I admit, I love Sue Grant and I love her books. I think she’s the Spaceship Romance Queen. I loved Sureblood, and while it’s not my most favorite of all her books, I always enjoy her writing and I love a good HEA – something Sue always delivers. I will also admit that I had Dear Author on my RSS reader for a while, but I dropped it – with good reason. I love reading romance.

Recently Sue responded to a “Dear Author” that was addressed to her, and was immediately criticized for it by commentors there.

I don’t know why anyone that claims to like – let alone love – reading romance would waste their time reading Dear Author. I really don’t get that blog. They don’t like romance. How do people muster up the energy to spend time on things they don’t like? I can barely find the time or energy to spend time on things I love.

This all just makes me want to read some Sue Grant backlist. I’m off to see what’s available for Kindle download.

It’s apparently been down for over an hour. People are all over it on twitter, resurrecting the #amazonfail tag. I love this quote:

“Amazon has been down for an hour plus. So much for the world moving on with just Kindles. Bookstores never have this problem.”

Here’s a list of other things that never happen at brick and mortar bookstores. They never:

Seriously, I love brick and mortar stores and I also love Amazon. Both will go on as soon as they fix this problem. And I hope they do it soon because I’m trying to download Gena Showalter’s Darkest Lies to my Kindle.

No sex in space? Yeah right. Is this guy serious? Theoretically speaking – because (and this is a whole other rant) it doesn’t look like we’ll get out of the 80s anytime soon as far as space exploration goes – if men and women are in close proximity to each other for months or years at a time, sex is going to happen. I would not be surprised if it had already happened.

And leave it to the Japanese to ask this question! I love them. Poindexter (really?) probably wet himself over this question.

When I tell people that romance authors are some of the smartest around they never believe me. Now I’m going to send them this USA Today article, Scholarly Writers Empower the Romance Genre, when they roll their eyes after asking what I’m reading.

I maintain that romance authors (in all sub genres) are the most intelligent and honest writers out there. I’ve never read a romance author (and by that, I mean an author first and foremost categorized/shelved under romance) that belittled his or her readers with an attitude of intellectual superiority in their writing. I have read authors whose works were described as romances that have done just that.

In conclusion, don’t ever read an Oprah recommendation.
*COUGHTIMETRAVELERSWIFECOUGH*

*I HATED this book. YMMV.

There’s a really good article about erotic romance author and publisher Irene Williams, (A. K. A. Treva Harte) Loose-Id, and the erotic romance publishing industry in The Washington Post. I’ve enjoyed several of her books and Loose-Id is definitely one of my top go-tos for erotic romance. I think they have excellent editing, whereas more and more I’m finding that the quality of editing at Elloras Cave has really gone down.

This is kind of discouraging though:

With the same competitiveness that distinguishes the gates of Manhattan’s big commercial publishers, Loose Id is not for the rookie or wannabe romantica writer. “Our acceptance rate for new submissions is 4 percent,” says DeSalvo herself an author.

But I guess that’s why they have a higher quality than some of the other sites. Because I know they get a lot of crap. Just from my limited experience having been involved in beta-ing fanfiction, I know they have tales to tell. Now that’s what I’d love to hear about in the next interview. Tales from the romantica Slush Pile.

Make sure you watch the video. Her husband is a hoot.