Romance Books

It has been a rather interesting day like all lovely days.

Romance Books

My director asked me to place a large order of romance paperbacks. Apparently, our racks were emptying. So, I went to http://www.romantictimes.com and picked out a variety of romance paperbacks. I actually don't mind trashy romance paperbacks.

I sometimes read Elizabeth Lowell, and I reviewed Linnea Sinclair's The Downhome Zombie Blues which is kind of like Star Trek except for with sex. Elizabeth Lowell wrote as the science fiction author, Ann Maxwell, and was nominated for a Hugo award for her science fiction romance, Name of A Shadow.

There are a number of authors who are popular at our library in the romance section, Donna Hill and Gwynn Forster are two best selling black romance authors. I also like Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series which is quite interesting, it is a vampire romance story. There are of course all the campy contemporary authors like Amanda Quick, Candace Camp, and Linda Lael Miller.

In addition to spending time at Romantic Times, I also visited the Eharlequin site http://www.eharlequin.com . Eharlequin bought out BET Black Entertainments line of romance novels, so they now have an extensive set of African American romance books, including the Kimaru series. The other romance publishers I looked at were Avon Romance, Tor/Forge has a science fiction romance section, and Bantam/Dell. Dorchester Publishing which does the Hard Case Crime series of hardboiled mystery noire paperbacks also has a romance line which looks very campy. http://www.dorchesterpub.com/Dorch/NewRelease.cfm?L1=2&L2=0

I am about halfway through my order of mass market romance paperbacks. I'll probably finish it tomorrow.

I was busier than usual today, again. We had a meeting to discuss the agencies that served the disadvantaged and we divided up the telephone list to call different agencies for an open forum discussion.

Other than that, I spent some time as usual on the reference desk, did some weeding, and cleaned up my desk a bit more. It was a quite full day.

Morning Thoughts

I have started reading MBA In A Day by Steven Stralser, Ph.D.. It really can't teach you how to be an MBA in a day. I've figured this out. It appears to be an outline of all the different mangement functions which an MBA might do in an organization. The descriptions are brief and to the point. I have been able to follow the writing pretty closely.

I sometimes like to read the Avon Romance Blog. I think Avon Romance as a company is quite innovative. They are on Entrecard. There is no other publisher trying out Entrecard. I think they can often be more savvy than other publishers concerning what people want to read. They are also doing a much better job with the concept of social networking than many other publishers if you look at their blog closely. Romance is after all the most popular fiction genre.

I was looking at a title on their blog, One Foot In The Grave, it looks quite interesting. http://avonromanceblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/one-foot-in-grave.html I think they are doing a really good design with the way they present their blog. The blog also feeds into the authors website which is just as interesting to look at. http://www.jeanienefrost.com/ I may suggest the title for purchase.

On another note, I have been having some trouble with Technorati. About six days ago, I lost all my fans. I also could not add or look at my favorites. They gave me back my fans. I have twenty seven of them right now. However, they have not restarted the favorite function for me. It has been six days. They claim that it is due to technical difficulties. I have been thinking about whether or not to end my service with them or switch to another service. My rating is still going up. I am not worried if they ask me to leave, my service has been effectively terminated.
http://support.technorati.com/discussions/topic/3590?replies=11

Morning Thoughts, Gods Debris

I am still on jury duty which is turning out to be an odd experience. I ran out of books from the libray where I work to read. I went back to my local library and picked up a copy of Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! by Scott Adams. So far it has been quite amusing. It consists of short one or two page diary entries from the authors life. Scott Adams writes Dilbert.

There is not a whole lot which has been happening with the blog for the moment. While I was looking through the entrecard listings, I noticed the Avon Romance Blog http://www.avonromanceblog.blogspot.com/. This is the only major book publisher on Entrecard. I have noticed that Avon is often willing to try new and innovative ideas. When I was at Book Expo America in 2007, they had just introduced a new line of Nascar romances which seemed a little different.

I will write some more when I get back.

Alright, I got back early from jury duty. It was exhausting even though it was short today. I have read a little more of the Scott Adam's book. While I was reading through it, I came across a book which Scott Adam's is giving away on the internet, God's Debris. This is a link to the free ebook. http://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/godsdebris/ I am not even sure what it is about. All I know is that it is free and people like free things.

Apparently Scott Adams says this book has been downloaded over 200,000 times for free. I am not sure what that means in terms of free publicity and advertising for his works, but it probably means a lot more people will be reading his books which are already very popular.

I am about two thirds through the book Stick To Drawing Comics Monkey Brain!, but I am tired so I will take a nap for a bit.