I’m in the throes of preparing for Thanksgiving, but here is a quick links post:
Nora Roberts is profiled in the Guardian. It is the typical focus on her sales, output, work ethic, and personal history, with some expanded defense of the genre. Except for overuse (by which I mean a number of uses greater than zero) of the word “feisty”, a fun read.
***
More coverage of the romance genre, as Brisbane’s Sunday Courier Mail profiles several romance novelists. I love this article, because it highlights a reader-reviewer, Kate Cuthbert (@katididnoz on Twitter), as well as making clear that different romance writers write different kinds of books (Anna Campbell reflecting on her rejection by Mills & Boon, says “Perhaps my style of writing didn’t suit Mills & Boon,” says Campbell. “I suppose I am more of an ‘epic’ type of writer. (But) I loved the escapism they brought to me as a child.”) [via @Bookthingo].
***
Drama erupted on Twitter Friday as the fact that the #Fridayreads folks take money from publishers to feature certain books upset the folks who thought it was a reader-only phenomenon. RambleRamble has a short post on it, including a mention of some other ways publishers pay for readers to see their books, as does Katherine Catmull.
It’s true that this information was in the FridayReads.com FAQ, which is great. But I suppose I am in the same boat as most people, in that I had no idea there was a FridayReads blog, nor a FAQ. So it is probably a good thing that the disclosure happened in the place most people engage with FridayReads.
I’m not sure who fired the first salvo in this drama, but I do know that a few days prior, author Jennifer Weiner was tweeting angry tweets about #fridayreads because the same folks are involved with a book site, Book Riot, the latter of which mentioned her in an unflattering way (the post was Why aren’t Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult pissed at Jeffrey Eugenidies?).
***
It’s the 13th annual Transgender Day of remembrance. Stats on why this day is needed from The F Word. See Transgender.org for more.
***
Here’s a post by writer James Buchanan on Presentation, Perception, and Reality. Buchanan, a multipublished author of gay romance, identifies as a Dom, a gender bender, and a bisexual.
***
A very funny Breaking Dawn summary. With dolls.
***
And a roundup of the seven harshest reviews of the movie from Time.
***
Liz at Something More is blogging about the experience of listening to Stephanie Laurens on audio. Liz distinguishes pleasurable and unpleasurable types of repetition.
***
A nice Wall Street Journal story on Epic (really loooong) Marriages and how they work.
***
Martin Scorcese is bringing Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman to the big screen.
Happy Sunday!
Related posts:
Lovely links – especially James Buchanan’s moving blog post.
Very nice links – Especially loved the link to Epic Marriages and was fascinated by Evelyn Lauder’s final comment – recognizing that children are possibly one of the toughest breaking points for most marriages. After giving it some thought came to the conclusion that at least where my husband and I are concerned that is true – most of our tougher times have been centered around raising our 2 terrors. Nice to know we just have to bide our time – only 18 years (new terror on the way) or so to go .
[...] Book-related links from ReadReactReview. [...]
The above comments are from http://jenniferweiner.blogspot.com/2011/11/by-now-people-who-follow-publishing.html Jennifer Weiner’s latest blog on the subject of #fridayreads. From my perspective, the folks behind it seemed to have learned a valuable lesson. Although they did disclose, they are now disclosing much more transparently. I’ll continue to add my 2 cents to #fridayreads if and when I feel like it because it’s interesting to see what other folks are reading. What I really could relate to in Weiner’s blog is folks saying to her, “If you knew her, you’d never say that.” Really? All is forgiven and we shouldn’t even raise issues if we “know” someone?
Anyone can screw up but it’s how you handle the fallout that separates the women from the girls — I thought the kerfuffle, really more than a kerfuffle, around Wendell’s Simple Progress custom marketing strategies for online media deserved an explanation that was respectful of the issue and didn’t call out the messengers. Going forward, I would have expected an updated FAQ in her updated website. When I read Weiner’s blog, what resonated for me was her flat out refusal to be placed in the naive, what did you expect, everybody does it bucket. Good for her.