Mithra

Mithra Publishing opened recently, apparently to publish crime fiction:

'"What types of books are we in the market for?That's the easy one. Mithra publishes books  in the thriller and fiction genres.  There are numerous sub genres within these categories.'

They seem to have retrofitted the genres of romance and erotica into their plan. However the one book I could find for sale on their website is, strangely enough, in none of these genres.

They also had the unique foolish idea of putting advertising in their ebooks. (Because I know that what I want from a 6 pound/8 dollar ebook is advertising.Its not a distraction, it's a service!)

"Far from being intrusive,  e-book ads may help to enhance the reading experience by giving the reader more information about a product or service relevant to the story."

Yeah.

Pass.

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I don't mean to be a bitch, but...

LR Cafe Best Cover

So the Preditors and Editors readers [cough] Poll has come out and none of the winning publishers are in the usual top five lists even just for the erotica/romance epublisher genres. Some of the top ten would be on my 'avoid' and 'amateur hour' lists.

I mean, really.  What does this poll mean now that more authors and their minions vote on it than readers? I bet the majority of voters in the genre categories have no direct experience of the books they are voting for.

Which I guess does make me a bitch raining on the winners' parade.  Oh, well.

See also: Complete List of LR Cafe's Best of 2011 Winners

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The problem with romance novels

The problem with romance novels is largely people who problematize romance novels.  (And yes, problematize is a word, even if Firefox doesn't think so). How dare authors get kudos for writing something a lot of people (well, women mostly, but they are kind of people) enjoy.  Fer shame!

And while I am on the subject.  The problem with calling ebooks ebooks (instead of just books) is people who think there is a value different between "ebook" and a "book", rather than just a semantic difference (specifically ebook as a subset of book, letting consumers know what format said book is in).

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Links

• Romantic Moon Publishing seems to date from around July 2011.  It has one author and one book. At which point it seems to me that it hardly needs a website at all. Self-publishing imprint, I assume.
• Porn Performer: Why I'm Against Government Mandated Condom Use in Porn
• Why Reader Taste Differs from Publisher Taste--An Agent’s View of How the Publishing Industry Is Changing
• Sizzler will now offer paperback as well as ebooks, via Eros Editions 
• Bandit Creek: looks like some kind of shared world thing.

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Another Revouhaha

Dear Author's review
Koko Brown's response
Edited to add: Smart Bitches review

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South Tyneside's Short Memory

"Catherine Cookson Country" is being torn down from the road signs of South Tyneside (United Kingdom). It seems that the history of the area, in reality and in Dame Catherine Cookson's novels, is too grubby to continue to acknowledge.They need to update their [shudder] "branding".

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Coliloquy

According to the press release, Coliloquy (presumably a riff on soliloquy) launched with interactive ebooks, entirely in the romance genre, written by Heidi R. Kling, Kira Snyder, Liz Maverick and Tawna Fenske. None of whom I have heard of (not that that necessarily means anything, I don't get out much).

Apparently these ebooks will allow reads to communicate with the author and choose what POV they want to read a chapter in--or other vaguely referenced interactively stuff like that.

Me, I prefer books to be books. But if you try one of these out, be sure to let me know what "Reading and Writing. Re-imagined." looks like....

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The Hari Matter

It is not often I feel and sympathy for a plagiarist. But I think some kudos is due to Johann Hari who was caught copying, admitted to it, apologized, and when offered his job back at the Independent, didn't take it.

Still a very low thing to do, but most plagiarists compound the area with months of evasion and excuses.

(Second link may be slow as everyone and their dog is reading this blog post right now)

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