If you are reading this in a RSS reader, this entry is for you.

Feedburner has stopped updating entries automatically, and the only way it refreshes the feed is for me to go and do so manually. Most mornings I can do that, which is why you might notice entries that went live around midnight appearing around 8-9am Eastern time. Sometimes I can't, which is why you'll notice that sometimes four or five entries appear at once - and you've missed something, for which I apologize a LOT.

I've tried renaming the feed, recreating it, and pinging it. We even asked at the Expression Engine forums (this site is powered by Expression Engine) and other folks have reported that Feedburner is finicky, and sometimes just stops for no apparent reason. I haven't had any luck asking Feedburner why my feeds are no longer updating automatically as they should. We've tried three different feeds and all of them work except in Feedburner.

So, if Feedburner is going to be, as I said once of iTunes, like a passive aggressive heroine who is mad at the hero but won't tell him what he did wrong, it's time to dump Feedburner.

Thus I have to ask you to update your feeds.

I am so sorry to ask you to do this. As per my most recent Feedburner stats, there are several thousand of you, and I apologize deeply for having to ask this of you. 

The feed for the blog is:

http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/feed/

The feed for the podcast is:

http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/feed/podcast/

ETA: And, as @datadiva pointed out, you'll want to unsubscribe from the Feedburner feed, too. 

Again, I apologize. A lot. Profusely, in fact. 

Categories: General Bitching, Ranty McRant

Jane: I was searching Berkley published books in an effort to find some deals.  I came across these. I think that there are several hundred of them published.

Sarah: Yup. After doing some research, I found this Wikipedia entry which states that there is one Longarm novel published nearly every month. There are nearly 400 in the series - in fact, #400, Longarm and the 400 Blows comes out (snerk) February 28. The series is distinguished "from classical westerns by the inclusion of more explicit sex and violence." So one per month, with more sex and violence. Yeah. I am going to start Longarming people who sniff at romance.

Sarah: Setting aside the Best Perm Ever, he's chasing his perpetrator through the back door while somehow hiding beneath another woman's skirt. WOW. HOW IS THIS NOT A MOVIE?

Jane: She looks so happy getting rogered up the ass.  Like she is being tickled by his "long arm" in her vagina.

Sarah: Longarm is straight up getting to second base on this cover. This guy does not mess around.

Jane: I'm not sure what is going on with Longarm in this picture because neither of his long arms are actually in the clinch.  Her dress is falling off which suggests that the Longarm activity took place at some point.  Perhaps off scene, just prior to the the curtain drawing up.

Sarah: Does "doomed" mean "bored" where Longarm is from?

Jane: My first read of this cover always is the "Domed Beauty" Like a beauty with a dome head or something.  I think the chick is bored because he is smelling her armpit.

Sarah: All these...guns... pointed out. What could they mean? And whoever the model was for Longarm's covers, he must have LOVED his job.

Jane:  Are the two women featured in the cover the same? Should it actually be Santa Fe widows? Am so confused.

Sarah: HOW did Harlequin MISS THAT? Not just virgins but paranormal vanishing virgins? What came next, Longarm and the Yelling Lady on 49th Street? Longarm and the Boardroom Mistress? Longarm and the Hosiery Saleswoman?

Jane:  I think there was a typo on the cover and a few letters left off. Should have been Longarm and the Vanishing Virginity.  My guess is that Longarm knew where the hymen was.

BUT WAIT, there is MORE. With some sort of librarian sixth sense, Rachel Z. scanned some Longarms (how did they fit in the scanner?) as she was shelving them this week, as she had to share the WTFery. Ah, Longarm, the gift that keeps on giving. 

Rachel: There are just so many people on that cover. And the old lady just looks creepy.

Sarah: LOOK! Longarm is rogering another girl up the ass with the Druid Sisters! That man is NOT RIGHT. But I guess with one book per month, the rogering images have to be recycled. This will be the best Etsy trend ever: Upcycled Buttsecks!

Jane: Can one's dick become smaller after so much use? Like the vaginas are whittling away at it? Also?  He never looks like he is sexxoring up the same female character on the cover. Like there are two women on the cover, one who is featured and the other that is in his bed.

Categories: Covers Gone Wild! (Non-Snoop Dogg Edition), General Bitching

We also decided that you should pick the winner, so make your choice from the selection below and let us know what you think is the best entry. Please note: there were some late entries (heh heh) to the contest that don't appear in the podcast but do appear in the voting.

OOPS! Forgot the list of books we discussed in this episode! Here you go: 

This week's music was provided by Sassy Outwater, and this track is called "Dragons," by a Parisian group called Caravan Palace. You can find their album, "Caravan Palace," on iTunes, and you can find the band on MySpace and Facebook.

If you like the Podcast, you can subscribe to our feed, or find us at iTunes.  You can also find us at PodcastPickle. OR, you can like us on Facebook and chat about the episodes there!

In our next episode, we're talking about this year's DABWAHA - get ready for March Madness™, Romance-novel style!

If you have content suggestions or have feedback, email us! The email address for the podcast is sbjpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

Categories: DBSA Romance Fiction Podcast

I'm recently on a kick reading and writing books in which the hero and heroine have healthy, functional relationships with their living parents, but that sort of book is so hard to find in romance! Carrie Ann Ryan recommended Lauren Dane's Chase Brothers series to me, but I haven't gotten any other recommendations from my Facebook or Twitter queries. Perhaps a good topic for GS vs. STA or one of your fabulous editorials? Thanks for considering!

Yes, indeed! Parental relationships are so often the foundation of character drama, and there's no shortage of bad parenting in romance character land. Yet I love books where the relationships that the characters have with their parents or their parental figures shows their emotional maturity, and gives me more characters to like. I also really, really enjoy that the diversity of what makes up a family when it comes to raising children is portrayed more often now. Aunts, grandparents, cousins, unrelated adults, and foster parents have made appearances in romances. 

Two romances that I loved for their portayal of the family dynamic (and the variety therein) were Shannon Stacey's Yours to Keep (A | BN | K S ), and Exclusively Yours (A | BN | K S ) (I did not enjoy the middle book in that series). The family camping scenes in Exclusively Yours and the scenes with the aunt in Yours to Keep are emotionally deft and also hilarious. I also loved the adoptive family in Judith McNaught's Perfect. (A | BN)

So what books did you love for the romance, and for the relationships the characters had with their parents or caregivers? Which do you recommend - or not recommend? 

Categories: General Bitching, Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid

Unfortunately, there were sessions that were misleadingly titled, which meant that in my perspective they pretended to be about something they were clearly not. The two panels I attended Tuesday morning were titled in a manner that made me think I was going to receive data about the topics explored, but instead heard product promotion, to which I say, "Feh."

For example, What Should I Read? A Brief History of Recommendations, started out with a cursory summary of recommendations from bookstores, and moved on to Amazon, Pandora, and Netflix algorithms, and the difference between searching and browsing to discover new material to read. Then, about 20 minutes in, it turned into a promotional session about how Zite collates user clicks to recommend related content.

To be honest and fair, Zite is very cool. When Angela James, who was sitting next to me, fired up her iPad to sign up, adding her Twitter feed and her Google Reader created sections on the NFL, chocolate, dessert, shopping, publishing, and shoes. Pretty accurate given the topics she reads - but I didn't need half a session with a cursory exploration of discoverability and then a promotion of how great Zite is. I wanted more of the history and possibility of recommendations, not how one company was exploring recommendations for their product.

That said, I have put Zite on my iPad and am fascinated by it. So while I didn't want to be the recipient of promotion, clearly that promotion worked!

I would request from Tools of Change, please, stronger marking of sessions that are going to be product promotion. Otherwise, I have to assume one or two people presenting from the same company will likely be promoting themselves and I'm going to start avoiding those sessions. Perhaps I also should have been more aware of the likelihood of promotion before, but I consider myself more educated now.

Now, on to the stuff that blew my mind some more.

Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading was a presentation of data from the Bowker and Book Industry Study Group survey of, you guessed it, reader attitudes toward reading, specifically print (referred to as P) and digital (E) reading.

Highlights: Readers are switching from P to E but the number of people migrating has leveled off a bit, while those with e-readers still buy more books.

There may be a seasonal shift in e book purchase. e.g. Person receives digital reader as a gift at the end of the year, they buy a boatload of books in January, then their purchases level off. The data for the past year or so seems to support that hypothesis.

The other factor in digital reading shift is the use of tablets, and how many people are using them for Things Other Than Reading. While this strayed into Anecdata (™ Brett Sandusky), and wasn't part of the fielding, the presentation suggested that those with tablets are more likely to consume other media or play games - Kelly Gallagher said that several years ago, if you would have told him he'd be spending a lot of time playing Scrabble with total strangers, he'd have laughed at you. Now, several people in the room admitted to having 2 or more Words with Friends games  going at once.

During the section about buying habits and readers switching from purchasing print to ebooks, E_Bookpushers asked via Twitter if there was data about which of those readers stopped buying print simply because they no longer had a local bookstore. I asked that question of the presenters on her behalf, and they said that they had not asked whether absence of a local bookstore was a factor in any purchase of digital books. Future surveys may include geographic data and that would make it perhaps easier to pinpoint bookstore locations as well.

Then came the Goodreads session with Otis Chandler, How Consumers Discover Books Online, which was my favorite - gee, I wonder why. All that data about readers! Eventually the slides may become available online, in which case they are worth looking at just for the graphical breakdown of reader/book interaction. An interesting point from the end of the session: Chandler revealed that he has always loved reading, and when he began to build different social networks professionally, he realized that there was an opportunity to combine social networks and reading, and hence, GoodReads. When he was in college, he was asked to design and build something out of foam to present to the class. He built an ereader - and this was in 1996. So it's cool to listen to someone who is personally enthusiastic about reading talking about reader data.

Chandler's presentation explained how Goodreads users register and add books to their shelves, and that he was looking most specifically at the 'to-read' shelf to get an understanding of reader intention. Looking at what readers want to read revealed an assortment of influences, and allowed me to see in graphical form the numbers and spikes in how readers discover and interact with books.

Highlights in BULLET form ahoy!

• Goodreads has a community of 7 million registered readers, and is largest reader site in the world.
   
• Some 250 million books are shelved at Goodreads
   
• Over half the books added to user shelves were added in 2011. The To-Read shelf has 63 million books - as many as the Library of Congress, NYPL and Boston libraries combined.
   
• In January 2012, over 5 million books were added to the to-read shelf. (Sarah notes: come talk to this guy when someone grouses about how no one reads books any more. Good gravy!)
   
• The top 40 most popular books (the titles everyone has heard of, basically) represent only 5% of the to-read shelf. Everything else is books that aren't super popular.
   
• People add books to their shelf during registration (19% of books added), and after a search (19%). Searches are folks looking for a specific title. Search is the stronger mechanism for adding books to the to-read shelf. Search also includes the Goodreads recommendation engine, which launched in September 2011. There are over 20 billion data points involved in recommending books for readers.

• There was a 60% increase in shelving after the recommendation engine launched, and the recommendations engine is meant to hit the "mid-list sweet spot." Angela James asked during the Q&A what the minimum threshold of ratings a book needed to have in order to be added to the recommendation engine. Chandler didn't know the exact figure, but guessed it was maybe about 100 ratings.

• There is a minimum level of user star ratings needed to be included in the recommendation engine.
   
• A smaller percentage of to-read shelving comes from a friend's update (9%). The average Goodreads user has 19 friends. Readers also discover books from user-created book lists (7%). Readers also add books to their to-read shelf using the goodreads app (6%). There have been over 800,000 installations of the app.
   
• Giveaways are also a source of reader discovery. 2% of to-read shelving occurs during a giveaway. In January 2012 they ran 1065 giveaways, and shipped over 8000 copies of books.
   
• Goodreads also did a survey of readers, asking how they found books. They had over 3000 responses. 96% of the respondents said they found books because they knew of the author already. Chandler pointed out that this data indicated the importance of marketing an author to that author's known audience.

• 79% indicated they discover books from friends who are offline, and 64% from Goodreads friends.But surprise: only 14% said they found a book via Facebook, and only 6% said they found a book via Twitter.

• Breaking the data by genre revealed that Science Fiction, Fantasy and YA readers discover books most commonly by looking for known authors, using Goodreads lists, or browsing those genres on the site. Romance readers use Goodreads recommendation engine quite a bit and are more likely to discover books from reader lists. Chandler supposed this was because romance readers may not talk to other people offline about reading romance.

• When Chandler began looking at the effect of media exposure on books, the presentation got really interesting. This is the one picture I took of his slides: check the higher spike of NPR exposure vs. New York Times exposure.

  

Seeing friends add a book also means more activity for that book after that initial media spike. In other words, there's a longer-term effect of media exposure for books when they are located and tracked on a social network like Goodreads.

My theory as to why NPR has a greater spike in reader attention than the New York Times (and Candy and I saw this happen with the Bosoms after we were featured on NPR's All Things Considered Weekend edition): NPR listeners may think of themselves as part of a conversation, even though they may not call in to talk to the reporter they're listening to. So they're likely to find and read the books being discussed (especially since NPR has several book programs, bless them) (Hey NPR, More Romance Please!) because they want to be knowledgeable regarding any continued conversation or programming about that book. The New York Times readers are already reading, and there's slightly less of an opportunity or expectation for interaction. I'm curious about the overlap of the NPR and the NYT audiences, though. (This is totally all my own theory and conjecture in this paragraph - not part of the presentation at all.)

Anyway, back to the presentation: the biggest point made in the presentation is that there is no one effective strategy, no "magic bullet" (silver, of course!) to create discovery for readers. It happens in a number of different ways, and Goodreads can amplify the effect of any attention a book receives because of the social connections between readers. 

Other sessions that received positive comments in the ToC Twitter feed were the session featuring Small Demons' Valla Vakili, who spoke on Exaggerations and Perversions as he demoed Small Demons.

While Tools of Change in Publishing is not a conference about readers, it is about the changes happening in reading material, both in terms of corporate workflow and of the technology being used to produce, market, and actually read books. I loved the sessions that examined reader habits and interactions, but that's particularly appealing to me for a whole mess of reasons. It's a rare thing to be able to accurately determine and guide how users will apply technology to their lives, especially with a fundamental activity like reading, which uses a universal posture but is performed mentally and physically in a multitude of ways. While I didn't leave this year's ToC as excited and brainful as I have in the past, I did leave with a great deal to think about, and lots of data to ponder. 

ETA: Goodreads put most of the slides online on their blog - have a look!

Categories: General Bitching

1. Everything I Know About Love, I Learned from Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo |  ARE
2. Heat by Lee Smith | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | 
3. Her Husband's Harlot by Grace Callaway | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | 
4. Standing in the Shadows by Shannon McKenna | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
5. Out of Control by Shannon McKenna | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
6. Truths and Roses by Inglath Cooper | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | 
7. Edge of Midnight by Shannon McKenna | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
8. Virgin River Books 1-4 by Robyn Carr | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | HQN | ARE
9. Fade to Midnight by Shannon McKenna | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | ARE
10. To Love a Thief by Julie Ann Long | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | 

So, what books have you bought this weekend?

Categories: General Bitching, SBTB/DA Bestsellers

This week I've tried to read two self-published works, one full length and one short story, and had problems with both. But this weekend I'm spending about 10 hours in the car, and it's audio book time for me, which I'm looking forward to more than I expected. I am curious to see if I recall the story enough to review it when I'm done listening. 

So what are you reading this week? Are you embarking on a massive backlist read-a-thon? What books are you loving right now? 

Categories: General Bitching, Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid

Link! 

I think my favorite one was the part with the paper towels, both in the store and on the roll. Well played, sir. 

I hope every book you read this weekend is a tour de unputdownable Brawny. 

Categories: Friday Videos, General Bitching

This could easily be a huge entry, but I'm going to break it up into parts for easier consumption.

First, the things that blew my mind - keynotes and videos.

This keynote address from Barbara Genco about the survey of library patrons for the Library Journal and Bowker was amazing. That keynote could have been the length of a feature film and I'd have brought popcorn and watched the whole thing. The data behind the "power patron" describes many of us romance readers, I think:

Link! 

You can also see more information from the library patron survey at the Library Journal's Digital Shift blog.

Genco's comments about "friction" are an interesting response to the comments from Big 6 publishers about the desire for more obstacles (which they call 'friction') to online lending of digital books:

Macmillan executives expressed to ALA their concerns about elending and “its ramifications on the future of our business,” according to Alison Lazarus, the president of sales for Macmillan.

“We want to insure that customers who have typically been book buyers do not migrate their purchasing into borrowing as accessibility to our books becomes frictionless,” Lazarus said. “This would imperil our retailers, wholesalers, authors and ourselves and would ultimately be detrimental to libraries,” she said.

According to the survey data Genco presented - and to be fair it was a sketch of 15 minutes without a full explanation of the depth and terms of the survey - that doesn't seem to be true. I am looking forward to more data from this survey and perhaps others that proves that library lending does not hurt sales. In my own experience and that of folks I've spoken with (i.e. anecdata), library lending creates sales, but perhaps my sampling of romance readers is too specific to be viable to publishing executives in control of digital library lending decisions. 

The keynote from LeVar Burton is also worth watching for its inspiration:

Link!

And finally, while copyright and piracy are very explosive topics, this keynote from Joe Karaganis on Copy Cultures is worth watching. Karaganis' presentation focused on the study and numbers behind piracy and enforcement, and how laws and proposals that attempt to prosecute file sharing in low income countries are ineffective.

Link.

Also, the big announcement of Inkling's collaborative ebook platform Habitat was very cool.

Link!

And booyah! I have three codes to give away for your choice of two titles from Inkling so you can try the interactive nonfiction titles they create. One title is "Speakeasy Cocktails" and the other is "Master Your DSLR Camera." The presentation focused in part on the DSLR title, using multiple visual examples to illustrate results of different settings and techniques.

Please note: these titles work on iPads, and as near as I can tell, iPads only. I'm really sorry: if you don't have a tablet or if you have an Android tablet, this won't work for you. Registration with Inkling is part of claiming the prize, and the book will be downloaded within Inkling's free app. I'm not being compensated for this giveaway. The codes were taped to the bottoms of chairs. I'm not kidding. Must be over 18 and wearing chaps to win. Void where prohibited. No, the chairs weren't really comfortable.

To enter to win a copy, leave a comment as to which drink is your favorite - alcoholic or nonalcoholic. My entry: I have a not very secret and deep love of diet Pepsi. I drink it maybe once a month, but oh, I love it. Even though I know it's bad for me, I love it. I should stop talking about it lest I go buy one. 

Soon: more from Tools of Change!

Winners: The winners of the three codes for the Inkling books are Tina Sicre, Claire, and Laylapalooza. Please email me at sarahATsmartbitchestrashybooksDOTTYcom to claim your codes. Thanks for entering!

Categories: General Bitching

If we're bringing back old Loveswept, we have to bring back the best Loveswept titles.

First, she's not actually ON the zebra. 

Second, join me in having this stuck in your head: Angels on zebras and weasels on ponies...dude on the carousel's likely a brony.

Oh, yeah. He's a swinger. And she's totally looking at him like, "I don't care if you are a prince, this flower is lame."

Ok, this title isn't SO bad, except for replacing the Angels on Zebras song with the Tina Turner Private Dancer, but dude. That illustration. That guy is creepy. I bet he throws her in a hole in the basement and turns the hose on her so she dances for him. 

Well, one of them is horny. 

But this, THIS one is my favorite: 

Ivan Takes a wife! Ivan Takes a Wife! Hi ho the dairy-o, Ivan Takes a Wife! 

Just wait for the sequel The Cheese Stands Alone.

Seriously, old Loveswept titles are awesome! How are they not being used in the re-releases?!

Do you remember any other excellent examples? (Never tell me the cheese actually did stand alone.) 

Categories: Covers Gone Wild! (Non-Snoop Dogg Edition), General Bitching