Questions for your Average Reader

1. Not really, I can get over a lot of things by rewrit­ing them in my head…I try not to get too pissed about the way books are writ­ten because then it takes the fun out of read­ing for me, but some­times I just can’t help myself…

2. I’d have to agree with Karen S on this one, the ones where they’re deliri­ously happy together after having met 2.5 weeks before, it’s very hard to believe.

3. In Romance, I like the happy end­ings and the jour­ney we read to get to the happy ending, yes I do like trilo­gies, what I hate is the wait in between books. LOL.

4. Hmm, real­ism isn’t impor­tant to me, so I can’t think of anyone right now, oh wait, I think Jen­nifer Crusie does a good job of keep­ing it real with her sto­ries.

5. I’ve never read any­thing by her so I don’t know if I like her or not.

6. I buy books from UBS…but I’m not doing much to offset the cost of books because I’ll pay full price for a book if I really want it, I know, shame on me.

7. Word of mouth is impor­tant to me beause if enough people don’t like it, some­thing must be seri­ously wrong with it, so I’ll be wary to try it…but even­tu­ally, like years down the road, I’m known to try things out for my own….and regret that I even both­ered. LOL.

8. For a little while, I’ll get hecka pissed if an author is rude or snobby to their fans and I prob­a­bly won’t buy their books…until they come out on paper­back. LOL.

9. Heck yes, because JG is still writ­ing con­temps, the qual­ity of her writ­ing is going down the toilet.

10. I don’t care one way or the other because I love to read so they’re going to get my money regard­less, rotten bas­tards.

11. Hmm, I don’t think I have any…all of the authors I really enjoy are big names, although I really like Rene Lyons, who isn’t a big time author and I haven’t read any­thing by her, but I will soon…

12. Hmm, I don’t think so because some authors are good at one and only mildly good at the other, very few authors can bal­ance that and if it hasn’t been done by now, I doubt they ever will.

1. YES!!
2. I have issue when the couple fights & is nasty to each other for the entire book & then sud­denly it’s all lovey dovey in the last few pages for the HEA.
3. Trilo­gies are ok, series can get boring. I prefer char­ac­ter driven romances- so every­thing hinges on the couple for me.
4. This changes from book to book for me- it depends on the char­ac­ters involved & what their cir­cum­stances are.
5.???
6.I buy quite a bit from the UBS. I have also pruned my romance TBB list quite a bit. I’m get­ting bored with romance (as opposed to burned out).
7. Word of mouth is impor­tant to me only if it comes from people whose read­ing taste is known to me.
8. Some­times. Maybe. If I’m on the fence about an author or if their work has been uneven for me, yes I’m likely to drop you. Oth­er­wise I’ll just con­tinue to think you’re an unin­formed troll.
9. Yes
10. Not more than any other busi­ness
11.No, but I’m sure ebooks will grow. I’m wait­ing for the prices to drop.
12. Shana Abe, Melanie Jack­son, Susan Squires
13. Don’t read them, I prefer straight mystery/thriller to this hybrid.

4. Lisa Kley­pas does a won­der­ful job of this.

5. I’ve read two books by Cather­ine Ander­son and I hon­estly am not sure if I’ll be able to pick up another. They were to sweet and per­fect to me.

6. I try to find new books at Costco or Wal­mart - never the book­store itself if I can help it. I visit the used book store often, trade and borrow from the library.

7. Its extremely impor­tant to me. I’ve found alot of new books and authors from word of mouth. I’ve also put books at the bottom of the TBR based on word of mouth.

8. Not so far it hasn’t. I could forget who’d writ­ten the story if it was good enough I think.

10. If the rising costs of paper­backs and the intro­duc­tion of pre­mium sized books are any indi­ca­tion, then yes.

11. If I’m going to spend money on a book, I prefer to be able to put it on the shelves with the rest of the col­lec­tion. But it still doesn’t stop me from buying ebooks that have been highly rec­om­mended to me.

12. Lori Devoti, Sandy Blair, Dixie Cash, Rachel Gibson, Janet Chap­man, Jen­nifer Skully, Kath­leen Long,

1. Yes and if the HEA is too quick or too pat I actu­ally want to set the book on fire…if I even made it that far.
2. I don’t need an epi­logue seeing far into the future. I don’t need to know they had kids or got pregnant…just resolve the con­flict in a way that is true to the char­ac­ters.
3. The trilogy…while I don’t mind it, I do think it is over done. I’ve read my share of them, but I’m very par­tic­u­lar. I read romance totally for the escape. While I love to have a book or sto­ries touch me and relate to my real life, it’s not nec­es­sary to be absolutely true to life for me to enjoy the book. What I dis­like most is the petty dis­cord about things like who belongs in RWA and who doesn’t. Dumb. Also, there are more awards and groups/reviewers who give them that now when I see an author post they got this or that award on the book or their author site it car­ries no impact.
4. As I said ear­lier real­ism isn’t that impor­tant to me. I’m par­tial to char­ac­ter driven sto­ries rather than plot driven. I’m also par­tial to the enlight­ened but def­i­nitely alpha so I like Linda Howard, Chris­tine Feehan, Sher­ri­lyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunters, Sarah McCarty, Nora Roberts (who doesn’t like Roark).
5. Ummm…I like her early Comanche books. It’s sort of a guilty secret.
6. I work and have a pretty gen­er­ous book budget. But it hasn’t always been so. I’ve always been a used book pur­chaser and still do when I’m trying out some­one new. While this both­ers some authors, I can only say my first Nora Roberts book was a used copy of a Sil­hou­ette and now I buy her books new in hard cover.
7. Heck no…if I’ve been waf­fling about a new release of a book by an author that has been hit or miss for me, pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive buzz in the book­store and/or the blo­gos­phere will very much influ­ence my pur­chase.
8. A single iso­lated incident…probably not. But say if there are repeated rude com­ments on a board or blog site…then hell yes. I must con­fess though that I have read per­fectly innocu­ous inter­views that while the author didn’t say any­thing inflam­ma­tory the tone and atti­tude turned me off and cer­tainly has col­ored my desire to pur­chase any more of their books.
9. Yes. Just look at how the Romance sec­tion has grown over the years. There simply aren’t that many “good” romance authors out there.
10. Yes, I believe there is some decep­tion. As far as out to get consumer’s money by any means, most retail busi­nesses are…that’s their busi­ness. IMO the publisher’s decep­tions about reis­sues and covers to try and trick the con­sumers are com­pletely unnec­es­sary. Most reis­sues the public are wait­ing for and anx­ious to receive and pur­chase or update their copies.
11. I love, love love e-books!!! I love the instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion of look­ing for a book and being able to pur­chase and down­load imme­di­ately. How­ever, noth­ing will replace the expe­ri­ence of hold­ing a book in my hands. I can’t imag­ine giving that up.
12.. Sarah McCarty, Mar­jorie Liu, JR Ward, Anne Stuart, Iris Johansen, Deb­o­rah Smith, Lora Leigh, Jes­sica Hall, Susan Ander­son
13. Hmm…I don’t know exactly what you mean by this one. I’ve read some that do. Jes­sica Hall, Annie Solomon, Tami Hoag, Cather­ine Coulter

Okay, here goes…

1. Does it bother you so much if the couple rep­re­sented by the author do not seem com­pat­i­ble together yet the author ends their story with a happy ending?

It depends on how the com­pat­i­bil­ity is han­dled, if it’s a fun oppo­sites attract, okay, but if we’ve got brawl­ing up until the last chap­ter an wham, we’ve got HEA, it’s going to the UBS.

2. What type of end­ings are over the top for you? Having them get mar­ried and seeing that they’ve had five kids with one on the way?

As long as the ending fits the book and the sto­ry­line, I’m okay even with the 5 kids and 1 on the way thing.

3. What are some of your likes and dis­likes about the romance genre? Do you really enjoy the tril­ogy?

likes — HEA, that’s why I read romance, I like to see rela­tion­ships build from noth­ing and see where they go, and the escape it pro­vides from every­day life.

dislikes — amnesia sto­ries, I don’t care who does it, I’m going to hate it. Two year olds that sound like young adults, and the never ending series, can anyone say Brock­mann.

Trilo­gies are fine, the first is usu­ally great, the second sucks and you hope the last ties every­thing up.

4. What authors—-to you—nail down the jour­ney or the explo­ration of the rela­tion­ship that is some­what real­is­tic?

Since every rela­tion­ship is dif­fer­ent, the jour­ney is also dif­fer­ent, so I’m not sure any one author is nec­es­sar­ily better because they’re cre­at­ing the jour­ney, so you hope it’s real­is­tic.

5. Why do you like Cather­ine Ander­son?

I don’t see the draw, her melo­drama is way over the top for me.

6. How are you off­set­ting the high costs of paper­back novels? Buying used? [hand raised]

So we don’t eat this week, not really, I buy used and spread out the new books over the month.

7. How impor­tant is word of mouth? Does it only apply only to new authors?

If it’s some­one I trust, I’ll take word of mouth over any review site, espe­cially for new to me authors.

8. Does an author’s behav­ior online turn you per­ma­nently off to their work?

This is the magic ques­tion this week isn’t it? On-​line behav­ior really doesn’t impact on what I read, though if it’s some­one I don’t par­tic­u­larly like it may keep me from buying again.

9. Do you think pub­lish­ers do sac­ri­fice qual­ity for quan­tity?

Real­is­ti­cally, pub­lish­ers are in busi­ness to make money, if they’re smart qual­ity will bring quan­tity.

10. Do you find publisher’s decep­tive? Out to get your money by any means nec­es­sary?

Prob­a­bly, but what can be done about it?

11. Are you inter­ested in ebooks? Or you hope the trend dies a lonely death?

I’m okay with ebooks, I need a good reader, sit­ting at my com­puter read­ing is not com­fort­able.

12. Name some top writ­ers for you that are not block­buster names.

Lynn Viehl, Susan Squires, and some oldies: Marsha Canham, Megan Chance, Can­dice Proc­tor, Maggie Osborne, Mary Spencer.

13. Will roman­tic sus­pense authors ever bal­ance sus­pense and romance?

Nope, I think Linda Howard comes real close, but then I’m a fan­girl and don’t trust my judgement — LOL.

1. It depends on how they end up together. If it’s real­is­tic enough, they bal­ance each other out or real­ize that their incom­pa­bil­ity is more frus­trated love/lust then, ok. If it’s unre­al­is­tic then yes it does bother me.

2. I can’t think of an over the top ending with HEA in romance.

3. I dis­like how varied some of the plots are. Seri­ously, I think romance is get­ting a bit boring which is why I’m more eager to read romances that mix other genres - horror par­tic­u­larly because at least it’s not some­thing I’ve read before. if I read another story about next door neigh­bors get­ting together I’ll barf. Trilo­gies are smart move by authors, they draw read­ers in because we like to read a story where the char­ac­ters are famil­iar, they also let the author build unique worlds.

4. Nora Roberts - although her books are bit redun­dant, but her J.D. Robb books with Eve and Roarke are great. Lena Matthews is one of my favorite for real­is­tic dia­logue and growth between char­ac­ters, Ann Vre­mont and Sarah McCarty both use their sex scenes as places where the char­ac­ters explore each other and not just relieve an itch. Emma Holly is also good for explor­ing char­ac­ter growth in a more subtle way because she deals with actions more so than explicit words, I can re-​read her sto­ries and see some­thing dif­fer­ent each time.

5. Haha, why do people like Amer­i­can Idol or Hol­ly­wood movies? Her books are brain­less and enter­tan­ing in small doses, of course.

6. I don’t buy paper­back any­more because I’m South Africa now and it’s hard to find them here, not every­one lives in areas where romance novels are easy to find. I shop in the ebook world but I do find those prices also increas­ing, it’s a bit ridicu­lous. $5.95 for a 80 page book, I’m about to start writ­ing myself for enter­tain­ment (just kid­ding).

7. Word of mouth is extremely impor­tant, I’ve found many of my favorite authors that way. It def­i­nitely applies to new authors, but if some­one is new to a genre it can also help that way as well. For instance, I found Chris­tine Feehan through word of mouth.

8. Some­times. For instance, authors that pimp them­selves all over other authors’ sites are tacky (shame­less plug for my blog), how­ever those authors tend to be wack anyway.

9. Yes but I think part of that is reader’s faults as well. I can’t hate on a pub­lisher, they are trying to make their money, and if read­ers are going to play $6.00 for crap, I’d sell it, too. As read­ers we need to exer­cise our rights not to buy crap, but as long as we buy it, they’re gonna pub­lish it.

10. Hahaha, no! Pub­lish­ers are a busi­ness, just like any other busi­ness and the bot­tom­line is money. Also, I don’t know that many read­ers are that inter­ested in qual­ity books as much as quicky, candy reads. That’s what pub­lish­ers are gonna give us, then.

11. Vive los ebooks! I love them and I think they are the future of read­ing, pub­lish­ers are smart to offer their books elec­tron­i­cally, it exposes read­ers glob­ally to sto­ries and authors they’d never meet.

12. Ann Vre­mont, Susan DiPlacido, Portia DaCosta, Sarah McCarty and Lena Matthews.

13. Sure, don’t you think Eliz­a­beth Lowell does that with her Rar­i­ties series?

1. Yes. Big time.
2. I don’t really like epi­logues. They look like they’ll live hap­pily ever after, that’s more than enough for me.
3. Enough with the trilo­gies, and do try to be less bla­tant about sneak­ing the h/h of the next book into the cur­rent one.
6. I do buy used, but the library helps lots.
7. Quite impor­tant.
8. Depends on what it’s about. She/he is wel­come to her own religious/political views, but reader bash­ing means I’ll be voting with my money.
10. I don’t buy books because of adver­tis­ing, blurbs etc. I buy because I liked the blurb, the excerpt or word of mouth. So yeah.
11. Buy ebooks, save the envi­ron­ment!
12. Second Jane’s Book­seller Chick rec­om­mend.
13. Some can, some won’t ever make it. And Alli­son Bren­nan is up to the hype.

1. Does it bother you so much if the couple rep­re­sented by the author do not seem com­pat­i­ble together yet the author ends their story with a happy ending?///

I think it would con­tribute to my over­all dis­sat­is­fac­tion of the book. I don’t think the author did a good job in sell­ing me on the romance.

2. What type of end­ings are over the top for you? Having them get mar­ried and seeing that they’ve had five kids with one on the way?

my least favorite ending is where the barren woman finally has chil­dren from the super­sperm of her Troo Love.

3. What are some of your likes and dis­likes about the romance genre? Do you really enjoy the tril­ogy?

I like trilo­gies better than the never ending series. I think they are better plot­ted. And dis­likes. I think that is a sep­a­rate blog post.

4. What authors—-to you—nail down the jour­ney or the explo­ration of the rela­tion­ship that is some­what real­is­tic?

Kath­leen Gilles Seidel. I liked both Mar­i­anna Jameson’s My Hero and Deidre Martin’s Body Check and Penalty Box.

5. Why do you like Cather­ine Ander­son?

I don’t.

6. How are you off­set­ting the high costs of paper­back novels? Buying used? [hand raised]

Library.

7. How impor­tant is word of mouth? Does it only apply only to new authors?

Very. It applies to any book/author not on my Auto­buy list.

8. Does an author’s behav­ior online turn you per­ma­nently off to their work?

Some­times but admit­tedly when I am waver­ing as to whether to buy them - MJD and LLG - both had stinkers for me in their last effort and I was real hes­i­tant to buy the next ones so I am grate­ful that their online behav­ior is help­ing me steer toward other authors like Karen Chance or Jen­nifer Armintrout . Might as well take a chance.

9. Do you think pub­lish­ers do sac­ri­fice qual­ity for quan­tity?

No, I think publisher’s sac­ri­fice qual­ity for money. I don’t think that they nec­es­sar­ily want to put out more books. They just want the ones on their slate to do well or if they don’t, they increase the margin on the books in another way.

10. Do you find publisher’s decep­tive? Out to get your money by any means nec­es­sary?

Yep.

11. Are you inter­ested in ebooks? Or you hope the trend dies a lonely death?

Am inter­ested in ebooks and hope to spread the gospel of ebooks in an over­all goal to see all books avail­able elec­tron­i­cally. I mean, what is the hold up?

12. Name some top writ­ers for you that are not block­buster names.

Check out the BooksellerChick’s In Praise of Midlist Authors.

13. Will roman­tic sus­pense authors ever bal­ance sus­pense and romance?

Depends on the skill of the author and the type of sus­pense. I thought Michele Albert did a great job of bal­anc­ing the two.