Cyndy Aleo's Blog, page 4

The best things I read this year

You get all these year-end lists from publications and blogs about the top things they reviewed, and you'll see a lot of the same books on those lists. And probably most of them are bestsellers. And that's great, and those books deserve to be celebrated. But imagine if every one of your friends told you about one off-the-beaten-path book they read and got all their friends to read it?

Exactly.

So here's my list of the best books *I* got to read this year. Some of them you may have heard of. Some maybe not. But I'll tell you why I think each one might be of interest.

THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS
Sara Blaedel

This book isn't even out yet, but I was lucky enough to review it for RT, and I loved it. It definitely has mixed reviews on Goodreads, but here's the thing: We see these stories popping up all the time, about institutions that have failed to help the people they were supposed to be helping. The problem with this story isn't that it's unbelievable. It's that it is. And that monsters are living among all of us.

Appeals: Originally published outside U.S., mental health care issues

THE UNQUIET DEAD
Ausma Zehanat Kahn

This one is stunning, and I'm so glad other review publications agree with me! I started reading a lot more mystery and suspense novels this year in my gig at RT Book Reviews, and this one was definitely my favorite of them all. Like THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS, this one isn't out yet, but it will be soon and honestly, I can't say enough good things about it. The mystery is excellent and it ties in a ton of political intrigue on a global scale. There's no clear good guy in this, and the moral ambiguity will leave you thinking about it long after you're done reading it.

Appeals: diverse characters, international politics

THE ACCIDENTAL ALCHEMIST
Gigi Pandian

This new mystery series is awesome, and I can't wait for the next one in the series, although you guys will be waiting until the beginning of the new year for it. (I PROMISE this is the last one that isn't released yet). Pandian manages to make the Portlandia caricature into something vibrant and fun and tie it in to supernatural elements.

Appeals: vegans! witches! alchemy!

LAST TRAIN TO BABYLON
Charlee Fam

I'll be honest; I hated that they included John Green as a comp title on this one, because if I hadn't been reviewing, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. LTTB is smart and snarky and real, and lacks the layer of angsty schmaltz Green is becoming known for. Fam's Aubrey is the New Adult heroine most of us can more easily identify with, and I think anyone who's fresh out of college--or remembers being there--will feel like Aubrey is telling their story. This is the New Adult book I've been waiting for.

BEYOND ADDICTION
Kit Rocha

I've been in love with this dystopian erotica series for ages, but this one absolutely does it for me. It's a rare erotica novel that can also get me right in the feels, but reading Trix and Finn's story left me full-on sobbing, even when I was pretty sure how it was going to go in the end. I'll be honest; with the number of books I read, even the ones I love often have their character names end up in a muddle in my brain, but these two stick with you long after you've read the last page.

READY PLAYER ONE
Ernest Cline

Yes, I was super-late to the party with this book, but the combination here is winning, and if you are of a certain age (::cough:: Gen X ::cough::) and haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It has pretty much everything: dystopian world-building, MMORPG set-up, and enough '80s pop references that you'll be reaching for your Sony Walkman and banana clips before you realize it was 30 years ago.

RUIN & RISING
Leigh Bardugo

This was the stunning end to a riveting trilogy, and I often struggle with these three-parters. IN a lot of cases, Book 2 is a giant soggy middle, and Book 3 goes for an ending that will either cater to fans or trying to get people reading to find out what all the fuss was about, but Bardugo manages to write the ending the story needed rather than the one most fans will want. The arc across this trilogy was excellent, and I still miss these characters.

THE DYSFUNCTIONAL TEST
Kelly Moran

Take a little bit of MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, a little bit of friends-to-lovers, and a little bit of fake dating, and you have the perfect combination for this contemporary romance, which takes three tropes and blends them into something new and heart-warming.

THE HEART'S GAME
Crista McHugh

You may sense a theme in books I love, but if it's nerdy and manages to redo a trope for me, I'm probably going to be won over if the writing holds up. This is the case with the fourth book in a series I love, where Comic-Con one-night stands turn into something more.

SWEET FILTHY BOY
Christina Lauren

You're going to see this on a lot of lists this year, and while I don't ever review friends' books, I'd be lying if I didn't put it on this list. This is another New Adult story that's a lot more realistic than underground fight clubs and a lot healthier than Edward Cullenesque abusive relationships disguised as love, and that it's mostly set in the romantic city of Paris only adds more. I want to live inside this book.

HOW TO TELL TOLEDO FROM THE NIGHT SKY
Lydia Netzer

If you didn't read my raving reviews (regular and extended) at RT Book Reviews, let me tell you again: READ THIS BOOK. This was everything I wanted THE ROSIE PROJECT to be but wasn't, and the grounding in a little bit of magical realism made it all the more amazing.

A TIME OF DYING
Hailey Edwards

It's the third book in the series, but it brought a few answers and a kickass heroine who's determined to save her people, even if she has to give everything to do it. The world-building is amazing, and brings new life to the zombie mythology.

THE STORY HOUR
Thrity Umrigar

This was a diverse book with some truths that are universal no matter what your culture: You can't understand what someone else is going through by looking at a situation through your own eyes, which are clouded by your own experiences. Two women from very different backgrounds end up as somewhat friends, only to have the entire relationship torn apart because of differences that may be too much to overcome. It's a tough read, but a good one.

DIVINE SOLACE
Joey W. HIll

I keep hearing that "menage is going to be the new thing in erotica" but for a lot of us, it's been here the whole time, and the best stuff isn't the MMF or MFM I know publishers would push if given half a chance. Best of the year? Joey W. HIll's version, which deals with characters outside the seemingly preferred erotica age of "young and nubile" and includes a great plot arc of someone being introduced to BDSM in all the ways certain popular books got so very wrong.

HERE AND AGAIN
Nicole R. Dickson

This gorgeous book overlayed the very human tragedy so many families are facing and have faced with the ongoing war in the Middle East with the ghosts of our own country's history and the scars created and left by the Civil War. Merging a Field of Dreams-like plot with two generations of women trying very hard to make it, this book was one I read months ago and has stuck with me ever since.

THE KING
Tiffany Reisz

Last, but certainly not least is the latest in Reisz's Original Sinners series. While I've loved the series, I've never been a huge fan of Kingsley for some unknown reason, but Reisz manages to humanize him here to such an extent that this is close to rivaling my favorite in the series to date. The platonic (mostly) relationship between bisexual Kingsley and his dreamy lesbian assistant... King's own demons about trust and Soren (and trusting Soren)... this is another book from an author I'm not longer able to review, but I'm glad I don't have to, because everyone else seems to be loving it as much as I did!

And now, go forth! Buy books! It may not be Treat Yo'self Day, but books are always great gifts for holidays--for others and yourself--and a great way to hide in a corner at family gatherings and ignore people. ;)

But what are you DOING about it?

What I'm about to say (or type) in this post is probably going to be controversial, and maybe I'm going to come off a bit condescending, but I'm pretty okay with that, because sometimes, you need a wake-up call. I know I did.

2014 has been a pretty shitty year for me in general on a personal level. And as the year started winding down, I realized it was partially things that were out of my control, and partially things that weren't.

And I needed to fix the things that weren't.

it's no secret I spend a lot of time on social media. When you work for yourself, out of your home, that's often the only social interaction you get. Think of it as the freelances' water cooler. But one thing I noticed was that, instead of feeling energized after talking to people, I was feeling more depressed. 

At first, I thought the answer was maybe I needed to get out more, but that didn't help either. And what I realized was that people in my circles seemed to be increasingly dissatisfied with the way things in life were going, but seemed to be getting wrapped up in what was wrong instead of trying to find a way to make things right.

I'm a single mom. I don't have a lot of money. I often feel limited in what I'm able to go out as a result of both of those things. 

So, no, I can't donate money to something like We Need Diverse Books, but I can certainly make sure I request diverse books for review. I can add authors I like to things like my library list and my eReaderIQ list, so when they go on sale I can buy them and increase their visibility for online buy lists.

And the same thing with fandom. I watch people still involved in fandom who do absolutely nothing but complain about the state of things without ever getting involved in making them better. So I got off my ass this year and volunteered, and now I'll be spending some of my time working with the OTW, which does a lot of things like support academic research about fandom and provide legal advocacy and give a home to archives that would otherwise be lost as sites close down.

Things may not be great, but I feel like even my tiny drop in the bucket makes me feel like I'm doing SOMETHING positive. It's not enough to change the world, but if everyone gave that drop instead of just complaining, imagine where we might end up.

It's understandable to be down and depressed about the state of the world these days. But as we're heading into 2015, ask yourself what you're doing to change it. 

P.S. Watch for a follow-up post from me that tells you about all the great things I read this year.

The dumbing down of books

Something has been creeping into my reading experience, and it wasn't until a couple of recent books I read back-to-back that I figured it out: we're dumbing down the books.

I don't know if it's reality TV making stars out of complete idiots, but as a culture, we seem to be delighting in ignorance: May the dumbest one win.

I see polls where people are angry about something by name, but if you break down the tenets, they change their opinions. I see surveys online where people asked to identify the location of Lithuania put it in middle America. 

When did we start thinking it was okay, or even funny, to stop learning?

My first experience with a school librarian wasn't a good one. I was in first grade, having skipped kindergarten, and the librarian kept pointing me toward the "baby" books: picture books and early readers. I protested by refusing to take out any book at all and when the librarian alerted my mother she asked why on earth you'd limit a child to certain sections of the library.

I wanted to push myself, to learn more. 

The rise of information on the Internet has been like a dream come true for me, and I'll admit my addiction to reading on Kindle. Why? Because I can highlight a passage, ask my iPad to search for information, and get lost in learning about something new in MERE SECONDS. If there's something in a book I'm reading I don't know about, I want to learn more, and I can do it so easily I'm aghast that other people aren't doing the same. 

Yet I read books with over-simplified descriptions of diseases and disorders that border on caricature. Read futuristic dystopian and sci-fi that can't imagine a culture past our own. 

One of my favorite novels was written close to 40 years ago. It's Woman on the Edge of Time, a Marge Piercy novel that depicts a divergence in future culture. One possible future is the cyberpunk one later fleshed out by William Gibson. People are medically augmented. No one thinks for themselves. The other reality? A Utopian ideal in which parenting is done by triad. Gender roles have been normalized so there isn't much difference between male and female (and yes, that includes gestation and birth). Race has ceased to divide people, and care is given for the environment.

I read that book for the first time over 20 years ago, and it's still with me. I remember going to the library to look up things like Utopian society and to find other books that depicted this possible future of not thinking. 

And now I look around, and I see one of those two realities becoming more possible. And it depresses the hell out of me.

So it's NaNoWriMo month...

... and as usual, I'm super, super behind. I had all these delusions of catching up on my TBR list and reading and getting all my laundry caught up and trying this new pie recipe and finishing up editing THE FOREST'S SON (which is now, like, six months behind, but I promise the changes I'm making will be worth the wait!)

But then I was watching this ongoing conversation on Twitter that featured Courtney Milan -- who's a bestselling author and overall badass, if you aren't familiar with her work -- talking about street teams.

Let me tell you, I had way more to say than I could fit into 140 characters at a pop. Because the whole concept of street teams leads into another weird topic, which is what I like to call "sekret skwirrel clubs."

I'm sure a lot of you are part of these: locked Live Journal communities. Private Yahoo Groups. Private Facebook pages. Member-only Goodreads Groups.

I've been online a long time. I'm older than the hills. And the one thing I know for certain is that the more you say "Don't talk about Fight Club," people are going to talk about Fight Club.

Street teams often utilize these sorts of groups, as do cliques. As do organizations. Some of them are good, and makes sense. Some of them don't. What NONE of them are, however, is secure.

Please read that again. NONE OF THESE GROUPS ARE SECURE. EVER.

If you've been following the Ellora's Cave v. Dear Author lawsuit (and again, if not, go Google yourself some Courtney Milan, because she has an excellent breakdown), you'll notice something there: 

Some of the evidence Dear Author had to support the post in question was forwarded from a closed mailing list. Or group.

ANYTHING you put into words online has the potential to be leaked. Twitter DMs have been exposed. People will have friends--or even spies--in your closed groups. Even instructions to never forward information get forwarded. You can't trust that what you are putting out there in secret isn't going to get out somehow.

Now, how does this lead back to street teams? As Ms. Milan pointed out, street teams aren't always avid fans. They are folks you are essentially bribing to do marketing for you. That seems harsh, but it's true: these are people who want early access or special things that others don't have. 

Now, read what I said about about the sekrit skwirrel groups and think about that for a second. 

These are people who are not your employees, who may not be superfans, to whom you are giving exclusive things to. Don't talk about Fight Club, right?

Closed groups, exclusive memberships, group-only mailing lists are only as secure as the people in them, and you don't usually know all those people. You may not even know half of them. And some you may not even be aware are there, because they don't ever post or contribute. But they're still there.

When you say "Don't talk about Fight Club," people are ALWAYS going to talk about it. So my recommendation is to think long and hard about what you're posting or sharing or giving away... and how big you want your Fight Club to end up once it's out of your control.

The most soul-sucking job in the world...

is celebrity blogger.

Hi, I know it's been a while (nearly two months), but this has been the summer from hell in terms of my online access, and while I hope to get back to writing and putting things out there and all that really, really, really soon, right now I'm looking at packing boxes and wanting to scream.

This was a really crappy weekend if you were a celebrity. Really crappy. 

It was also crappy if you were in the proximity of a celebrity.

I found it crappy being online at all, but super, super crappy watching things being said by people I call friends.

Here's what I feel like I need to share: celebrity blogging is a horrible job. Sure, there are some people who truly delight in tearing other people down, but for the most part, these are people trying to make a buck, and they do so in spades because people on the Internet read these blogs.

If you build it, and no one comes, there's no money in it.

I did this for quite a while, for a site that no longer exists. I needed money and it came with no byline under my own name and a super-nice client who paid my invoices on time, and that's a damn nice thing in the world of freelance.

Sometimes, it's okay, and even fun. I mean, snarking about someone like Miley Cyrus with her wagging tongue and her little-girl pretend-play urban girl when we all know she grew up with money and a godmother by the name of Dolly? Hilarious. 

But a lot of the time it sucks. Hard, and long. The whole premise of online news sites is being first to break a story. Being the first to have something. Or having the most of it. Do you want to know what it's like spending hours poring over every site available trying to find pictures of a celebrity being carried out of somewhere in a body bag? Knowing that it's your job to do that and write about it and at the same time, knowing that person has a family who is sick with grief and you're only going to add to it?

I can tell you. You are hitting your search terms with your right hand and holding a bucket to barf into with your left.

I once spent an entire day alternately sobbing and puking to deliver a pithy post that I'd be able to invoice $15 for. 

That's right. $15. For 100 words and a picture of a body bag. 

Most places probably pay less than that, with traffic bonuses. If you've waited tables, you're familiar with this theory: You make next to nothing per hour, but if you luck out, you might rake it in on tips. With online writing, that usually depends on traffic, so if you have THE post on something, and your post brings in a lot of eyeballs, you might make more money.

At the same time, every one of those celebrities is a person. Sure, there's a sort of gentleman's agreement that to make big bucks and get awesome freebies from designers and such and walk all these red carpets, you give up a certain amount of privacy. Thing is, your mom didn't sigh up for that. Or maybe your girlfriend. Or your siblings.

Whenever things are done on line -- pictures leaking of private moments -- it's not just the celebrity in question whose privacy is invaded. It's everyone who was involved in that person's life. Friends. Family. Kids, if they have 'em.

I got involved with a blog a couple of years ago where I thought I was going to be writing about things I loved -- particularly music. I was thrilled. For once, no reviewing. Nothing deragatory. I only had to talk about things that were amazing.

But I very quickly realized the others weren't doing the same. It was very quickly becoming a "celebrity news" site, and not only didn't my voice match, but it was something I'd sworn I'd never be party to again. I bowed out quietly with apologies, and the site has gone on to be fairly successful, with great access to stories and celebrities and events.

I haven't thought twice about my decision to resign. Because when i see things like this weekend's events? I want as far away from that industry as I can be. I don't want to see it. I don't want to hear about it. And I can't help thinking of that being one of my kids whose privacy was taken away entirely. 

Imagine it was your kid. Or your sibling. Or your niece or nephew. How would you feel about it?

On those euphemisms for genitalia...

This is going to be a tough post to write, because I want to be sensitive to authors -- and their editors and betas.

Author Lauren Dane argues that a post at Bookriot on "terms we can't stand" is false, out of date, and clickbait. 

I... have to disagree. 

Note that Amanda Diehl, the author of the post, blogs and reviews for the popular romance site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. And I'm going to assume her experience is much the same as mine. 

As a reviewer, you don't get the luxury of reading only books you think you'll enjoy. You get to read the books that come across your desk. Some are assigned by an editor. Some may sound interesting from the blurb, but turn out to be not so hot once you start reading.

Reviewers don't get to DNF.

I read anywhere from 150-200 books a year, most of them posted on Goodreads. I read across the board: Big Five publishers, large digital-first publishers, self-publishers, micropublishers. 

And if I told you that the writing and editing is the same no matter what, I'd be lying through my teeth.

Do I see terms like "love channel" in Big Five-published books? Of course not. But those books have editors who are full-time employees, get paid a salary, and know better.

Do I see them elsewhere? Yes. Because from self-publishing to micro-pubs to digital-first, the editing -- if it's done -- can be uneven at best, and non-existent at worst.

Many of the smaller publishers pay less than a living wage to editors. Most of them work for more than one publisher and/or freelance on the side. Some of these editors didn't go to school for it, have learned on the fly, and may not have years of experience in the genre. And beyond that, there are readers who not only don't mind these terms, but seem to relish them.

When I approach a book for review, I try to keep the average reader in mind. To be honest? That's my mother and my sister. Both read books that regularly hit the NYT lists. Both were on the early end of trends like Twilight and That Book That Shall Not Be Named. If I was reviewing purely for myself? I'll be honest; there would be a lot more single-star reviews from me. 

But I'm not. I don't expect every reader to love the books I do and hate the books I hate. Still, there are some books that have been so truly awful I can't do anything but, and when I enter my rating on Goodreads? I'm shocked to find dozens of five-star reviews. They liked reading about the iron member in its silken sheath. Or his cock autolocating her "cavern" like it was a divining rod (or in my mind, a bat using sonar). Does it make me cross my legs and cringe? Yes. And any editor worth their salt would have highlighted that with a NONONONONO in the margin. 

But in this era in which it's often hard to get people to understand the value of a good editor, and when people are often publishing without the benefit of experience in the industry -- or even in their chosen genre -- it's inevitable that there's still plenty of this kind of stuff out there. And readers who flock to the free and super-cheap ebooks may find a niche where this kind of language is the norm rather than the exception. And they may never venture out of that niche, not knowing there's stuff out there that's amazing and has language that's less cringe and more "fan yourself."

And THAT is the reason I keep reviewing books and talking about them and posting my recommendations far and wide: I want to help readers find those books, and get the cream to sort to the top. Right now? We just aren't there. And if Bookriot's clickbaity article can steer a few readers to the good stuff? I have a raft of examples they can choose from.

In which Elizabeth Minkel is Bob Ross

As you can see by the date on my last post, my life has been insanely busy. 

Insanely.

Per usual, however, I manage to carve out some time to take a peek at what the world is saying about fan fiction -- in this case, Elizabeth Minkel's view of fan fiction in the wake of mega-deals for popular fanfics.

As I posted on Twitter, I both agree and disagree with Minkel's points. Where I mostly disagree is that fic can still be viewed in the same manner as it could before That Book.

Simpy, it can't.

Sure, there were fic authors who'd reworked -- or wholesale published -- their fic and received traditional publishing contracts, but they were viewed as outliers. Traitors. Money-grubbers.

To imply that it hasn't changed is both myopic and rose-tinted. Of course it's changed. How can anyone think it hasn't?

For starters, the curiosity about fan fiction reached the general populace, something that really hadn't happened before That Book. There was an "in the know" crowd as well as the Muggle-types: those who had no idea what the term meant, much less where to go looking for it or why they should be interested.

When my mother asks me about fanfic? I know something's different.

As I noted in my essay in Anne Jamison's book, five years ago, the fact that I wrote fan fiction was noted in my divorce proceedings -- and had to be explained to both my attorney and the judge. Does anyone really think that would be the case today? Of course not. It's hit the public consciousness, which is why articles like Minkel's get hits. It's not just fans reading these posts. 

There's a definite before and after. Do you read a WIP (work in progress) or do you wait to make sure the author isn't going to pull it mid-plot for a book deal? What side of the P2P debate do you align yourself on? Those of us who predate that book have almost certainly lost one or more online friends due to the chasm that created itself in the midst of the ethical debate around publishing fan fiction.

Every new fic author goes into this with at least the knowledge of what happened with That Book, and others. When I created my self-insert Mary Sue Trixie Belden fan fic that I only ever shared snippets of with my pen pal from the Trixie Belden fan club, that wasn't imaginable. It wasn't even imaginable when I began posting my first Twilight fan fiction on FanFiction.net.

So of course it's changed. Between the internalized knowledge of fandom readers and authors and the spotlight on the fandom communities, everyone is looking for the next big thing. Or hoping like hell that the last big thing will really be the last one, and we can go back to sharing stories in the privacy of our own communities.

There are no "happy little accidents" here. You can paint a tree or a cloud over what happened, but there's no hiding it. That Book happened. Countless others have happened. Fan fiction is a household term. And we can all see it hovering there in the background of the painting.

How William Giraldi got it so, so wrong. And right.

I haven't even been able to upload all my pictures from RT Booklovers' Convention, where I spent my last week in New Orleans meeting incredible people having amazing conversations. And yet today, the Internet blew up with the rabble-raising, click-baiting essay from William Giraldi on The New Republic in which he does whatever he can to disparage the romance genre and those who read it. 

Giraldi breaks no new ground with his vitriol: Those of us who read romance are all dumb, obese, and practically illiterate. I'll take the overweight jibe (after all, I have baby weight from kid #3 here) but the rest couldn't be farther from the truth.

Let's take the "God and Sex" panel (which I'll be recapping shortly for the RT blog, so keep an eye out). We had four phenomenally intelligent women (one an Episcopalian priest) talking about how devoid romance (and really, most literature) is of any talk of spirituality. The panel (and the audience), in a completely engaged hour that could easily have turned to 10 if time had allowed, discussing why it was such a verboten topic -- and what could be done to change it. Academic texts were cited. Literary trends over decades were discussed. And I don't think That Book was even mentioned.

Here's the thing: People like Giraldi who lump all of one genre into one parodic bucket are missing a lot of really great books. For every poorly written piece of dreck like That Book, there's a Tiffany Reisz or an M.J. Rose or a Jacqueline Carey. 

Sure there are some people out there who never get past the crap reads. Who are willing to settle for books with poor grammar and lazy storytelling. I had the pleasure of checking books in that readers brought for signing. And I saw a LOT of copies of That Book. But what gave me the most pleasure was seeing what books came after. What other authors those people had discovered because they'd started to read again and realized there were books out there that weren't the dry, slow-as-molasses books they'd been forced to read in school under the guise of "classics." That there were books out there that spoke to them.

If marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to other drugs, then sure, you can consider That Book to be a bag of skunk weed that leads to a life of cooking meth in your basement for some people. But to continue the analogy, maybe that desire to feel THAT GOOD leads to a finding other ways to recapture that feeling. Better ways. More challenging ways. And that can't help but be a good thing.

If Giraldi really wanted to be taken seriously by the romance community, perhaps he should have come to RT. To realize it's possible to spend hours talking about NOTHING BUT BOOKS with people. And some of them are actually really, really good. He might even like them.

Do you buy books that are different or more of the same?

So I got a little annoyed with the two-day Twitter lovefest on the hashtag #WeNeedDiverseBooks. That may seem a little bit out of character for me, but, to be honest, I've grown weary of what is rapidly being accepted as "clicktivism."

In clicktivism, people don't have to do much more than bang out 140 characters (minus the hashtag, and that's a nice chunk with that one) and they feel like they're doing something positive. Here's the thing: publishers and retailers don't give a rat's behind about your hashtag.

The last time this issue came up, I spotted Kensington editor Peter Senftleben pointing out that publishers buy books based on what has previously sold well.

Name me five NYT Top Ten Fiction books in the last five years NOT written by Khaled Hosseini off the top of your head (no Googling) and I'll grant you a pass on the subsequent roasting Senftleben received after his reality check.

The publishing industry is an ouroboros, and if you don't realize that, then congratulations! You are likely a person much less frustrated than I am, and probably with much lower blood pressure and much less er, lighter hair. In the past 10 or so years, there has been a ramping up of an expected pattern: an outlier breaks out big; publishers are jealous of the other pub's outlier; publishers buy more things exactly like the outlier.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Look at the huge boom in middle-grade wizard books after Harry Potter. The glut of vampire books in the wake of Twilight. And the current bumper crop of BDSM erotica that trail behind Fifty Shades of Grey. Publishers want to invest money in buying and marketing a sure thing. And evidence tells them diverse books are anything but.

So how does it work? Publishers put out titles and place odds on what's going to sell well, then put marketing dollars behind the ones they feel have good odds. Then they take these books to your Barnes & Nobles and your Targets and your Walmarts and these huge retailers place orders.

Guess what? A lot of the success or failure of a book is already determined RIGHT THERE. Before you even know that book is going to exist. 

Want to see what happens when Barnes & Noble decides NOT to carry your book if you are what they call a "midlist" author? Meaning one that doesn't get a whole ton of marketing dollars thrown at it? Look no further than Gretchen McNeil's story.

Note: You can probably now find McNeil's book at Barnes & Noble. However, read that whole post before you continue, because it points out the single salient point: fans of an author VOTED WITH THEIR DOLLARS. By pre-ordering and finding the book everywhere BUT Barnes & Noble, that giant behemoth was forced to carry the book -- or lose sales to other retailers who would.

What does that tell you about diverse books? Nothing is going to happen unless the MONEY changes. 

There are authors who will note that the books that sell are the books that have big posters up at book stores, and get end-cap, co-op table, and eye-level placement in stores. Those are the books with marketing dollars behind them, and the authors who point that out are totally correct. So who can change things? Who can get books about brown people and differently abled people and LGBTQ+ people on shelves?

You. 

If every tweet I've seen over the past two days had bought a title by one of these authors, the publishing industry would have sat up and taken notice. But tweeting doesn't show up on NovelRank, and that's what publishers want to see: numbers of sales. Period.

I can open my Kindle app and see at least 15-20 books right there without having to click on "Cloud". Some of these books I have pimped HARD on Twitter and when talking to friends. Yet when I look at "friend reviews" on Goodreads? There aren't a lot of people who even have these books on their "To Be Read" shelves.

The titles? At a glance? Emma Trevayne's Coda. Victor Lavalle's Lucretia and the Kroons. Kirstin Cronn-Mills Beautiful Music for Ugly Children. Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix and Fury of the Phoenix. Caridad Pineiro's The Lost. Ellen Oh's Prophecy. And Malinda Lo's books I got my teen in paperback... and signed.

If even ONE of these midlist authors writing diverse characters had the stock of their books cleaned out, or hit the #1 spot on Amazon's bestselling fiction list (and I don't mean the esoteric subcategories), the publishing industry would be all over it. 

Instead, you hear authors tell stories from agents who say they haven't been able to sell a gay main character. Who've trunked books about differently abled characters. Who write POC characters that either don't get sold or do, for tiny advances and low sales.

Go click on all those links I left up there. And then look at how many of those titles HAVE FEWER AMAZON REVIEWS THAN MY SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK.

Then ask yourself... what are YOU doing to make publishers sit up and realize we want to read those books? Because if we're buying the same thing over and over again, or we aren't looking past the front page or the end-caps or the big stores or we aren't reading these books and reviewing the hell out of them on social media sites to share them with others? We're missing a whole hell of a lot of great, diverse fiction that's already out there for the buying.

When good authors go to the dark side

Subtitled: How I got banned from a Facebook fan page.

So there are a few things I can't deal with online. I can't tolerate people who go off half-cocked without doing research. I can't tolerate people who have a huge online following who pick on smaller people. And I especially lose it when I see a combination of the two.

Most of you probably don't care, and haven't seen the increasingly bizarre antics of author Anne Rice.

Please keep in mind, this was an author I was a HUGE fan of. I own every one of the Vampire Chronicles. Every one of the Mayfair Witches books. Most of which were bought -- at retail -- in hardcover.

I was a diehard fan.

Then came the weirdness with freaking out on people for writing fan fiction, which is odd and off-putting. Then came the actual bible fanfic she wrote, in which she retold stories of the bible with fill-in-the-blanks weirdness.

That was the point at which I quit buying her books and hoped she'd eventually return to being the great author who wrote Interview with the Vampire.

Instead, what we now have is an internationally best-selling author, with nearly 100 million copies of her books in print (Yes, you read that right... 100 million), who has turned herself into a literary equivalent of a member of 4chan's /b/ forums.

In the past several months, Ms. Rice has aligned herself with a group calling themselves "Stop the Goodreads Bullies." I've run into this group before when dealing with some reviewers on Goodreads I feel don't act in any sort of polite-in-public manner. And I'm not above an Internet flame war... god knows I've been in my fair share of them.

But what STGRB does is reprehensible. They pick on reviewers they feel are "bullies" and that could range anywhere from a snarky 1-star review to adding a book to a shelf because you don't like the author. 

Personally, I don't need shelves. I know which authors I don't want to give money to, and don't need a shelf to remind me.

At any rate, at various points, these individuals -- who post anonymously, I might add -- have researched and revealed personal information of reviewers and bloggers they don't agree with. This includes addresses, locations from social media location tracking, etc.

In other words, violating the privacy of these individuals, as well as their children and families.

This isn't news to anyone in the industry... writers such as Foz Meadows have been talking about this hot mess for two years. But when you are an author with 100 million copies of your books in print, you bring a lot of attention to people who shouldn't be lauded in the first place, much less on an international stage.

In this week's festivities, Ms. Rice highlighted a STGRB post in which a reviewer one-starred a whole mess of books by an author.

Here's a hint: Goodreads isn't for authors.

Here's another hint: people do this all the time. It's called TROLLING. (Link to Urban Dictionary definition) I have an author who's still angry about a book I one-starred and gets her fans and/or friends to 1-star my book. Because she's angry about a review I wrote two years ago. She actually did it herself at first until I noted it and laughed.

See, I find this sort of thing funny. It's the equivalent of elementary-school shenanigans, and it comes part and parcel of being online.

Apparently, however, Ms. Rice is either new to the Internet or can't grok that in light of 100 million books in print (and hundreds of thousands of reviews... on Goodreads, Interview with the Vampire has over 294,000 ratings, and over 5,000 text reviews), even 100 people one-starring all her books means NOTHING.

To her, apparently, this means everything. To the point where today she called out "Gangster Thug Careerist Reviewers."

Now, that's pretty pejorative. And when you use the word "careerist" that sounds a lot like professional, doesn't it? Not the amateur reviewers who are usually the ones at the wrong end of the STGRB stick. And yes, I get paid to review for a magazine, so that sounds a lot like ME, doesn't it?

I posted to Ms. Rice's Facebook page. I don't like being called names (and that's not even getting into the racist connotations of the word "thug" which has been hotly discussed online). Ms. Rice, however, is NOT WRONG. EVER. And if you claim that she is, even when you give proof of your statements, you are accused of libel. Told you are rude. And banned from her fan page.

I'll let the screenshots below speak for themselves, but I can tell you this: my children, who have never been banned from reading a book in their short lives, will not be reading Anne Rice. And after seeing the screenshots, my teen, who is the same age I was when I discovered Interview, said they'd never read one of her books, even for class.

The definition of bully, from Merriam-Webster: a blustering browbeating person; especially :  one habitually cruel to others who are weaker.

Who's the weaker, and who's the stronger in this case? Ms. Rice? Or the readers she's helping STGRB go after?

(Note: the entire thread was deleted by Rice. This ain't my first rodeo, so I screencapped as I typed.)