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Month: December 2010

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Published on 1 Comment on Romancing Your Ereader Without Spending A Fortune

A big ole' welcome to all of the lucky folks who found a new ereader under their trees this year.  When you charged up that device and logged on to download your first ebook, a magical thing happened to you - you threw off your shackles.  Did you feel 'em fall away? 

I bet you didn't even know that up to the point of that first ebook download you'd been a prisoner for your entire life.  You'd been chained to the taste, the choices and the whims of big publishing.  You only thought you were deciding what you wanted to read.  In reality, you were picking only from the crop of what the NY castle dwellers decided was "acceptable."  But no longer.

Your ereader bought your freedom.  Now the world that the publishing royals fought and held away from you for so long is yours.  You just fired the gatekeepers.  There are no more literary agents or publishing companies between you and what you read.  You're now the gatekeeper and there is a bunch of fine indie writing you can enjoy that was never open to you before. 

But not all of the big companies fought the erevolution as hard as the NY royals.  And some of those companies are flourishing in the e-age and they should be rewarded by customer loyalty.  On our shores, the big e-winner is Harlequin.  Overseas, it appears to be a company that (to me, which means little in the scheme of things) looks a lot like Harlequin - Mills & Boon.  I know that Harlequin's opening its doors so early to the e-changes was likely a natural growth for the company.  Harlequin didn't require gatekeepers to the same extent as the NY royals.  Harlequin already took unagented submissions for a bunch of its lines.  Harlequin adapted before the e-age arrived and made further changes and now it's one of the reader's and writer's best friends.

Now that you've got that new ereader, you've likely also acquired a new hobby - filling it with free, or low cost ebooks.  Hopefully, most of those are romance ebooks - that's what I write, of course.  After you've gone to your favorite etailer and bought the entire catalogue of Quacking Alone Romances authored by yours truly, Mary Anne Graham, you'll be looking to add some other books to your device.

...continue reading "Romancing Your Ereader Without Spending A Fortune"

Published on

AOFM Elf
This elf is dangerous. Do not approach. Call appropriate authorities.

WANTED

This elf is wanted in connection to several incidents of the following:

  • Aggravated holiday shopping
  • Silliness in the first degree
  • Random acts of smiling and Christmas cheer

 

This elf has been most recently observed in Wal-Mart, though he has been spotted in other retail establishments around Myrtle Beach as well. He is armed. He has two of them in fact, and has been seen carrying presents in both of them.  He has recently begun to victimize small children by grinning at them with malicious happiness and terrorizing store clerks with loud proclamations of "Merry Christmas".

 

 

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND HIM YOURSELF! ALERT THE PROPER AUTHORITIES!

Burgermeister Meisterburger
The Grinch
Ebenezer Scrooge

Published on

Some of the hot news this week promises hotter sales in 2011 for crafters of HEAs, like yours truly.  Yes, Virginia, Bowker says  it.  The New York Times says it. Even Smart Bitch Sarah Wendell says it. And if the Smart Bitches say it, then it must be true - "Romance is now the fastest-growing segment of the e-reading market, ahead of general fiction, mystery and science fiction, according to data from Bowker, a research organization for the publishing industry." 

Industry honchos say that the "discreet power" of the e-book reader mean that "romance novels are now enjoying a renaissance."  The popular wisdom is that e-readers allow their owners to read whatever they like privately, without displaying the covers of the books.  Romance novel covers have long been a platform for showing long-locked bare-chested lads with rippling abs embracing a longer-locked lady with a low cut bodice or a silk gown tight enough to show off her pebbling nipples.

Those-who-know-these-things say that lots of ladies have been hesitant to indulge in lovely, lusty tales because of these cover images.  In the NY Times piece a CFO of All Romance quotes e-reader customers who've said they can now indulge their love of romance novels - without having to "show my husband what I'm reading."  The switched.com piece says mass-transit commuters with e-readers are downloading romances in record numbers because they don't have to worry "about a fellow traveler casting a judgemental glance" at the book cover.   

I have trouble identifying with any of this.  I've never cared what anyone thought of my romance novels - covers and all.  Whatever romance novel I was reading accompanied me to college and law school classes.  The only time I ever had a professor object to a book didn't involve a romance novel. (At Francis Marion University one of my profs made me take me take James Joyce's "Ulysses" outside her classroom and made me promise never again to bring the novel back into her presence.  It turns out the professor wrote her doctoral thesis on the book and never wanted to see it again.)

And women worrying about telling their hubby they are reading a romance or being afraid to show him the cover?  Oh, please.  Who are these women?  Did they poll refugees from the 1950s?  If a woman is that concerned with her hubby's opinion of her reading material, then her marriage has far, far deeper problems than romance novels. 

Besides, in my household Mr. Quack designs the romance novel covers.  All of the earlier book covers were pretty non-offensive and gender neutral, but they were striking covers with very graphic images.  They're killer covers but they don't necessarily sell sex and lust.  We both adore the covers, but the one I'm writing now, The Duke of Eden (it's up as a serial on Amazon BTW), has a much more graphic cover.   Currently in Casa de Quack hubby and I have been talking about him doing some new covers for the earlier books that are more graphic.  Yes, we're talking about adding pebbling nipples and rippling abs. 

Why?  Because we've learned that sex still sells.  And Quacking Alone Romances is very much a joint enterprise.   What's good for the brand is good for our bank account.  And what's good for the brand is what sells.  Some of the very best-selling e-reading material is erotica of the kind that can make me blush - and that ain't an easy thing.  We've learned that the graphic covers grab the eye and we'll never get readers to press the buy button if we don't get their attention first.

...continue reading "Pebbling Nipples, Rippling Abs & Ringing Registers"

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Each year Britain's Literary Review honors a mainstream author with "The Bad Sex In Fiction Award."   The award goes to writers whose descriptions of sexual antics and activity inspire "eye-rolling and disgust." 

This year, Rowan Somerville won the award for descriptions in his book, "The Shape of Her."  Passages like the following secured him the honor:

Like a lepidopterist mounting a tough-skinned insect with a too blunt pin he screwed himself into her.

As if that wasn't good enough to secure the best of the bad prize, elsewhere in the book Somerville describes a nipple as "the nose of the loveliest nocturnal animal, sniffing in the night."

Some other big literary names were on the list of nominees, including Jonathan Franzen for his book Freedom which included the following passage:

One afternoon, as Connie described it, her excited clitoris grew to be eight inches long, a protruding pencil of tenderness with which she gently parted the lips of his penis and drove herself down to the base of its shaft.  Another day, at her urging, Joey described to her the sleek warm neatness of her turds as they slid from her anus and fell into his open mouth, where, since these were only words, they tasted like excellent, dark chocolate.

Another nominee was Adam Ross for descriptions in his book, Mr. Peanut.  Including a passage where a husband describes his love for his wife's "giganticness" and said if he made love to her from behind he felt like "an X-rated Gulliver among the Brobdingnags."  Ross writes,

She was not his wife but a giant she-creature, an overlarge sex pet:  his to screw, groom and maintain.

In accepting the award, Somerville was gracious and stated that he felt it was fitting because, "There is nothing more English than bad sex."

...continue reading "Bad Sex 2010: Dead Bugs, Pencils & Giant She Creatures"