First Line Contest--veinglory

2008-05-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all! So the question is, which one of these first lines would most make you want to keep reading. Please note, some of the first lines have adult/erotic content. You may vote for only one entry and the top two entries will win a $20 book voucher for an online bookstore. You may vote by comment here or by email to ERECmail at gmail.com. Please vote for your favorite by its number. :) I think I got all the entries but if I missed any just let me know and I will add them to the next contest.

"How y'all bitches doing tonight?"
Aneirin saved my life the day I met him, and saved it twice again before he finally killed me.
C'mon, babe, please.
“Miss Darling, at what point in our tenuous relationship did I grant you permission to call me anything but Edmund?”
Mid-afternoon is usually quiet at a big cat refuge, but the lion’s roar drowned out Captain Russo’s voice on my cellphone.
The apartment served not only as a trysting place, but a place of comfort and refuge."
They met in a meat locker.
Forever in a newborn stage, enveloped in darkness, and cushioned by a firm mattress, I dreamed of fireflies, at least my mind’s remembrance of them.
The beginning of the end for Quentin-Andrew (or so it seemed at the time) came in the moment that he stepped into the shadow of Capital Mountain and was assaulted by a stranger.
The day Mallory Lucius died they said the devil himself drove the carriage that took him to hell.
Anyone who ever thought snow was soft and silent had never trudged through the bowels of Northern Canada in the middle of the night in mid-December with a thirty-pound pack strapped to his back and a hundred-pound thief complaining at his side.
I'm upside-down and being stared at.
The first time David Green saw Ariel, she was pinned against the lockers on the third floor, just outside the chemistry lab, being finger-fucked by a football player.
The more you want something, the slower it is in arriving. I suppose this includes Italian trains.
“What the hell are you doing?” Layna asked herself aloud and for the third time, she placed the telephone handset back in its base without pushing a single number.
Steven walked slowly along the edge of the sidewalk, staring down at the occasional tufts of grass defiantly thrusting up through the dirt-filled cracks.
Jared Byrne scowled at his hand-held crystal as he shifted on the flying carpet, trying to get comfortable on his way home from the University.
Gerry composed Latin jazz tunes in his head every time he and Javier made love.
Sunlight dapples the old temple walls, the ruins of a lost time.
Christian Ryder sat in the dark, slowly stroking his fist up and down the length of his swollen cock.
Holy Crap, he’s hot; the geek next door was seriously built.
Craig grabbed hold of the hard cock waving in front of his face and fell back onto the sheet-covered king-sized bed, pulling Jack down on top of him.
Tyris thought he would vomit.

First line, last chance--veinglory

2008-05-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

I have the 20 entries I was looking for, for the first line contest. As many submissions were not 100% clear on whether they were published or unpublished I will combine the two categories and award an overall winner and runner-up, both receiving a $20 book token. You can choose which online bookstore but please do me a favor and pick someone other than Amazon :). I will leave the contest open just one more day, 24 hours starting now, for those last minute entries. Send your first line, novel name and pen name to ERECmail at gmail.com. The first lines will be open to voting soon!

Guest blog from Jade James

2008-05-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

When Emily Veinglory asked that I be guest on her blog, I frankly jumped at the chance. You see, I’ve been where the Ocean’s Mist Press authors are at now.

Let me begin by saying, I was approached by Noemi to write a story for her new company. I was a new author, still learning the ropes and truthfully I jumped at the chance to showcase my writings. What a horrible mistake I made. At the time of OMP’s shadiness, my husband was out of work. So every dollar, I could get from writing would be used to pay bills. It all began with Noemi making up her own ISBN numbers and listing them on her OMP website. She claimed she was cheated by the company she bought the ISBN numbers. I emailed that company directly, and they said it was impossible. (I also have that email to prove it.) In the year, I was published with OMP, I saw two payments. Then payments stopped. Unfortunately, at that time I wasn’t the only author not being paid. I have emails from authors stating this, but none of them would go public. But that wasn’t going to stop me.

I emailed Noemi numerous times, and some of my emails would go ignored. And when she felt she had time to answer them, she would email rants, change the contract payment terms on her own without notifying OMP authors.

To read more on it, visit my blog archives at jadestruthordare.blogspot.com

Public Communication, Based On Evidence
As I wrote on another blog, I took my fight public, because I couldn’t afford a lawyer. But one of the reasons why I chose this route, is because I already had numerous amounts of written evidence from Noemi that payment was going to be made. It never arrived. So I made it a point to visit yahoo groups/discussions/blogs and let everyone know about Noemi’s lying, cheating ways. I would post updates on my blog and even on the author group. I remember one author (who shall remained unnamed) told me that this shouldn’t be posted on the author group. I didn’t care. I didn’t give up until Noemi was forced to listen to me. (FYI: that same author emailed me asking for advice on how to handle OMP, and pulled her books a couple of months later for nonpayment).

Around June of 2006, I was mailed a money order, with no return address. Brilliant Noemi had even chosen not to fill it out. My books were taken down from her website two days later.

There were rumors also flowing abut with Silk’s Vault. But at least with Silk’s Vault Publishing, the same week I requested my books to be taken down and payment, the owner (Sarah) obliged immediately. I know other authors weren’t so lucky.

If a publisher is trying to shaft you, don’t keep it quiet! If you have the evidence, show it to the world. I did. No one can call you a liar, if the written proof is in their faces. My advice to authors who choose the public route, make sure you keep all emails and communication between publisher and yourself. And if you do choose this way, know that you would be helping a writer choose an honest company for themselves.

What has OMP taught me about choosing publishers? It is my number one rule to not submit to newbie companies. Yes, newbie companies will say that’s unfair. Well, they haven’t been in my shoes.

I now choose companies that have been in the public eye for a while, and that have proven that they are well established author friendly epublishers.

Ask the publisher questions. You have the right. Sit down and think of everything you want to ask them and submit those to them, to see what answers they come up with. It’s also important to talk to other authors within publisher’s company and see if there happy with how the publisher is treating them. View their marketing plan, google their name. Do what you can to find out anything you need to know, to make you a satisfied publisher.

And I’ll end it here. Thanks to Emily for posting this.

Jade James

Fact, Fiction and Propaganda--veinglory

2008-05-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

I will warn you, the page I am linking to today has a little nudity and a lot of racist, anti-Semitic, violent and other objectionable content. This page shows real propaganda leaflets used during various wars. I think they also show that sex and love are naturally intertwined even here. A perspective being lost once again as the blogverse cycles around to deciding the real problem with the RT cons was (you guessed it) the evils of erotic romance destroying the genre.

The propaganda says not only 'you want sex, stop fighting and go home' (erotic) but also 'what if your romantic relationship is being destroyed by loneliness and the seduction of less virtuous men' (romance). Sex and love go together in real life, the go together in writing of all kinds. And ultimately this kind of propaganda proved ineffective because even in these extremities people know the difference between fiction and real life.

Sex and Psychological Operations by Herbert A. Friedman is well worth a look. Excerpt of one pamphlet below:

"She dreams of last night. In her thoughts she is enjoying the wonderful hours again which she has just spent with her new friend. Don't grudge her these nights. She is young and beautiful. The human body and its desires are powerful. At first she tried very hard to remain faithful but she lost this battle against herself as thousands of wives and girls back home did before her. It all started with an evening out, with going to the movies and to some bar, but soon it became real love. Only by the picture at her side she is occasionally reminded of her husband who is - for months now - somewhere in Western Europe, fighting a stubborn enemy, freezing and suffering in a muddy foxhole. But as time passes she thinks of him more and more seldom. Now she does not even turn his picture to the wall when another man is staying with her and holding her in her arms."

2008-05-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

[click to enlarge]

Ocean's Mist Press: very alarming--veinglory

2008-05-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

I had assumed Ocean's Mist was down for the count and the return of their website was some kind of error as the content such as 'news' announcements dated, for the most part, from 2006. However it has been brought to my attention that not only is the site still up they are listing a new, May 2008, release. The coming soon page has material with this same author "Essence" mixed with authors (some of whom probably should not be there at all).

In case it needs restating: avoid them, do not buy from them, warn others.

Edited to add:

Karen draws my attention to Author Crusader who says the new author 'Essence' is Noemi, the owner of OMP who sold books but didn't pay authors--she continues, apparently, to write for Loose Id and Siren. She adds: "Why would you know that this person has deceived people, stolen from people and have her around?" Is there an obligation to avoid publishing a writer who has been less than honest in her publishing endeavours? I genuinely don't know. I think publishing her maybe isn't a good look fir them whether it is technically okay or not, but they know the name being signed to theor contract so I guess it's their call.

The real ebook money is in sci fi, um, okay--veinglory

2008-05-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

David Rothman at teleread posts a blog entry entitled: Love tech? Enjoy SF? Hate romances? Then you’re part of a pattern—and e-publishers should pay attention. "...tellingly, in our recent TeleRead blog survey, 76 percent of the participants listed “sci fi/speculative fiction” among the genres they’d browse in a bookstore if they had an hour to kill. Thirty-three percent went for “classics/public domain.” Just 11 percent mentioned romance/erotic—the very favorites of Jane’s DearAuthor audience."

I honestly am not quite sure of the point being made. Telereaders say they like sci fi and say they buy ebooks. I can only assume they are a relatively small and unrepresentative sample of the total ebook buying market. Because there are authors out there supplying sci fi to fantasy/sci fi epublishers. Despite what the readers of this survey report I am told their sales figures make the relatively modest erotic romance sales-per-title figures look positively lavish by comparison. I wonder if I should start accepting selected data on other genres as a basis for comparison?

Romance epublishers (or at least the top 20-30 of them) are doing well focusing on that genre. And the sales figures seem to encourage them to gravitate to romance, and to more erotic types of romance. These publishers, being in this business for money, have gravitated to romance and erotic romance for a reason (as witness Samhain becoming a romance press and New Concepts going from disdaining erotic romance to pushing it quite strongly). The pattern in this case is, in my opinion, in Telereads sample not the sales figures that keep most authors fed and most publishers viable. But I would be happy to take sales figures from authors with non-romance sci fi books at presses such as Double Dragon to test this proposition.

As for the real ebook money... per title it's probably in non-fiction: self-help, money management etc. But that's another story.

Sexy Resin--veinglory

2008-05-03T21:48:00.001-07:00

Pin up style erotica is often a wonderful example of how something can be sexy without being tawdry. Model examples include resin statues that are bought in kits just like a model plane or car, and assembled and painted by the buyer. Azimuth provides a range of very muscular girls in various poses including the bride pictured.

There are also jointed resin dolls and the question of how sexy is too sexy is found even here. Resin figures of all styles can be found from stormtroopers in bikinis, and ultra curvy gals to elfin pretty boys.

It says a lot about the mixed nature of statuary that sexy manacled fairy and a virgin mary can appear on the same page. Of course in the past erotic statues were made of porcelain, stone and precious metals and there are also modern examples including Andy Rae's intimate bronzes [adult link].

The only statuary I have is a tiny rather primitively cast bronze Pan. I like some of the yaoi style dolls and would be happy to have them by not when they cost more than an iPhone.

Yawn--veinglory

2008-05-03T17:20:00.000-07:00

Amazon has a huge spot in the middle of their main page about how they are unable to keep their Kindle device in stock. They have however refused to state how many they ever had in stock, or even a ballpark figure of how many they have sold. There is a link to a 5 page letter about humans 'coevolving' with their tools. Call me cynical but this looks, to me, more like desperation than success.

Other recent Amazon talk:
Dear Author--Publishers Get Wise, Undercut Amazon prices
Technology Owl--Amazon Sues New York Over Net Sales Tax
James Chamberlin--...a letter from Jeff Bezos blathering on about their electronic book reader...

It's starting to look a lot like smoke....--veinglory

2008-05-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

So, recently I said the way Ellora's Cave and Samhain are conducting their disputes in private and without public rancor showed their class. Ellora's Cave is starting to spread the dispute to their email list, where it inevitably escapes to the public domain. Meanwhile there are reports of the online store not functioning properly. There is, if not smoke, certainly some friction.

See also C'um Hither, more Ann Jacobs,

p.s.--veinglory

2008-05-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have updated the new SALES page. I have received a few questions about the Wiggly Graph. The basic idea is that I am tracking the average sales across time. The line for a press starts when I have data for at least 5 books by at least 3 different authors. It continues based on all of the data I have for books currently available for sale and reported on within the last 365 days (a 365-day running average). The reason I am doing this is to track whether sales in general and for specific presses are increasing or decreasing over time. I hope that isn't too confusing. So far other than a gradual tendency for overall sales to drift upwards I am not picking up much. But my resolution is pretty low for most presses (send lawyers, guns and data). I have incomplete data sets for Aspen Mountain, Dark Castle Lords, New Concepts and Whiskey Creek. For any others not on the graph I have no data at all. (venglory at gmail.com)

Cover Snark Xtreme--veinglory

2008-05-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

In this new world of Poser zombies and stock photo model clones cover snark can get a little too easy to be considered sporting. So I would like to suggest a new category of Cover Snark Xtreme (cue the theme music). In CSX snark must be based on the potential for the cover art to contravene the new British extreme pornography law. That is:

An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following—
(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in
serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or
appears to be real.

For example. One Foot in the Grave has a nice cover. But once I got past it having the same title as a BBC comedy about post-retirement ennui and frustration, the ex-biker babe in me comes out. One can be a biker and dress like a babe sequentially, but doing so simultaneously is seriously ill-advised. Combine legs clad only in stockings with stiletto heels and a large motorcycle and this lady is engaging in an act that is likely to result in her ass and associated orifices making like mozzarella with the asphalt.

Is her defense that she is just sitting on the bike (ergo the risky act is not actually happening in this picture), unlike Peter Driben's vintage pin up gravel-rash-waiting-to-happen? But I am sure some of you out there can come up with more extreme cover examples, please let me see them!

Edited to add: How about this from Mrs G. Implied (d)?

NEW: Pink Petals Press

2008-04-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

A new romance imprint of Mary K. Wilson's Jupiter Gardens (opened 2007). Take a look. Opening in October 2008 and seeking submissions in most romance genres: "Our books focus primarily on the relationship between the characters (regardless of gender or number) and each story is unique to the characters and the journey they make to finding love and happiness." Based on first impression, for a new press I think they look promising.

Three Things You Should Do Right Now--veinglory

2008-04-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

Give me some ideas for relatively easy free online ways to promote an ebook. Because I need to come up with 31 things to do to push The Sculptor's Muse in May. (Did that count as one?)

Go and vote on the 2007 cover awards. Frankly some of the nominees scare me a bit--does that dude have pants on?

And I have pretty much nothing for the 1st of the month PLIST update. What am I missing?

Linky Goodness--veinglory

2008-04-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

I really think it's getting to me, all this erotic romance. On Ebay I saw a book THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC and I read it as THE SIN KING OF THE TITANIC. Then I was confused because that didn't really make much sense. Anyway. It's busy at work, I have been given an office (no more cubicles for me!) to move into, I have edits everywhere and this blog is suffering from the comment equivalent of bed death ;). So you are stuck with some random links that amused me today. Please say hello. I get lonely [sob].

1) Victoria Strauss -- Precautions for Small Press Authors
2) State moves to ban fake testicles on vehicles (Truck nutz)
3) Borg My Little Pony
4) And oldy but a goody. Whatever Happened To... -- finds out what happened to those authors who haven't published anything new for a while.
5) Naked Hippie On A White Horse
6) Colossal Squid
7) Antique HAMILTON BEACH VIBRATOR 1902 ~Rare & Complete
8) The UK Year of Reading Youtube video. I see some romance in there, didn't spot any erotica.
9) Best beer for your book?
10) A book entirely written by cutting words and phrases out of magazines.
Bonus Round) Cute animals, always good.

No Extreme Pornography Please, We're British--veinglory

2008-04-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

The British government effective invented the term "extreme pornography" for the purposes of banning it. Starting in May 8th the law criminalises possession of certain moving or still image[s](produced by any means) that are also "extreme".

"...the new act is designed to reflect the realities of the internet age, when pornographic images may be hosted on websites outside the UK. Under the new rules, criminal responsibility shifts from the producer ... to the consumer" -- BBC

As an example of someone drawing a line when it comes to kink, including simulated acts these are the specific acts outlawed:

An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following—
(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in
serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or
appears to be real.

Now I wouldn't stand up and defend the great virtue of any of the these acts. However I am nervous about who decides what an image is (book cover?) and who decides the intent of that image, what the depicted persons 'appear' to be doing and the degree to which that activity depicted might represent a risk of injury to their orifices and mammaries. It is interesting to note that some of the acts now illegal to simulate in an image are not illegal to do in real life. It is also interesting to note that the law is limited to pornography , so people who like to portray and view torture simply because they are sadists are also explicitly protected. Note the definition: An image is “pornographic” if it appears to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

Anyway. Caveat Emptor. I will give the last word to the good bloggers at Feminist Philosophers:

"Notice that it is ok for one to get off on such images so long as this is not the purpose for which they were produced. The implication, of course, is that there is something wrong with producing material designed purely for sexual arousal. One might wonder why this is so."

May Promo Push?--veinglory

2008-04-28T14:44:00.001-07:00

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would be testing out some ebook promotion ideas in May and invited you to join me. The basic idea was to pick two of your own ebooks and keep one as the control and promote the hell out of the other one. Below I show the sales of the two books I have selected. There is deliberately no scale. I wouldn't expect anyone else who takes part to declare their actual sales so I won't do it either. The red line is the book I will be promoting and the blue is the control book.

Now, due to some unexpected bills my plan to combine online and paid methods had to be changed. Instead I will be using entirely free online methods, but trying to do something promotional every single day in May. Obviously these won't be 31 completely different promotional methods but I thought I could try several different types of a range of methods such as link exchanges, sig lines, press releases etc. In fact if you know any kinds of online promo to try, please comment here with your ideas. Because this approach will phase in the methods over the month I will probably bring in the methods in May, and leave them in place for three months to see if any effects build up over time.

If you are interested in trying your own promo experiment please let me know. My day by day discussion of this whole month of promo will be reported on my personal blog. If you pop over there you can see which book I am going to be promoting and some advance signs of the methods I am trying--although nothing will really be going until May 1st. I will point all the promo back to my blog so I can track traffic throughout May as well as look at sales at then end of the month.

2008-04-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jordan Castillo Price for providing some rather improved graphics for the happy-ometer as well as for the smoke and fire labels.

The Best Defense--veinglory

2008-04-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

Karen Scott has been discussing the latest kerfuffle at Ellora's Cave. In a nutshell JC Wilder (who writes for Ellora's Cave and also works for Samhain) mentioned some questionable behavior by the Cavemen at the RT convention (as did Smart Bitches and others). Fellow Ellora's Cave author Anne Jacobs has a go at her for telling tales out of class. This might simply be an effect I describe as 'defenders of the faith' whose first law seems to be 'thou shalt never say anything negative about thine publisher or person associated with thine publisher'. Personally I don't pay too much attention to that unless the author is somehow claiming to speak for the publisher as their representative. Most epresses have a hundred or more authors so at least one of them is likely to have this kind of attitude.

However it seems JC was also removed without any explanation from the Ellora's Cave authors list. Now this is an action by the publisher. On this post Ann puts the boot in with "My guess is, no other EC author who writes for more than one publisher has gone out of her way to diss the rest of us, our mutual publisher and the cover models who grace the covers of our EC books." I don't have to agree with everything my publishers choose to do, but if you are an author with a press having access to the author list seems like a reasonable expectation and any eviction should be explained. And as for the men who 'grace' covers, I would not want them gracing my cleavage without permission and neither should Ellora's Cave.

My bottom line is, if it's true you can say it. Every single industry out there has to keep improving just to hold their own--so if it's true they should want you to say it even if they aren't going to enjoy it (just as authors should appreciate thoughful but negative reviews). They have to own the good and the bad that happens under their brand. JC also addressed this issue directly with her publisher which I think was 'going out of her way' to be considerate to them and the right thing to do. And if Ellora's Cave actually did deliberately de-list an author because of an accurate and, by my judgement unmalcious, blog comment that is a big, fluttering incarnadine flag. If a publisher is okay with sexual harassment either by or of their models that is not good--and for the record the two do not cancel each other out. My 'love of the genre' or so-called romance community of any kind does not extend to even the mildest form of the omerta. What makes us better is not loyal and unquestioning silence, it is transparency and improvement.

An update--veinglory

2008-04-26T19:42:00.001-07:00

Total sales pictures are particularly variable as they are based on a sample of books that have been out for widely varying lengths of time. Also note the numbers related to how many books currently contribute to that publisher's figure. Click on the figure to enlarge.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes--veinglory

2008-04-25T15:12:00.000-07:00

You may notice the EREC website is looking a bit pared back right now. I am simplifying the design in advance of some reorganising and a new look. The new look with have sales and other publisher reports on separate pages. The color scheme will stay mainly black and white but with a new logo and pictures (my ugly sketches are just place keepers) using vivid blue and magenta. You should be seeing some early drafts of the new logo in due course. For a while the article and cover spots will be down but they will be replaced as I go over to the new design.

If you have been an ongoing participant in EREC and consider yourself part of the team please drop me a line. What I mean by that is that you have done something for use (5 or more blog posts, an article series, coordinating an activity) and intend to remain involved in the future. I just need to hear from you, get a new cover and link and make a few plans for the future. revamping the website is a good opportunity to update the team list and job descriptions. And by 'remain involved' I don't necessarily mean more than one or two activities a year. If you haven't been involved, but might like to, please get in touch also. I am always looking for bloggers but could also use a secret shopper wrangler, anyone with good css/xhtml skills, someone to transfer our articles to pdf (they will be made available in this form from now on) and just general volunteers.

If you have volunteered to be a secret shopper please just hang in for a while. I will be getting back to you. I normally float an idea, see if there is interest, and then sit down and sort out the details. This is what I am doing right now. I should be in touch some time next week. I also still haven't made the promo postdards. I will probably hold off until I have the new logo to put on the reverse side. So, generally speaking of you have suggestions, criticisms, request ideas or anything--now is probably a good time to mention it. The changes will be phased in gradually as I get time.

Don't Mind Me--veinglory

2008-04-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

In breaking news almost none of you will care about, it looks like the little known but often slashed late-70s-early-80s TV sci fi series Blake's 7 may be remade. Ah, Blake's 7, where the Federation is an evil empire, the hero's only team up out of enlightened self interest and a lack of better options, and they all die at the end. Gotta love the British and their perky optimism.

In the opening episode our hero Blake is prosecuted as a child molester on trumped up charges that they brainwash him into almost believing. But things only really get interested for me when he teams up with sarcastic computer-geek-with-a-sexy-sneer-and-a-bad-haircut Avon. Avon was my first little girl crush. He had sarcasm to die for and his costumes weren't quite as awful as the rest. Really, I want some of whatever the designers of those outfits was taking. Blake's 7 also had one of the most deliciously evil, campy, sexy female villains ever in the form of crop-topped Servalan who manage to wear female drag while actually being a female, and make it look good. Not to mention that Servalan and Avon had a very strange pseudo-romantic relationship that certainly gave me something to ponder in terms of just what fictional romance was, or could be.

Do I have a point? I guess it is just SQUEEEE! And feel free to share your own early girl crush characters and what you liked about them. I will leave you with a few of Avon's better lines.

NEWS--veinglory

2008-04-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Fetish fashion goes mainstream (again, see picture). "Telling people what to do comes naturally to Gillian McKeith and now she has the look to match. The 48-year-old food guru squeezed into a PVC catsuit, complete with whip and high heels, for a photoshoot to promote her new book, The complete A-Z guide of healthy life." -- Daily Mail (personally I think see looks even sillier than Madonna did as a Dom. You have to be able to carry this look off with real conviction)

"Harlequin, the leading publisher of romance and women’s fiction, announced today that LibreDigital will now handle all of its digital book projects, including its e-books, as well as online browsing capabilities via widgets and its Browse the Book tool ... LibreDigital is the division of NewsStand that handles digital books for publishers such as HarperCollins, Bloomsbury and Hachette." -- Publishers Weekly

"Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings ... Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure." Beleive it or not this is a common panic in several cultures, called "koro" and defined as a "culture bound syndrome involving perceived genitalia shrinkage". I can see the ER paranormal now, 'The Tale of the Penis Theif' -- Reuters UK

So, is this fish-on-fish bestiality?: "A fish species, which is all female, has survived for 70,000 years without reproducing sexually, experts believe ... The species, found in Texas and Mexico, interacts with males of other species to trigger its reproduction process ... 'Maybe there is still occasional sex with strangers that keeps the species alive. Future research may give us some answers.'" -- BBC Scotland

On dealing with bad reviews -- Jules

2008-04-22T05:35:00.000-07:00

I'd been meaning to do an "unsolicited advice" post on the subject of how to cope with bad reviews, but hadn't got to it in the aftermath of Eastercon. And then a week or so ago an enormous blogstorm erupted over one author taking bad reviews far too seriously, giving an example of authors behaving very badly indeed. It's a *very* touchy subject at the moment, so I'm simply going to pull up a comment that I posted at Dear Author back in January, in a completely different discussion.

On the topic of less-than-rave reviews, I don’t like getting them any more than the next author does. But one of the useful bits of advice I’ve had out of hanging around more experienced writers is this:

There is no book written that is going to appeal to everyone who reads it, because people have different tastes. So if your book reaches a wide audience, sooner or later it’s going to get a bad review, no matter how good a book it is. If it reaches a really wide audience, it’s going to get the sort of review that strips paint from walls. The thing to worry about is when you *don’t* get any bad reviews — because it means that not many people have read the book.

The duelling reviews on Dear Author and other sites occasionally demonstrate the truth of that. What one reviewer adores, another loathes, and sometimes for exactly the same reason. Bad reviews are part of the job description. You don’t have to learn to like them, but you do have to learn to live with them. And an honest review of the book isn’t an attack on the author, even if the reviewer didn’t like the book. A thumbs-down review may help sell the book to someone with different tastes, if the reviewer sets out clearly why the book didn’t work for her.

And I said something along the same lines a year ago in a comment on an EREC thread. I can't even remember now what outbreak of angst we were referring to, because authors regularly get in a public snit about less than glowing reviews.

Bad reviews hurt. But they're part of the job. And yes, I put my money, or at least my review copies, where my mouth is. I don't send out many review copies, because my publisher handles the routine review copies, including all the ones sent to the fluff review sites. But the few that *I* send out go to reviewers who are willing to say that they didn't like a book and why they didn't like it. Reviewers like Mrs Giggles, or Jan (the manga reviewer) at Dear Author. I know what sort of reviews I take seriously when I'm looking at reviews with my reader hat on, and that's the sort of review I want for one of my books, even if it means taking the risk that they'll shred it.

Targeting an E-Publisher (Part 5)

2008-04-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

I'm BAAACK - my hand is much better and I'm out of the really annoying splint that made me type so slowly I frustrated myself continually.

Back to my series on e-publishing and, more specifically, how to figure out whick e-publishers you want to target for your submission.....

Read part one here.
Read part two here.
Read part three here.
Read part four here.

E-Publisher Product Quality
More information can be surmised by looking at the e-publisher’s current offerings and seeing just what they have out right now. Some of these are a little more fuzzy than others and a lot hinges on your own comfort level with the way the e-publisher handles them.

Covers
I mentioned this in passing before but covers can vary widely by publisher and they are important for several reasons:
• Cover appearance has an effect on readers and, thus, on sales.
• Cover appearance has an effect on the author and the author’s desire to promote that book.
• Cover appearance has an effect on some reviewers.

Do be aware that you should look at the average cover art. Better selling authors or bigger name authors tend to get better covers and more consideration. Don’t hang any hopes that your first book with any house will have that house’s gold standard of cover art.

Preferred Subjects
What types of books does the e-publisher specialize in? The submissions may say one thing but what do you see in the books being sold, especially those in the last couple of months? Is there a heavy weighting toward a particular subject or type of book?

Be sure to also pay attention to the length of the stories. It’s not unusual for an e-publisher to say they accept long stories but have a definite preference for shorter ones.

Story Quality
What do you think of the story you bought a story? Was it something you liked? Do you think the e-publisher looks for new and interesting takes on things or do all the blurbs sound familiar?

Editing
What do you think of the quality of the editing in the story you bought? Do you consider it to be a well-edited story? Did you find issues that continually drew you out of the story? Did the story line work well or did it lag and sag in places? The most important thing is whether you feel you would be happy if your story went out in the same shape as the one you are reading.

Pricing
What is the e-publisher’s pricing structure? Pricing is always a tricky subject because authors and houses need to make money but readers also need to both be able to afford the stories and they need to perceive it as a good value. Do you feel the price charged is a fair price for the book you received.

Part Six on Thursday!