Romancing the Blog | Romance Authors and Readers Who Blog

This month, the first of a series of six books is out, and let me tell you, it’s not your usual continuity :0). All six of us are friends, writing about friends, who are wedding planners (we’ve chronicled our adventures on our own blog). A little over a year ago, I proposed the idea (no pun intended) of friends writing together about friends. I had the perfect group of friends in Myrna Mackenzie, Melissa McClone, Linda Goodnight, Susan Meier and Melissa James. They were all talented, fun authors who were chock-full of ideas, award winning, best-selling books, and several of them were authors I had worked with on other projects.

Nevertheless, when you propose something like this, you worry. I had had this first chapter of SWEETHEART LOST AND FOUND on my computer for a long time (it ended up becoming a later chapter, but if you read the book, it’s the poker scene, with several of the “girls” sitting around at Audra’s table, playing cards), and had just been looking for the right group of friends to assemble for the series. Then along came these five women, and when I sent the chapter out, they leapt on it with a brainstorming frenzy like I had never seen before.

We brought our completed proposal to editorial and wham, we had a half dozen contracts. Then we set about writing the books, always communicating frequently, running ideas, sometimes chapters, by each other. In the end, the entire series was a fun, collaborative process.

Sort of like being the wedding planners that our characters were. We created a “wedding” of books, merging our creative talents to bring together heroes and heroines into six happily ever afters. We had a blast, truly.

I don’t think I could have done this with just anyone, nor do I think the experience would have gone as smoothly with any old group of friends. Post-writing, we’ve done promotion together (like the blog), and that, too, has been a collaborative effort, with everyone working together (and filling in when someone has been sick, or traveling or just snowed under). It helps that we’re all authors and moms and we understand that life gets in the way, and can pop in, since there are so many of us, to take up the slack.

It’s like the best marriage of all. There are a half dozen creative minds brought together to do everything. And best of all?

No one gets in trouble for not changing the toilet paper roll, nor is there any laundry to do at the end of the day

Shirley

I was recently at the Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention, affectionately called “RT”. There were. some major glitches with the hotel being renovated . (I mean, really, 1500 women and NO bathroom on the main floor? You know, the floor with the restaurants and bar? Then no staircase to the second level, leaving the elevators jammed?) Aside from the mayhem of the reconstruction, the convention was one big party, and the prevalent theme throughout was all things paranormal.

I shared the elevator with a she-devil, vampire and zombie. I saw a dominatrix (Okay, maybe technically not paranormal, but certainly a fantasy) who looked like a hard-core dominate sex party from the neck down and a Sunday school teacher from the neck up. There were faeries and witches peppered in with the male models with little clothing.

All in all, it was a hoot. The fun party atmosphere prevailed, but I was taken with how the genre and conference has evolved, just how much emphasis and enthusiasm was placed on vampires and dark warriors and werewolves and the like. They could be good, or bad, but never ever ugly. From the book trailers playing on closed-circuit TV in my room, to the posters in the hallways, ghosts, devil-warriors, and vampires are hot! Paranormal seemed the prevalent theme, and you know what, I liked it. I’ve dabbled a bit in paranormal phenomena in my writing, but believe me, I’m a piker. These people believed. At least for one week.

Lisa Jackson
http://www.lisajackson.com
http://blog.lisajackson.com

Or is it?

Do you know what it means when someone slaps “Bestselling Author” on their web site, blog or book cover? How about “Nationally,” “USA Today,” or “NY Times” Bestseller? The first two are pretty vague. You can see how those might mean different things to different authors and publishers, but the last two? Those are clear cut, right? I mean, you either made the list in question or you didn’t. And if someone made the list, especially the grandaddy of lists, the NY Times, they’d be touting it everywhere, again…right?

Well, not necessarily. Here’s the weird thing. There is no industry standard for any of these terms. I know what you’re thinking, well, maybe the smaller presses don’t follow the same standard. They, after all, have a different marketing plan than the bigger guys (more online sales, etc.). But what about those big guys? Those NY publishers? They all go by the same rules–surely.

The simple answer is, No, they don’t.

Quick quiz: Author A makes the NY Times list at #20, Author B makes the list at #21. They are both NY Times Bestsellers, right? Well, maybe–depends on who their publisher is. Some publishers only recognize “making the list” if the author makes the print list, in other words the top 20. Some publishers recognize ANYWHERE on the list.

If you go to the NY Times’ web site, you’ll see they make a distinct distinction between top 20 and all others by a line and not saying “weeks on list” for those under top 20. RWA National also only puts authors on their “honor role” if they have made top 20 for the Times, top 50 for USA Today or top 15 for Publisher’s Weekly. Week to week they do list those who make an “extended” list, Border’s Group’s list, Barnes and Noble’s list, and Essence’s list. (Also Library Journal’s most borrowed list, but we are discussing bestSELLER lists today.)

Now let’s say that Author A is in an anthology with with a NY Times Bestselling author and the anthology hits anywhere on the list. Does that count? Do they get to go on from there calling themself a NY Times Bestselling Author? Sure, with some publishers…others–no way.

Bestselling? For some houses it means the author had to hit at least TWO of the big three, meaning NY Times, USA Today or Publishers Weekly. But we have all seen authors use this term who were no closer to any of those lists than I am to George Clooney right now. How is that? Because, simply some publishers have a definition for the term and some don’t. And some don’t care if an author uses the term to describe say being in the top 100 selling romance books set in Potosi, Missouri at Amazon for 10.2 seconds (or at least not enough to police it).

Nationally Bestselling? Well, Amazon sells nationwide…but again some houses limit the term. One I’ve heard is an author has to hit one of the major bricks and mortar bookseller lists.

So, what’s this tell you about the books? Not a lot. I mean we all know just because someone else likes a book doesn’t mean we will–or do we? Do you buy books because they made a list? Do you look at an author differently (with more respect) because they made a list? Does any of this make a rat’s patootie’s worth of difference to you? How about as an author? If you have made a list–anywhere on a list–does it bug you when someone else claims something your publisher won’t let you claim? Or how about when someone who you know never made any of the lists mentioned on RWA’s site, claims to be a “bestseller?” Bug you? Or no?

by Bettye Griffin

About ten years ago I wrote a romance (it was just my second novel) about an infertile heroine that I called A Love of Her Own. The copyeditor changed only two words in my entire manuscript (an accomplishment I suspect I will never again achieve). The story just flowed from me, since I’d suffered through this condition myself throughout my entire 30s (I wrote it for largely therapeutic reasons when I turned 40). As I suspected, I received quite a bit of mail from readers about this story, which touched women with children as well as those whose efforts to conceive did not work out. But the most poignant mail came from those in the latter category, who’d been told that motherhood was unlikely. No one blasted me for writing an insensitive story; instead the reaction was positive. Many readers congratulated me for presenting an honest tale and for giving the heroine a happy ending that didn’t involve her magically getting pregnant (since she still had all her parts it was physically possible, but highly unlikely), which they would have considered to be a cop-out.

When I began writing women’s fiction my storylines became even more real, but without the prettiness that one always finds in romance novels. Therein lay the rub.

How would a reader feel if they had experienced the situation I was writing about with such brutal, un-pretty honesty? Worse yet, what if they were going through it at the same time?

Last year I wrote a book addressing the housing crisis, which at the time I wrote the manuscript was a problem in certain areas of the country, but hadn’t yet mushroomed into the big nationwide mess it has since become. By the time the book was published the real estate crisis was big news, making my book quite timely. Still, I worried about readers who were struggling to hang onto their homes picking up my book and finding the plight of the characters a little too familiar. Could that turn them off Bettye Griffin books permanently? Maybe this seems unrealistic, but the human mind can work in strange ways. How many people have said they couldn’t stand an actor because of a particularly villainous role they played? (There’s a story in Hollywood folklore about a maid who refused to serve at a dinner party because of “that evil, evil woman” who was among the guests. That “evil woman” was actress Gene Tierney, who had recently played a jealous, conniving woman who kills anyone who gets between her and the person she wants in the film noir Leave Her To Heaven. Miss Tierney went into the kitchen to assure the maid that she was not the person she’d seen in the movie, and eventually dinner was served.)

I worried about this a lot while writing my latest book, because it contains four main characters facing numerous difficult situations. Yes, some women have actually experienced what I wrote about, but does that mean they want to read about it? As the April 29th publication date for Once Upon A Project draws near, this troubling possibility remains in the back of my mind.

The last thing I want to do is be a source of emotional stress or despair for anyone. But on the same token, no one wants to read a book about people whose lives are hunky-dory. There must be conflict to stand in one’s way, secrets one hopes to keep quiet but which threaten to be revealed, with all the corresponding consequences.

Then I remember the one line that was common to much of the mail I received from readers who’d read my second novel, the romance with infertility at its core: “It’s good to know I’m not alone.” That gives me hope.

Have you ever read a book that addressed a situation similar to a challenging chapter in your life, past or present? How did you react? Did you throw the book against the wall? Out the window? Were you ambivalent? Or did you find it fascinating and continue to read to see how these fictional characters made out?

In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings. — Alfred Hitchcock

Villain. It does smack of Snidely Whiplash, snickering and twisting his fiendish mustache, doesn’t it? Evil and mean. And very one-dimensional.

I prefer antagonist. The character who comes into conflict with the protagonists. Papa Montague and Papa Capulet weren’t villains. They were antagonists. The mother who pays the bad boy to leave her daughter forever isn’t a villain. She’s an antagonist. Well, sure, but what if you’re writing romantic suspense or thrillers? You need a villain then, right?

Wrong. That’s when you need a morally ambiguous antagonist the most.

Why?

Action movies are a dime a dozen. Shoot’em up, bang-bang, save the world. And I love them. The Die Hards. The Lethal Weapons. Anything with Steven Seagal. I’m there. But there are two that I could watch in a marathon rotation for days. Why? Because of the morally ambiguous antagonists.

In 1996, some casting god put Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery in The Rock. As if that wasn’t reason enough, this movie also has, IMHO, the single best example of characterization shown through dialogue. When they’re explaining the mission, and Nic’s character says “I drive a Volvo. A beige one,” you know everything you need to know about the man.

But I digress. (Surprise!) The reason this movie is a keeper is Ed Harris’s role as Brig. Gen. Francis X. Hummel. The man who took Alcatraz and its tourists hostage and threatened to destroy San Francisco. A villain, right? Not by a long shot. Every single time I watch this movie I weep for the man. The writers took a character and made him do a misguided thing for the right reason. And not just his right reason. The plight of our veterans is an issue that touches (or should touch) every American. And when his plan gets blown to hell and you see the torment of a man who was just trying to make things right, it’s heartbreaking. You can’t root for him to succeed–nobody wants San Francisco blown away. (Well, nobody I know, anyway.) But you can’t root against him, either, because we believe in what he believes in. (And, of course, one of the secondaries gets to be The Villain, who’s stereotypically after the money, but that’s just actiony crap at the end.)

The other movie with a great antagonist is Air Force One. Harrison Ford turns in a good performance as the Commander-in-Chief, but Gary Oldman’s role as Ivan Korshunov is very good. Okay, the movie wasn’t great. Pretty plastic action-figurey, and a little hokey with the Air Force One thing. But what keeps me watching the movie over and over again (I will admit to owning this one) is the desperate fight of the Russians and the -ikstani’s (I cannot and will not name all those countries) to save their countries. A lot of people don’t realize it, but the end of the Cold War wasn’t necessary a great thing. The threat of nuclear annihilation kept the world aligned under the Superpowers, and kept the economies of the US and Russia strong. Korshunov is a man driven by the need to save his country. To regain what they once had before they all starve or are killed by the infighting.

What would you do to save your country? Would you hijack a plane and kidnap a country’s leader if you thought you could negotiate something you believed your floundering country desperately needed? Would you threaten, even harm, one family, if it could save thousands…maybe millions? He did a bad thing, for his good reason.

There are plenty of Snidely Whiplashes out there. “I’m going to destroy the world! Why? For money, of course!” Snore.

With romantic suspense still riding high at the top of the romance food chain, the choices for readers are varied and many. Have you read any with truly memorable antagonists—”villains” so well-motivated and morally ambiguous you found yourself empathizing with the character, even knowing (s)he would lose in the end? Or do you prefer not to get in the villain’s head, wanting instead a straight battle of good versus evil?

The U.S. economy has seen better days. Folks all over the United States are feeling the pinch, given the ever escalating price of oil, which seems to affect everything from the price of gas to the cost of plastic containers; the rising cost of food; the outrageous number of houses in foreclosure or preforeclosure; the cost of a college education; the growing national debt; our shrinking personal savings, as a nation; and an ongoing war that is costing us as a nation a lot more than the trillions of dollars we’ll have invested in the Middle East before it’s all over.

This is not an anti-war column, a political column, or anything else intended to create and fuel controversy. There’s more than enough of that going on in the romance reader blogosphere. Too much if you ask me.

Rather, as I count my pennies and try to toss them in as many directions as possible without losing sight of them altogether, I wonder what does the current state of the economy mean for writers, particularly those of us who are trying to break into publication?

As you can guess, I’m an aspiring writer, pre-published writer, semi-published writer (if you count my published short stories)…however you prefer to categorize me. In my head, I’m simply a writer, albeit not of the Nora Roberts or JK Rowling royalty-level. So that tells you something about my financial perspective.

I have to budget. Perhaps an ugly word but, a necessary one.

For me, possible writing expenses include things like contest entry fees, postage, supplies (paper, post-its, inkjet cartridges, etc.), craft books, genre books, computer equipment, Internet access, media storage devices, online workshops, organizational membership fees, and magazine subscriptions. I’m working my way up to include conference registration and travel expenses. I might need to budget for professional editorial services, and once I’m contracted in novel-length, I know I’ll need to anticipate marketing and promotional expenses.

Just thinking about all of those potential expenditures makes my head swim but, writers need to think about what they’re willing to invest in their writing, that is beyond opening up their hearts and souls on paper.

As an example, for years I have bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t “afford” to go to a writer’s conference. If only I could get to one!

I’m not sure what I thought would happen upon my arrival. It’s not as though editors were going to throw contracts at my feet! And in fact, I really couldn’t afford it. It’s still hard for me to think about allocating that huge chunk of money. But it’s getting easier because I’m budgeting.

Every writer should have a writing budget. After all, we’ve heard time and again, that writing is a business. Prior to advances or royalties, more than likely, it is all personal investment. for some, this may be discouraging but, it doesn’t have to be. Here’s what I’ve picked up in the short time since I began writing in earnest:

1. Use your writing to finance your writing.

Sounds like circular logic but it isn’t. It costs very little to do research via the Internet (you can probably find free Internet access at your local library). Identify publishers to target, study their publications, and submit freelance stories. Some pay upon acceptance; others upon publication. Use your critique group or find one specific to non-fiction writing to get feedback, just as you would on your romances.

Another way to finance your novel writing using your writing skills is to find short story markets. Granted, these are not as easy to find or crack as they used to be but they’re still out there. Many romance writers have cut their writing teeth on the confession magazines. The pay is low and it’s only upon publication, not acceptance, but with one story, you can earn enough to pay for a couple of online courses, buy a few paperbacks for research, and put aside the rest for future postage.

A third option is writing and selling shorter romantic stories in ebook format. Some ebook publishers take novellas or even short stories. You’ll have to market them to make money—don’t expect a windfall—but it can be done. In addition to the money, you may get the opportunity to experience working with an editor, and you’ll build up your writing credits.

2. Investment in small increments.

Maybe you won’t be one of the first to register for that conference you’d like to attend later in the year. You can’t buy those hot books you’ heard about right away. You can’t upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Windows, purchase the latest, thinnest wireless laptop, or get any of that cool writing software as soon as it hits stores.

So?

You have to exercise a bit of patient and be smart about how you spend your money. There’s no “keeping up with the Jones” in writing because everyone’s writing journey is unique. Which brings me to my last point.

3. Prioritize.

You have to make choices. You can’t do everything. I’d argue that multi-published authors who release several titles per year every year still have to budget, although those of us aspiring to that level of success like to think that it’s all fame, fortune, and freedom from such mundane worries.

A multi-published author’s budget considerations include all the same things and more. Whether to pay for a professional website or a promotional book trail. Whether to finance a tour to complement her publisher’s marketing strategy. Whether to squeeze one more writing conference—the one she always said she’d attend when she had more money—into her budget and schedule. Doesn’t matter which end of the writing spectrum you find yourself on. It’s all about setting priorities.

Do your homework, decide, and put together a plan. Just $20 out of every biweekly paycheck adds up to $520 by the end of the year. May not sound like much but you can do a lot with it.

You could enroll in 20 online courses at an average of $25 per course.

You could buy 81 paperbacks at an average price of $5.99 per book including 7% tax.

You could download over 100 ebooks.

You could save it and be one of the first to register for next year’s RWA convention.

The day will come when I’ll be able to drop chunks of money into the kitty. I wholeheartedly believe that. But today is not that day. Not with private school tuition looming, summer camps, three boys that eat like men and grow like weeds, and all of the “unexpected” emergencies that we know we should expect, like emergency room visits, flat tires and broken washer machines, but somehow we rarely do.

Bottomline? Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I committed this year to invest in my writing out of every paycheck. (If you are not working outside of your home, go back to #1.) Sometimes that investment has looked like a single Harlequin Romance or Steeple Hill Love Inspired purchased in Wal-mart, $3.14 or $4.54 respectively, including tax. All total, using this incremental approach, I’ve already purchased more genre and craft books than I did last year, joined a writing organization, and begun planning to attend my first conference. And I’m not only writing but I’m beginning to view my writing as the business I want it to be.

You can too!

Note: My original intent was to wax eloquent about how our weak economy might affect the decision making of writers, agents, and editors—and how those decisions are intertwined—but my post took this direction and wouldn’t turn back. Maybe I’ll talk about that on my next go-round.

If there were just one thing that I could teach all aspiring writers, it would be that despite lofty ideas of creating art or the firm belief that you “just write and let someone else worry about the rest,” the truth of the matter is that publishing is a business. Writing by itself can be a hobby or a lark, but once you cross the line into the realm of publishing, where you put your work out there in the hopes of selling it and seeing it on the shelves, you are talking bottom line, down and dirty business, with emotions and personalities put way back on that rear burner. And when you’re dealing with business, that means you need to learn to be a professional, even down to the simplest correspondence.

The knee-jerk response is one that agents see with surprising frequency. In this day and age of electronic everything, when many writer/agent relationships begin with a simple e-mail query or an online introduction by a mutual friend, it has become all too easy to dash off a quick message or reply before taking the time to really think it through. The most classic example of this is the writer who does not like a rejection letter they have received and shoots off an immediate response to let you know what was wrong with it. Sometimes I hear that my letters are too short, or too long, or that I should have told them how to fix their manuscript based on the three chapters that failed to capture my interest. My favorites are the persona insults, the ones that inform me I clearly have no taste or knowledge about the industry and that I’m in no position to judge their brilliance, talent, art, etc. Recently I was told to go play in heavy traffic.

It is easy for me to warn people that they should not respond in the heat of the moment. Rejection hurts, I understand that. It can be frustrating, particularly when you’ve heard the same thing over and over again. However, I have also noticed that the people who succumb to their emotions and respond off the cuff in such a negative, insulting manner, are also the people who cannot maintain a proper business attitude in any other aspect of their writing careers. These are the same people who don’t make the effort to read agency guidelines and learn the proper way to submit a query to the agent of their choice. Or they don’t take the time to note what genres an agent represents, and therefore waste both their own time and the agent’s by submitting queries for projects the agent will never sign on. And so the person who queries me on their hot new thriller idea appears far more likely to shoot back an insulting remark to my response that I don’t represent thrillers, than a romance writer whose work didn’t quite click for me and received a standard rejection. But regardless of your goals, it is best to keep to professional behavior, even when your emotions try to get the best of you. Behavior in one area seems to set the tone for many other interactions.

Quick-on-the-draw responses can cause trouble in other areas of your career as well. I have met with a fair number of writers who query both agents and editors in an effort to sell their books, hoping that if they have a book deal in hand, it might make them more attractive to a prospective agent. And it is true that this can happen, but you must be very careful in how you handle your negotiations. If an editor calls you up and offers to buy your book, it can be very difficult to keep your cool in the midst of all that excitement. Too many writers accept the deal as is in a fit of elation, whether they are concerned that the offer might be taken off the table or they are simply too elated to do anything else. However, that acceptance becomes hard and fast, making it very difficult for any agent you sign with after the fact to come in and help you improve on your deal. If you agree to the publisher’s standard boilerplate, you not only lose out on potential money for that book, but you set a precedent in your own contract history with that publisher, making it very difficult for the agent to change certain aspects of the contract even on future deals. So, no matter how excited you are if that offer comes along, remember to keep your business hat on and do not commit to any deal if you intend to bring an agent in to negotiate. Sometimes being professional means knowing when to call in someone else to do the job.

Discretion should be another key word in the writer’s business lexicon. It is very easy to become chatty about the ins and outs of your writing career, particularly when you’re involved in writers’ groups and organizations and have critique partners with whom you share both your successes and your failures. Blogs also create another source of conversation of sorts, where writers trade the details of their careers with other writers and readers. But certain things should be kept under wraps — sometimes for a set time period and in other cases for good. If your agent is shopping your manuscript, don’t discuss its progress online, and certainly do not mention which editors are reading it in your daily blog update. Editors read blogs too, and by sharing your submissions process, you are giving those editors ammunition in the negotiations process that they should never have, such as how many other editors they’re up against or if anyone has rejected your manuscript already.

Money is another hot topic. Yes, writers like to know what kind of advances are coming down so that they can judge where they themselves stand in the publishing hierarchy, but the truth is that no matter what you find out, the comparisons are still completely unequal. There is no instance where you can accurately judge whether another person’s effort is worth more or less than your own. Instead, comparing advances is more likely to lead to hurt feelings for one or more people. Also, do not quit your day job after publishing four books simply because your favorite author chose to do so. She may think you’re ready, but she has no idea if your sales and expenses match hers precisely, and so again the comparison is meaningless. It’s wonderful to help other writers, or to seek out information from writers more experienced than yourself, but always keep in mind that publishing is a business, and no two writer’s business dealings will ever be precisely the same.

Writing is a creative endeavor, and at times it can also be surprisingly social, with writers’ groups and meetings and lunches with agents and editors. Particularly thanks to the internet, it is easier than ever to create a writing community that helps support you emotionally and intellectually. But writing for profit is still a business, and as with any business, it is important that you remember to keep a professional attitude and always put your best face forward.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is, no matter how talented you are, you can’t succeed at any endeavor unless you give it your all. You have to make it a top priority.

This is true of writing, of course. I’ve known several writers who were tremendously talented–really far more skilled at word-crafting, character-building and plotting than I ever could hope to be. But they were dabblers. They wrote “when they had time,” but usually they let other aspects of their lives take precedence. Children’s activities, day job, home improvement projects, whatever. The writing always came last, and thus they rarely finished anything, or submitted, or sold.

But it’s that way with anything. I’ve dabbled in many pursuits. I had a space at an antiques mall for about three years; I fancied I could do it on the weekends. The harsh truth was, I could stay afloat working on weekends, but I couldn’t make a decent profit. Other dealers were outperforming me because they were in their shops or out working the sales every single day. They lived and breathed antiques.

I dabbled in acting, too. But (big surprise) it was the same thing. If I actually wanted to land decent roles, I had to invest the time and energy, network, volunteer, read the trades, research online, take classes, take chances.

Much to my eternal frustration, I have WAY more interests than I will ever have time to pursue, especially because my writing will always be my top priority. So I’m a dabbler and I never really succeed at any of these secondary interests. Currently I fancy myself an artist, and of course I’m quickly finding out that no matter how beautiful my creations, I can’t do well in this field because I’m not living in that artist skin twenty-four hours a day. Many of my colleagues are. (Most of them are at a juried art show right now; I’m home writing.)

I guess I don’t mind being a dabbler, and I manage to use my experiences as research in my novels. But sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I hadn’t chosen writing, if I’d gone a different direction.

One of my favorite exercises is found in the self-help book Wishcraft by Barbara Sher, and it’s called Five Lives. If you had five lives to lead, what would they be? Today, here are my answers:

1. Novelist. Exactly what I’m doing right now. (Okay, I’d be richer and more famous.)
2. Archeologist. I’ve actually dabbled at this, too.
3. Singer/Dancer/Actress
4. Horse trainer or breeder
5. Visual artist (painting, sculpture, collage, jewelry-making, pottery–something like that.)

Okay, your turn. Tell me about your five lives. And are you pursuing the right one?

Seven displaced romance novel heroes. One matchmaker devoted to giving them Happily Ever After.

Pilot Episode

(An upscale bar. Five attractive women, four with red hair, are chatting at a table in the corner. Six other women in various stages of intoxication are throwing back shots at the bar. Six men wait in a private room under the supervision of an agitated professional matchmaker, who scowls when a seventh man enters the room.)

Matchmaker: A vampire walks into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a great joke, but there’s nothing funny about you being an hour late.

Dante Dracovich: Complain to Daylight Savings Time. I didn’t make the sun set at nine.

Matchmaker: No more excuses from any of you. If you’re not going to take this seriously, hit the road, keeping in mind your deposit is nonrefundable. I’m going to go talk to the girls, tell them how fabulous you are, and get them liquored up before I send you out to mingle. Talk amongst yourselves.

Man with Lacy Cravat and Skintight Pants: I shall begin. I am Lord Tristan, Duke of Lanshropberktershire.

Christian Rockvanfellerbilt: Uh-huh. Where, exactly, is that located?

Tristan: It’s just north of Liverwurstershire.

Bane Aphelion: Ah, yes. Latifah, Queen of Newark, has a summer home there.

Tristan: Is that so? I must say, I am quite put out that I have never received an invitation from Her Majesty. We are practically neighbors, after all.

Bane: I know what’ll be fun. Let’s play a word-association game. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say “Regency rake”?

Tristan: Illicit rendezvous with lady fair.

Christian: Fashion fit for the artist-once-again-known-as Prince.

Dante: Gonorrhea.

Tristan: I beg your pardon!

Dante: I was there, buddy. Every one of you players swizzled your stick in some kind of pox.

Tristan: At least I haven’t adopted a pseudo-Romanian alias like a certain nocturnal fiend who used to be known to the ton as Donald Dunston.

Dante: You know, fop, a stake in the heart will kill a human, too.

Christian: Don’t make me separate you two. Unlike some people who inherited their fortunes along with their blue blood, I earned my billions by exerting my dominance over those who would waste time on such petty pursuits when they should be working as hard as I do to achieve my success.

Mitch Ruger: Please. Your great-granddaddy was the last member of your family to break a sweat. A hard day’s work for you is signing too many credit card receipts.

Christian: What do you know, and what is that lump under your arm?

Mitch: My gun. I work for a top-secret government-funded law enforcement agency whose acronym you’ve never heard of, rescuing trust-fund suckers like you from bad guys who want to part you from your money and your lives. I’ve been shot, stabbed, and once spent a week in a pit in Somalia, surviving on bugs and dew, all in the line of duty. I bring home five figures a year for that, so I don’t want to hear any whining about how rough your board meetings are, rich boy.
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By Robyn Harper

First, a disclaimer. I write, but as of yet I am unpublished. I do, however, follow the trends and trials of Romancelandia closely, and frankly I’ve been scared enough to wonder if being pubbed is all it’s cracked up to be.

Writing a book, any book, is not easy. I know there are those who have pushed trash like Writing Romance In Your Spare Time for Fun and Profit, but they are morons. Writing is fun and perhaps profitable, but it is a lot of plain old hard work. And after you’ve plotted (or pantsed) and done character interviews and discovered what archetype your hero is and what kind of soda your heroine drinks; after you’ve hogged your computer and ignored your husband and had your children eat macaroni and cheese more often than you’ve cooked real food for them; after you’ve written The End and then found out It Wasn’t, re-written and revised and polished; you’re still not done.

After you’ve submitted and waited and shouted at your teenagers to Get. Off. The. Phone because an editor might call, and given your mailman a genuine fear of you; after you’ve braved rejections and made revisions; after you’ve rejoiced over the sale; you’re still not done.

After you’ve worked with editors and made more revisions and agreed to let people have control over your baby, to change this and cut that and oh my God, is that my cover art? and ordered book marks and pens and set up your web page; you may still not be done.

None of this works unless you actually get paid. Some would say that if you haven’t done your research, and you took a chance on a small press or e-pub that didn’t have a track record, shame on you. There is a certain amount of merit in that argument. But what burns me to the core is the thought that after all the things I’ve listed above, an author who expects to get paid the agreed-upon amount, at the agreed-upon time, and complains if she doesn’t? Branded a troublemaker.

I rarely find the need to cuss, but pardon while I say BULLS**T. If I were a plumber who had performed the contracted service, and a client chose not to pay because of any one of a number of reasons, I might cut that client a little slack. But not forever. And if I decided to sue the aforementioned client for payment for services rendered, I would not be called an unprofessional troublemaker, and I would certainly not be drummed out of the plumbing business. Nor would I have to worry about an army of RoboClicking sycophants kicking my favorable reviews out of the Better Business Bureau.

It makes me wonder if we need an author’s advocacy group, a body that could provide arbitration when these things crop up. Even, and I cringe as I write this for I am not a fan of them in the slightest, a union. The atmosphere is scary enough to make an unpubbed writer like me think twice before sending that latest submission.