Mallory Kane's Blog

SELF-E, Connecting Indie Books, Libraries and Readers

Libraries are driving a new era of ebook discovery for indie authors and small presses. SELF-e helps develop robust local writing communities and keeps libraries at the center of the indie book movement. SELF-E is found at http://self-e.libraryjournal.com/

Tonight, November 2, 2015, is my second special report about what I learned at the Novelists Inc. Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida in early October of this year.

Novelists Inc, or NINC, is the international organization of multi-published authors. It is THE professional network for career novelists.

This week, I’m talking about SELF-E. That’s S E L F dash E.

To tell you what I learned about SELF-E at the Novelists Inc. Writers’ Conference, I must tell you a little bit about the man who spoke about it: Porter Anderson is a career journalist whose venues have included three of Time Warner’s CNN networks, the Village Voice, Thought Catalog, the Bookseller, Publishing Perspectives, the Dallas Times Herald, Dallas Observer, D Magazine, the Tampa Tribune, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, and other media.

Porter wears many hats. Just some of them are:

Associate Editor curating TheFutureBook.net

Works with The Bookseller.

#FutureChat live discussions on Twitter, each week

“Writing on the Ether” columns — which were originally created for JaneFriedman.com — at ThoughtCatalog.com in New York.

Music for Writers columns,

SELF-e

Frankfurt Book Fair’s terrific Business Club

Master Class series of the all-new Business Club offering at Frankfurt Book Fair’s Halle 4,

Authoright

and many, many more.

At the NINC conference and at many other venues, Porter has been introducing to authors the Library Journal and BiblioBoard program SELF-e.

@LibrarySELF-e, as it’s handled on Twitter, gives independent authors — and traditionally published authors who have the e-rights to their backlists — a chance to submit their ebooks for presentation to their states’ libraries, and to the United States’ library system in a way that assists harried librarians who are all but overwhelmed by new levels of digitally-enabled publishing.

So indie and traditionally published authors alike may be asking, but Mallory? Porter? Why would I want my books in libraries? Well, authors. Would it surprise you to know that readers already know the answer to this question? And if you think just a moment, you’ll figure it out too. But listen up children, because I’m about to tell you.

Just about Everyone now realizes that Self-publishing is a valid and important option for many authors. Whether aiming to produce a bestseller, distribute information or preserve a personal history, each author is contributing to the community in a significant way and deserves access to patrons across the nation.

“Over 50 percent of all library users go on to purchase ebooks by an author they were introduced to in the library.”

Library Journal’s Patron Profiles: Understanding the behavior and preferences of U.S. public library

With state collections, the national SELF-e Select Collections and SELF-E’s ongoing contests, there are many ways for authors to get recognized in their local communities and beyond.

“The number one challenge any author has is building an audience. Once they have an audience, they have an opportunity to grow their work professionally. Librarians can be a powerful marketing force for emerging authors, especially if they can promote the books without fear of success. The SELF-e approach to curation (or ‘oversight’) combined with simultaneous user-access will encourage books to be discovered and even go viral.”

–Hugh Howey, Best-selling self-published author, 2 million plus books sold

“Libraries are all about readers and writers connecting. Since so many of my new readers discover my books via their local libraries, it’s vital that all my books, whether traditionally published or self-published, be easily accessible to library patrons. The SELF-E program helps librarians to better serve readers and authors to grow their audience, creating a perfect synergy of benefit to all book-lovers.”

CJ Lyons, Best-selling self-published author

2 million plus books sold

So in a greatly condensed form, there you have a few good reasons to pursue the option of submitting your ebooks for presentation to your states’ libraries, and to the United States’ library system.

The website is http://self-e.libraryjournal.com/#authors

I would encourage authors to check out this free opportunity. And Yes, I said FREE. Like many other programs that were spotlighted and discussed at NINC, the SELF-E program is free. But, you might say, I can’t make any money by submitting my books to libraries.

No. SELF-E is not an income stream. However, it very will might be an all-important step in obtaining that maximum visibility and discoverability that most of us are wishing for.

As a matter of disclosure, let me state that I have no connection with, vested interest in or collaboration with SELF-E or Porter Anderson. I’m just letting folks know about some of the things I learned from the Novelists Inc Conference I attended in early October of this year.

Mallory Kane

UBER-REVIEWER DIES:

Donna, prior to beginning my topic for tonight, I do have a piece of news that will be of interest to almost all authors and to many, many reviewers and readers. Iconic uber-reviewer and good friend of mine, Harriet Klausner, has died at age 63. Harriet was Amazon’s #1 reviewer with an incredible 31,014 reviews at the time of her death. A former librarian and self-acclaimed speed-reader, Harriet read 4 to 6 books daily. I’ve visited her house several times and seen manuscripts piled as high as a New York editor’s desk. She also was intimately familiar with almost all romance writers and could name books by them that she had reviewed.

In 2006, Harriet was named by TIME Magazine as a person of the year under the heading of influences of American taste and culture. To quote TIME, “Klausner is part of a quiet revolution in the way American taste gets made. The influence of newspaper and magazine critics is on the wane. People don’t care to be lectured by professionals on what they should read or listen to or see. They’re increasingly likely to pay attention to amateur online reviewers, bloggers and Amazon critics like Klausner.”

She was a dear friend, a brilliant reviewer and writer and her presence on this earth will be sorely missed.

HOW TO USE METADATA:

I plan to spend the next few weeks on the Hummingbird Place Radio Show talking about the Novelists Inc. Conference at the Tradewinds in St. Petersburg, Florida.

NINC is N-I-N-C, which is short for NOVELISTS INC. You can find information about NINC at its website, ninc.com, that’s n i n c –dot-com

Well, I came home from the conference looking kind of strange. If you’ve seen the commercial where the people’s heads explode – that was me after 5 days of listening to industry professionals and uber-successful indie authors talking about how to best market your indie-published book. Donna, my head LITERALLY exploded, from all the information.

I want to start this first review of the NINC conference by saying, if you are a published author and you have in the past, are now, or are contemplating in the future publishing independently, Novelists, INC is for you. NINC, as the organization is affectionately called, brings our many voices and talents together for one purpose — to help each of us manage our writing career throughout a lifetime. Novelists, Inc’s story is one of networking and strong success.

This week, I’m talking about METADATA: If you are online, you should know what metadata is. You may not, I didn’t, but I should, and so should you.

Metadata, in a nutshell, is data about data.

The use of metadata on web pages can be very important. Metadata for web pages contain descriptions of the page’s contents, as well as keywords linked to the content. These are usually expressed in the form of metatags. And a meta tag is a tag OR a coding statement in HTML (the language of web pages) that describes some aspect of the contents of a Web page. The information that you put in a meta tag is used by search engines to index a page so that someone who is searching for the kind of information your page contains will be able to find it.

So, for instance, my web page might contain metatags that tell the search engine how many Harlequin Intrigues I’ve written—38, what Harlequin Intrigues are – romantic suspense, but also romance and possibly thriller, and also mystery. All of those are legitimate metatags for the type of book I wrote for Intrigue. I might also include the words contemporary, hero, heroic, love story, and who knows how many other words that describe my particular type of writing.

Your metadata will contain your web page’s description and summary and will come up in search results through search engines. That means that accuracy and detail are extremely important since that information can determine whether the searcher decides to visit your site or not.

And here’s a fabulous tip about metatags and metadata. When something about your or your books changes, change the metadata to reflect that. And not only on your web page. Don’t forget your social media sites, your bios and anywhere else you or your books are described.

Keeping up with your metadata and keeping it updated, is one of those great things that is free, if time-consuming, but can make a big difference in your discoverability. Don’t feel like you’re too busy to update your metadata on all your sites. It could very well be worth it!

Mallory Kane

This week the online publication The Memo has reported that phony authors have been employing Amazon reviewers to help them cheat their way into the bestseller charts. These fakers worked by contacting third party QUOTE reviewers UNQUOTE who give misleading five-star ratings and remarks after obtaining low-quality ebooks from Amazon in order to obtain “verified purchase” status, which can almost guarantee that the review will be acceptable to the online mega-publisher. Enough 5-star ratings and the book can be bumped to the top of the charts.

Freelancer and Fiverr are among websites where “professional reviewers” offer their services for as little as £3 UK or $5.00 U.S. The reviewers make up a sprawling network of fraudulent reviewers, many of whom are paid as little as £3 or $5.00 to leave five-star ratings, while ‘authors’ make hundreds of thousands of dollars, ghostwriting shoddy texts.

Whether blame is pointed at the fake authors who have to buy reviews, the misleading reviewers who will guarantee a 5 star review for money, or the essentially obvious deficiencies in Amazon as a platform, one thing is certain: the readers are the ones who suffer.

At a time in publishing where it is uncertain how print and electronic books can or will exist together, several questions occur:

— what impact will this scandal have on the publishing industry?

–Were industry insiders aware of the breadth of the problem?

–And what can Amazon do to turn the tide?

Kitty Knowles of The Memo spoke to Philip Jones, the editor of esteemed trade publication The Bookseller to get his take on the scandal:

Her first question was ‘what is the importance of authentic reviews in the Amazon platform. Jones indicates that reviews can be good, bad, or indifferent, but if they are not authentic, they simply lose their value.

The world is awash with new books, he says, and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform has only exacerbated this problem of too many books. Jones feels that it is important that readers find books they will most enjoy, that those books be judged on their merit, and that publishers be rewarded for the investments they make.

He points out that sampling e-books is a fantastic way of discovering new authors and checking the authenticity of reviews. More and more, online book buyers have the opportunity to return books they don’t like—and book buyers should use that.

So on the question of whether industry professionals knew about the problem with fake 5 star reviews, the answer is basically–Yes. There have been reports of purchasing reviews over the years, and of course, there are plenty of places out there, some more legitimate than others, who are offering paid-for reviews.

Jones also pointed out some authors on Amazon were using fake accounts to promote their own books and trash those of rivals.

Which brings up the question of whether Amazon, having created this unregulated marketplace, has a duty to do a better job of enforcing its rules. Jones points out that Amazon has gotten into this practice somewhat in the way it treats reviewers whom it believes have “an association” with an author or book they have reviewed. This is a very controversial practice at Amazon, which I want to address a bit later if there’s time.

But Amazon does risk killing its own golden goose. In allowing anyone to publish on its kdp platform, Amazon has democratized the publishing business and empowered writers to make or break their own careers.

The general take is that as the Kindle store becomes ever more polluted by fake-books and fake reviews, readers will turn away. This could be the reason for the current mild resurgence of print, especially in the fiction market.

Jones ends his article by stating that, obviously, Reading is a precious experience, that takes time and effort, and the more Amazon chooses not to invest in making readers’ lives easier, the more it risks undermining its own product. Right now the publishing industry is curiously poised between print and digital, e-book and mobile, complacency and panic.

Scandals such as this that devalue the review process and call into question the value of content published direct to Kindle will only serve to undermine the products that Amazon sells through its Kindle Direct Program, according to Jones.

Donna, I want to speak just for a few seconds on the controversy of allowing authors with a QUOTE relationship UNQUOTE with another author to review that other author’s book. And to be clear, this is MY opinion only!Currently, Amazon seems to have a No Tolerance policy on this, and this means , for instance, that if I review another author’s book, my review will be taken down because Amazon ASSUMES that my review is not authentic, simply because I am an author. The time and effort they are spending on this particular practice definitely takes away from the time and effort they have to spend going after the real fakes—both author and reviewer. I may not review hundreds of books, but I find it insulting in the extreme that Amazon presumes that I am at worst a fake, possibly even for-pay reviewer, and at best, a friend of the author I’ve reviewed, and that therefore I am suspect as a reviewer.

NEXT WEEK I am beginning a several week report, highlighting what I learned at the Novelists Inc. Conference, the first week of October. Next week, I will present an overview of Novelists Inc. and will present what I learned about Metadata. Join us. Whether you’re an author or a reader or both, you will find it interesting.

Be sure and join me next week on Hummingbird Place on BlogTalk Radio.

Mallory

The FIRST CHAPTER of Harper Lee’s highly anticipated Go Set a Watchman was published on July 10 by The Wall Street Journal.

The story opens with Jean Louise, the grown-up Scout, returning to Maycomb by train from New York to visit her father Atticus, who is debilitated by rheumatoid arthritis. The chapter is heavy on exposition, touching on, among other things, a cousin who ended up in a state institution for firing a gun; description of the Chattahoochee river and the countryside; the history of Colonel Mason Maycomb, for whom the town and county of Maycomb was named; and a joke train porters play on young ladies by stopping the train past the station. There’s also a surprising development regarding Scout’s brother.

The book, which releases on July 14, 2015, has been the subject of controversy after questions about whether Harper Lee was mentally fit to agree to its publication.

Early critical reactions to the first chapter of the novel are uneven.

Lynda Hawryluk at CNN championed the work, saying it features “long sentences beautifully rendered and evoking a world long lost to history, but welcoming all the same.” But in a review for The Telegraph, bearing the headline ‘Would it have been kinder not to publish Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman?’, Mick Brown writes: “there is a reason [this book] was not published in the first place.” He continues: “What immediately strikes you reading this first chapter is its utterly conventional voice, its lack of spark and intimacy.”

Reactions on social media were also varied, ranging from praise to criticism to lightheartedness.

As it happens, Lee’s Go Set A Watchman has been one of the most talked about books of the year–Lee, the author of the canonical To Kill A Mockingbird, who has lived much of her life out of the public eye and never published another novel, suddenly has another book. Watchman was actually written before To Kill A Mockingbird, though it features the same setting and many of the same beloved characters.

The book caused some controversy, though, because there were serious questions about whether Lee, who now resides in an assisted living facility, was mentally fit to sign off on the publication of the manuscript, which was found last summer amongst her papers. ALThough the state of Alabama conducted an investigation and concluded that Lee was indeed of sound mind, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY asked their own readers how sure they really were that Lee was of sound mind and capable of agreeing to publish the book, and how the controversy over its publication was affecting their decision whether or not to read this book, which is sure to be a mega-bestseller.

There are, of course, those who have no reservations. Here are some comments.

“I preordered a copy at my local #indiebookseller & can’t wait.” -@bankswrites, Twitter
“Pre-ordered, anxiously waiting, can’t not read it.” – theterritories-sa, Tumblr
“Don’t we all want to see if it’s any good?” -@doughshiloh, Twitter

“Pre-ordered audiobook. Can’t Wait!” -judithdcollins, Tumblr

One reader is willing to fight off pangs of guilt and uncertainty in order to read the book: “I will read it, but I’ll feel guilty about it.” @KLDSanders, Twitter

Still others need further proof, if not of Lee’s acquiescence then of the book’s quality:

“Only if the reviews are good because I feel that Lee did not want to publish it.” -rufiousreader, Tumblr
“Still torn! Will most likely buy it but not read it until a clear and unbiased statement is released from her saying it’s a-okay!” -sevengee, Tumblr

And One reader is unwilling to read it: “Not going to read. Love and respect Harper Lee too much to read something that was in all likelihood released without her true consent and understanding.” -Michelle Reed, Facebook

Although the release of anything but the FIRST chapter of Go Set a Watchman has been embargoed until the official publication date of July 14, a number of media outlets, including the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian managed to secure copies.

The major reveal of their reviews has been that the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, a character who became a symbol in the fight against racial inequality, is shown in Watchman to be a racist.

In her review for the Times, Michiko Kakutani writes that in Mockingbird, “Atticus praised American courts as ‘the great levelers,’ dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal.’ In Watchman, set in the 1950s in the era of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, he denounces the Supreme Court, says he wants his home state ‘to be left alone to keep house without advice from the N.A.A.C.P.’ and describes N.A.A.C.P.-paid lawyers as ‘standing around like buzzards.'”

As the now-grown Scout, who idolized her father in Lee’s first book, returns to her hometown of Maycomb, Ala., from New York City, she grapples “with her dismaying realization that Atticus and her longtime boyfriend, Henry Clinton, both have abhorrent views on race and segregation,” according to KAKUTANI’s Times review.

In ITS review, the Washington Post takes further note of the transformation of the noble Atticus readers know from Mockingbird. To quote from WATCHMAN. “He joined the Ku Klux Klan and attended one meeting and is now a board member in one of the newly formed Citizens’ Councils springing up in communities throughout the South to oppose desegregation, in ‘protest to the Court . . . a sort of warning to the Negroes for them not to be in such a hurry.'”

The revelation, while deeply disappointing to some Mockingbird fans, has resulted in more public debate about the book, and could potentially lead to higher sales for the most-hyped book since the last Harry Potter.

From the review by The GUARDIAN comes the following headline:

Go Set a Watchman review – more complex than Harper Lee’s original classic, but less compelling and an equally unflattering subtitle: Scout has lost her swagger and Atticus fans will be shocked by a satisfying novel that nonetheless vindicates the direction taken by Harper Lee’s classic debut.

And now, here is, with very minimal shortening, is the Guardian’s review of GO SET A WATCHMAN.

Go Set a Watchman is a third-person narrative, in which twentysomething Scout, now favouring her baptismal name of Jean Louise, returns from New York to visit Atticus, who is 72 and seriously arthritic, in her home town of Maycomb.

A few passages exactly overlap between the two books, principally scene-setters describing Maycomb, Alabamian history and local folklore such as the comical legal consequences of the intermarriage of the Cunningham and Coningham clans. A handful of paragraphs alluding to the Robinson rape case in the 1930s (though with one crucial detail changed) were expanded to hundreds of pages in To Kill a Mockingbird. Considering this, had the text now published been the one released in 1960, it would almost certainly not have achieved the same greatness.

This is not so much due to literary inferiority, as it is that Go Set a Watchman is a much less likable and school-teachable book. The just-published work belongs to the genre in which prodigals return to find their homeland painfully altered; disillusioned by the “Atomic Age.”

Scout has notably lost the sassy swagger that makes her childish voice in Mockingbird so compelling.

Advance publicity has billed this newly published book as a chance to reunite with the “much loved” characters of Scout and Atticus. THAT promise proves barely half true. When the homecomer frets that no one in Maycomb remembers the “juvenile desperado, hellraiser extraordinary” that she was, THE READER is tempted to shout back “NO! We Remember!”

Although we wince when she approvingly notes the smell of “clean Negro”, with all that term implies. (Unlike Mockingbird, Watchman’s text seems to have been printed much as submitted.)

With regard to ATTICUS FINCH, though, some lovers of the classic version may feel moved to ask if they can now file an emergency rewrite of their school or university essays. While one of the book’s two great shocks – the failure of a major figure to survive into the 1950s – is emotionally jolting, this second shock shatters the traditional reading of Atticus as a saintly widowed single father whose views on race were decades ahead of his countrymen.

While both books present the racist hate speech of their eras WITHOUT CENSORSHIP, Mr. Finch, This liberal hero, who was ostracised as a “nigger lover” in Mockingbird –– is found behaving in WATCHMAN (set in the 50s) in a way that admirers of print and film (played by Gregory Peck) versions of his earlier life will find painful and shocking. To the horror of Scout, the anti-racist lawyer FINCH now attends public meetings to oppose the supreme court’s attempts to impose integrated education and equal voting rights in the south.

The shift in Atticus’s attitudes proves to be nuanced and rooted in the deep political complexities of the south – which New York editors may have thought too obscure for a broader audience – but their excision significantly altered the story. While there can be no doubt that the editorial attention given to Mockingbird made the narrative more gripping – WATCHMAN contains no climax like the courtroom drama of the Robinson trial. Not only that, the book can also be accused of liberally sanitising the contents.

If the racial politics of Watchman are unsettling to contemporary book buyers, time has been kinder in another area–feminism. In MOCKINGBIRD Scout was appealingly established as a proto-feminist when she is being tutored in the manners of a lady. Scout replies that she is “not particularly” interested in being a lady. In WATCHMAN, which, remember, was written BEFORE Mockingbird, Scout continues in adulthood her refusal to submit to conventional domestic expectations of females.

Regardless of whether WATCHMAN is considered the prequel or the sequel to MOCKINGBIRD, it is in most respects, a new work, and a pleasure, revelation and genuine literary event.

Teachers of American literature have a fascinating opportunity to create a course comparing and contrasting the two books. Also, according to The Guardian, there is clearly a possible new movie of To Kill a Mockingbird combining both stories in a remake/sequel, naturally utilizing a series of interlocking flashbacks, which is very fashionable these days.

Until then, Go Set a Watchman does shake the settled view of both an author and her novel. And, unless another surprise for readers lies somewhere in her files, this publication intensifies the regret that Harper Lee published so little during her writing life.

And now, From just about 6 hours or so ago, I found a review from NPR, which says

Go Set a Watchman is a troubling confusion of a novel, politically and artistically, beginning with its fishy origin story. Allegedly, it’s a recently discovered first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, but I’m suspicious: It reads much more like a failed sequel. There are lots of dead patches in Go Set a Watchman, pages where we get long explanations of, say, the fine points of the Methodist worship service.

The novel turns on the adult Scout’s disillusionment with her father — a disillusionment that lovers of To Kill a Mockingbird will surely share. Reeling from the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Atticus reveals himself as a segregationist and a reactionary extremist. He’s a staunch proponent of states’ rights, a critic of federal programs, even popular ones like Social Security and the G.I. Bill, and a foe of the NAACP.

Yet, the more poignant revelations in Go Set a Watchman have to do with Scout; at 26, she’s still a sort of tomboy, talking herself into marrying a childhood friend named Hank. At least half of this novel is devoted to Scout’s (or Jean Louise’s) torment over not feeling like she has a place in the world.

Mallory Kane

The Hummingbird Place

Romance News, 07/13/2015

garnered from various newspapers and other sources.

Fifteen years ago this month I got the call. Tina Colombo, who is now Tina James, called me and bought The Lawman Who Loved Her, my first book for Harlequin Intrigue. That was one of the best days of my life. Who knew that now, in 2015, I would have 37 published Intrigues and a thrilling number of awards and bestsellers and excellent reviews to go with them.

This past fifteen years have been a great ride, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but 37 books in 15 years is an average of two and a half books a year. Now I know a few authors who can write a book in a month or two, or even less time, but that is NOT me. My husband and I are doing more traveling these days and I am thoroughly enjoying my hobby of creating unique jewelry pieces, and so it’s becoming harder to write fast enough. For these reasons, Security Breach will be my last book with Harlequin.

This in no way means I’m going to stop writing. In fact, I am writing romantic suspense and contemporary romance for Tule Publishing now and I’ll be releasing new books and back list paranormal titles independently through Amazon. Also, I will definitely remain open to new publishing possibilities that might present themselves in the future.

I want to thank all of you who have supported me and faithfully read my books during my career with Harlequin.  And I hope you will stick with me on this new adventure. Remember, every ending is a new beginning. Are you ready? Because I can’t wait to get started!

Mallory

First tonight on Romance News, I want to let our listeners know about New York Times & USA Today bestselling author, Brenda Novak, and her crusade against Diabetes. Brenda is an active mother of five whose youngest son, Thad, was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes at the age of five. His diagnosis led Brenda to begin a personal crusade to fight this debilitating disease that affects millions. For the past ten years, Brenda’s fans have stepped up and supported her annual online auction to raise funds for the Diabetes Research Institute. The auction has so far helped her raise over $2.4 million so far!

Now, after ten years, Brenda is taking a break from the annual online auction, But don’t worry, she’s still hard at work on another big fundraising effort. She has curated THREE limited edition box sets that are up for sale, each containing ten or more BRAND NEW stories from very big-name authors.

The three are��� SWEET DREAMS (13 thrillers, including stories by Erica Spindler, Allison Brennan, Brenda Novak, Alex Kava, JT Ellison, Carla Neggars and many others,) SWEET TALK (11 contemporary romance stories with a forward by #1 NYT Bestselling author Robin Carr) and SWEET SEDUCTION (13 hot contemporary stories a la FIFTY SHADES OF GREY with not only a forward but a full-length novel by Lisa Renee Jones) are currently up for pre-order at all major e-tailers online.

Brenda tells us that these sets will provide hours and hours of reading pleasure, all for the low price of $9.99 (that’s less than $1/story), and all money will be donated to the Diabetes Research Institute. These box sets are available wherever digital books are sold, so no matter which reading device you own you can get the sets. Brenda cautions everyone to order now, because once the sets go on sale May 1, they will only be available through June 30th.

In addition to the 3 boxed sets, Brenda has written her very first cookbook. She says, “This book contains all of my healthiest recipes���the ones I used to raise my five kids, not recipes I hired someone to create���along with some recipes contributed by friend and co-author Jan Coad, who once owned a restaurant and has published other cookbooks.”

The digital edition of LOVE THAT! Brenda Novak’s Every Occasion Cookbook, is currently available for pre-order at all vendors, so you can order yours now. We’re told the print version will be up for pre-order soon at Amazon.com.

If you want to be involved in this very worthy endeavor, check Twitter and Facebook to find out more information and get links to the three boxed sets.

twitter.com/brenda_novak

www.facebook.com/BrendaNovakAuthor

– – – –

So how many readers out there have heard of Avon Addicts?

Can you say that Books are your passion and Authors are your obsession?

If so, you should apply now to become an Avon Addict, for the chance to become part of Romance���s most desirable super reader community!

Avon Addicts take their love for Romance to a whole new level. But how can you know what it takes to become part of this elite group of readers?

Here are a few signs that you have the addiction:

Were you one of the first people to pick up Jennifer Ryan���s sizzling contemporaries, and share them with your friends?

��� When Lisa Kleypas came home to Avon, were you among the first in the know about her upcoming historical romance, Cold-Hearted Rake (coming out in October 2015)?

��� Were you thrilled when Ilona Andrews launched a new romantic urban fantasy series with us, and you���re already planning your online review of the second book���even before it hits your eReader?

��� Do you sign up for every Jennifer L. Armentrout cover reveal?

��� Are you among the super-readers who know that Lorraine Heath has a Young Adult alter ego?

��� Do you bookmark Avon���s multi-author Facebook parties, and celebrate every release day with us like it���s a holiday?

If you answered yes to any (or all!) of these questions, you are definitely Avon Addict material.

Many will apply, and only 25 will be accepted into the fifth sisterhood of Avon Addicts. If you became part of Avon���s social media-savvy inner circle of romance lovers, you will help spread the love of favorite Avon authors via blog, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads posts, as well as be given the ability to pass along physical copies to the other bibliophiles in your lives!

Avon Addicts receive special invitations to meet authors behind-the-scenes at book events, and to mix & mingle with all the Avon ladies at our special events at RWA, RT, BEA and other bookish gatherings.

If you think you have what it takes to be an Avon Addict, apply here to achieve official status!

What you���ll receive:

Over the course of a year, Avon Addicts will receive six special packages containing advance copies of forthcoming books to read and share with friends; fun promotional items (swag!), and other goodies. We will send our Addicts early copies of hand-selected Avon, Avon Impulse, Avon Red and William Morrow titles.

Addicts, in return, should share their feelings about these books on their social sites, on the Avon website, Edelweiss, and online retailers!

We hope the Avon Addict program helps us reward our most devoted readers ��� and we know your enthusiasm is infectious���so we hope you���ll help make everyone as excited about our extraordinary books and talented authors as you are.

Apply below!

25 Avon Addicts will be selected by the Avon Editorial and Publicity/Marketing group. Applications should be submitted to us from May 1 through July 1, 2015.

Does being an Avon Addict sound like all that and a box of romance novels to you?

Then go for it. Apply at http://www.avonaddicts.com/

Hi everybody. I’m Mallory Kane and THIS is romance news.

 

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon (Random) – The relationship between Mary Shelley (1797-1851) and the mother she never knew���Mary Wollstonecraft (1759���1797), author of the incendiary tract A Vindication of the Rights of Women, who died 10 days after her daughter���s birth���is explored with remarkable insight and perspicacity in this exhilarating dual biography from Charlotte Gordon who wrote Mistress Bradstreet.

 

The book illustrates the similarities between mother and daughter by devoting alternating chapters to their lives. Both were raised in emotionally turbulent households (although Shelley���s offered more intellectual stimulation); both had to leave home to find their identities as writers; and both lived as adults under the shadow of scandal���Wollstonecraft for her outspoken feminism and marriage to liberal political philosopher William Godwin, a critic of matrimony, and Shelley for her role in the notorious Byron-Shelley literary circle.

 

Gordon���s perceptive reading of both women���s published works illuminates their core ideas, including their critiques of patriarchy, and identifies the emotional fault lines caused by the drama in each of their lives.

~~~~~~~

 

This week, the #1 book overall and the #1 book in Hardcover Fiction from Publisher���s weekly, is one of our own, romance diva Nora Roberts, with, THE LIAR.

And, the top 5 overall romance novels from Publisher’s Weekly are���

1 The Longest Ride

Nicholas Sparks, Author

Grand Central Publishing, $8.00 (496)

2 One Wish

Robyn Carr, Author

Mira Books, $8.99 (384)

3 Close to Home

Lisa Jackson, Author

Zebra, $7.99 (480)

4 The Collector

Nora Roberts, Author

Berkley Books, $17.00 (528)

5 A Real Prince: The Bachelor Prince\Yesterday’s Hero

Debbie Macomber, Author

Mira Books, $7.99 (384)

Okay. So we’ve looked at the top books from Publisher���s Weekly and from the New York Times. Now let’s look at the best romances of 2014 as determined by the Washington Post.

THE ARROW

By Monica McCarty (Ballantine)

Set in the early 14th century amid the Wars of Scottish Independence, this installment of McCarty���s Highland Guard series begins with the burning of a Scottish village in 1307. The sole survivor, 15-year-old Cate of Lochmaben, is rescued by Gregor ���Arrow��� MacGregor, member of an elite band of Highland warriors. Gregor takes Cate to his home and leaves her for five years while he returns to battle. When he returns, he finds not scrawny young Cate but beautiful, headstrong Catharine, who has vowed to make Gregor love her. McCarty���s gift lies in writing strong characters into wildly entertaining and often unexpected scenarios.

EVERNIGHT

By Kristen Callihan (Grand Central/Forever)

This volume in Callihan���s Darkest London series ��� steampunk-paranormal-historical romance hybrids ��� might be her best book yet. When the heart of part-human, part-demon Will Thorne was ripped from his chest, genius Holly Evernight created a clockwork heart to keep him alive. The heart is now slowly turning Will to metal, and he vows to exact revenge ��� until he discovers that Holly has the ability to cure his affliction. It soon becomes clear that the magic that will save him will ultimately destroy her, and the stakes of their unexpected love get higher with each page.

FOOL ME TWICE

By Meredith Duran (Pocket)

In ���Fool Me Twice,��� Duran introduces the handsome and terrifying Duke of Marwick, widely believed to have gone mad after being betrayed by and subsequently losing his wife. Marwick is a classic Byronic hero, literally locked away until Olivia Holladay arrives, planning to steal from him but instead freeing him. Here is the true power of the alpha hero. Olivia cannot help but be drawn to Marwick���s seemingly impenetrable darkness. Duran offers a lovely reminder of why these heroes are so compelling: When they share their secrets, they risk themselves and reveal their emotions.

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER

By Sarah Morgan (Harlequin)

���For me, love isn���t possible,��� ��lise Bonnet tells surgeon Sean O���Neil late one night in Morgan���s ���Suddenly Last Summer.��� ��lise���s past is filled with tragedy. She escaped an abusive marriage in Paris and ran to Vermont, where she found a new life as the chef at a ski resort. Though she has sworn off relationships, the brilliant, handsome and charming Sean is difficult to resist. When he professes his love, she panics, leaving him devastated and readers wondering if she will ever come to terms with her past and find the promise of her future. Of course, it���s a love story, so we know she will, but we can���t see how Morgan will make it happen ��� which is, after all. the hallmark of a great romance.

WHEN THE DUKE WAS WICKED

By Lorraine Heath (Avon)

Lady Grace Mabry, the heroine of ���When the Duke Was Wicked,���is so intent on marrying for love that she does what any self-respecting young woman in Victorian London would do: She finds herself a duke who can teach her the difference between a fortune hunter and someone committed to love. Unfortunately, the duke in question is one she���s long pined for, and despite his vow never to love again after the death of his wife, he can���t help himself when it comes to Grace. The question posed by the novel is why Grace is so determined to marry for love. Heath is known for her deeply emotional romances, and this one is no different ��� full of tears and sighs and a heroine who is shocked by her own strength.

 

In more top 10 information, here is goodreads top 10 romances of all time. That’s of ALL TIME! Ready Donna?

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Notebook (The Notebook #1) by Nicholas Sparks
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
Outlander (Outlander #1) by Diana Gabaldon
Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful #1) by Jamie McGuire
Bared to You (Crossfire #1) by Sylvia Day

That’s Romance News for Hummingbird Place for this week.

 

THE BEST SOUNDING BOOK I’ve found in my perusal of news this week is the Emery Lord young adult novel, The Start of Me and You,��which is out now.

Emery Lord came upon the YA scene last year with��Open Road Summer, her contemporary debut. But from what I’m hearing, it’s her follow-up novel��that strikes a chord.��The Start of Me and You��follows a teenage girl whose boyfriend drowned in a tragic swimming accident. But Paige, our heroine, is tired of being��that��girl���the one everyone looks at with sympathy. So she embarks on a new school year with a plan that includes dating the boy she has crush on and eventually learning to swim again. Of course, if teenage years teach us anything, it���s that life doesn���t always go according to plan.

Lord crafts��a poignant look at��what it���s like to deal with love, loss, and teenage years.��The Start of Me and You��is a fresh fish in an ocean of contemporary YA (that’s a paraphrase from the reviewer. The book is a little cheesy and slightly predictable. But the heart of the story overshadows all of that.

The reviewer quotes a passage in the book that is absolutely fabulous and could be true for all books everywhere.

���In books, sometimes the foreshadowing is so obvious that you know what���s going to happen. But knowing��what��happens isn���t the same as knowing��how��it happens. Getting there is the best part.���

~~~

DONNA, YOU MAY KNOW THAT I love���nay—adore! Fairy Tales. And I’ll reveal right now that my favorite fairy tale ever is Beauty and the Beast. But I bring up fairy tales tonight, not to discuss the romance in them, although that’s a large part of what I’m about to talk about.

I bring them up because I love to COLOR! Yes! Color! When’s the last time you colored, Donna?

Now my coloring these days is done with colored marker pens rather than crayons, and I’m not coloring on that kind of terrible, dish-water beige newsprint paper that tears if you try to bear down too hard.��No��� tonight I’m talking��about

Adult Coloring Books. If you’re a romance reader or a romance author or if you were EVER a child��� you’ll have a fit over these wonderful, beautiful bound books that are available for not too much money.

My #1 source for coloring books is Dover Publications. There are such wonders there! I personally own The Great Fairy Tales Coloring Book, Famous Fairy Tales Coloring Book, and quite a few others.

On my to-be-bought list are The Nutcracker Ballet Coloring Book, The Beauty and the Beast Coloring Book (naturally), The Hans Christian Anderson Coloring Book and Gobles Fairy Tale Illustrations Coloring Book. Gobles is pretty expensive at $14.95 but many of the others are very reasonable.

Great Fairy Tales is around $3.99 and Hans Christian Anderson is $5.99. And Donna, these are not your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade coloring books. They are intricate and beautiful, with rich backgrounds and lovely heroes and heroines. They will make you fall in love with your favorite fairy tales and heroes all over again.

And if some of our listeners are, like you Donna, more interested in Historical Romance than in Fairy Tales, you can buy The Story of the Civil War Coloring book, Kings and Queens of England Coloring book. And��� besides just

coloring books, there are Fashions of the Old South Paper Dolls, American Family of the Colonial Era Paper Dolls, and just for you,Donna, Jane Austen Paper Dolls.

All these books and more can be found on the website, http://store.doverpublications.com/

Also, on my blog at mallorykane.com, you can see the covers of some of the coloring books and paper doll books I’ve mentioned tonight.

That’s all for romance news tonight, Donna.

I can’t take credit for this, but I love–love–love it! One of the funniest writing things I’ve ever seen. See if you agree. It’s called The Tandem Writing Assignment:

Tandem Writing Assignment

The following is a true story received from an English professor.

You know that book “Men are from Mars, Women from Venus”?�� Well, here’s a prime�� example of that.�� This assignment was actually turned in by two of my English�� students:�� Rebecca (last name deleted) and Gary (last name deleted).

First, the Assignment:

English 44A

SMU

Creative Writing

Prof. Miller

In-Class Assignment for Wednesday:

Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story.�� The process is simple.�� Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right.�� One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story.���� The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story.�� The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth.

Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story�� coherent.�� The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.

And now, the Assignment as submitted by Rebecca & Gary:

Rebecca starts:�� At first, Laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted.�� The camomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked camomile.�� But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl.�� His possessiveness�� was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again.�� So camomile was out of the question.

Gary takes up the story: Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in�� orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago.�� “A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,” he said into his�� transgalactic communicator.�� “Polar orbit established.�� No sign of resistance so far…”.�� But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of�� nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay.�� The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

Rebecca: He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last�� pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had�� feelings for him.�� Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4.�� “Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel.”�� Laurie read in her newspaper one morning.�� The news simultaneously excited her and bored her.�� She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth — when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her.�� “Why must one lose�� one’s innocence to become a woman?”�� she pondered wistfully.

Gary: Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live.�� Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles.�� The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through Congress had left earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy�� the human race.�� Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu’udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated�� their diabolical plan.�� The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized Laurie and 85 million other Americans.�� The President slammed�� his fist on the conference table.�� “We can’t allow this!�� I’m going to veto�� that treaty!�� Let’s blow ’em out of the sky!”

Rebecca: This is absurd.�� I refuse to continue this mockery of literature.�� My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.

Gary: Yeah?�� Well, you’re a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium.

Rebecca: Asshole.

Gary: Bitch.

 

As reported on The Hummingbird Place on Blog Talk Radio.

From Publisher’s weekly, this first tidbit will come as no surprise to the hundreds and thousands of Barbara Taylor Bradford fans. The New York Times Bestselling author’s 30th saga, titled The Cavendon Women, went on sale on the 24th of this month from St. Martin’s Press. The Woman of Substance, who holds an OBE from the Queen of England, is not only a bestselling author, but a beloved one as well.

 

 

 

 

In the list of most anticipated books of spring, 2015, per Publishers Weekly, I ferreted out these three romances.

Romance/Erotica

First, Jane Ashford’s book, Married to a Perfect Stranger by Jane Ashford (Sourcebooks Casablanca, Mar. 3) – In a Regency romance about personal growth and excited rediscovery, long-separated spouses must overcome scorn and opposition from their family and colleagues in order to turn a na��vely arranged marriage into a passionate partnership.
In A Heart Revealed by Josi S. Kilpack (Shadow Mountain, Apr. 7) – Kilpack weaves a haunting, mesmerizing story about a wealthy woman who must take a hard look at the selfish and cruel person she���s become and decide who she wants to be.
Eric Jerome Dickey takes the one-night stand into the realm of art with a tightly controlleed portrayal of two anonymous characters whose passion in a secluded hotel room is refracted thru glimpses of a troubled outside world, in his novel titled ONE NIGHT.

 

The New York Times list of mass market print bestsellers, includes these top five picks.

THE LONGEST RIDE, by Nicholas Sparks
THE TARGET, by David Baldacci
FESTIVE IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb
THE BOOTLEGGER, by Clive Cussler and Justin Scott
MISSING YOU, by Harlan Coben

The NYT list of mass market electronic bestsellers, includes these:

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN, by Paula Hawkins
NYPD RED 3, by James Patterson and Marshall Karp
PREY, by Michael Crichton
THE LONGEST RIDE, by Nicholas Sparks
SOARING, by Kristen Ashley

Out of all of those, only one, SOARING, is categorized as romance. The majority of the rest appear to be mystery/suspense.

That’s all the romance news for this week.

Mallory Kane��