Jane Litte's Blog, page 956

Tuesday Midday Links (and a few deals): Story Siren Plagiarism Story Continues; Self Pub Romance Author Signs Trad Contract; CreateSpace Expands Abroad

Links, News, and some WTFery | Blog | Smart Bitches, Trashy Books – “YA Author Sarah Cross has a guest blog about plagiarism and how it sucks a lot (which it does). It’s not a bad post, as it discusses the different types of plagiarism.But it’s a guest post on Kristi Diehm’s site, The Story Siren, where plagiarism occurred last January, and was discovered last month. ”SmartBitchesTrashyBooks Personal note: the unfortunate thing isn’t that the Story Siren is hosting a week long series on plagi...

REVIEW: White Tigress by Jade Lee

Dear Ms. Lee—

When I saw you’d released your Tigress series digitally and the first one, originally published in 2005, White Tigress was free at Amazon, I downloaded it immediately. I’m always thrilled to find a historical romance not set in Regency England and I’m fascinated by China and its complex history. I cannot say I was fascinated by this book. I was actually rather repulsed by it and found it to be so bizarre I wondered perhaps, in order to make sense of the story, I needed some sort...

REVIEW: Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray

“A mom in her early fifties, Clover knows she no longer turns heads the way she used to, and she’s only really missed when dinner isn’t on the table on time. Then Clover wakes up one morning to discover she’s invisible–truly invisible. She panics, but when her husband and son sit down to dinner, nothing is amiss. Even though she’s been with her husband, Arthur, since college, her condition goes unnoticed. Her friend Gilda immediately observes that Clover is invisible, which relieves Clover im...

Beyond the Book Post and Giveway: MIDNIGHT RESCUE: The Editorial Process

At the beginning of the year, we featured a few posts by publishing “insiders”. Elle Kennedy and her editor, Jesse Feldman, contacted me to see if I would be interested in posting about how Elle’s new Killer Instincts romantic suspense series was acquired. I thought readers would like to follow a book from acquisition to publication based on why Jesse Feldman bought the book in the first place, why Elle Kennedy, a successful digitally published author and author of series romances, would go t...

REVIEW: Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

Dear Mr. Aaronovitch,

Back in March, I read and reviewed your terrific debut, Midnight Riot (Rivers of London in the UK), an urban fantasy/police procedural narrated by an endearing London police constable named Peter Grant.

Peter is a new recruit in a secret (and very small) department of the London Metropolitan Police which investigates supernatural crimes. Moon Over Soho is the second book that follows Peter, and I’m pleased to say that like Midnight Riot, it was highly enjoyable.

The two boo...

Monday Midday Links: IPDF proposes ‘Light Weight DRM’; Self Pub author meltdown

Giveaways (not taking place here)

The editor, Harrison Demchick, of The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns (a recommended read by Robin aka Janet) and The Understory written byElizabeth Leiknes, wrote us to let us know about a giveaway the publishing house is running to celebrate the release of The Understory.

Basically, it’s like this. As long as we get 100 entries, we’ll be giving away to a lucky winner:

1.) The Understory

2.) The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns

. . . and two more eBooks of the winner’s choosi...

If You Like…Romances Set in South Asia or featuring South Asian characters

Dear Author guest post by Kim T.

A few years ago, I watched a Hindi language, historical epic film called Jodhaa Akbar, starring Bollywood superstars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. As a librarian with a graduate degree in European history, I was intrigued by the 16th century historical detail in the film. And I completely swooned over the beauty and charisma of the lead actors. Being a film geek, I began to explore the Bollywood film genre. I was, admittedly, drawn first to the bea...

REVIEW: Please Don’t Stop the Music by Jane Lovering

This book won the RNA Romance Novel of the Year Award for 2011. The RNA Award is unique because it involves readers, authors and other industry professionals working together to award one book. I thought it would be fun to repost the review.

“How much can you hide?

Jemima Hutton is determined to build a successful new life and keep her past a dark secret. Trouble is, her jewellery business looks set to fail – until enigmatic Ben Davies offers to stock her handmade belt buckles in his guitar sho...

REVIEW: The Fireman Who Loved Me by Jennifer Bernard

Dear Ms. Bernard:

The romance of this story was enjoyable but the sweet and sometimes serious nature of the romance was offset by over the top descriptions of the “villains” of the story creating a cacophonoustone mismatch. A late conflict arose in the book and while it could have provided a challenging and very real impediment to the happy ever after (and thus making the connection of the lead couple all the more satisfying)

[image error]Melissa McGuire ends up in San Gabriel working as a news producer at...

What is this price fixing lawsuit about anyway? A Q&A

Introduction

I’ve talked to several readers about the price fixing lawsuit and people have a lot of questions. I thought I could provide a few answers here to help clarify matters. If you have a question, drop a line in the comments.

1. What are the lawsuits and who do they involve?

There are three lawsuits in the United States alleging that five of the big six publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon&Schuster and Penguin) colluded with Apple to raise ebook prices. Those three lawsu...