Soup Dish: book people are talking about...
✽Sometimes, it's hard to believe what people get wound up about. Even my techie buddies heard about an article at Dangerous Minds, and then "Ravished by a Triceratops" was reviewed on Smart Bitches. @EvilWylie's imagination was captured and Twitter was fairly lively on Wednesday as book people pondered this phenomenon. I have to give some credit to the authors though; these books are written by a duo of college girls in Texas and I thought their interview was quite poised. I have to say I blinked a little about her advice for making sure you have good cover art:
...make good book covers or hire someone who can (you can find good royalty-free pictures to use for cheap; www.123rf.com is a good place and you can hire someone on fiverr.com to make you a cover for $5)But hey, it looks like it's working for her, so no hate from me.
✽ Speaking of doing what works, I thought this article about author websites was fairly surprising. I don't ask a lot of an author website -- have your booklist, and the date of your next book due out. If reading order is important, list that. If you make appearances, list those, and keep it current. It doesn't seem like that would take too much time or effort. One reason that WASN'T listed is that many publishers have author pages on their sites -- I could see that maybe they'd prefer to drive traffic there and maybe make changing publishers a bit more painful?
The argument about cost/benefit is compelling though. What we really want from our favorite authors is more stories; fancy websites are purely optional.
✽I enjoyed this discussion on droit du seigneur sparked by historian and historical author Katharine Ashe. This is such a staple of old-skool medievals -- or maybe the couple that I ran across just made THAT much of an impression on me at the time. Yet more evidence of the ongoing fascination with the power dynamic in romance, through the centuries.
✽I am officially registered for RT14! The whole enchilada, and I have to say, I'm a wee bit giddy. I'm planning to arrive on Tuesday, and I'm hoping I can make my arrangements to get there in time for a scrapbooking event because that is another wheelhouse of mine. I'm also pondering a bit about trying to organize something for bloggers -- it won't be official, most likely, but maybe a "hey everybody, how about we all meet in the bar at a certain time, mmkay?" kinda thing. Also pondering: trading cards?
What I'm reading
✽This past week, I have continued my binge on Darynda Jones' Charley Davidson series. I finished The Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet yesterday and I'm dying (heh) to get my hands on the last one. I have a friend that's offered to lend it to me though, so in the interests of my book budget, I'm taking a little breather and have just started in on Jeaniene Frost's Twice Tempted. I was really pleased when she kicked off an independent series because the long Night Huntress series just seemed a bit daunting; however, it's becoming clear to me that I'm not going to be able to resist binging on that one too.
On Tap... what soup isn't a little better with a slosh or two?
Here in Seattle, we finally got some gloomier, cooler weather and I am thinking of what might go in the actual soup for Sunday dinner. I've been craving a good black bean soup, but haven't made it happen yet. Not much in the way of beer adventures this past week; I've been to the Rock Bottom brewery twice lately for lunch. Their Belgian white was good but did have that apparently authentic "feety" flavor, so I'll probably avoid in the future. Their Rocktoberfest special was just what I like though, medium-dark, a little sweet, and smooth without being super-heavy. I might have to head back soon for that.
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