Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Thanks to Darlene Marshall, who pointed me to the most excellent links (and gave me the kick in the pants I needed to finally consider subscribing to Publisher’s Weekly) we have some clever, and somewhat dishy news.

Seems Rebecca Brandewyne won a considerable settlement in a libel suit against a vanity publisher, AuthorHouse, for publishing a work written by her ex-husband. He wrote a book wherein he stated that she had committed illegal acts, threated his life, and - slap your grandma - plagiarised her books.

Miss Snark and Making Light both wrote about the verdict, in which a Kansas district judge ruled that Ms. Brandewyne be awarded $200,000.00, writing in his decision that AuthorHouse had “acted towards the plaintiffs with wanton conduct.”

What blows my petard out of the water is the comments: in both entries on both blogs, someone brings up the idea that the verdict is a threat to first amendment rights.

Ana was commenting on Candy’s review of Jennifer Cruisie and Bob Mayer’s Don’t Look Down and quoted an older blog entry of Cruisie’s from February of this year:

2. I Am Not Living with My Boyfriend
(I’m sorry, I just can’t get past Cloris Leachman saying, “He vas my BOYFRIENDT!” I said to Val, “Aren’t I kind of past the boyfriend stage?” and she said, “You’re never too old for a boyfriend,” but I’m thinking there must be a better word. Lover, but that’s probably TMI. Significant Other, but that’s jargony. Guy I spend the majority of my time with, but that’s Bob. Your assignment for today, class, is to come up with a good word for romantic companion for the adult female.)

Now, aside from the whole Are-They-Or-Aren’t-They question being debated now on other entries, we should come up with a good term for adult female romantic companion. Your ideas?

I personally like ARC: Adult Romantic Companion, and if you’re an author, it has double meaning.

The Jan Butler kerfuffles have reminded me of this snippet of the Colbert Report about the connection between gay marriage and marriages of the herpetological kind.

Go. Watch. Snort-laugh.

p.s. Snakes on Plane! Coming out August 18th! I’m going to see it the day it comes out, almost definitely with a friend who’ll be wearing a Snakes on a Plane T-shirt (which I bought for him, ‘cause I’m the awesomest friend you could ever have), and possibly with another friend who’s going with a stuffed snake sewn all over with tiny planes. SNAKES! ON A MOTHERFUCKIN’ PLANE! POSSIBLY MARRIED TO GAYS!

Today, for your delectation, three different links kindly supplied to us by assorted members of the bitchery, and a little bit of drive-by snark to go with each:

Item the First: An article in Publishers’ Weekly asks: Why don’t indie bookstores carry series romance novels?

Two possible answers to that, neither of them mutually exclusive:

1. Indie bookstores tend to be snobbish. The ones staffed largely by book-loving nerds with college degrees, like Powell’s Books here in Portland, are the worst. They take pride in being different, they take pride in stocking the relatively obscure and hard-to-find, and they take pride in excellence in literary taste. Romance novels, to their mind, are none of those things, much less series romances, with their lurid titles.

Not that luridness is always a bad thing, but newly-released series romances are far too new to have nostalgic camp cachet, the way pulp thrillers, westerns and stroke books do. Hipsters and book geeks may display pulp westerns, SF and pornographic novels on their bookshelves with no shame, but most wouldn’t be caught dead with a romance novel. Romance novels are embarrassing, not kitschy.

It leads to a vicious cycle, too: A while back, I remember reading an article about Powell’s Books, and the reporter asked the owner, Michael Powell, why the dearth in romance novels in the store. He shrugged and said something like “Our customers don’t seem to ask for them all that much.” That’s as may be, but I know I’ve headed into Powell’s several times looking to buy a specific romance novel, only to walk right back out again with empty hands, and then giving my dollars to an Evil Chain like Amazon or Borders because they DID stock what I wanted. I wonder how many other readers like me have done the same thing? Nowadays, I don’t bother doing my romance shopping at Powell’s; I just go straight to a chain bookstore or order them on-line instead.

2. Limited shelfspace. This isn’t perhaps as big a problem for behemoths like Powell’s, but many of the smaller stores have little real estate on their shelves, and they need to stock only what sells. In certain neighborhoods, or for bookstores that try to appeal to certain niches, stocking series romance novels just isn’t practical, since so many of them are released every year.

Next item: Alessia Brio links to a news story in which a woman’s romance novel-writing past is biting her in the ass in her bid to run for state comptroller of Texas. Sort of. Except not really, because Susan Combs, the comptroller-candidate-cum-former-romance-novelist, has a huge budget and her opponent, who’s apparently making a big fuss over the trashy pornography she wrote? Has no money. Really, his indignation over the glorification of pre-marital sex in romance novels makes me shake my head and wonder how old he was before he got any.

Other minor details: Combs’ spokesperson dismissed the book as a “paint-by-numbers formula writing,” and certain phrases in the article made me wonder how accurately the reporter for this particular article was reporting the situation.

And now for something completely different: The Goku-Lytton awards for Worst Opening Lines of Erotic Fan-Fiction. Be sure to have several pairs of spare pants nearby, for you will pee them when you read some of these parodies.

Thanks to Robin and whomever posted and updated a page of the RITA finalists, we can announce the 2006 RITA Winners from last night’s gala. We hope it was much better than last year - someone give us an update how it went, please!

And in the meantime, WOO HOO and YAY and all sorts of obnoxious fist pumping and elegant grunting to the 2006 RITA winners.

Best First Book
Show Her the Money
by Stephanie Feagan

Best Contemporary Single Title
Lakeside Cottage
by Susan Wiggs

Best Inspirational Romance
Heavens to Betsy
by Beth Pattillo

Best Long Contemporary Romance
Worth Every Risk
by Dianna Love Snell

Best Long Historical Romance
The Devil to Pay
by Liz Carlyle

Best Novella
‘The Naked Truth About Guys’ in The Naked Truth
by Alesia Holliday

Best Paranormal Romance
Gabriel’s Ghost
by Linnea Sinclair

Best Regency Romance
A Reputable Rake
by Diana Gaston

Best Romantic Suspense
Survivor in Death
by J.D. Robb

Best Short Contemporary Romance
The Marriage Miracle
by Liz Fielding

Best Short Historical Romance
The Texan’s Reward
by Jodi Thomas

Novel with Strong Romantic Elements
Lady Luck’s Map of Vegas
by Barbara Samuel

Best Traditional Romance
Princess of Convenience
by Marion Lennox