Oh, you may want to know the name of the book:
Ellie and the Elven King

The concept was good. It needs to be expanded. So your idea is sound. I think there could be a market for it. But, then you’d have to have models for men and women that readers would identify with. That might be a challenge in itself.

I’m open to new ideas. The ride can be fun!

Unfortunately, the reality is that I am reading fewer and fewer romances. I buy more and more fantasy and mystery novels. However, I still look for fantasy and mystery novels, which have a romance. Why am I reading fewer romances.

In the last few weeks, I have been reading some of my older romances. There is a huge contrast between these 30 and 40 year old novels and the current romances on the market. I just reread Watch the Wall, My Darling by J.A. Hodge. This 40 year old historical romance had a twisting, fast paced plot. If you read a Georgette Heyer novel, the secondary characters are well developed and complex.

While there are some outstanding romance writers writing novels, I think that the romance market has been flooded with inferior writing. Some romance novels barely have the semblence of a plot. The characterization lack any depth.

People who love to read, will spend more on a book. Bookworms are constantly on the look for a good book. We go to book review sites. We seek out the opinions of our friends. But we do want a book that fully engages us. Personally, I do not want to spend $6.99 on a book that I throw aside in boredom.

As far as kids not reading, I think some will pick up the habit as they get older. However, that won’t happen if we don’t do something about our national reading average (now at sixth grade level, tetering towards fourth). No one wants to spend precious leisure time doing something that is really hard. I don’t know what the solution is to that either. But I do know as a nation, we should start taking it seriously. Darn seriously.

maggie b.

I have tried nearly everything to get them to find something they like to read. I want to inspire them to read for fun. I want them to experience the love of reading I have. But I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle.

That said, I know I didn’t read a lot when I was a teenager. Maybe there’s hope yet!

J.K.Rowling has done WONDERS for this generation of kids. Oh, I know many people want to ban Harry. To that, I respond, “Oh, PLEASE, don’t take away the ONLY books I can get my kids to read.” I love Harry Potter, myself. I read it to my kids (the home-grown ones, not my students). The first in the HP series is written on a fifth grade reading level, and as her characters grow up, so does the reading level! Her books gradually got more complicated, with more complex language and themes, allowing struggling readers to feel comfortable reading them. A student who is reading HP is moving himself/herself up to a higher reading level without realizing it! Shhh! Don’t tell them that. As a matter of fact, keep telling them they can’t read it– so that they’ll keep reading it! LOL

I remember how my much generation was looked down on in the 80s. We had no class. We :gasp: didn’t read. That wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. I know a lot of non-readers true, but the readers I know more than make up their buying power.

My kids are readers (10,9,5). They have a ps2, gameboys, tvs and dvd players…all the popular gadgets, and they like those things. But they much prefer a trip to the bookstore. My 10yo blew through the last HP and all the Narnia books the week after Christmas and then turned to her new games. They are bugging me as I type about the bookfair at school tonight lol. This bookfair is the biggest fundraiser our school manages every year too, I might add.

Is the Romance market in trouble? I don’t think so. I was at the local BAM day before yesterday and by far the biggest section is the Romance section. There is so much more variety now compared to 20 years ago. Back then I had a hard time finding interesting contemporary or fantasy/sf. Now it seems like just about everything is possible. If not at the brick and morter bs, then certainly at one of the many e-booksellers.

I think the big, big mistake romance publishers are making today is that they ignore the fact that bookworms — the oddballs, the freaks, the eggheads — will always buy the most books. Publishers increasingly try to make romances very bland and mainstream and identical to appeal to the biggest possible audience. But genre novels are almost always going to be niche products, not blockbuster mega-hits, and publishers need to appeal to the quirky people who actually read them.

That means much more variety and originality and freshness, which is what will catch the attention of young readers and keep them from thinking “those books are all the same.”

When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to read comic books. Now, ahem, much older and free to purchase and read what I want, I’m reading more and more stories in a graphical format. Some rather nice examples of romantic graphic (manga) novels would be Dramacon and Sorcerors and Secretaries, available via Tokyopop.

Because it is graphical, the media lends itself to the Internet, and promotion thereof.

I’m so in love with the media, that I’ve rediscovered my love of drawing with the goal of submitting a proposal to that publisher. And in my defense, and defense of the media, it’s damn hard to tell a story this way.

Also [ducking fruit and flames]…though I like romantic fiction and chick lit, I’ve found most romance novels….
…
…
formulaic.

Sorry.

in general, though, there are still enough young readers out there that, though we’ll never equal the gamer set in numbers, will not let the novel die. k?