I figured every other blog is posting about this, so I might as well comment. You know what they say about publicity: All publicity is good publicity, because even if someone is trashing you, you're getting attention and people are googling you - and in this case - googling your books.
Most authors have set google alerts to notify them when they or one of their books is mentioned anywhere in the blogosphere. Comes in handy for finding reviews and blogs talking about our books. Occasionally, someone doesn't like a book and that's okay. I'm perfectly fine with a reader who just didn't care for one of my books. That's why there are so many various genres and subjects. There's something out there for everyone. I get it.
What I don't get is commentary about a book, which makes it questionable whether or not this persoan actually read the book, but only wanted to say something snarky about it. When my google alert sent me to The Berkley Beacon and I discovered four covers described as raunchy, I was puzzled. Raunchy? These are four of the tamest covers I've seen. And the books the writer chose to comment on are an odd combination. Nora Roberts' Irish Thoroughbred is from 1981 for goodness sake! And a book most of us remember well.
The Berkley Beacon
Judging these books by their steamy covers
There really isn't commentary on the selection of the books, or a journalistic conclusion. There isn't even an opening narrative, such as, "I grabbed these four books from my mother's bookcase and thought I'd write an article using the backcover copy and reading the first ten pages of each for my assignment deadline," which I'd liked to have seen to get a grasp on her plan. (I'm pretty sure the writer is a college girl, because I googled her name and found two or three blogs with photos.)
I left a comment, sharing my curiosity about how she chose these four books and didn't think a lot more about the whole thing...until...
My google alerts starting coming in with more frequency. It didn't take long for reader and writer websites to discover what most of them consider offensive commentary regarding romance readers and an insult to the genre in general.
Smart B*tches
Snide Romance Review Drinking Game
Moonlight to Twilight
I see dumb people
Babbling About Books
Romance Genre Bigotry
So, hey! If you just googled me, here's a link to buy my book:
And Nora's:
It is a bizarrely random, out of context article, and doesn't even manage to be remotely funny. I guess romance readers always seem like fair game, but you still have to, I dunno, have something to *say*. -- willaful
ReplyDeleteThanks, Willa.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like romance is the genre people feel free to take cheap shots at. Kinda like being fat, or homosexual, people seem have a sense of entitlement in making stupid, irrational, uniformed snarky comments. No matter how educated the writer, the reader, the overweight person is. We've managed to stop racial commentary. Can't wait for the mean-ness to be delivered elsewhere. Hopefully, to those deserving it.
ReplyDelete