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

Trouble is, when Tor launched their new site, there weren’t ebooks for sale. Some are available for the Kindle, but not all. The free books Tor had offered were often the first of a series, and there were a few vocal readers who were upset because they’d had a gulp of the sexy, sultry beverage that is ebooks, and they wanted to read the rest of the series in digital form. Tor doesn’t have much in the way of ebook offerings for those series, and folks are much disgruntled. Meadows’ gripe with Tor rests partially on frustration with Tor’s decision to pimp the ebooks without having the follow up novels ready in digital form, and partially on his personal frustration with Tor’s response to the online complaints.

It looks like Tor generated a heaping pile of interest in its ebooks, and at present isn’t able to fulfill the demand of that interest. Tor gave away ebooks to generate interest in their site and while plenty of the comments at that thread are thankful and giddy over the new books and new authors and new reading material oh glee, plenty more are not as into the idea of a new site as they are into the idea of the next book in the series in digital form… which isn’t necessarily available. So customers who sampled the series and are content with paper are happy. Customers who sampled the series and are curious about the publisher’s blog-format website are happy. But customers who sampled a series as an ebook and want to continue reading digitally are not happy. Commence comment flaming, general use of exclamation points and italics, requests that folks get thicker skin, and rogue flouncing.

Kerfuffle aside, I’m curious as to whether it’s a relatively small phenomenon, this cracktastic element to the ebook. Have you made the switch? Do you want all publishers to issue ebooks (oh, behold the wisdom of the Harlequin. Tor, seriously, take a look at the Harlequin. Take a goooood loooooong digital look. All books digital = MAJOR YUM of AWESOME SAUCE. Srsly.) and are they your preferred media for reading material? 

If you’re looking to try a writing contest, or think you have the Harlequin/Mills & Boon Modern Heat style, there’s a Feel the Heat Writing Competition going on now through 15 September. Winner gets the services of an editor for a year (which begs the question: does the editor come over and do laundry, or are we talking writing-only services? Because I’ve met some rather stylish editors, and if they’d like to go shopping with me and give me wardrobe tips, I’m so down with that).

Thank you to the legions of people who immediately emailed me that all of us can now Join HoffSpace, The Hoff’s new social network hosted at his web site. I’m completely transfixed by the exclamation point at the end of the following: “This is the official David Hasselhoff Social Network. Let’s socialize!” (Yes, of course I have signed up. I am member 13,733 of his network. That means there are 13, 732 people who are cooler -and faster- than me).

I’ve had this article open on my desktop for weeks now, and keep forgetting to link to it: foreign graphic novels like Monsieur Jean are well-received in the US. I admit to being clueless about all things graphic, from novels to manga, but yet again, there’s that interesting bit of info: Yaoi, which is gay romance manga, is very popular among American women readers. Iiiinteresting.

Did you know that Portia Da Costa wrote Dr. Who’s Eighth Doctor as the hero of her book The Stranger? Take a look at what Behind the Sofa has to say. That’s one more way to sneak those who aren’t familiar with the genre into its tender, addictive clutches. Mwwwahahahaha.

Online book store and literacy charity Better World Books is part bookstore, part literacy fundraiser, and part social networking matchmaker. Dr. Laura of the Professors Brilliant sent me a link to this video, where two books are looking for their soul mates.

“Have you ever been part of a trilogy?” *SNERK*