Potato Chip Books

Unlike a lot of people, I’m not a true chocolate fanatic. I enjoy the taste, but I can take a single chocolate and leave the rest of the box without feeling particularly deprived. Potato chips, on the other hand, are another story. Put me near a bag and my self control promptly takes wing.

This rather labored explanation is meant to serve as the basis for an equally labored metaphor. Some books, you see, are like chocolate for me. I read a chocolate book over several days and then I may or may not get others by the same author. It’s pleasant reading, I like it, but it doesn’t really drive me to read nonstop. Other books, believe me, are more like potato chips. Once you start you just can’t put it down.

I first encountered the whole potato chip phenomenon when somebody gave me a box of Linda Howard’s old Harlequin romances from the eighties several years ago. I soon discovered I could polish one off in a few hours if I didn’t do anything else, and I usually didn’t want to do anything else while I was reading. After a couple of Linda Howard binges, I started rationing. I’d come home from work on Friday afternoon and curl up with a Linda Howard series romance. Three hours later, I’d probably be finished, but if I wasn’t, I’d go on reading after dinner or the next day until I was done. The whole process made Fridays something I looked forward to all week long.

After Linda Howard, I discovered Jayne Ann Krentz. Now Krentz’s books were a little longer, but I tore through them in the same way I’d torn through Howard’s. Weekend reading—I’d always check to make sure I had one on hand. Just like potato chips.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the writers who grabbed me this way (and I’d add Elizabeth Lowell to this list) were all old school. They’d come up through the ranks of series romances and they’d learned their trade well. Plots moved along at a very brisk pace. Characters were drawn in broad strokes and tended to fall into predictable patterns—the brooding alpha male, the headstrong, passionate woman. You didn’t spend a lot of time thinking when you read these books—you just plowed ahead.

By now, of course, all three of these writers have moved into Living Legend status, and they no longer write in the same way. They publish longer works and they seldom do more than one a year. Moreover, their characters are usually more complex, with more complete backstories. But the lessons you can learn from potato chip books are real. Stories matter. Characters may be stereotypical, but they’ve also got to be interesting. And most of all, once you’ve got the readers hooked, you’ll hold onto them. For those of us who write books in a series, that’s the Holy Grail, believe me.

Potato chip books. Betcha can’t read just one.

So who have I missed? What other potato chip authors would you add to this list?

Where do you buy your ebooks?

When I started reading ebooks a few years ago I didn’t have an ereader. I didn’t even have a laptop, so I downloaded Microsoft Reader onto my computer and used that to read the books I bought. My first ebooks were purchased from Ellora’s Cave. I learned about Ellora’s Cave because of author Toni Blake, who I’d discovered and whose back list I had devoured. Then I learned she wrote under the pen name Lacey Alexander for Ellora’s Cave, so I went and bought every book she had there too.

I learned more about ebooks as an author when I started researching digital publishers to submit my books to. I bought some books from different publishers because I wanted to see the kind of books they published. I always bought those books directly from the publishers’ websites.

Then I started to learn about on-line bookstores, like All Romance Ebooks, Books on Board, Fictionwise, Amazon. I didn’t buy anything from them, though, until I bought my Sony reader. Then the whole digital world opened up to me and even the books I saw in the "bricks and mortar" bookstore by my favourite authors could be purchased digitally and read on my reader.

Now, the majority of my books are purchased at the Sony Store. I still go to the publishers’ websites sometimes, but the only reason I do it is because I know the author generally makes more in royalties from a purchase there, than from a purchase from a third-party vendor. But I love the Sony Store because it’s so easy – they have all my info, I log on, find the book I want, click, and it’s in my library, perfectly formatted. One more click and it’s on my reader. Even at My Bookstore and More, I have to enter credit card information, save the file somewhere and import it into my library. I’m sure the process is equally easy when buying from Amazon for a Kindle.

I don’t even do a cost comparison because it’s just so easy at Sony.

I suspect I'm not alone in this. I suspect that most people like to go to a "book store" even if it's on-line, and look at the selection of books from a variety of publishers, rather than having to search publishers' websites.

As an author I’ve been thinking about this a lot, as the Naughty Nine will know from my recent ranty posts. It’s no secret that sales of digital books at Amazon have grown tremendously over the past year. Apparently lots of people are buying their books there and I’m benefiting from those sales as an author. Publishers have different deals with Amazon. With one of my publishers, I earn a little less from sales at third party vendors than sales at the publisher’s site, but the volume of sales more than makes up for that. With another publisher I earn the same regardless of where the book is purchased and yet sales are so much smaller –which makes me wonder why?

So readers – where do you purchase your ebooks? Do you shop for the best price? Do you look for ease of purchase and download? Do you buy at Amazon because you have a Kindle (or B&N because you have a nook, or the Sony store because you have a Sony)? Do you automatically check out new releases by your favourite digital publisher? Do you look for specific authors or genres? Inquiring minds want to know!

Rules and Conventions

I recently gave my sister a copy of my WIP, Rocky Mountain Howl (are ya’ll sick of me referring to this damn thing? Me too. Moving on…) and asked her to give me her thoughts. She doesn’t read a lot of paranormal romance, and I wanted a fresh eye.

Once she started reading it, she had two…well, not exactly complaints, but two things that surprised her, and not in a good way. She thought there were a lot of characters to keep up with, and she got frustrated because some things in the plot are only revealed and explained as the book unfolds.

I was taken aback. The number of characters in a book never bothered me if the book was well written and characters were clearly identified. And I like books that keep you guessing about what’s going on.

Then I thought about it. Paranormal romance is my favorite subgenre. You find large casts of characters in these books, maybe because a lot of titles belong to series. And paranormal romance often features mysteries or strange goings-on that aren’t fully explained right up front. My sister is used to reading romances that follow a certain set of conventions, and the books I read follow another.

I thought about this when PG Forte mentioned a reader who was convinced that the hero in one of PG’s books was the villain, and the villain the hero, based solely on the order in which the two were introduced in the book. I think maybe that’s taking convention a little too far.

Both these incidents got me to thinking about rules. Romance novels aren’t nearly as formulaic as they were just ten years ago. But authors know there are still certain – let’s call them conventions, instead of rules – that a lot of readers expect their romances to follow. Or at least editors think readers expect these conventions to be followed, and so unconventional books have a harder time getting published.

Now, my first instinct is to say “Boo! Conventions bad! Boundary-pushing romances good!” And I do feel that way. But…I’ll admit there are a few conventions I like, and I expect books to follow, and I tend to shy away from books that don’t.

I like alpha heroes. I like em big and powerful, and I don’t even care if the hero is an asshole for two thirds of the book as long as he’s redeemed at the end. I don’t like books where the heroine is stronger or tougher or richer or more powerful than the hero. I used to be ashamed to admit this, but I’ve decided – screw it, that’s my taste. I’m reading a romance novel, not setting government policy.

Another one: I can’t relate to promiscuous heroines. A colorful history, a life fully lived – that’s one thing. But a heroine who does casual hookups routinely – I’m probably not going to finish the book. I really want to read Loretta Chase’s Her Scandalous Ways and Eden Bradley’s A 21st Century Courtesan, but – hooker heroines. I mean, I just don’t know. Again, I’m kind of embarrassed about it, and I definitely think I should get out of my comfort zone, but….it’s so comfortable here!

Okay, your turn. What romance novel conventions do you find it hard to disregard, and which ones bug you? And if you’re a writer, which conventions do you yearn to smash?