Have you ever read a book by an author you usually love...and been bored? I stuck my foot in it over at eHQ by venting my frustrations about a book where there were 3 POVs in the first chapter, none of them the heroines. The book was stagnant until chapter three. Then it was great, but by then....I was annoyed. Especially because there was an obvious fix to me, a way to revise things so it started with a bang and some mystery, a hook if you will. I find this occasionally with established authors, a book that makes you say..huh. Another had both my CP and I scratching our heads, wondering if a favorite author had forgotten how to de-was-zle a manuscript.
Last summer the publisher of said books ran a first chapter contest. Two years ago they ran a best love scene contest. Maybe I read too much into the shift, thinking they were looking for stronger stories, not spicier sex scenes. Either way, I honestly beleive these kind of books wouldn't have made it through the first chapter contest. And established authors should be held to the same standards and new ones.
Yes, I am a writer, but I am a reader first. And to be honest, before I started writing...I knew the names of very few authors, though I read HQ category romances voraciously. I was reading the line, not the author. Sure a few would stand out from sheer repetition and loving them darn near every time - Anne Weale, Penny Jordan, Vicki Lewis Thompson...but the rest? Not so much. I read what came in the box. I wouldn't bother with a slow starter, and would find something off with some books I now know is writing related.
Maybe because I am a writer I'm more critical. More used to the critique partnership relationship.
4 comments:
Hey Jenna - agree with you one hundred percent. Posted on my blog not long ago wondering why, as unpublished writers (and new authors), we have to try so hard to live up to a standard that...frankly, very few published authors seem to! Of course, I want to write the best book I possibly can, but it does make reading more frustrating!
So glad to hear you say you just read the line and read whatever is in the box - that's what I do!! I'm trying to get better about supporting the specific authors that catch and hold my interest.
I have to agree that as writers, we have a more critical eye. And that as new writers we are given so many rules that when we see them broken by pub'd authors, it blows us away. But maybe we just get too bunched up over those rules...I don't know. Sarah wrote a great blog about that! And Jenna, you have really stirred it up over there. You rebel. ;)
Ugh. I swear, when I left work I lost my ability to be professional. Ah, well. Sometimes I think I'm always among friends, chatting in someone's living room. I need to remember that eHQ is the lobby of an office building.
Do y'all think I blew my shot with Blaze by running off at the mouth? I mean...I didn't name names, book titles - heck I didn't even mention they released two books with the same premise and DJ heroes with the SAME NAME! That did not go unnoticed by me, the same way the slow book or the was-zle books (4 that I have cringed at so far). I wasn't saying you suck - I was saying the rules should be the same for everyone. Category romance readers buy the line, not the author. I know that, embrace it even. And there are too many great writers trying to break in to let an established author slide. The best book should get pubbed, no matter who wrote it.
Jenna:
Per the senior editor of Blaze, who had this discussion with me about 2 weeks ago, in that line, readers are *not* buying the line, they ARE buying the author. Month after month the sales figures bear it out and she has predicted the top 2-3 authors every month for a year based only on author name. Marketing concurs which is why you see some books with the author's name as the focus (above the title, much larger than usual.) Harlequin knows that certain authors will grab attention no matter what "line" the book is in, and they capitalize on that.
Years ago, the company philosophy was that the line was the important thing. That the authors were interchangeable. That philosphy has (thank God) changed. I'd sure hate to think anyone would like to see it swing back that way.
Leslie Kelly
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