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

Phinea: “I would be able to run my fingers through my hair and it would be perfectly styled.”

Ana: “I would like to have a spell that could cloak my desk and computer at work from everybody else’s eyes (but specially my manager’s) so that I can spend the whole day reading blogs, writing reviews and reading ebooks without worrying that someone will catch me in flagrante delicto.”

Tibbles: “My wish would be that all the sick children in the world would get better and never be ill again.  And I don’t mean the sniffles or the flu; I mean the kids with things like cancer and aids and kidney failure.  I feel blessed every day that my kids are healthy and would love for every parent in the world to know that same peace of mind.

I am also married to one of those men who leave everything where it’s convenient for him, so that would be wish #2.”

Leeann Burke: “I love the calorie free food and clean house.

However I would also like to control time to stop it so I can get a breath and enjoy the moment. I don’t know about anyone else but I always want to enjoy the moment or I tell myself I should, but never have time or make the time to do just that. So if I could I would like to have tha ability to freeze time to catch my breath or enjoy the moment.”

Vicki: “The instant transport thing is very tempting and I have wished for that when I have been travelling. However, I think I would go with “health and happiness” that I could spell onto a person in need of it. In a sense, that is what I try to do every day as a pediatrician, but it would be nice to have it work quickly and reliably and not have to depend on tired moms remembering meds.”

Jessa Slade: “Since world peace has been taken…

I’d like a smoothing spell.  It could go like this:

Twist me, knot me, crinkle me, nay.
When I wrinkle my nose this way
Every knot and twist in my day
Is oh so smoothly wiped away.

This would take care of age and bed-head related morning maintenance routines; laundry issues; interpersonal communications; traffic snarls; and possibly that world peace thing too.

You’d have to wear slip-on shoes all the time and you’d need a counteracting spell when you wanted kinky sex.  But other than that I think it’d be useful.”

Tina M.: “an insulated bubbled around my house to keep out all the noise I have in my neighborhood and it would also zap people who cross onto our property line (my property is not the public park people!).”

Ember Case: “nstant Cabana Boy Crew.
At a snap of my fingers, a whole crew of cabana boys (why stop with one when you can have a flock/swarm/harem) would instantly appear, willing to fulfil my every desire.  These cabana boys would be willing to do any dirty, nasty thing I wish.

You know what I mean - drive car pool.  Drop off the dry cleaning.  Pick up the limbs TS Fay blew down that still litter my yard.  Take out the trash.  Take the stack of packages to the post office.  Remember to do daily back ups of the mission critical files on the pc.

What did you think I meant?  ;)”

Isabeau: “One that I haven’t seen, that I totally wouldn’t mind at all, is a spell that would allow perfect communication.  Sometimes I’m pretty much nonverbal (because of pain/exhaustion/whatever) and would love to have, not telepathy, but an ability to find the words I need; sometimes I say one thing and the other person hears something completely different; this would take care of both those things, as it would allow me to say what needs to be said and allow the other person to hear what I mean.

...and if it extends to “putting the story I’m writing on paper exactly as it is in my head”, so much the better.”

Mahaira: “Since I live far far away, I can’t visit any book signing or RT book fair. I would love a spell that can help me go back and forth, havng fun with my fav authors. Also, it would be wonderful if I win all those awesome contests and comeback with loads of books and stuff!”

Cherbear: “For myself, I’d like extra time when I need it.  So I can get enough sleep, get my house cleaned, make dinner, get 2 kids to 2 different activities at opposite ends of the city, catch my train, do my hair, not be late for anything, get all my work done and not have to stay late. Well you get the picture.”

Katherine Dupuie: “If I had to pick a spell it would be to have my bills paid.  The stress would be gone and I could read and relax.”

LiJuun: “At all hours of the day, whenever I need a meal or a snack, one will pop up.  Food from all around the world, with exactly the type of nutrients I need at that moment, nothing I don’t need, and tasting exactly what I happen to be in the mood for right then.  Time for lunch?  A perfectly prepared Maine lobster would appear.  Dinner?  Moroccan lamb comin’ right up!  Feeling a bit peckish at around three?  A nice little dish of Kalamata olives would be nice.  The trick is to match what I need nutrition-wise to what I need taste/texture wise.

And, of course, if I’m at work, it will appear unobtrusively in a brown paper bag and take the form of something likely to be brought for lunch.  A salad from Greece or a sandwich from . . . someplace that’s famous for really good sandwiches.  The possibilities are endless!”

The degree to which authors in many genres are asked to serve as spokespeople for their books, marketing themselves as much as the book itself, is profoundly, in my opinion, bizarre to the point of being fucked up. But in the latter part of the last century, the romance novel authors who received the lion’s share of press were also those who lived to some degree that opulent fantasy lifestyle - or appeared to, anyway. Barbara Cartland and Danielle Steel come to mind. One dripping with pink and pearls, the other pictured in jewels and couture in her posh flat with art in the background.

So if authors are called upon to market themselves as well as the work, is it such a jump for a publisher to have a preference in conduct for that author? I’m not saying it’s appropriate or that it’s not profoundly insulting, but in the current marketing atmosphere, it doesn’t seem like this clause is coming out of nowhere.

But on the other hand, shouldn’t a publisher know better than the cast all its authors according to a stereotypical mold according to genre? Do the mystery writers have to wear trenchcoats and carry magnifying glasses when they go on tour? Are the romance writers going to get upper east side apartments or at the least a big string of pearls (literally, not figuratively!)? What about erotica writers? A no clothing clause? Holquist mentioned the same in her email to me, and I shudder to ponder the erotica author clause.

The Guardian article mocks the entire concept of the clause based on the number of titty-licious stars whose fame has led to contracts for children’s books, from Jordan to Madonna. But the part that really caught my eye:

Publishers often flirt with the idea that sanitisation equals success, presumably copying an American business model, and this is utterly, utterly wrong.

Agreed, ma’am. Utterly agreed. Meet you at the pub. 

My general reaction is, “Why not? Go for it. If you have something to say, say it.” Yes, it may alienate some readers. Yes, it may mean that people who don’t politically agree with you vow never to buy your books again! (Yeah, says I. Riiiight. I’ll believe it when I have access to their bookstore buying history.) Yes, it might raise a particular kerfuffle, but in the long run, these folks live in the same world I do and I am very curious as to what they think. But I mentally keep it separate from their work. They as people do a lot more in a day than merely writing the books I read. So of course they have things to say about taxes and war and expenditure and governmental oversight, etc.

But yet there’s that reticence. And I get it - I totally get it. But I am never comfortable keeping my own mouth shut because it might be better for someone else. John Scalzi agrees. When asked if fiction writers should write about politics, he replied:

The reader who believes a fiction author should keep his or her opinions to themselves is effectively (if generally unintentionally) saying “You exist only to amuse me. You are not allowed to do anything else.” To which the only rational response is: blow me.

I’m not going to hesitate to add my voice to the national dialogue on any subject just because someone somewhere might not be happy with what I have to say. And more to the point, I think it is bad and dangerous thinking for people to suggest that fiction writers should have to live in a black box of opinion.

[My apologies for not being able to remember who sent me that link. But you’re awesome!]

I concur heartily, and do want to hear what people think, or, at least, read about it. I think it’s a cousin to the Romancelandia culture of Be Nice Or Else that silences romance authors on the subject of politics when authors wish to discuss it - though obviously if you’d like to not talk about it, that’s totally understandable.

I’m always dumbstruck, though, by the idea that someone who sends me a video or web page that has to do with their political opinion often includes a “if you don’t support this person, I hope I didn’t offend you.” I am rarely offended if you disagree with me. Telling me I’m a horrible person with no moral compass because I disagree with you, well, that’s obnoxious to be sure. But disagreement itself isn’t offensive - just like offending someone isn’t the same as assaulting them (TM Robin). I hate that two people with different political viewpoints keep quiet when around one another because they might...disagree. Argue. Debate. Oh, shit, dialogue. That’s just terrible. Can’t have that. Holy crap.

So if you’re an author who is very politically exercised right now, do you keep silent on the subject? Do you keep your political commentary in a specific environment, such as your personal non-author-related blog? Does your political activism on your author blog extend to encouraging voting and political involvement but not discussions of a particular candidate? Does the relative prominence of your name as an author mean you’re less likely to be outspoken about your personal feelings about the current campaigns? Or do you prefer that romance be a politics-free zone, from the authors to their blogs?

What’s the fallout if an author you like takes a political stand that you don’t like, and really, does it matter? Is an absence of politics the only way to go when you’re trying to sell something, because we’re so polarized that alienating the sales base is bad idea jeans? What’s your take?

Sarah Dunant is quoted in the article touching on something that has captured my attention for months now: the use of any and all celebrity on the part of the author to market a book: “Looking at publishing ... it has been saturated with the notion of the creation of celebrity as a marketing opportunity ... There has to be a box, a place they can put you. I just find it annoying but it doesn’t stop me from writing exactly what I wish to write. This conversation between Margaret Drabble and myself was part of the larger observation that everything needs to be packaged, that writers cannot be who they are.”

Dame Margaret Drabble is quoted, “I write literary novels but I can sense my publishers have difficulty in selling me as a genre ... whether in literary fiction, or women’s fiction or shopping fiction. They don’t quite know whether I’m highbrow or literary....”

Brain is exploding, here. Point the first: the culture of celebrity affecting authors seems to only be growing, and I wonder at what point this fixation on celebrity and author-as-product will reach its apex and die the hell down already.

Point the second: visual recasting of novels? The Zuzu’s Petals example is fascinating. I didn’t think the first cover what all that awful, but apparently cartoon cherry blossoms and lithe women carrying mammoth handbags really captured bookstore retailers attention. I don’t necessarily see how that’s “dumbing down,” unless cartoon + obvious marketing ploy to women = dumbing down.

So retailers are still dictating title promotion and sale? If it looks good, it will be featured prominently? So will every novel go the way of older historicals, and sell with man-titty clinch covers up and down the bookshelves? I mean, if it works for older Gore Vidal novels what can it do for Oprah and Dan Brown? Ultimately, it’ll be a question for the ages - what should be bigger on the cover: the authors name, or the big buxom man titty?

Look, as readers, are we or are we not judging books, and authors, by their covers? I mean, if we’re going to be handed a superficial set of requirements as gatekeepers to our browsing selection, let’s just own it already and openly only sell books that that come with a solid cover art sample and, for God’s sake, a Botoxed author headshot with as much airbrushing as possible. It’s not the book - it’s the celebrity potential of the book image and the author image combined that move sales.

Now, who wants to slap a man-titty on their favorite non-man-tittied novel?

Thanks to Jane from DA for the heads up.

After my widely-read and underinformed indictment of the quality of romance novels as a genre, I’ve been challenged by Sarah and her friends at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books to read this, Vol. 388 (April 2008) of Harlequin’s Blaze series.  As a courtesy to my challengers (and all of those who voted to make this particular selection my sentence), I’ve decided to write about each chapter as I make my way through the book and send my remarks to Sarah so that she can do with them whatever she’d like to.

I don’t intend that the sum-total of my remarks should make up anything at all like a review.  Rather, I hope that my random observations might simply provide a rough impression of my view of the book as I proceed.  I also hope that those reading these notes will keep in mind that they’re likely far more used to the conventions of the genre than am I and that I’ll as often as not mistake this particular book’s quirks and idiosyncrasies for standard Harlequin formulas, just as I’ll mistake stock formulas for singular idiosyncrasies.  Mea culpa, in advance.

Enough yammering!  On to the good stuff…

Chapter 1: Diving In

Okay, the story so far: Adonis-like accountant and reluctant widower (wife killed in 9/11) Daniel O’Sullivan, no doubt one of the “sexy O’Sullivans” advertised on the book’s cover, reluctantly removes his wedding ring before reluctantly trudging off to a weekend at a time share with his brother’s law partners.  Mission: have fun (code for: get laid).

A few days pass in the space of a line, and hilariously well-educated but unselfconscious auction-house appraiser Catherine Montefiore (a Levantine Lorelei?) spies aforementioned Daniel (whom she compares to Odysseus) on the sand in front of her grandfather’s beach house and proceeds to sketch him stealthily while thinking illicit thoughts to herself, subjecting us to the book’s worst line yet: “There was art, and then there was man art.” (Close runner-up, a page an a half later: “Classical baroque art would have been altered forever if some Hamptons Hussy had turned Odysseus into Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky Melon-Grabber.”)

The conversational style of the prose makes this book refreshingly easy to read.  Then again, you get an occasional shot of words no man would never utter: “One woman’s crap is another woman’s soul mate.”

So far I’m not really hooked.  Sorry, y’all.

Chapter 2: Three Days Later

I’m back for the next round.  It’s gotten better.  The prose is a little less pretentious, the dialogue a little more natural.  This second chapter actually reads kind of like the transcript of a slightly-awkward first date, and while it’s not particularly engaging it’s believable.

I was pleased by the author’s decision not to make of our heroine Catherine Montefiore a brilliant chef de cuisine in addition to a casually talented sketch artist and expert art appraiser (“all that, and she can cook, too!”) after flirting with that possibility on page 28.

By the way, I wonder if it’s normal that I should find lines like the following one pretty frickin’ hilarious?: “He could feel the heat under his collar, the slow pound of his blood and the push of his cock against what had been a loose pair of shorts until he had found himself fascinated by a set of wistful brown eyes.”

My question for regular readers of the Blaze series: just what is it that distinguishes Blaze books from those in Harlequin’s other lines?  Are they particularly torrid?

On to the next chapter…

Chapter 3: Sex, Uninterrupted

Right away the second paragraph delivers a knee-slapper: “She’d been so caught up in the rare moment of being in the close proximity of such a man-man and now she’d blown it.”

What exactly is a “man-man”?

“Manly man?” Maggie asked.

“Nope, ‘man-man.’”

After this it’s a ten-page semi-literal description of a timorous sexual encounter.  I was vainly hoping to take in a few laughable euphemisms for the genitalia of both sexes.  “Purple-headed warrior” was one of Maggie’s favorites from her many years of reading historical romance.  The closest this book came to that was “velvety hardness.” Catherine’s girl-part is most elliptically described as “her opening.”

I think that’ll do for tonight.

I process formal complaints submitted by RWA members.  Formal complaints must be within RWA’s purview.  For example we can handle a complaint filed against a publishing company that is not paying royalties correctly, but cannot handle complaints against a company that is allowing less than professional behavior to occur, like name calling, etc.  We would hope that authors and industry professionals conduct their business in a professional manner, but it is not RWA’s role to police those relationships.  We only process complaints that involve contract violations. 

At the moment I report the complaints we have processed (in general terms) with interested members, but our plan is to add a column to our Market Update sections on the website that will indicate if a complaint has been filed against a company, with a clickable link that will then open a window that will explain the basic nature of the complaint and if the company resolved the complaint or not.  We are not going to say “don’t do business with this company”, but we will give the member more information to consider before they engage in a relationship with a company. 

I also review applications for the PAN (Published Author’s Network) membership. I manage the anti-piracy program at RWA. This involves reviewing websites, locating contact information and adding the site to the RWA list on our website.  And finally, I am the 2009 RITA and Golden Heart Contest coordinator. 

When we spoke in San Francisco and you were telling me some of your war stories, I was really impressed with your laid back but utterly pugnacious attitude when defending author rights in contracts. You told me then that you come from the Better Business Bureau - how has your experience there helped you in dealing with publishing houses?

Carol: I worked for the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Houston for 9 years.  As the Vice-President of Operations and Bureau Standards I was responsible for the Dispute Resolution department.  The Houston BBB handled about 25,000 complaints per year.  The complaints had to be vetted against the BBB’s standards. The BBB could not handle complaints against private individuals, or labor issues, malpractice, etc. 

This background in complaint resolution has been helpful at preparing for my job at RWA.  It taught me to remain neutral and ask the next question, to gain all of the facts of a situation prior to processing a complaint.  I learned at the BBB to remove all of the passion and anger from a complaint and to consider the facts. 

Understanding the nuances of a contract is especially helpful.  I learned early on that a contract is a roadmap for a relationship.  It spells out the expectations and requirements.  At RWA I review publishing contracts both for new publishing companies that want to be on our lists and contracts in complaints.  At the BBB I also learned how to dig for information and this has been helpful in dealing with anti-piracy. 

If you could give advice to authors and aspiring writers dealing with a publisher or contract from a publisher, what would it be?

Carol: First and foremost READ the contract. Every word of it! If there are parts of the contract you do not understand then ask for help.  Find a literary attorney, invest in their services for a couple of hours and ask for a review of the contract and explanations for anything you don’t understand.  Do not sign anything that you do not understand or makes you uncomfortable.  Hopefully you will have an agent to help negotiate a contract.  The agent should be looking out for you. 

Be careful in how much you grant in rights to your work.  Read the option clause and make sure it is specific and does not bind you or your future works forever.  You should not be expected to pay for editing, production or promotion of your work. 

I learned a long time ago to do my homework prior to any major purchase.  Yes, I’m one of those people that read Consumer Reports before I buy a car (or washer and dryer).  I check the BBB to see if a company has complaints.  I go to the Internet and read as much as possible before buying or signing a contract.  I think that aspiring writers and authors should do the same before submitting their work. Research the company.  If it is a publishing company that you are not familiar purchase a book from them.  Was the book delivered in a timely manger, how did the book look?  Pay attention to the editing. If you are a member of an RWA chapter ask your fellow members what they know about a company.  Research is a good thing. 

What changes would you like to see in the publishing world?

Carol: I would like to see the publishing industry go after the file-sharing or pirate sites in a big way.  When you go to the movies they play an anti-theft commercial for movies industry.  It would be great if they included something about books.  I honestly think that many of the people who are making books available on line for free (or the people downloading the books) do not realize they are breaking the law.  I think that they see it as different from the illegal downloads of music, movies or games.  So education should be a big part of whatever the publishing industry does. 

Thank you very much to Carol for taking the time to answer my nosy questions, and for the kicking of ass and taking of names. Good on you. 

This is the Sam Hain Francium Discover New Authors Program. Or, “Francium” for short. Why?

Because it’s the second rarest element on the periodic table? And Sam Hain is among those rare entities: a commercially viable, professionally-behaved e-publisher? With a website that doesn’t feature a buffet of typos and non sequiturs?

No. (Francium is also the least stable of the elements, and that does not at all apply to Sam Hain).

Is it because Francium does all sorts of wildly kinky chemical things, like coprecipitate with silicotungstate, and doesn’t “silicotungstate” sound like something mildly porny? And Sam Hain is known for the kinky Hott Sexxoring Stories?

No. (But “Silicotungstate” was totally fun to type and say out loud, as was “coprecipitate.")

Is it because Francium was invented by Marguerite Perey, a female scientist at the Curie Institute? And Sam Hain is founded and run by a team of women (plus Scott Carpenter, who I hear likes to choke a chicken on his business cards)?

Nope.

You probably already guessed - the periodic symbol for Francium is “Fr.” Which is half of the word FREE! So - half a free book to discover new authors? Francium.

No, no, Sam, don’t thank me. I’m here all week.