The HEA Cafe

Authors have a real love/hate relationship with reviewers that crosses genre and category boundaries. Good reviews make us want to jump around the room and can keep us giddy for days. Bad reviews can elicit anger, embarrassment or even depression in some authors who are on the sensitive side (I’m not one of them, FWIW.) The bigger the status of the reviewer, the bigger the elation or let-down. For a paperback paranormal romance author such as myself, a good review in RT, PNR, Locus or Science Fiction Book Club is the equivalent of the New York Times for a hardback literary author. Authors know how valuable good advance reviews can be toward print runs, and how quickly a bad review can mean the end of a book (and possibly a career.) So, we send out our books with hopeful trepidation, wishing for the five stars, five blue ribbons, five champagne glasses or whatever the magazine/newspaper/website or blog uses, but fearing a three star “average” rating or worse—the dreaded one star. Yikes!

A lot of 5-star ratings well in advance of publication can mean book buyers for chain stores or secondary markets (WalMart, airport stores, groceries) will look more favorably on the title and potentially offer special deals for advertising which will make it stand out better in stores.

But what can a one-star review in a major publication mean to an author? Same thing in reverse. Those same buyers might lower the number they order to stock, fearing a dud. That can mean tens of thousands of copies that WON’T be printed. That makes it difficult for both fans and casual new potential readers to find the book, so often they won’t realize a new book is out there.

And yet, we keep sending them out, crossing our fingers each time. Cie and I post EVERY review on our website . . . good or bad. A number of author friends have asked why we subject ourselves to the torture. Why do we spend the time to create PDF versions of our books to send out to dozens of reviewers? Why do we spend the postage to mail out more dozens of Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) to others? The simple truth is that I know the kind of reader who likes our kind of books reads reviews, and we’re new enough in the game that plenty of people have never heard of our books. So, the more reviews that are out there, the more readers are exposed to our books, and the better chance for the reader to get an unbiased view of the book.

Ah, yes—now we’re into the meat of the subject. Are reviews biased? Are reviews nothing more than author promotion, instead of valuable reader education? Are magazines and websites afraid to diss a book for fear of making an enemy of an author? Rumors are whispered on reading loops and groups, wondering whether a book that received praise from a prominent reviewer, but flames from readers, was based on the amount of dollars spent on the flashing banner ad on the front page, or the four-color full page ad in the magazine. Are reviewers influenced by money or editor pressure? After all, some magazines will review a book ONLY if money is spent on an ad, and even respected review veterans like Kirkus are taking heat for allowing “paid-for” reviews to appear on its pages. Can journalistic integrity be maintained when gold is crossing palms?

The problem is that authors look at reviews for different reasons than readers, so the question of bias is valid. Authors are looking for sound bites . . . a “recommended read” JPG, or 5-star image to place on their site, or favorable bits of the review that can be posted on future cover jackets, touted on websites and grace advertisements to woo new readers. Authors work hard to stay in the good graces of reviewers, keeping them “in the loop” about new offerings, having drinks, meeting for lunch at conferences. Reviewers and their employers know this.

But readers are looking for the “down and dirty.” They want to know ALL the negatives, from plot holes a mile wide to “too stupid to live” heroines. With up to 250 new romances on the shelf each month (not to mention the other genres!) readers want to be convinced that a book is worth their hard-earned money. The more the pocketbook is tight, the tougher the readers want the reviews to be.

Of course, review sites and magazines depend on QUANTITY of reviews, because it makes them relevant and keeps readers returning day after day. But the deluge of new print and e-titles each month makes it nearly impossible to keep up the quantity without affecting the quality. Reviewers and site owners (some of them, anyway) like to be paid for their work and have to maintain their web presence. Payment can only come with income. Income often comes from advertising by authors and publishers. It’s a vicious cycle. But the fewer reviewers a site/magazine has, the more likely they are to become irrelevant because they aren’t meeting the readers’ needs. So, what sometimes happens are “lick and a promise” reviews, where reviewers only read ten pages at the beginning, ten in the middle and ten at the end—which may not give the whole story. Still, “dust jacket” reviewers can easily put out fifty to a hundred reviews a month over the twenty to thirty that a slower, more thorough reader can manage.

Unfortunately, when plot elements are taken from the back of jacket covers on ARCs, or the book is flipped through casually, it shows. One early review of our first book had the wrong person becoming a werewolf, and for the wrong reason. Another on our new October release misinformed readers (because they apparently only read an early, and incorrect, cover jacket) and gave the wrong job to the wrong person.

In my opinion, review sites and magazines do a disservice to readers when the plot recitation in the review makes it obvious the book wasn’t read in full (if at all.) If plot logic and characterization are left at the door, the reader suffers. A review has no value if it only has fluff inside—when terms like “brilliant” and “mesmerizing” are used in conjunction with a 3-star ranking. Romantic Times long ago eliminated the 5 star rating. When I asked a senior reviewer why the highest review that could be obtained is a 4-1/2 Gold, the answer was simple. “No book is perfect.” And as much as we authors hate to admit it, no book is.

But does an author actually want a fair review? Wouldn’t we rather have every single book have five star, five roses, five ribbons, Top Pick, Recommended Read reviews? Well, of course we would, but not at the price of our integrity! Even the most sensitive among us don’t want false praise. It’s like having confetti thrown on you every day you show up for work. Sure, it’s nice and flattering for a while, but quickly gets old. It also diminishes your true achievements. When you really do go above and beyond the call, what’s left to say? How will a reader know a true masterpiece from a “fun beach read” when the same words are used to describe both? How will a true masterpiece that will someday be compared to Jane Austin or Margaret Mitchell be found if the reviews give the wrong plot details? So, reviews do have value. The words have the power to sway.

The problem is with bad reviews that so many authors keep silent about them. Very seldom do I hear of authors who actually contact the review site or magazine management to complain about a wrong review—not just unflattering, but flat WRONG. I’m one of the few that actually does. Because if a character name is spelled wrong or a detail is way out of whack, it doesn’t just affect the book, it affects the good name of the review site. The more errors that occur that are allowed to slide, the more readers will find the reviews on that site to be valueless—all the reviews.

Overall, I think reviews matter enough that we authors bite our tongue and cross our fingers. They’re a valuable service to all involved. So long as reviewers remember that they’re really in the service of READERS, then their relationship with authors will always be an uneasy truce . . . of the very best kind.

“Give the Lady What She Wants”– Marshall Field

If you grew up near Chicago as I did, the name of the famous Chicago Department Store, “Marshall Field’s,” possessed an allure of fine shopping, elegance and class.

But I never realized until I was doing my research for BLESSED ASSURANCE that the department store concept was a 19^th century social movement. No! I’m not kidding! In the emerging more urban culture, men had saloons to gather in daily but what social institution did “the ladies” have to go to?

Well, Marshall Field decided it should be his store! And he designed a place where every woman—by just walking through the door—became a “lady.”  With a tea room to meet her friends for lunch or just a cup of tea and conversation. A place where a liveried boy opened the door for her and a store which boasted marble floors and Greek columns and sparkling display counters.

Needless to say, Marshall Field’s was a success. His guiding principles were: “best quality, attractively presented, customers received with courteous and considerate treatment. Nothing petty or little.”

Originally there were three partners: Potter Palmer, Marshall Field, and Levi Leiter in 1852.

Potter Palmer built the store at the corner of State Street and Washington for $350,000 (and that’s in gold standard money—whew!). The store had six stories and was made of limestone and Canaan marble with fronted Corinthian columns. It was finished in the summer of 1868. Field and Leiter rented it for the sum of $50,000 per year.

The gala opening was heralded by the “Chicago Tribune”: “The formal opening by Field, Leiter and Company of Potter Palmer’s new marble palace on the corner of Washington and State was the grandest affair of its kinds which ever transpired even in Chicago, the city of grand affairs.”

This is what I love about historical research. I’d been to Marshall Field’s many times since I was a child who pressed my nose up to their windows watching the exciting Christmas window displays that were a Chicago must see every December.  And I never realized that it was part of a social movement!

After I’d written four complete historical romances and failed to get any of them published, despite good contest results,  personal rejection letters and a great deal of encouragement from my then agent, I began to feel a bit frustrated. I knew that my writing was okay, but I couldn’t control the state of the market, which was cooling on historicals, the sub-genre I loved to write.
I wanted to be published so badly that my first instinct was to chase the market. I was certain I could write something with a vampire or a werewolf in it. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? Yes, it could. I wasn’t interested enough to make the story great and I also realized that by the time I wrote the book the market might have changed again. It also occurred to me that if it did get published I might get stuck writing books I wasn’t passionate about and that was not good. So should I stick to my guns, continue to write the books I was passionate about and wait around a few years for the market to come around again? That option didn’t exactly inspire me either.

Determined to find a way out of this dilemma, I tried to look at the problem from another angle. What did I do well in my historicals that could translate into another sub-genre? I asked my agent, my critique partners and anyone who had ever read a single sentence of my work. The answers I received where all pretty similar. The main one being that my books were HOT! That was a good start. So I looked around at the other sub-genres and contemplated where I might be able to use that ability. I discounted inspirational, mysteries and suspense, vampires and shapeshifters were also out and realized there were a few left I could try.

The next step was the big one. I gave myself permission to take a year to write some different sub-genres and see what happened. I decided to write a futuristic/science fiction novel, a contemporary hot novel aimed at Blaze and a historical erotic romance. I also gave myself permission to push myself out of my comfort zone, to forget my mother and that people might end up reading all this crazy stuff and just write it as it wanted to be written. I also figured that even if I didn’t sell any of these books they would all teach me something.

That was four years ago. I sold the short erotic historical to Ellora’s Cave. The contemporary erotic to Virgin ‘Cheek’ and the futuristic/science fiction thing is currently being shopped by my new agent. Okay, this might sound a bit too good to be true, but by challenging myself, looking for my strengths and manipulating them to find a different market, I ended up being able to write my scorching historicals for Aphrodisia after all.

But the first step on that path was taking a chance and trying to meld my abilities with the current market. The second was selling a 27,000 word erotic historical written in first person to Ellora’s Cave. That gave me a publishing credit and the rest followed on from there.

So, here’s my advice, for what it’s worth If you are frustrated and defeated by the current state of the romance market and don’t want to chase trends, look inward, find your writerly strengths and see what you can do with them. You might be surprised. I certainly was

Wikipedia defines writer’s block as a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity.  What they don’t mention is that your brain feels like it has been cryogenically frozen, your fingers cramp from their position of hovering over the keyboard, waiting for inspiration, and your heart races from the panic attack of thinking you’ll never write again.

Until writer’s block smacked me upside the head, I’d believed that writer’s block didn’t really exist.  You just sat down and wrote through it, right?  Ha!  If someone said that to me after I’d sat at my computer for two hours and stared at the screen where I’d ended the last scene, I’d have been tempted to choke them.  I had absolutely no idea where my characters needed or wanted to go next.

What to do?  I went to the best source of help available – my fellow writers on the message boards of RWA Online.  Suggestions included talking it out with someone, a critique partner, friend or family member, go back and reread the previous chapters, raise the stakes, go back and add or change the tension, or cut the last scene out entirely and start over.

What worked for me?  I had to cut the last scene and raise the stakes.  I didn’t have enough conflict and my h/h were spending too much time sitting and talking and not acting.

How do you get past writer’s block?

I’ve been thinking and thinking for days what I’d blog about today. Earlier, I was thinking aloud as I often do (thinking aloud not talking to myself mind you . Well, my daughter butted in on the conversation I was having with myself and said, “Blog about how great your family is.” She smiled. “Tell them how I got up after you only asked me once and hugged you this morning.” 

You know, that really was nice.  A pleasant way to start my day. To make things even nicer - as my daughter also pointed out - I only had to ask her brother to get out of bed twice. 

That there was nothing short of a miracle. 

What a child. She’s almost eleven, and sometimes her wisdom surprises me. And it’s not only because of her bright ideas regarding my blogging. See one day last week, I again was mulling over how to fit writing time into already crowded days. My daughter said, “Mom, why don’t you just write for fun?”  

I thought, “Why not?” 

Who would have thought words so simply put would lead to a breakthrough for me? But they were.  

Well, one thing lead to another as those things often do and I started thinking about when I first truly discovered the joy of writing. I ended up pulling out a box of old notebooks filled with all of the novels I wrote in elementary school and junior high. Not only did I think, “Hey, there might be some good YA stories here,” but that was how I was going to do it. Write for fun. So my wise daughter and I headed out to the store and bought some brand new notebooks to fill my stories with. Now I’m carrying one everywhere. Writing during lunch at work. On my commute to and from work. 

You know what? I’m having fun. And I owe it all to a girl who’s about to celebrate her golden birthday on the 11th.  

Until next month, Joie