What? You say you're an adult and don't need a nanny when you're shopping for books? Too bad. Someone thinks you do, and whoever that someone is obviously has a lot of pull at Amazon, and has a particular axe to grind when it comes to GLBT books (that's books, not just fiction) and also some het erotica.
We've been tracking this issue for a few days now and have been trying to be fair, wondering about mistakes and glitches and computer hiccups. Erastes's Transgressions and Alex Beecroft's False Colors have been doing very well on Amazon for the last ten days or so, had been ranking in the top five for GLBT pretty consistently and often went one-two. False Colors had been selling well enough that it was close to hitting the bestseller list in "Romance" rather than just "GLBT Romance," which would've been a wonderful coup for Alex as well as her publisher.
Apparently someone objected to that, though, so the sales ranking data was stripped from both books, as well as quite a few others. Without that ranking data, a book won't show up on any bestseller list. God forbid that NICE people who are just searching for a good, wholesome romance have their eyes burned out by being forced to view the cover and title of False Colors. (Which, BTW, is a historical whose cover art has two guys fully clothed in historic Naval uniforms on it, nothing nasty or smutty or naked, unlike so many of the het romance covers which are apparently considered clean and pure and worthy of being displayed in the more general searches.)
If you're not sure what sales-ranking data has to do with searches or anything else, this is briefly how it works: When you do a search on, say, ROMANCE on Amazon, it gives you a list of all products which fit that term, listed in order of popularity, determined by how many copies have sold. Those sold copies contribute to the item's sales ranking; an item which ranks 3,820 on the ROMANCE bestseller list isn't as popular as one which ranks 249. Everyone wants a rank of 1. If a product doesn't have a sales ranking attached to it, it'll never appear anywhere on those search lists, since they're ordered by sales ranking and the list won't find a product without one.
The books are still listed on Amazon, are still available for purchase, and can still be found if you go specifically to the Books section (as opposed to using the search box on the front page) and enter the author's name or the title, but a customer who's just browsing a section rather than looking for a specific book or author will never see it. Stripping the sales ranking from a book doesn't make it completely unavailable, but it does cut down significantly on the number of people who'll see it, which cuts into the author's sales.
Mark Probst, whose book The Filly had its ranking stripped (despite being a historical YA with gay characters but no sexual content) wrote to Amazon to ask what was up. This is what they said:
In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage
So no, it's not any kind of glitch or error or oversight. The Filly and Transgressions and False Colors, along with Heather has Two Mommies and John Barrowman's autobiography and Stephen Fry's autobiography and Nathaniel Frank's Unfriendly Fire (which is a non-fiction examination of military policy) and hundreds of other books, some with sexual content and many without, have been deliberately targetted as "adult" material. Umm, right. Heather has Two Mommies is a children's book, and only the most narrow-minded of homophobic bigots would consider it to be "adult" material.
Oh, and in case you thought Amazon was stripping books with any mention of homosexuality, A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality is still ranked and shows up on search lists. So no, this isn't a case of some clumsy tech setting up too wide a target in the database and stripping the ranking from all books which mention GLBT topics or keywords; this is a very specific and targetted attack on books with friendly or positive treatments of GLBT subjects, plus whatever het erotica the censors think is ewwy enough to be swept up in the same net.
Unless of course it impacts the sales and promotion of Amazon's own Kindle and Kindle-proprietary e-books. Alex noted yesterday that Kindle versions of False Colors and Transgressions had become available as Kindle e-books, complete with rankings which will let the Kindle versions show up in searches and bestseller lists, but the paperback editions still have no sales rankings. I guess Amazon's concern for the children and the more narrow-minded of their customers only extends so far as other publishers' books; for their own pet project, they're willing to ignore morals and decency and do whatever it takes to make money. Wow, at least they're consistent. [/sarcasm]
This is being discussed all over so most of you have probably heard about it already in one form or another. Dear Author and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books are two of the larger sites discussing the story. It's worth reading the comments; there are many good comments and more details about what is and isn't being rank-stripped, as well as trackbacks to other discussions. Also note how many people are saying they're ready to stop shopping at Amazon over this, and how many writers have already stripped the Amazon buy-links from their blogs and web sites.
Smart Bitches also set up a Google Bomb to redefine "Amazon Rank" thusly:
amazon rank
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): amazon ranked
1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies).
2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.
Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com's website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include "Bastard Out of Carolina," "Lady Chatterly's Lover," prominent romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.
Example of usage: "I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterly's Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene."
Alternate usage: "My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay."
If you post about this issue, and I encourage you to do so, please include a link to that definition page. It's already the first entry shown whenever someone Googles "Amazon rank," but more is always better and will make it harder for Amazon or any publicity-doctor firm they hire to bury it.
The LA Times Blog has posted on the subject. At the time their article was written, Amazon had "not responded to the LA Times request for clarification." I'm sure that's because of the holiday, and the fact that no one's in the office or at all contactable, and not because Amazon's upper management is locked in a frantic meeting trying to figure out how the hell they're going to pull themselves out of this publicity disaster they've created.
Some people around the blogosphere are questioning why GLBT and erotica books are being censored while most het erotica and sexy romance books are not. Also mentioned are other possibly objectionable books which are still sales-ranked on Amazon. To me, the clear discrimination makes this even more of an outrage, yes, but saying, "Why strip this and not that?!" makes it sound like stripping the sales rankings off all these other books would make this okay.
It won't.
This isn't quite censorship but it's close, and as such it's a despicable thing no matter what is or isn't included. I don't want more het-oriented books stripped of their rankings to make this somehow more "fair." I want the sales rankings restored to all the books, so that I and every other customer can search for the kinds of books we want and know that we'll be shown all the relevant books, not just the ones that aren't too gay, or the ones that haven't been stripped yet, or the ones available in Kindle editions. I'm an adult, I don't need a nanny to "protect" me from making bad book choices, and I'm grossly offended that the views of a few narrow-minded people who apparently can't bear to even see the title and cover of a book they don't care to read are being given preference over the views of the rational and mature majority.
If Amazon doesn't fix this soon, I'll definitely be shopping elsewhere from now on.
Angie
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
New Column -- Writers' Obligations
I have a new column up at Romancing the Blog today. This time I'm talking about what writers owe to their readers. As usual, my take is that it's kind of complicated. :) Drop by and tell me what you think.
Angie
Angie
Monday, March 30, 2009
New Market
Holly Lisle is putting together a new sort of online magazine project based primarily around serials, although with some shorter one-shot stories too, and with issues grouped into "seasons." She explains it better than I do. :) Anyway, it's called Rebel Tales, is starting off as an F&SF market, and she has the preliminary writer's guidelines up.
The guidelines are worth reading even if you don't plan to submit; she has a refreshingly blunt, take-no-prisoners attitude toward people who submit without following instructions, or without being able to write terribly well, or without knowing what SF or Fantasy actually are, or even what a story is. I got a few chuckles while reading.
Angie
The guidelines are worth reading even if you don't plan to submit; she has a refreshingly blunt, take-no-prisoners attitude toward people who submit without following instructions, or without being able to write terribly well, or without knowing what SF or Fantasy actually are, or even what a story is. I got a few chuckles while reading.
Angie
More Expectations
Remember how I mentioned a couple of posts ago that the universe has been dropping "EXPECTATIONS" anvils on my head recently? I just got another one (Oww!) and thought I'd share.
I'm reading Sparks of Genius, by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, a book about creative thinking tools used by various genius-type people. It's really good so far, and I'll probably do a post about it when I'm done.
This bit caught my eye, though:
The mind's preconceptions can alter our other perceptual sensations, too. A simple example can be found in Zap Science, produced by the Exploratorium science museum of San Francisco. On page three of this stimulating book is a picture of a pizza covered with a removable piece of plastic labelled: "Mystery smell. Peel off and replace." The picture conjures in most people's minds the taste and smell of pizza. But, as the text says, "It doesn't smell like a pizza does it? It smells like... like... like... How come you can't think of the answer? Because we crossed up your mental wires. We put a picture of a pizza with the smell of a chocolate chip cookie. Messes up your brain." In fact, many who encounter the pizza picture find the cookie smell nauseating even though they like both pizza and chocolate chip cookies separately. Our mental expectations mediate perception just as certainly for touch, taste, smell, and hearing as for vision. [pg. 43]
That's pretty awesome, in and of itself. But it's also a great example of how our expectations can mess with our perception and enjoyment of what we actually get, if it's different from what we thought we were getting. If people who expected pizza can actually feel nausea at the smell of a chocolate chip cookie, then it's even less weird that someone who buys a book labelled Genre A will be at the very least annoyed when they read the book and find that it's actually Genre B.
People involved in marketing should be forced to study these phenomena.
Angie
I'm reading Sparks of Genius, by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, a book about creative thinking tools used by various genius-type people. It's really good so far, and I'll probably do a post about it when I'm done.
This bit caught my eye, though:
The mind's preconceptions can alter our other perceptual sensations, too. A simple example can be found in Zap Science, produced by the Exploratorium science museum of San Francisco. On page three of this stimulating book is a picture of a pizza covered with a removable piece of plastic labelled: "Mystery smell. Peel off and replace." The picture conjures in most people's minds the taste and smell of pizza. But, as the text says, "It doesn't smell like a pizza does it? It smells like... like... like... How come you can't think of the answer? Because we crossed up your mental wires. We put a picture of a pizza with the smell of a chocolate chip cookie. Messes up your brain." In fact, many who encounter the pizza picture find the cookie smell nauseating even though they like both pizza and chocolate chip cookies separately. Our mental expectations mediate perception just as certainly for touch, taste, smell, and hearing as for vision. [pg. 43]
That's pretty awesome, in and of itself. But it's also a great example of how our expectations can mess with our perception and enjoyment of what we actually get, if it's different from what we thought we were getting. If people who expected pizza can actually feel nausea at the smell of a chocolate chip cookie, then it's even less weird that someone who buys a book labelled Genre A will be at the very least annoyed when they read the book and find that it's actually Genre B.
People involved in marketing should be forced to study these phenomena.
Angie
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sticking the Landing
There's a Nonymouse over in a discussion on agent pitches at writers' conferences in Agent Kristin's blog who just Does Not Get why an agent would require a completed manuscript from a newbie writer. Just does not, no matter how it's explained. I tried one more time a little while ago and hopefully that'll make the lightbulb glow, but I'm not betting on it.
This person seems to think that absolutely anybody who sits down to write a novel can finish -- that it's easy, just a matter of having the time. Maybe for them it is, I don't know. But they're completely dismissing the possibility that someone who wants to write a novel might actually find that they're unable to, or that no matter how fantastic their idea is, or how perfect and sparkly their first hundred pages might be, there's always the possibility that fifty or a hundred pages after that they'll write themselves into a corner or fall into a pit and be unable to get out. There you go -- abandoned manuscript. I think most writers have them. Heck, I have a few myself, and probably over a dozen if you count all the shorter pieces I'll likely never get back to for whatever reason.
Personally, I've yet to finish anything novel length. I'm still cranking away on my current novel-length WIP, and although it's slowed way down over the last three months or so, I'm still working on it and still have hopes of finishing. But if I do, it'll be the first time. I have other pieces which were novels in potentia but which will never be finished; I just ran into a roadblock I couldn't overcome and... there you go. I was headed in the wrong direction, or tangled things too badly to ever straighten them out in a realistic way, or got discouraged to the point where I just can't bring myself to work on them anymore. I can think of three particularly early attempts (one started when I was thirteen) where I didn't have a clear understanding of exactly what a plot was when I started writing them; one was actually a series of episodes with whatever connective verbage I banged out before thinking of something new for the characters to do, and another was a lot of characters and motivations who searched hard for a main plot but never found one.
I don't regret writing any of them, though. They represent tens of thousands of words for the bit bucket, yes -- maybe even hundreds; I don't know because I never kept a tally and I don't have most of them anymore -- but they were all valuable as practice. Every one of those dead ends, no matter how frustrating they were at the time, have contributed to making me the writer I am now. And once I start finishing novels, there's an excellent chance that the first few of those won't sell either. As painful as it is to consider the possibility about something I'm currently working on, it is a possibility, and more than that it's a likelihood. But even if I end up with a novel or two or six in the trunk, completed but unpublishable, those will be practice too, and when I eventually do make it, anything and everything I've written will have helped me get there.
Sure, you hear about a writer every now and then who sells their first novel. Sometimes it's even a bestseller. Maybe Kristin's Nonymouse will be one of those people, I don't know. But for the other 99.99% of us, getting good enough to have a novel finished and published is a process, and it includes learning how to actually finish the book. There are a lot of steps in between deciding to try this novelist thing and actually getting a novel published, and every one of them is a necessary part of that process, including learning to get all the way to the end, wrap up the story and stick the landing.
Angie
This person seems to think that absolutely anybody who sits down to write a novel can finish -- that it's easy, just a matter of having the time. Maybe for them it is, I don't know. But they're completely dismissing the possibility that someone who wants to write a novel might actually find that they're unable to, or that no matter how fantastic their idea is, or how perfect and sparkly their first hundred pages might be, there's always the possibility that fifty or a hundred pages after that they'll write themselves into a corner or fall into a pit and be unable to get out. There you go -- abandoned manuscript. I think most writers have them. Heck, I have a few myself, and probably over a dozen if you count all the shorter pieces I'll likely never get back to for whatever reason.
Personally, I've yet to finish anything novel length. I'm still cranking away on my current novel-length WIP, and although it's slowed way down over the last three months or so, I'm still working on it and still have hopes of finishing. But if I do, it'll be the first time. I have other pieces which were novels in potentia but which will never be finished; I just ran into a roadblock I couldn't overcome and... there you go. I was headed in the wrong direction, or tangled things too badly to ever straighten them out in a realistic way, or got discouraged to the point where I just can't bring myself to work on them anymore. I can think of three particularly early attempts (one started when I was thirteen) where I didn't have a clear understanding of exactly what a plot was when I started writing them; one was actually a series of episodes with whatever connective verbage I banged out before thinking of something new for the characters to do, and another was a lot of characters and motivations who searched hard for a main plot but never found one.
I don't regret writing any of them, though. They represent tens of thousands of words for the bit bucket, yes -- maybe even hundreds; I don't know because I never kept a tally and I don't have most of them anymore -- but they were all valuable as practice. Every one of those dead ends, no matter how frustrating they were at the time, have contributed to making me the writer I am now. And once I start finishing novels, there's an excellent chance that the first few of those won't sell either. As painful as it is to consider the possibility about something I'm currently working on, it is a possibility, and more than that it's a likelihood. But even if I end up with a novel or two or six in the trunk, completed but unpublishable, those will be practice too, and when I eventually do make it, anything and everything I've written will have helped me get there.
Sure, you hear about a writer every now and then who sells their first novel. Sometimes it's even a bestseller. Maybe Kristin's Nonymouse will be one of those people, I don't know. But for the other 99.99% of us, getting good enough to have a novel finished and published is a process, and it includes learning how to actually finish the book. There are a lot of steps in between deciding to try this novelist thing and actually getting a novel published, and every one of them is a necessary part of that process, including learning to get all the way to the end, wrap up the story and stick the landing.
Angie
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Expectations
I've thought for a while that a big chunk of marketing (pimping, promoting, whatever you want to call it) is about managing expectations. Recently the universe has been dropping this concept onto my head like a series of anvils -- in a review of a book which wasn't quite what the reviewer was expecting, although she liked it anyway; in a couple of blog discussions about badly-researched historicals; and in a review I did recently for my publisher -- so before I go completely comatose from the multiple concussions, I thought I should talk about it.
About twenty years ago, I was a huge Alan Dean Foster fan; I always looked for anything new by him when I browsed the SF/Fantasy shelves at the bookstore. One day I saw a new book of his called Maori. It was set in 19th century New Zealand, which I'd barely heard of at the time, and it sounded interesting. I'd read a few historical fantasies before and this one seemed new and different, so I bought it and read it. And all through the story I was waiting for the "fantasy" part to begin. And waiting, and waiting and waiting. After a few hundred pages I'd gotten kind of annoyed. After all, if this was a historical fantasy, then the "real" plotline probably couldn't have begun until we actually, like, saw something magical, right? Well, the writer seemed to be taking a horribly long time to get on with it already, and then I got to the end and he never had.
Of course, it wasn't a historical fantasy -- it was straight historical fiction. It was a good historical, but it wasn't what I'd expected, so I spent the entire time I was reading it waiting and waiting, getting more and more annoyed and confused, and despite its being a good book, I didn't enjoy reading it because my expectations had been set up for a different experience.
My expectations had been based on a few things. First, it was Alan Dean Foster. I'd never known him to write anything before which wasn't SF or fantasy, so it seemed reasonable that this was too. Second, it was shelved in the SF/Fantasy section of the bookstore, which is usually a pretty good hint as to a book's genre. Third, the cover had the words "The epic historical fantasy of the year!" printed on it. So I don't feel too bad about making this mistake. [wry smile]
In this case, a good book -- and once I was finished, I could look back at the book and acknowledge that yes, it'd been a good story and well-written -- was ruined for me because the marketing led me to expect oranges and then gave me carrots. They're similar -- they're both produce, they're the same color, and they can both be described as "sweet" -- but when I'm set up to judge a product by its orange-ness, carrots are always going to fall short.
Some historical romance fans don't know and don't care that Arthurian-era Britons didn't use forks to eat, or that Arthur's knights wouldn't have worn full plate armor. They're just looking for a fun romp they can enjoy while kicking back with popcorn, they don't want to think too much, and what's fun for them is reading about two hot people having adventures and sex in cool costumes (and no, the women in that period didn't wear hoopskirts either) and maybe a couple of sword fights. Too much historical authenticity can actually be a turn-off for these folks; they've gotten their ideas about what the Middle Ages or King Arthur's Court are like from Hollywood and they don't want to be slapped in the face with the grim, dirty, flea-ridden reality of it.
Other historical romance fans are history buffs, or even have degrees in the subject. Having your Regency lady wearing her gloves at an inappropriate time will have them rolling their eyes and writing snarky blog posts. Describing your character as a Florentine Guelph and then showing him cheering the Emperor (unless of course he's trying to get close enough to slip that dagger between his ribs) would probably get your authorial persona burned in effigy. (And even without the flames, there'll be more snarky blog posts.) To a dedicated history fan, details are important, and you always have to assume you have readers who know more than you do, so you need to do your research and be thorough about it, and careful to get things right. Perfection is unattainable, of course, but it should always be your goal if you want to satisfy this group of readers.
Both kinds of books have their audience; each kind is preferred by some people and rejected by others. This is good news for authors who like writing one or the other type, but only if you make it clear what you're writing, so the readers who'd enjoy your book know that it is the kind they prefer. If you fool someone who likes rigorous historicals into buying your popcorn historical, you get their money that one time, but they're left with a negative experience associated with your name. There's a good chance they'll never buy another one of your books, even if you later start writing rigorous historicals. And they might feel iffy about your publisher, too.
Which isn't at all unfair, because much of the responsibility for marketing the book rests with the publisher, especially if it's one of the larger New York houses. If you're writing a popcorn historical and your publisher gives it serious art, and writes the cover copy to emphasize the sweep of historical events rather than the sex, adventure and humor which are its real strengths, the writer is pretty much hosed right along with the readers.
The problem isn't always a matter of overt marketing, though. Some writers or publishers become known for certain things; if 90% of the books published under a given label have romance plots, then readers will come to expect romance from those books. Even if a book doesn't have "The epic romance of the year!" printed on its cover [cough] if every other book a person has read by that writer or that publisher has been romantic, then they'll probably expect the next one to be romantic too. If it's not, then there's a good chance that reader will be disappointed, even if the book was excellent for what it was. When this kind of exception to a rule -- even an unspoken one -- is made, it's good for everyone, writer, readers and publishers alike, for the readers to have some way of knowing in advance just what they're getting. If they're set up for a genre romance and they don't get one, they're likely to be disappointed and annoyed. If they're set up for a mystery or an adventure or whatever the book is, they're more likely to enjoy the story because they're not waiting and waiting for the romance while they read, or left disappointed at the end when the main characters shrug and wander apart.
If you're selling carrots, make sure your sign says "CARROTS" in large, easily-read letters. Make it clear to the orange lovers that you're not selling oranges, market specifically to people who love carrots instead, and your customers will be happy. If you want to tap into the orange-lover market, get some oranges to sell; don't try to slip them carrots and hope for the best.
Which seems to be what Mr. Foster's publisher tried to do, twenty years ago. They knew his main audience was SF and fantasy fans, so they put "Fantasy!" on the cover of Maori, and the bookstores put it on the SF/Fantasy shelves. It went out of print pretty quickly; I don't know how well it sold, but I've never gotten the impression that it was a fan favorite. And that's a shame, because it deserves to be a favorite of the kind of readers who are fans of historical novels. Even if some bookstores put a few copies over on the Historical shelves, chances are anyone who preferred straight historicals would've avoided it because of the "historical fantasy" text on the cover. Mr. Foster and his book were screwed from both sides.
Looking at a list of all his published books, I just realized that after I read Maori was when I backed away from Alan Dean Foster's work. I still bought some of his books, but I was more likely to stick with series books I already knew I liked, and less likely to pick up his single-title books. He'd been on my buy-on-sight list before that point, and after that I no longer trusted that I'd always enjoy his work. I didn't even consciously realize it at the time; it's only now, looking at the timeline, that I see what I did and when. So whoever made the marketing decisions about Maori lost me as one of Mr. Foster's raving fans, one of the people who bought everything with his name on it. After that, I was only a regular fan, someone who bought his books occasionally. I wonder whether Ace thinks getting my $4.50 for Maori was worth that loss?
What really annoys me is that if it'd been marketed as the historical novel it was, I'd probably have bought it anyway, enjoyed it, and kept buying all of Mr. Foster's books. That's my loss as well as theirs.
Angie
About twenty years ago, I was a huge Alan Dean Foster fan; I always looked for anything new by him when I browsed the SF/Fantasy shelves at the bookstore. One day I saw a new book of his called Maori. It was set in 19th century New Zealand, which I'd barely heard of at the time, and it sounded interesting. I'd read a few historical fantasies before and this one seemed new and different, so I bought it and read it. And all through the story I was waiting for the "fantasy" part to begin. And waiting, and waiting and waiting. After a few hundred pages I'd gotten kind of annoyed. After all, if this was a historical fantasy, then the "real" plotline probably couldn't have begun until we actually, like, saw something magical, right? Well, the writer seemed to be taking a horribly long time to get on with it already, and then I got to the end and he never had.
Of course, it wasn't a historical fantasy -- it was straight historical fiction. It was a good historical, but it wasn't what I'd expected, so I spent the entire time I was reading it waiting and waiting, getting more and more annoyed and confused, and despite its being a good book, I didn't enjoy reading it because my expectations had been set up for a different experience.
My expectations had been based on a few things. First, it was Alan Dean Foster. I'd never known him to write anything before which wasn't SF or fantasy, so it seemed reasonable that this was too. Second, it was shelved in the SF/Fantasy section of the bookstore, which is usually a pretty good hint as to a book's genre. Third, the cover had the words "The epic historical fantasy of the year!" printed on it. So I don't feel too bad about making this mistake. [wry smile]
In this case, a good book -- and once I was finished, I could look back at the book and acknowledge that yes, it'd been a good story and well-written -- was ruined for me because the marketing led me to expect oranges and then gave me carrots. They're similar -- they're both produce, they're the same color, and they can both be described as "sweet" -- but when I'm set up to judge a product by its orange-ness, carrots are always going to fall short.
Some historical romance fans don't know and don't care that Arthurian-era Britons didn't use forks to eat, or that Arthur's knights wouldn't have worn full plate armor. They're just looking for a fun romp they can enjoy while kicking back with popcorn, they don't want to think too much, and what's fun for them is reading about two hot people having adventures and sex in cool costumes (and no, the women in that period didn't wear hoopskirts either) and maybe a couple of sword fights. Too much historical authenticity can actually be a turn-off for these folks; they've gotten their ideas about what the Middle Ages or King Arthur's Court are like from Hollywood and they don't want to be slapped in the face with the grim, dirty, flea-ridden reality of it.
Other historical romance fans are history buffs, or even have degrees in the subject. Having your Regency lady wearing her gloves at an inappropriate time will have them rolling their eyes and writing snarky blog posts. Describing your character as a Florentine Guelph and then showing him cheering the Emperor (unless of course he's trying to get close enough to slip that dagger between his ribs) would probably get your authorial persona burned in effigy. (And even without the flames, there'll be more snarky blog posts.) To a dedicated history fan, details are important, and you always have to assume you have readers who know more than you do, so you need to do your research and be thorough about it, and careful to get things right. Perfection is unattainable, of course, but it should always be your goal if you want to satisfy this group of readers.
Both kinds of books have their audience; each kind is preferred by some people and rejected by others. This is good news for authors who like writing one or the other type, but only if you make it clear what you're writing, so the readers who'd enjoy your book know that it is the kind they prefer. If you fool someone who likes rigorous historicals into buying your popcorn historical, you get their money that one time, but they're left with a negative experience associated with your name. There's a good chance they'll never buy another one of your books, even if you later start writing rigorous historicals. And they might feel iffy about your publisher, too.
Which isn't at all unfair, because much of the responsibility for marketing the book rests with the publisher, especially if it's one of the larger New York houses. If you're writing a popcorn historical and your publisher gives it serious art, and writes the cover copy to emphasize the sweep of historical events rather than the sex, adventure and humor which are its real strengths, the writer is pretty much hosed right along with the readers.
The problem isn't always a matter of overt marketing, though. Some writers or publishers become known for certain things; if 90% of the books published under a given label have romance plots, then readers will come to expect romance from those books. Even if a book doesn't have "The epic romance of the year!" printed on its cover [cough] if every other book a person has read by that writer or that publisher has been romantic, then they'll probably expect the next one to be romantic too. If it's not, then there's a good chance that reader will be disappointed, even if the book was excellent for what it was. When this kind of exception to a rule -- even an unspoken one -- is made, it's good for everyone, writer, readers and publishers alike, for the readers to have some way of knowing in advance just what they're getting. If they're set up for a genre romance and they don't get one, they're likely to be disappointed and annoyed. If they're set up for a mystery or an adventure or whatever the book is, they're more likely to enjoy the story because they're not waiting and waiting for the romance while they read, or left disappointed at the end when the main characters shrug and wander apart.
If you're selling carrots, make sure your sign says "CARROTS" in large, easily-read letters. Make it clear to the orange lovers that you're not selling oranges, market specifically to people who love carrots instead, and your customers will be happy. If you want to tap into the orange-lover market, get some oranges to sell; don't try to slip them carrots and hope for the best.
Which seems to be what Mr. Foster's publisher tried to do, twenty years ago. They knew his main audience was SF and fantasy fans, so they put "Fantasy!" on the cover of Maori, and the bookstores put it on the SF/Fantasy shelves. It went out of print pretty quickly; I don't know how well it sold, but I've never gotten the impression that it was a fan favorite. And that's a shame, because it deserves to be a favorite of the kind of readers who are fans of historical novels. Even if some bookstores put a few copies over on the Historical shelves, chances are anyone who preferred straight historicals would've avoided it because of the "historical fantasy" text on the cover. Mr. Foster and his book were screwed from both sides.
Looking at a list of all his published books, I just realized that after I read Maori was when I backed away from Alan Dean Foster's work. I still bought some of his books, but I was more likely to stick with series books I already knew I liked, and less likely to pick up his single-title books. He'd been on my buy-on-sight list before that point, and after that I no longer trusted that I'd always enjoy his work. I didn't even consciously realize it at the time; it's only now, looking at the timeline, that I see what I did and when. So whoever made the marketing decisions about Maori lost me as one of Mr. Foster's raving fans, one of the people who bought everything with his name on it. After that, I was only a regular fan, someone who bought his books occasionally. I wonder whether Ace thinks getting my $4.50 for Maori was worth that loss?
What really annoys me is that if it'd been marketed as the historical novel it was, I'd probably have bought it anyway, enjoyed it, and kept buying all of Mr. Foster's books. That's my loss as well as theirs.
Angie
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Review of "A Spirit of Vengeance"
Boylove_Addict over on LJ posted a great review of Spirit of Vengeance the other day:
A Spirit of Vengeance by Angela Benedetti
Josh is lost in grief after the gruesome murder of his beloved partner Kevin, until he realizes that Kevin is dead, but not gone. Kevin haunts Josh, because he wants revenge. Yet in staying in the "living" plane, he gives Josh a chance to think, a chance to act, a chance to heal, a chance to say good bye and most importantly a chance to stay alive. Kevin might claim to be an angry spirit of vengeance, but I would say he is a loving spirit of protection.
Angela delivers a poignant story about love and life in the face of tragedy. Those brave enough to go along for the ride will find it entertaining, beautiful and very touching. Just know that it is the ride and not the destination that counts in this wonderful story.
I'm thrilled that she enjoyed it and grateful for the wonderful comments. :D
Angie
A Spirit of Vengeance by Angela Benedetti
Josh is lost in grief after the gruesome murder of his beloved partner Kevin, until he realizes that Kevin is dead, but not gone. Kevin haunts Josh, because he wants revenge. Yet in staying in the "living" plane, he gives Josh a chance to think, a chance to act, a chance to heal, a chance to say good bye and most importantly a chance to stay alive. Kevin might claim to be an angry spirit of vengeance, but I would say he is a loving spirit of protection.
Angela delivers a poignant story about love and life in the face of tragedy. Those brave enough to go along for the ride will find it entertaining, beautiful and very touching. Just know that it is the ride and not the destination that counts in this wonderful story.
I'm thrilled that she enjoyed it and grateful for the wonderful comments. :D
Angie
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Awesome Technological Advances :D
One of the comics I read regularly is Penny Arcade, and this comic spoofing all the "OOoo! Ahhhh! Whoooaa!" about e-book readers lately made me snicker. Thought I'd share. :D
Angie
Angie
Inspiration vs. Perspiration
There's a discussion going on at Nathan Bransford's place about what writers owe their readers, in the context of sequels and delays and missed deadlines. It's interesting in its own right, but what struck me was the thread in the comments about inspiration and the muse and how impossible it is to write anything at all unless the planets are properly aligned, or whatever each individual writer takes as a sign that It Is Time To Be Creative Now.
I've run into other writers saying similar things, both online and in writing books and articles. But I've also seen writers saying the exact opposite, and it seems to be mostly the full time writers, the ones who pay all their bills with their keyboards, who think that the whole muse/inspiration thing is a lot of hooey and whining. As Mercedes Lackey puts it, all that's needed is to apply seat of pants to seat of chair and do the work. According to her, writer's block just means you don't feel like doing the work, but you get a lot more sympathy and petting if you say you're blocked than if you say you don't feel like working.
Me, I'm kind of in the middle. For me, there are times when the words just flow (my fondest writing memory at this point is last October, when I cranked out 40K words of my WIP in two weeks) and there are times when I have to hunt every word down with a flashlight and pliers. I have some techniques I can use to get past a blockage, but they all take focus and concentration, and there are times when I can't muster either one.
I'm bipolar, which I've mentioned before, and my moods (which affect such things as ambition and energy level) are subject to the whims of my wildly veering brain chemistry. When I'm in a low, I can't scrape together enough ambition or energy to do much of anything at all. When I'm sort of in the middle I'm just like everyone else, and the writing is usually work but I can do it if I decide to, including working through a block.
When I'm in a high, well, it depends what kind. The best kind is what I think of as a productive high -- lots of energy and ambition, the confidence to believe I can do anything at all [this is the part known as "mania," which is where the "manic" part of manic-depressive comes from, and no, it doesn't necessarily lead one to thoughts of taking over the world ;) ] and I do some of my best work, no matter what kind of work I'm doing, when I'm in this chunk of my cycle. Some highs are less productive, though, and if I'm irritable (pissed at the world, snappish, no patience of any kind) or if thoughts are racing around in my head so furiously I can't grab on to any of them, work is pretty much out the window.
[BTW, I have no problem talking about any of this. If anyone is thinking about writing a bipolar character, or is just curious, feel free to post here or e-mail me and I'll be happy to answer questions.]
Of course, the times I enjoy writing most is when I'm on a productive high. Story ideas pour out, and I have enough focus to concentrate on a single story and make significant progress with it. Even when I'm in the mid-range, though, I can usually manage. I might have to kick my butt to get it into gear, and put in some Seat Of Pants In Seat Of Chair time to work through whatever problems might crop up, but I can do it, and if I don't it's my own fault.
Recognizing where I am can be a problem, though. It's a forest-and-trees thing, where the person experiencing an episode is too close to the issue, and possibly too judgement-impaired, to be able to spot what's going on. I don't know how often it's suddenly hit me that, hey, I've been depressed for a while now. Or, wow, irritable high! Sorry, everyone! (The recognition usually hits after the fact, unfortunately, when I've shifted back a bit and my judgement is better.) So there are times when I'm trying to make the words come and they just won't, I can't focus enough to work on a story because there are six or ten other ideas all shouting at me from behind my eyeballs, and trying to chase them down is just pointless and frustrating. I'd rather do that, though, than not try to work when I could if I only would try, you know? Although I'm not successful at making that happen a hundred percent of the time, either. :/
That's me. It's hardly ever boring [wry smile] but I deal with it as best I can, and occasionally I crank out a story I think is pretty good.
How about you? Where does your opinion fall on the inspiration-vs.-perspiration scale, and what do you do about block?
Angie
I've run into other writers saying similar things, both online and in writing books and articles. But I've also seen writers saying the exact opposite, and it seems to be mostly the full time writers, the ones who pay all their bills with their keyboards, who think that the whole muse/inspiration thing is a lot of hooey and whining. As Mercedes Lackey puts it, all that's needed is to apply seat of pants to seat of chair and do the work. According to her, writer's block just means you don't feel like doing the work, but you get a lot more sympathy and petting if you say you're blocked than if you say you don't feel like working.
Me, I'm kind of in the middle. For me, there are times when the words just flow (my fondest writing memory at this point is last October, when I cranked out 40K words of my WIP in two weeks) and there are times when I have to hunt every word down with a flashlight and pliers. I have some techniques I can use to get past a blockage, but they all take focus and concentration, and there are times when I can't muster either one.
I'm bipolar, which I've mentioned before, and my moods (which affect such things as ambition and energy level) are subject to the whims of my wildly veering brain chemistry. When I'm in a low, I can't scrape together enough ambition or energy to do much of anything at all. When I'm sort of in the middle I'm just like everyone else, and the writing is usually work but I can do it if I decide to, including working through a block.
When I'm in a high, well, it depends what kind. The best kind is what I think of as a productive high -- lots of energy and ambition, the confidence to believe I can do anything at all [this is the part known as "mania," which is where the "manic" part of manic-depressive comes from, and no, it doesn't necessarily lead one to thoughts of taking over the world ;) ] and I do some of my best work, no matter what kind of work I'm doing, when I'm in this chunk of my cycle. Some highs are less productive, though, and if I'm irritable (pissed at the world, snappish, no patience of any kind) or if thoughts are racing around in my head so furiously I can't grab on to any of them, work is pretty much out the window.
[BTW, I have no problem talking about any of this. If anyone is thinking about writing a bipolar character, or is just curious, feel free to post here or e-mail me and I'll be happy to answer questions.]
Of course, the times I enjoy writing most is when I'm on a productive high. Story ideas pour out, and I have enough focus to concentrate on a single story and make significant progress with it. Even when I'm in the mid-range, though, I can usually manage. I might have to kick my butt to get it into gear, and put in some Seat Of Pants In Seat Of Chair time to work through whatever problems might crop up, but I can do it, and if I don't it's my own fault.
Recognizing where I am can be a problem, though. It's a forest-and-trees thing, where the person experiencing an episode is too close to the issue, and possibly too judgement-impaired, to be able to spot what's going on. I don't know how often it's suddenly hit me that, hey, I've been depressed for a while now. Or, wow, irritable high! Sorry, everyone! (The recognition usually hits after the fact, unfortunately, when I've shifted back a bit and my judgement is better.) So there are times when I'm trying to make the words come and they just won't, I can't focus enough to work on a story because there are six or ten other ideas all shouting at me from behind my eyeballs, and trying to chase them down is just pointless and frustrating. I'd rather do that, though, than not try to work when I could if I only would try, you know? Although I'm not successful at making that happen a hundred percent of the time, either. :/
That's me. It's hardly ever boring [wry smile] but I deal with it as best I can, and occasionally I crank out a story I think is pretty good.
How about you? Where does your opinion fall on the inspiration-vs.-perspiration scale, and what do you do about block?
Angie
Friday, March 13, 2009
In the Mail
I just got a cool certificate in the mail today (or yesterday now, I guess) from EPIC, for being an EPPIE finalist. It's really nice, around 10x13 or so (I'm too lazy to dig up a ruler) on parchmentish paper, with full-color printing. It came in a folder, too, rather than just being stuck into the envelope. I think my husband was more excited than I was, LOL! We're going to get a frame for it and hang it in the computer room. :D
I didn't know the finalists got certificates, so it was nice to get. Good on the EPPIE committee for doing this.
If you want to see what the certificate looks like, Cat Grant posted a pic of hers. Mine's just the same, but with my info and book cover.
Angie
I didn't know the finalists got certificates, so it was nice to get. Good on the EPPIE committee for doing this.
If you want to see what the certificate looks like, Cat Grant posted a pic of hers. Mine's just the same, but with my info and book cover.
Angie
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
On the Organization of Bookstores
Carleen has a poll over at White Readers Meet Black Authors, asking whether bookstores should have a section for African American fiction. Head over and leave your opinion.
Me, I have a few thoughts, which tend to distill down to "This is complicated."
Because basically, it's all about authors wanting readers to find (and buy, and read) their books, and readers wanting to find books they'd want to buy and read. So there's actually a larger issue here of bookstore organization in general, as opposed to just a question of whether books by Black authors should all be shelved together in their own section. So where will readers most easily find books by Black authors?
Well, if the main criterion readers are searching by is the race of the author, then having a special section for Black authors might be the way to go. Want Black authors? African American section. Want Hispanic authors? Latin@ American section. Want Asian authors? Asian American section. Want gay authors? Gay Studies section. (Which is its own issue, because shelving novels with sociological studies, sex manuals, gay history and gay travel guides does not sell a lot of fiction.) Want white authors? Ummm... well, that's the rest of the store, basically.
Which is where my main problem with this kind of sorting comes from. Giving each group its own little ghetto-shelf in the store doesn't do very much to encourage people to buy books by writers who aren't just like them. And by "people" I mainly mean "white people" here, because a Black reader who wants SF has to go to the SF section, and an Asian reader who wants romance has to go to the romance section; it's not like there are duplicate stores complete with genre sections for each racial group. They might browse through "their" race's special lit section too, but they'll hardly ever find anyone else in that aisle.
Reading other discussions of this subject, I've seen people of color, both readers and writers, commenting with about equal energy and numbers on either side of the issue, and there is another side to it. If it's mainly Black people buying books by Black writers, then putting all the Black writers in one section makes it easier for the target audience to find them. For writers, it's playing to their core audience, and for readers, it lets them hit one spot in the bookstore instead of rambling all over.
To me, this seems like surrendering to the racial barriers, though. It'd never occurred to me, for example, that there were romance novels with Black characters until someone online mentioned them. Once I thought about it, sure, it made perfect sense that Black women would want to read romances too, and would want to have books about people like themselves. But they weren't (and even now, still generally aren't) shelved with the rest of the romances, so readers who just want "romances" without having any particular preference about the race of the main characters won't find anything but white romances unless they think to go looking in the African American Lit section, or wherever that particular store or chain has the Black romances stashed. Impulse buys on the part of the other 80% of the reader market are forfeited when the books aren't shelved in the place where most readers looking for a given genre would go looking for them.
The argument, though, is that virtually all the people who would actually buy the book are going to be looking in the "Whatever-American Lit" section, that putting the book somewhere else will forfeit the purchases of people who shop there and not in the genre section (and there are people who do that -- I've seen them arguing in favor of the special sections on that very basis) while gaining few or no new readers from the genre section. It's a smaller market, but it's theirs and these authors don't want to miss out on a chunk of it by gambling on maybes.
Fair enough.
I think it's a shame, though, that people who might well be interested in a book by a writer of color, whether they're consciously looking to choose books by writers with a variety of backgrounds or whether they just think that some book which caught their eye looks interesting regardless of the author's race, are unlikely to ever run across such books in stores where they're all sorted away into their "special" sections.
I don't think this situation can be solved to everyone's satisfaction, unfortunately. Someone in the comments to Carleen's post suggested shelving books in both places -- the special ethnic section and the relevant genre section. That sounds good in theory, but unless you're already a pretty great seller, getting a bookstore to stock multiples of your book can be tough. Heck, these days getting them to stock one copy can be tough. And I've never worked in a bookstore, but there are probably inventory and tracking issues with cross-shelving too.
Brick-and-mortar stores are just too limited to solve this problem. Luckily it's not the only option.
This is a situation e-commerce handles perfectly. Since there are no issues around the physical location of the books, it's just a matter of building your search database to handle any sort of query a customer might have. Want books by Black authors? Ask for a list. Want SF books by Black authors? You can have that too.
Or you should be able to have it -- there's no technical reason why "romance novel 'Black author'" should be an impossible search. Practical application lags, unfortunately (just try to find those Black SF authors' books at Amazon, for example) but the potential is there; it only requires making use of the available tools.
If online bookstores realize we want to be able to search this way, then there's no reason they couldn't virtually shelve any book in as many "sections" as will help readers find it. Beloved could be in "African American Lit" and "Literature" and "Fantasy" and "Bestsellers" and "Books-into-Movies" and anywhere else anyone can think of to put it. Or rather, it can carry any other tags or keywords anyone can think to hang on it. Any individual book can be found in a dozen different places around the virtual bookstore, giving its author the greatest chance of catching the eye of a new reader or being found by their core audience.
Everyone wins.
Angie
Me, I have a few thoughts, which tend to distill down to "This is complicated."
Because basically, it's all about authors wanting readers to find (and buy, and read) their books, and readers wanting to find books they'd want to buy and read. So there's actually a larger issue here of bookstore organization in general, as opposed to just a question of whether books by Black authors should all be shelved together in their own section. So where will readers most easily find books by Black authors?
Well, if the main criterion readers are searching by is the race of the author, then having a special section for Black authors might be the way to go. Want Black authors? African American section. Want Hispanic authors? Latin@ American section. Want Asian authors? Asian American section. Want gay authors? Gay Studies section. (Which is its own issue, because shelving novels with sociological studies, sex manuals, gay history and gay travel guides does not sell a lot of fiction.) Want white authors? Ummm... well, that's the rest of the store, basically.
Which is where my main problem with this kind of sorting comes from. Giving each group its own little ghetto-shelf in the store doesn't do very much to encourage people to buy books by writers who aren't just like them. And by "people" I mainly mean "white people" here, because a Black reader who wants SF has to go to the SF section, and an Asian reader who wants romance has to go to the romance section; it's not like there are duplicate stores complete with genre sections for each racial group. They might browse through "their" race's special lit section too, but they'll hardly ever find anyone else in that aisle.
Reading other discussions of this subject, I've seen people of color, both readers and writers, commenting with about equal energy and numbers on either side of the issue, and there is another side to it. If it's mainly Black people buying books by Black writers, then putting all the Black writers in one section makes it easier for the target audience to find them. For writers, it's playing to their core audience, and for readers, it lets them hit one spot in the bookstore instead of rambling all over.
To me, this seems like surrendering to the racial barriers, though. It'd never occurred to me, for example, that there were romance novels with Black characters until someone online mentioned them. Once I thought about it, sure, it made perfect sense that Black women would want to read romances too, and would want to have books about people like themselves. But they weren't (and even now, still generally aren't) shelved with the rest of the romances, so readers who just want "romances" without having any particular preference about the race of the main characters won't find anything but white romances unless they think to go looking in the African American Lit section, or wherever that particular store or chain has the Black romances stashed. Impulse buys on the part of the other 80% of the reader market are forfeited when the books aren't shelved in the place where most readers looking for a given genre would go looking for them.
The argument, though, is that virtually all the people who would actually buy the book are going to be looking in the "Whatever-American Lit" section, that putting the book somewhere else will forfeit the purchases of people who shop there and not in the genre section (and there are people who do that -- I've seen them arguing in favor of the special sections on that very basis) while gaining few or no new readers from the genre section. It's a smaller market, but it's theirs and these authors don't want to miss out on a chunk of it by gambling on maybes.
Fair enough.
I think it's a shame, though, that people who might well be interested in a book by a writer of color, whether they're consciously looking to choose books by writers with a variety of backgrounds or whether they just think that some book which caught their eye looks interesting regardless of the author's race, are unlikely to ever run across such books in stores where they're all sorted away into their "special" sections.
I don't think this situation can be solved to everyone's satisfaction, unfortunately. Someone in the comments to Carleen's post suggested shelving books in both places -- the special ethnic section and the relevant genre section. That sounds good in theory, but unless you're already a pretty great seller, getting a bookstore to stock multiples of your book can be tough. Heck, these days getting them to stock one copy can be tough. And I've never worked in a bookstore, but there are probably inventory and tracking issues with cross-shelving too.
Brick-and-mortar stores are just too limited to solve this problem. Luckily it's not the only option.
This is a situation e-commerce handles perfectly. Since there are no issues around the physical location of the books, it's just a matter of building your search database to handle any sort of query a customer might have. Want books by Black authors? Ask for a list. Want SF books by Black authors? You can have that too.
Or you should be able to have it -- there's no technical reason why "romance novel 'Black author'" should be an impossible search. Practical application lags, unfortunately (just try to find those Black SF authors' books at Amazon, for example) but the potential is there; it only requires making use of the available tools.
If online bookstores realize we want to be able to search this way, then there's no reason they couldn't virtually shelve any book in as many "sections" as will help readers find it. Beloved could be in "African American Lit" and "Literature" and "Fantasy" and "Bestsellers" and "Books-into-Movies" and anywhere else anyone can think of to put it. Or rather, it can carry any other tags or keywords anyone can think to hang on it. Any individual book can be found in a dozen different places around the virtual bookstore, giving its author the greatest chance of catching the eye of a new reader or being found by their core audience.
Everyone wins.
Angie
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
And the Winner Is....
Not me, but then I wasn't really expecting it. :) EPIC got the list of EPPIE winners up and Cat 15 was won by Rick Reed for Orientation.
I have to say that I was expecting Rick to win. Oh, not at first. I mean, "Spirit of Vengeance" is one of my favorite of my own stories, and I figured I had a decent chance. I wanted to check out the competition, though -- and besides, the finalists list was bound to have some pretty good books on it -- so I started reading the other Cat 15 finalists. I thought I still had a decent shot all the way to the end, when I read the last book, Orientation.
Not that it's last on the list, but it's the last one I read. Why? Because the plot summary sounds... well, I have to say, kind of iffy. It's a reincarnation plot, which can go either way, and the (gay male) protag's lover dies and comes back as a woman, which just has "Train Wreck" written all over it. I mean, you know? Maybe it's because I'm a writer, or maybe it's just because I've done a lot of reading, but for whatever reason I've noticed that there are certain plots or devices which are incredibly difficult to do well, and most writers who tackle them seem to end up in the weeds. This is one of those plots that a less than stellar writer could smear all over the landscape -- I had images of a "straight for you" sort of storyline, where the guy is gay but he loves the soul inside this woman so much that he turns straight just for her or something, which just.... No. You know? The gay community already gets enough crap from idiots who think they could just "decide" to be straight if they really wanted to, and said idiots don't need any encouragement.
But these problematic plotline types are also the kind that a really excellent writer can turn into gold, and that's what Rick did. He handles everything beautifully -- the characters sound real, the reincarnation device isn't too twee or completely woo-woo, and it isn't really the central pivot around which all the characters' development arcs turn. The secondary characters are appropriately well developed, even the protag's current lover in the here-and-now section; he's a selfish little druggie jerkwad who's completely consumed by and focused on his addiction, but Rick shows us (without rambling on and on about it) how he got that way and who he was before, and lets us see the shreds of the person he was still buried inside him. I empathized with him, and wouldn't mind seeing a book about him later on; I hope his recovery goes well.
There's a bit of action, but this isn't an action book and isn't trying to pretend it is. There's drama but it doesn't go over into melodrama. There's barely any sexual content, which is fine because what's there is what the story needs and no more, just the way I like it. There's just enough of everything, not too much, and it all fits just right and balances. And the last chapter is perfect -- I was holding my breath all the way to the end on the possibility of a straight-for-you ending, but Rick didn't go there, and where he went fits the characters and ties everything off just neatly enough.
Excellent book -- highly recommended. I don't at all mind losing to this one.
Angie
I have to say that I was expecting Rick to win. Oh, not at first. I mean, "Spirit of Vengeance" is one of my favorite of my own stories, and I figured I had a decent chance. I wanted to check out the competition, though -- and besides, the finalists list was bound to have some pretty good books on it -- so I started reading the other Cat 15 finalists. I thought I still had a decent shot all the way to the end, when I read the last book, Orientation.
Not that it's last on the list, but it's the last one I read. Why? Because the plot summary sounds... well, I have to say, kind of iffy. It's a reincarnation plot, which can go either way, and the (gay male) protag's lover dies and comes back as a woman, which just has "Train Wreck" written all over it. I mean, you know? Maybe it's because I'm a writer, or maybe it's just because I've done a lot of reading, but for whatever reason I've noticed that there are certain plots or devices which are incredibly difficult to do well, and most writers who tackle them seem to end up in the weeds. This is one of those plots that a less than stellar writer could smear all over the landscape -- I had images of a "straight for you" sort of storyline, where the guy is gay but he loves the soul inside this woman so much that he turns straight just for her or something, which just.... No. You know? The gay community already gets enough crap from idiots who think they could just "decide" to be straight if they really wanted to, and said idiots don't need any encouragement.
But these problematic plotline types are also the kind that a really excellent writer can turn into gold, and that's what Rick did. He handles everything beautifully -- the characters sound real, the reincarnation device isn't too twee or completely woo-woo, and it isn't really the central pivot around which all the characters' development arcs turn. The secondary characters are appropriately well developed, even the protag's current lover in the here-and-now section; he's a selfish little druggie jerkwad who's completely consumed by and focused on his addiction, but Rick shows us (without rambling on and on about it) how he got that way and who he was before, and lets us see the shreds of the person he was still buried inside him. I empathized with him, and wouldn't mind seeing a book about him later on; I hope his recovery goes well.
There's a bit of action, but this isn't an action book and isn't trying to pretend it is. There's drama but it doesn't go over into melodrama. There's barely any sexual content, which is fine because what's there is what the story needs and no more, just the way I like it. There's just enough of everything, not too much, and it all fits just right and balances. And the last chapter is perfect -- I was holding my breath all the way to the end on the possibility of a straight-for-you ending, but Rick didn't go there, and where he went fits the characters and ties everything off just neatly enough.
Excellent book -- highly recommended. I don't at all mind losing to this one.
Angie
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Resurfacing
Yes, I'm still alive, although it was a near thing for a while, or at least it felt like a near thing. Last Sunday night I became violently sick and blogging's been the last thing on my mind ever since.
I am not, as you might have guessed by now, at EPICon. :( I went to the doctor on Wednesday (which tells you just how bad it was -- it takes a lot of nausea etc. to get me into a doctor's office, since they generally tell you to drink clear liquids, get lots of rest, maybe take something Pepto Bismolish, and wait it out, sending you home with a short list of bland foods you can eat once you can eat anything at all, and in what order to add in more complex kinds of things, none of which advice I need, nor have for many years, thanks anyway) and since it'd been going on for three days at that point, my doctor actually gave me some pills along with the above-mentioned advice. He also gave me a note saying I shouldn't travel for a week, with which we can collect on the travel insurance my husband presciently took out on this trip however many weeks ago when he booked my plane tickets. We're still out a "fee" of about $150, but the tickets were like $280, so it was worth taking my queasy stomach on two very short cab rides, I suppose. Oh, and the diagnosis is gastritis, which seems to mean just "upset stomach." [bemused smile]
Anyway, I've been mostly sleeping and was living on Gatorade and the aforementioned Pepto Bismol for several days straight. I tried dry toast on Tuesday and that didn't work. After getting home from the doctor's office on Wednesday I tried plain rice, and that stayed down, yay. I've since tried the toast again, plus some applesauce and a couple of bananas, and everything seems to be processing well. I took my life in my hands last night and put some actual butter on my toast, and nothing untoward occurred during the night, so I'm feeling quite optimistic at this point.
When not immediately concerned with matters digestive, and not asleep, I mainly lay there thinking about whatever crossed my mind. Am I the only writer who lies around while sick thinking about fictional scenarios where the protagonist is deathly ill? Imagining how to describe all the feelings and fears, each visceral detail, all the completely reframed points of view one gains while sick and weak and lightheaded and so completely miserable that one might actually welcome, say, a violent home invader and think of ways of provoking same into actually opening fire and putting one out of one's misery...?
We'll have to see if any of the coming year's characters end up at death's door. Most likely not :D although I'll admit to still feeling tempted by the sheer vividness of the perceptions, and the sharpness of focus one gains when one's entire sensory existence is concentrated in just a few cubic inches....
Anyway, I'm grossly behind again so I beg forgiveness in advance if I end up just skipping a few things, or if I still sound a bit loopy when commenting. [cough]
Angie
I am not, as you might have guessed by now, at EPICon. :( I went to the doctor on Wednesday (which tells you just how bad it was -- it takes a lot of nausea etc. to get me into a doctor's office, since they generally tell you to drink clear liquids, get lots of rest, maybe take something Pepto Bismolish, and wait it out, sending you home with a short list of bland foods you can eat once you can eat anything at all, and in what order to add in more complex kinds of things, none of which advice I need, nor have for many years, thanks anyway) and since it'd been going on for three days at that point, my doctor actually gave me some pills along with the above-mentioned advice. He also gave me a note saying I shouldn't travel for a week, with which we can collect on the travel insurance my husband presciently took out on this trip however many weeks ago when he booked my plane tickets. We're still out a "fee" of about $150, but the tickets were like $280, so it was worth taking my queasy stomach on two very short cab rides, I suppose. Oh, and the diagnosis is gastritis, which seems to mean just "upset stomach." [bemused smile]
Anyway, I've been mostly sleeping and was living on Gatorade and the aforementioned Pepto Bismol for several days straight. I tried dry toast on Tuesday and that didn't work. After getting home from the doctor's office on Wednesday I tried plain rice, and that stayed down, yay. I've since tried the toast again, plus some applesauce and a couple of bananas, and everything seems to be processing well. I took my life in my hands last night and put some actual butter on my toast, and nothing untoward occurred during the night, so I'm feeling quite optimistic at this point.
When not immediately concerned with matters digestive, and not asleep, I mainly lay there thinking about whatever crossed my mind. Am I the only writer who lies around while sick thinking about fictional scenarios where the protagonist is deathly ill? Imagining how to describe all the feelings and fears, each visceral detail, all the completely reframed points of view one gains while sick and weak and lightheaded and so completely miserable that one might actually welcome, say, a violent home invader and think of ways of provoking same into actually opening fire and putting one out of one's misery...?
We'll have to see if any of the coming year's characters end up at death's door. Most likely not :D although I'll admit to still feeling tempted by the sheer vividness of the perceptions, and the sharpness of focus one gains when one's entire sensory existence is concentrated in just a few cubic inches....
Anyway, I'm grossly behind again so I beg forgiveness in advance if I end up just skipping a few things, or if I still sound a bit loopy when commenting. [cough]
Angie
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Challenge -- February
So when I first signed up for Aerin's writing challenge, I was thinking that I'd have been done with my Huge WIP of Doom way before now and I'd have some fiction I could actually, like, post here. I've been stumbling on that, though, and so it's still chugging along, and since it's fanfic I'm not going to post it here.
I did start an original story, after glancing at the calendar and doing the "Ack!" thing, but while I did get a nice beginning down in a file, it's clunky first-draft stuff (too much telling, too much worldbuilding) so I'm not posting that either.
So I'm going to have to go with the bare numbers -- which are still going to have me hiding under my keyboard because February was not a good month for me -- and I did 3704 words this last month. [cringe]
Massive ick. I'm looking at this as my low point for the year; it can only go up from here on out. Right? I hope so! :D
Angie
I did start an original story, after glancing at the calendar and doing the "Ack!" thing, but while I did get a nice beginning down in a file, it's clunky first-draft stuff (too much telling, too much worldbuilding) so I'm not posting that either.
So I'm going to have to go with the bare numbers -- which are still going to have me hiding under my keyboard because February was not a good month for me -- and I did 3704 words this last month. [cringe]
Massive ick. I'm looking at this as my low point for the year; it can only go up from here on out. Right? I hope so! :D
Angie
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Cards Arrived
My business cards showed up and I'm very pleased with them. The cards look good, the photo looks good, they showed up six days after I put in the order (despite my paying for 3-7 business day shipping -- usually I expect actual performance to be on the long side of those ranges), and my order came with a 15% off code for a future order. (Although it expires at the end of the year, and I can't imagine needing another set of cards by then. They do offer other items, though, so maybe I'll get something else in a while.)
Anyway, I definitely recommend iPrint.com.
Angie
Anyway, I definitely recommend iPrint.com.
Angie
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