Ryan Field's Blog, page 422

E-Book Sales Rise 134%; Magic Mike 2 Matt Bomer; Parents Support Libraries; Colorado Civil Unions

Half the time I'm never certain what to believe anymore when it comes to e-book sales in a general sense, but according to the following article the rise in e-book sales seems to be 134% by 2012. This comes from the Publishers Association Yearbook, 2012.

Digital formats (encompassing ebooks, audiobooks downloads and online subscriptions) accounted for 12% of the total invoiced value of sales of books in 2012, with this share rising from 8% in 2011, and from 5% in 2010.  Other n...

Why I Now Love Erotic Romance

Why I now love erotic romance more than ever before is because of the opportunities e-publishing has opened up for gay authors and women who write gay erotic romance. I will post more about this topic soon, but right now I'm mainly getting into why I've become an even bigger fan of all erotic romance in the past few years. I recently discovered this novel, J's Closet Volume I, by author Ryan O'Leary. I'd never heard of him until I saw him talking about his book on social media....

Anne Rice Responds to Open Letter; Gay Relationship Advice from Friends; Power of "I Don't Know"

This is the last post about the Anne Rice incident for a while, but since she responded to an open letter someone wrote with regard to a recent incident involving a blogger and Rice's fans, I figured I would follow up.

And the simplest way to do that is to provide this link to Rice's facebook page where she posted a link to the open letter and asked her fans to remain civil with their comments.

It's interesting to note some of those comments on Rice's facebook page, because it shows how peopl...

NBA Jason Collins Comes Out of the Closet: Cubs Support Him

NBA star Jason Collins coming out of the closet is significant because it's the first time an active gay male professional athlete in the US has ever done this. I honestly didn't know that until now. I thought Billy Bean had done it a while ago, but from what I can see he came out after he stopped playing baseball, not during.

Collins makes this announcement in a recent interview with Sports Illustrated:

"I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major Ame...

Book Reviewer Attacked by Anne Rice Fans; Catholic School Fires Gay Teacher

A small blogger recently wrote a less than stellar book review for Anne Rice's Pandora, and when Rice found out about this review she mentioned it on social media and Anne Rice fans ran to her defense creating the kind of firestorm that has caused many bloggers to rethink their comment policy. There's even a familiar voice to the m/m romance community on the comment thread.

When the blogger/reviewer compared Rice to Stephanie Meyer in the review, one person lashed out...

David Gaughran Discusses Lit Agents, Self-publishing, and Argo Navis

I've been busy with deadlines for publishers so I haven't posted anything on self-publishing for a while, and I thought this article by David Gaughran on Lit Agents, self-publishing, and Argo Navis was something newsworthy for my blog readers who are interested in self-publishing. What is even more interesting is the comment thread that follows this article, and the various reactions from people who either support Gaughran or don't think he's quite on target.

I left a comment of my own, which...

Zach Braff Raises 2 Million on Kickstarter; Josh Radnor's Nude Photos

When I read this article about Zach Braff raising 2 million dollars on kickstarter I thought about a few of the previous posts I've written on kickstarter and the projects associated with them. Up until now, I didn't even know anyone with the kind of presence Zach Braff has was doing kickstarter. This link will lead you to three posts I wrote in case you're not familiar with kickstarter. I honestly don't know how these previous projects worked out, or if the people did raise the money they ne...

Blogger "50 A Year" Review: Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey

I found a new blogger I love and the blog is titled "50 A Year." What this means is she tackled 50 books last year, and has decided to do this all over again this year. I like blogs with themes like this, because I've always believed this is what personal blogging was intended to be in the first place when it first entered the arena. This one reminds me of a literary version of Julie Powell's blog about Julia Child, where Powell took on the job of cooking everything from Child's first cookboo...

Is Rough Sex Considered BDSM? A Rough Scene from Fangsters

Whether or not rough sex is considered BDSM is not always simple to define in a few sentences, and that's because there are so many broad generalizations out there you can go blind trying to compare one to the other. And I want to state up front that's not what I'm trying to do in this post. The only reason why I'm going near the topic right now is because of e-mails I've been receiving from readers who wanted to know my opinion. Without going into details or linking to anyone specific,...

FREE Gay Book Excerpt: The Vegas Shark

I like to post these free excerpts from time to time for various reasons. One of which is to show how e-books look in raw form before they are formatted and released for sale. This excerpt below is from the Bad Boy Billionaire Series, The Vegas Shark. One of the books I enjoyed writing the most, and one that I've always thought was the most emotional and filled with the most innocent brand of love there is...forgiveness.

It's also one of the few books I've been able to do something I love to...