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

Many interesting links related to all things publishing. First, NEW RULE: Don’t write fiction and call it a memoir. For further explanation as to why this is Bad Idea Jeans, consult James Frey. In the age of the internet, you can’t get away with it.

Second, giving the book away for free for a few days hasn’t hurt sales after the giveaway ended. According to the Publisher’s Weekly top lists this week, Suze Orman’s book Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny is the #2 bestseller in the nonfiction/general category.

And lastly: a lawsuit that may define the limits of what fans can do with a written work under copyright: J.K. Rowling is suing the owner of the Harry Potter Lexicon because he intends to publish his work as a book encyclopedia of the Potter series.

a fan-created collection of essays and encyclopedic material on the Potter universe, including lists of spells and potions found in the books, a catalog of magical creatures and a who’s who in the wizarding world.

Rowling said she was especially irked that the site’s owner and the lexicon’s would-be publisher, RDR Books, continued to insist that her acceptance of free, fan-based Web sites justified the efforts.

“I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books,” she wrote in court papers filed Wednesday in a lawsuit she brought against the small Muskegon, Mich., publisher.

She said she intends to publish her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia.

I’m cynical enough to suspect that the last statement may be driving her suit more than the defense of her copyright, since she has often cited the HP Lexicon as a fan site she has enjoyed in the past. Aside from the mention in that AP article, I know I’ve read interviews wherein she’s mentioned it favorably (though of course I’m having trouble finding them now for linkage purposes).

Rowling acknowledges that her suit could change the landscape of how fans interact with authors and with their written work:

“If RDR’s position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet,” she said. “Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities.”

Interesting, her choice to define the Lexicon publication as not a legitimate creative activity, when I can think of several compendiums and encyclopedias that have been published to accompany the study of works under copyright. I do see the grey area in that the Vander Ark’s Lexicon does include material from her books, such as recipes and the like, but I am very curious to see the outcome of this suit. Considering the increasing popularity of fanfic, fan sites, and fan communities that aren’t always in the control of the original distributor of the content being lauded, Rowling’s suit could have far-reaching implications. 

Our candidate for cover snark this week--a Leisure novel released in late January--has left us both speechless.

Yesterday’s news about Ricardo the incubus nymph imprisoned for your sexual delight inside a ring gave me a hell of a laugh and it gave other people some very big ideas.

Esri Rose, who found the original auction, contacted Sherry’s Enchantments and asked if they had an incubus for ring-imprisonment purposes named “Colin.”

Yes. As in Firth.

I’ll give you a moment to fan yourselves.

Esri, in a fit of publicity wisdom, has concocted a contest: read an excerpt of her upcoming book Bound To Love Her, answer a question about the excerpt, and if you’re correct, you’re entered in a random drawing wherein YOU could win your own ring, complete with energizing pouch and an incubus named Colin.

Yes, you read that right. Colin the incubus (no word yet if he is also a nymph, though I do hope that the required elements are not at all nymph-like, ahem ahem) will arrive neatly contained in a ring, and there’s no telling whether your pride and his prejudice will meet literally or virtually. I hope the winner tells all.

Ok, if you’re not interested in a few random Things Pittsburgh, enjoy this video from Marie Brennan: have you hugged your rescued lion today?

But if you are Pittsburghly curious, March 20 has been designated “Won’t You Wear Your Sweater Day” in honor of what would have been Fred Rogers’ 80th Birthday. Mr. McFeeley is here to tell you more:

If you have a few extra dollars and desire multiple orgasms, your own sexual incubus, or Colin Firth, read on.

Thanks to Janet Mullany, I have word of a most excellent auction discovered by author Esri Rose. Take a look at the auction page before it disappears, but if it’s already gone, here’s an excerpt from the exclamation-point-laden description:

You know that lady in the flippy pink skirt who is a potential beauty addict and has the misfortune to find herself in the middle of a murder mystery in the paperback See Isabelle Run? Poor woman has some problems, clearly, not the least of which is imminent overexposure.

But wait, there’s more. While surfing through the coupons in the mail yesterday, look what I found:

Poor woman has vein problems, too?! 

Boy, did I have high hopes when I read the cover copy and the excerpt for this book. Check out the back copy:

Trevor d’Laine’s sexy voice seduced her every night with his late-night radio talk show. So Kay Erikson couldn’t pass up the chance to be his personal assistant – despite his insistence that he was a vampire.

Vampires didn’t wear faded jeans. And they were dark and brooding, not vibrant and fun.

Not bad, huh? Vampire radio host with sexy voice and his personal assistant? Vibrant and fun? Could be pretty good. So check out the excerpt on the first page:

“I’m a happy vampire. Happier than you can guess. I like having time to read every book that ever interested me, time to visit every monument ever erected, time to sample every pleasure available to night people. I’m invulnerable to disease or accident. I’ll never age, never die. Why would I want to give that up?”

Seriously, I am, or I was, so intrigued. Even with the heroine challenging his happiness with the idea that immortality and vampirism have their downsides, I was intrigued by the possibility. A happy vampire? Pleased with his immortality, and enjoying everlasting life and youth? Bring it on! Aren’t you a bit weary of the uber-emo vampire and his mournful, angsty self? I love paranormal stories, romance or not, even if I am vampired-out. A book about a happy, giddy vampire? Please. It’s so rare. Lately I’ve found myself looking for less-angstful vampires, and haven’t found many. 

An alert tipster forwarded me some news: Seems Preditors and Editors is being sued. From the Absolute Write forums post 17, Dave Kuzminski, owner and author of P&E, writes:

P&E is being sued by Barbara Bauer and by Victor E. Cretella, III, Esq. in two separate courts.

Ms. Bauer is a literary agent who alleges I/P&E called her a scam and a scammer and is suing for libel.

Mr. Cretella is an attorney for PublishAmerica. He alleges I/P&E harmed his reputation by reporting him to the Maryland State Bar Association and his former employer for his actions against a member of Absolute Write and is suing for libel.

Preditors and Editors revealed the suit on their site on February 14th, citing an informant in Mr. Cretella’s office, and is now accepting Paypal donations to help mount their legal defense in court.

Bitchery reader Darlynne forwarded me links to Biblio.com’s newsletter article this month, which focuses on romance novels as collectibles.

Now, E. D’Trix sent me a business card holder made out of an old Harlequin cover and she bought herself one made from the cover of a book that I believe is called “The Pink Phaeton.” Cover arts and crafts aside, however, is there a market for collecting romance novels themselves?

G.A. Hazelwood writes an interesting article about romance novels as collectible items that, as Darlynne says, errors in grammar notwithstanding, is not the least bit condescending. In fact, given this quote, I might go so far as to say that Hazelwood “gets it:” “few seem to take the romance novel with much seriousness, except their readers and fans of the genre.” Mr. Hazelwood, come on over here and sit here by me.

Does anyone out there collect romance novels, such as the first editions of favorite authors? Signed editions? Or just favorite books to re-read until the cover splits and falls off? Some books, such as Laura London’s The Windflower are listed for more than $29 US, while others are merely $1. Do you have a romance collection that’s potentially worth a good deal?

Via Boing Boing, Wired, and a wise tipster comes this information, which will make the day of anyone who hates DRM on audio material: Random House will cease “the use of digital rights management on all of its audiobooks going forward, unless the author wants to keep using it for some reason, or if the file is already being distributed through a partner that uses DRM (namely, OverDrive and NetLibrary).”

Seems Random House, in a fit of unfettered wisdom, ran a DRM-free audiobook distribution program online and found that “none of the pirate editions of their audiobooks online came from those DRM-free editions.” All the pirated versions they found were from DRM-editions that had been cracked, stripped of their protection, or ripped from CD. To quote Cory Doctorow, “DUH.”

In a letter posted on Wired’s blog yesterday, Random House explained the full rationale behind their decision to allow their audiobooks into the world without DRM protection (and let’s face it: DRM protection is like your average historical romance heroine wearing her pelisse in a thunderstorm: woefully inadequate) and came out publicly with the following statement that literally made my jaw hang open:

For tracking purposes, we watermarked all of the eMusic files and then hired a piracy watchdog service to monitor and report back to us if any of our titles appeared on the major filesharing networks. We tracked a mix of popular titles, including some that were not available through eMusic. Because piracy is already a fact of life in the digital world, what we were interested in finding out was not whether piracy exists, but rather whether there is any correlation between DRM-free distribution and an increased incidence of piracy.

The results: we have not yet found a single instance of the eMusic watermarked titles being distributed illegally. We did find many copies of audiobook files available for free, but they did not originate from the eMusic test, but rather from copied CDs or from files whose DRM was hacked. It is worth noting that these results are entirely consistent with what the music industry has found in the last six months. After conducting their own tests with Amazon, Walmart.com and others, the major labels have reached the conclusion that MP3 distribution does not in itself lead to increased piracy....

While Random House plans to release all audiobooks in mp3 format, they will not be “any less vigilant in guarding the security of our content” and will allow any author who isn’t comfortable distributing his or her content without protection to continue to release DRM-protected audiobook material.”

To quote Captain Feathersword: “Well, blow me down!” Not only did Random House test the limits of piracy, but they publicly released their findings and modified their distribution accordingly. What sound business sense. How...ballsy. How awesome. Big ups to you guys. Beer’s on me.

From the hot, sandy wilderness of Iraq, Taylor hooked me up with a most excellent link: want your own K.I.T.T.? A miniature remote-control version? You are so in luck.

But do you want to read hilarious ad copy? BONUS, HONUS!

...this beautifully built R/C car is so evocative you might be tempted to buy an ill-fitting leather jacket, get a perm and cruise the highways fighting crime. Or maybe not.

With whispers of a new series of Knight Rider in the pipeline, there’s never been a better time to make a total Hasselhoff out of yourself.

Sadly, according to the image, the Hoff is not included.

Every morning I get email from Vista Print, and every morning that I either read or delete it, I think of Linnea Sinclair because she once told me that she orders postcards to cut in half for promotional bookmarks from Vista Print every time they offer them for free. Since Vista Print gives away postcards every other day, I wonder if Ms. Sinclair has built an addition onto her home, merely to hold all those flippin’ post cards, because MY GOD does Vista give stuff away ALL the TIME.

This is both good and bad. I have a few Vista printed items for this here website, so I’m on their mailing list - and it is damn hard for me to resist the allure of “FREE PAPER PRODUCTS ORDER NOW!” I try, but sometimes I fall prey.

But today? Today will be a tough day to resist. This morning, they have offered car magnets. Big ass magnets to stick on the door of my car, and turn it from the Bad-ass Mommy Mobile into The Bitch on Wheels. How cool would it be to tool around with a giant magnet of The Ladies on the side of my car?

I mean, that would be BAD ASS.

Damn you, Vista Print.

I’ve heard time and again that neti pots are just the most marvelous way of cleansing the sinus cavities, though I believe the neti enthusiasts use warm salt water. Me, I don’t need no pot. I read your comments suggesting a better US title for Julie Cohen’s book, and I experience the neti benefits using a mouthful of diet Coke. However, I’m not sure the benefits are meant to include my screeching like I’ve lit my hair on fire because diet Coke? Stings like a mother.

Holy bubbling crisp and refreshing, you people are funny. So funny I’ve decided to decree two winners in Rename That Book: A Smart Bitch Contest.

First, I completely agree with all of you who posted your vote: the altogether best title that SHOULD HAVE BEEN on the cover of Julie Cohen’s Harlequin release His For The Taking: Aimee’s A Fare to Remember .

Second place and big kudos to Lady Rhian for Playing Fare and Poison Ivy for Love for Hire.

Aimee, you win a copy of the UK release of the book, which features a much better title, a much better cover image, and a complete lack of periods after salutation abbreviations such as “Mr.” or “Ms.” (Yo. Brits. What is up with that, anyway?)

But yet, I laughed so hard at some of the suggestions, I had to award the efforts. So a prize must be awarded to the title that cracked me up so hard I broke something: Snarkhunter’s Park and Ride . HA!

Second place goes to lizzy’s The cab driving aerobic instructor’s random and irresistible pigeon-rescuing houseguest, and Andrea’s Driving Stick with bonus sinus-cleansing power demonstrated by Kristen’s Thumbin’ a Ride.

Snarkhunter, you win a copy of the US release, complete with a cover image of bright red man hands with giant bonus holy crapping huge thumb. Please do let me know what you think of that image when its up close and personal.

Well played, y’all. 

I’ve never been much of a collector doll person, but I have to say: the waxed plastic mantitty version of Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean?

Verrry interesting. Not necessarily a perfect match for Depp, but the sculpted chest is just fascinating me.

Will Turner doesn’t look so much like Orlando Bloom. More like Edward Norton wearing a scarf knitted by my mother in law.

But the very tan pirate Elizabeth Swann? That’s awesome. I dig that one out of the entire collection. Too bad I’m not a doll person. If I were to own one, it’d become a cat toy in 2.3 seconds. Fukui-san particularly would savor Elizabeth’s hair over and over again.

Just before Valentine’s Day, a few of our readers sent me a link to a news story about a new anthology of love stories, My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, edited by Jeffrey Eugenides. Eugenides’ opinion about love stories and happy endings is, I think, emblematic about how most literary types approach the topic:

In the introduction to this remarkable collection, Jeffrey Eugenides warns readers that good love stories aren’t fluffy, happy-go-lucky affairs. Instead, they “depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart.”

“Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name,” writes Eugenides, the best-selling author of “Middlesex” and “The Virgin Suicides.”

I looked up the introduction on Amazon.com (lor’ bless the Search Inside feature), and here are the quotes in context:

When it comes to love, there are a million theories to explain it. But when it comes to love stories, things are simpler. A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims--these are lucky eventualities but they aren’t love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.

This started me thinking about happy endings, and their bad reputation. It’s not so much that badly-written happy endings are shit on; it’s that happy endings in and of themselves are viewed as a literary faux pas--the equivalent of belching loudly at a cocktail party.

Near as I can tell, here are the most popular arguments for why happy endings, particularly in love stories, are inherently bad:

1. They’re unrealistic
2. They’re cheesy
3. They’re simplistic
4. They present an easy out for the author
5. They are inauthentic to the story
6. They’re formulaic

While these are all valid descriptions of all that’s wrong with a raging case of Terminus Sappynus (symptoms you may experience when confronted with this blight include mild nausea and an urge to read dystopian fiction just to cleanse your palate), these aren’t indictments of happy endings per se. These are symptoms of bad writing, and I can name a number of books with unhappy or bittersweet endings that have exactly these same problems.

Here’s a theory I have: people who view all happy endings with a jaundiced eye aren’t just reacting to the form in and of itself, they’re also reacting to their assumptions about the readers who enjoy and seek out stories with happy endings. After all, if these stories are mindless escapist pap, what does it say about the reader’s intellect if she genuinely loves them or, God forbid, defends them? Lingering in the back of the mind of people who consistently denigrate the romantic happy ending is the specter of the vacuous housewife in the puffypaint sweatshirt snarfing down bon-bons while clutching a be-Fabioed book. All sorts of class and gender issues are tangled up in our conception of love stories with happy endings.

Keep in mind I’m not defending happy endings across the board, either. I’ve read more than my fair share of schmaltzy, gag-inducing HEAs in my life, in which the previously-barren heroine is suddenly popping out babies because of the hero’s Super Sperm, or the deeply traumatized hero is magically fixed by the heroine’s sweetness and light (and Magic Hoo-Hoo), or everyone who’s not villainous gets to resolve their problems and it’s cake and ponies and superlative orgasms for everyone all the time (though not with the ponies, please), yay.

What I want when I read a book is a good ending. I want an ending that’s right for the book. I want a resolution that feels both logical and emotionally satisfying. If a romance novel hero has a fairly severe case of PTSD, I don’t expect him to be fixed by the end of 400 pages, though I want him to find an avenue for future healing and happiness--which is why the ending for Seize the Fire by Laura Kinsale, while unconventional for a romance novel, is deeply touching and worked so well for me. If the protagonists have Issues but are, by and large, sane people, then an ending depicting them leading fulfilled, happy lives works well for me, too. This is why the “Where Are They Now?” summary in Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie is very satisfying for me. And if a book deals with madness, the Atlantic slave trade in the late eighteenth century and the atrocities people are willing to commit in the name of pride and commerce, like Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth, then I pretty much expect an ending to be gut-wrenching and tragic. I’m even OK with books in which the author seems to be punishing the protagonist just so we can go along for the ride, like Jude the Obscure or Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

This also doesn’t mean that I’m advocating for unhappy endings in romance novels. I’ll be honest here: I’m irrationally attached to my happy endings. When I finish a romance novel, I want the protagonists to be together, and I want an assurance that they’ll be reasonably happy together. It’s part of the pleasure and assurance of reading genre fiction. When I pick up a mystery novel, I want the mystery to be solved by the end. When I read a high fantasy novel, I want the world to be saved and the protagonists to complete their coming-of-age process. These very basic frameworks provide plenty of room to play with my expectations, to delight me with the unexpected, and to thoroughly fuck my emotions over. The trick is to bring everything together so that the denouement feels authentic instead of forced.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

EDITED TO ADD: So the central question that I’m pondering, and what I’m still trying to figure out is: Why is the happy ending viewed as something inferior in and of itself compared to a tragic ending, or a bittersweet ending? Why is a happy ending popularly viewed as a cop-out? It sometimes is, no question about that, but sometimes it isn’t, and it irritates me that people indiscriminately lump them all together. I haven’t quite figured this out yet, and I’d like your perspectives.