that shows the characters interacting with each other. I prefer those sorts of covers because it, you know, I don’t know, it gives me more of an idea –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – of what I’m getting into? I mean, we can go onto a longer rant of like, Oh! Illustrated covers don’t match the book! Or whatever.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: But that gives me more of a feel for the book than, you know, border stuff and then just two characters on either side of the cover. You know what I mean? Like, where it’s just like, figure, figure, you know, border décor.

Sarah: Yeah.

Amanda: Like, they’re not interacting at all. That, to me, just feels so, like, stiff, and it’s like cardboard. Like, they just look like cardboard cutouts. Just –

Sarah: Like little paper dolls stuck on the cover, right?

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: Yeah, exactly that. I completely agree. What’s weird to me about this particular cover is how you have the, the, the small towns, and the predominant is, you know, two people about to neck in a field, and then you have the sort of spicy ones where they’re, like, full on groping each other, and then you have just, I’m not wearing a shirt. [Laughs] That’s, that’s what we’ve got here; we’ve got two guys who got dressed, but they forgot their shirts.

Amanda: Hey, one second. The In Bed with the Bodyguard?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: His gun holster is beneath the shirt, which, if your shirt is buttoned? You’re not getting that fucking gun out of there!

Sarah: Amanda, I just pulled up the big version of that because I was so confused why his gun was inside his shirt. I noticed the same thing! [Laughs]

Amanda: If your shirt is buttoned, you cannot get access to your gun. So is he just, you know –

Sarah: Walking around like that?

Amanda: – out all the time? So he can access his gun?

Sarah: If you’re in bed with the bodyguard, you’ve got to know what you’re getting, I guess, before you get in bed, but he’s just going to walk around with his blue –

Amanda: You think he takes the gun off when he gets into bed, or he sleeps with it on?

Sarah: No. Heroes like that never take their gun off. So, like, this guy’s walking around with his shirt open, and you can see in the picture, if, like, you look at a big version of the cover? You can see the other side of the holster, ‘cause they usually go over both shoulders, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: You can see that he’s wearing the holster, but it’s under his shirt!

Amanda: Like, hear me out. Hear me out.

Sarah: Okay, I’m listening.

Amanda: What if –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: What if there’s like a little flap, you know, like, where you wear like a little red onesie, the little, like, long underpants, and you’ve got the butt flap? What if he’s got a little gun flap?

Sarah: [Laughs] He’s got custom tailored shirts with little Velcro to pull his gun out.

Amanda: But yeah! You know, like a breastfeeding bra or shirt where you can just sort of like, you know –

Sarah: Just pop a tit out…

Amanda: – subtly unclip and just pop a boob out? That’s what – he wears breastfeeding shirts!

Sarah: I was going to say, the gun is right underneath his nipple; I bet he has a whole line –

Amanda: He’s wearing breast –

Sarah: – of maternity tops. He’s got breastfeeding –

Amanda: Shopping in the maternity section –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: – for his gun!

Sarah: Oh my God.

Amanda: We solved it, guys.

Sarah: We solved it! [Laughs]

Amanda: Case closed.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That cover is ridiculous. [Laughs]

Amanda: Do you think the gun is Photoshopped? Does it look Photoshopped?

Sarah: I can’t tell if this gun is Photoshopped, because while it is not creating any kind of crease on his shirt, on the fabric? You can see the other side of the holster peeking out from the other side of his shirt, so I honestly can’t tell if he’s got, if that’s a Photoshop or if he’s actually just put his shirt on on top of his gun for some odd reason.

Amanda: This is my real thought of what happens, okay?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Also, side note? That nipple’s going to get so chafed…

Sarah: Oh my God. And look at all the stubble on his chest. Like, he didn’t shave his treasure trail? His treasure trail is nice and, you know, wholesome, but his chest and his pecs are covered with stubble. Like –

Amanda: He shaved it, and it’s growing back.

Sarah: Yeah. I don’t want to go anywhere near bed with this guy; I’m going to get a rash!

Amanda: So I think this is really what happened is they were doing a photo shoot with this model.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: They were doing a lot of shirtless, holster-on photos –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Amanda: – and maybe it’s annoying to put on and off, so when they’re taking more photos, instead of taking the holster off and putting the shirt on and then putting the holster back on, they’re like, Oh, just throw a shirt over it, for time and energy. That’s what I think probably happened.

Sarah: Oh yeah! You’re very likely to be right about that, totally, because, I mean, it, it’s just a photo shoot, he’s going to pop his shirt on, but if you look at the photo, the fabric is not creasing around the gun at all.

Amanda: No.

Sarah: But it’s right up against it, so I don’t know if that’s Photo- – I mean, listen, we were Photoshopping on tribal tattoos left and right; why not a piece of a, a gun? What, even what kind of a holster like that?

Amanda: [Indistinct] I think it’s real, ‘cause if they did Photoshop it, to your point, like, I don’t think they would have bothered to, like, put in a sneaky little other side of the holster underneath.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And that’s definitely some kind of holster back there, right?

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay. This cover’s amazing. We could do a whole episode just on this cover ‘cause it’s ridiculous. I love it. This magazine is such a gift!

Page 77, there is an ad for an anthology. I remember when these were happening all the time. There’s at least fifteen authors in this anthology, and it’s called Mischief under the Mistletoe: Holiday Hotties. Preorder now for 99 cents. So you could preorder this massive, massive anthology of books or short stories or whatever, and after release date it would be more than a dollar, but this was a way in which a lot of people could game the bestseller list, because you’d get a ton of preorders, ‘cause who the hell doesn’t want like twenty books for, for 99 cents? Doesn’t even matter if they’re all good; just a few of them are good and you’ve, you know, you’ve made your money back. You, you, you got a worthwhile purchase at a dollar. Do you remember when these were happening all the time?

Amanda: They still happen every so often.

Sarah: Yeah. But I remember these were being, these being a very frequent event, and here they’ve got like a, almost a half-page ad for one!

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: I hope this, I hope this did well!

Amanda: The next thing, I picked an ad on page 83, and it’s like a Thanksgiving ad?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: And it says:

>> Give thanks for delicious digital romance.

And there’s like corn and pumpkins and chestnuts and stuff.

Sarah: Some gourds.

Amanda: But my brain immediately went to, like, you’re sitting around your Thanksgiving table with your family, and, you know, sometimes families do like, What are you thankful for this year? And what if you just said, I’m thankful for delicious digital romance, and then your parents look at you like you’re fucking crazy?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: I’m thankful that I can get my smut digitally now. Thanks. What a weird way to position your books by tying it into Thanksgiving?

Sarah: Yeah!

Amanda: And none of these are a Thanksgiving romance. That’d be different.

Sarah: Nope! They’re just, they’re just November books, and some of these covers are wild, right?

Amanda: They’re bad.

Sarah: Within a Captain’s Hold? That guy looks creepy! He’s got a big red bandana, and he’s giving you a creeper look!

Amanda: Yeah, I don’t like the covers at all.

Sarah: I don’t like this one. Like, it’s just not working for me. Also, Boyfriend for Hire, she’s got giant hair.

Amanda: Yeah. Good for her!

Sarah: Good for her. My hair doesn’t do that.

Amanda: That’s windblown, for sure.

Sarah: That’s, that’s back-combed and windblown.

Amanda: Also, it looks like there’s a double space between delicious and digital. Instead of a single space.

Sarah: I think you’re right. Well, that’s going to drive me absolutely –

Amanda: Just a little nitpick. Sorry! [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s going to make me twitchy!

So then we get to the conference. I wasn’t kidding when I said there wasn’t a lot in this, in this magazine. We get right to the end of the conference, and they are promoting the conference very, very hard.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: It’s in Vegas; it’s at the Rio. Sorry, everybody, we’re going to talk about the Rio again.

Amanda: Oh great.

Sarah: And they have so many pre-convention things. Like, there’s, you can buy a tour of the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. Pre-convention tours! More stuff to do before the conference! Like, they really were vacation planning for people with these things. But I, if I did this, if I did all these pre-conference events, by the time the conference started I’d be exhausted.

Amanda: Yeah…

Sarah: That’s a lot of humans there.

Amanda: So we would always go as a group, Sarah and I and then some of the reviewers who wanted to go, usually two or three of them.

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Amanda: And when we went to Vegas, so Rio was off the Strip; it’s not on the Strip, so we had to take an Über to the Strip, and I think we had dinner in one of the other, like, hotels on the Strip; I can’t remember which one. But I told Sarah that it was my dream to look at a menu and tell a waiter that we’ll take one of everything?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: And so as we were nearing the end of dinner and we got the dessert menu, and I think there was maybe like four or five different desserts, Sarah let me tell the waiter that we’ll take one of everything, and it felt so good!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: To say that.

Sarah: It was fun, though!

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: It was super fun. That was a good dinner, too.

Amanda: It was a yummy dinner.

Sarah: So then we move into the first indie hybrid news and reviews supplement. The inside back cover is an ad for Vegas. The back cover is an ad for the entire Shadowhunters series? Because the TV center, the TV series was coming to ABC Family. I watched so many GIF sets of that television show. Tumblr was mad for that show. So many GIF sets, especially the two dudes.

Amanda: Well, I think Tumblr users and Cassandra Clare Shadowhunters fans is a circle.

Sarah: That’s a flat circle. Yeah, that’s a flat circle.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: So the indie hybrid news and reviews supplement is at the end of only the digital edition of the magazine, and this was at a time when you could sort of subscribe to the magazine but just get the digital edition in your email rather than getting the physical magazine.

Page 103 of the PDF, Kathryn Falk introduces the whole thing and says:

>> Inspired by the ever-changing landscape of publishing, RT Book Reviews Magazine founder Kathryn Falk has set her sights upon the thrilling community of independent authors. By recognizing a gap in structure amidst a sea of potential, it has become a personal mission of hers to gather the best and brightest of the self-published romance industry to share their combined wisdom and lead with passion into a new frontier.

TL;DR: We can make money here. The cost for the reviews is on the first page. Up to four hundred and fifty pages, a review is four hundred and twenty-five dollars. If it was more than four hundred and fifty pages, it was five hundred dollars. If your book was four hundred and fifty pages or more, you paid five hundred dollars for the review. Reviewers were not being paid that much. Not at all.

And the reviews are rather interesting. There’s a little bit of, like, you, you know how, you ever listen to a whole bunch of author interviews, and after a while you see the same question like, What was it like when you got the call? How did you get your agent? When, what was your first book? What, What’s the book of your heart? There’s a set of questions that you hear a lot? In this feature, there’s indie authors, like, talking about how they became indie, and so many of them were, I laid, I got laid off; I lost my job. I decided I had enough money to really give self-publishing a try. And this was at a time when you could actually make that a success for a little while, which I, it’s, it’s a time I kind of miss, ‘cause it was pretty great.

Amanda: There were, there was, I think it was a feature in Jezebel.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Ooh, time capsule!

Amanda: I know! And they did a feature on the, I think it was two authors who wrote together to write Bigfoot erotica, and obviously indie-pubbed, and they were talking about how there were times where they made thirty thousand dollars in a month on just Bigfoot erotica. Yep, found it. I found the post where they said thirty thousand dollars a month.

>> Wade said she makes up to thirty thousand dollars a month via Amazon’s Kindle Direct publishing and has already produced sixteen volumes in her Cum for Bigfoot series.

Sarah: Cum for Bigfoot! Those days seem to be very much gone.

Amanda: It’s a startlingly large amount of Bigfoot erotica.

Sarah: Yeah. There’s a bunch of business card ads on page 106 and 107. There’s photographers; there’s design. I think this is a formatting? Yeah, eBook and paperback formatting – this ad is very hard to read – which you can do now with, like, Vellum. Like, I think a lot of –

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: – word processors’ll format your, format your eBook for you. But page 107:

>> Lil Book Bug, new and recycled books. Quality books at reasonable prices. Palmdale, California.

And the ad is just that information, and then an illustration of three dancing kittens, and I love it so much.

Amanda: It gives, like, sort of like, you know, like those posters, it’s like, Hang in there, baby!

Sarah: Yeah! It’s little dancing, little dancing –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: Even the cats have little shoes on and a little dress. Like, they’re super –

Amanda: Yeah!

Sarah: – I don’t – I looked: Lil Book Bug does not seem to exist anymore, but this ad just was so charming and perfect, and it’s just adorable! And I love it.

So the rest of the indie supplement is features and how to go indie, like rules for going indie? And it’s not actually very informative! It’s very, very surface level. And then the reviews are four stars, four stars, four stars, three stars. Like, that’s it.

Amanda: I mean, like, I would personally be pissed if I paid five hundred dollars and got a one-star review? [Laughs]

Sarah: I, I think, if I remember correctly – and I may be misremembering – I believe that if you paid for a review, you got the review, but you also got to say whether or not you wanted it to be published. So they may have been like, This is not, this is not going to be great; it’s going to be a two-star review. Do you want to publish it? But, you know, we’ll review it and send it to you.

I do love that Come Dancing by Leslie Wells is in here, because that was self-published, and I think that might have been picked up by a publisher, but I remember her advertising the series with me on the site and how many readers loved the Leslie Wells books.

Amanda: Yeah.

Sarah: There’s two of ‘em. I think two.

And then the magazine just ends. Like, there’s no back cover or –

Amanda: [Laughs] Just like, oh, we’re done now.

Sarah: We’re done now. Here’s a supplement. Thanks very much.

So yeah, that was RT November 2015. Thank you for journeying back in time with me again!

Amanda: You’re welcome!

Sarah: Sorry this one was a bit of a snooze, but we made it fun.

Amanda: Yeah. We always do.

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you for hanging out with us. I’m curious: are you a bullet journal person? Do you get all artistic with your journal? I could never get into bullet journaling as a schedule thing because the idea of having to constantly rewrite the schedule and draw a calendar every week just made me want to lie down. But I do love journaling in a really nice notebook with really bad handwriting, and I’d love to know if you do as well.

I also would like to tell you that we are not going to do a Romantic Times Rewind episode in December. Why? Because it’s end of the year listener episode times! Woohoo! If you’re a member of the Patreon, you should have already seen a link in the Patreon or in the Discord where you can sign up. And if you would like to join the Patreon and be part of this, you absolutely can! Listen, if you sign up for the Patreon for a month, download a bunch of stuff, and then cancel, it’s totally fine! Like, literally awesome. Thank you. But here’s what’s going to happen: if you are in the Patreon, you can sign up to connect with me, and we’re going to have a little conversation over Zoom. I will record it, and you’re going to tell me your favorite read of this year, your wishes for 2025, and a bad joke if you wish. I love doing these, and I know how much you enjoy listening to everyone else, so if you’d like to be a part of it, please, please, please join the Patreon, and if you’re already in the Patreon, sign up for a slot! I promise I’m super chill, I’m really nice [True! – gk], and, I mean, it does say Bitches on my business card – I have to honor that – but, like, seriously, I can’t wait to talk to you. Seriously, I’m really, really excited, to the point where I’m stuttering about it! So please sign up if you’re interested. It’s so wonderful to talk to all of you around the world this time of year, and I’m starting earlier so I can make sure everyone gets a chance. So again, if you are in the Patreon, look at patreon.com/SmartBitches for the post with the link to sign up for a time, or head over to the Discord; I put it in multiple channels. Or you can just email me and I’ll send it to you, but I would love for you to be part of these episodes.

As always, I end with a really bad joke, and this joke is terrible, which is why I’m telling you.

What happens when a microscope crashes into a telescope?

Give up? What happens when a microscope crashes into a telescope?

They kaleidoscope.

[Laughs] Silly jokes, silly jokes, love them! Collide-o-scope. [Sighs] Such a delight to end every episode with truly terrible humor.

On behalf of everybody here, including the cat, who is snoring, and also very loud on this episode – my gosh, Wilbur had a lot to say; he’s going to have multiple lines in the, in the transcript. Either way, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week!

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]