For a moment, I thought this was going to take over as my month with the least reads. You may notice my math for the total reads doesn’t quite match up from last month. This is because I read a short story as part of a new anthology of short stories back in January, but hadn’t marked it down since it was part of a set. Well, I decided I’d go ahead and count it in the total because I’ve read almost all of the other stories in the anthology when they were originally released as individual digital shorts. This month also was short on reads because I had so little reading time. I spent a good chunk of February dealing with outside work projects, and when I could read, I wasn’t reading as quickly as I normally do. My outside project work load has lightened considerably for the time being which means an uptick in reading time! Watch, I’ll probably have the same stats for March as for February despite having more days to read just because I said that.

Read

• The Emperor’s Conspiracy by Michelle Diener – This was such a fast-paced book for me. It’s not really romance, but it’s also not super heavy historical, and there’s some suspense thrown in for kicks, too. I definitely plan on seeking out more of this author.
• The Queen is Dead by Kate Locke – Second in her Immortal Empire series. I am very pleased to report the sophomore effort absolutely lived up to the first book. Second books in series, even by authors who have published other series and aren’t new to the game (Locke is also published as Kady Cross, Kate Cross and Kathryn Smith), are often iffy as to continuing the magic of the first book. This is definitely a series to watch.
• The Last Renegade by Jo Goodman – Enjoyable. I’ve talked before about this one trope of Goodman’s that gets a bit on my nerves, but I accept it as part of the reading experience with her books. This book was one of the easier ones to read in terms of that trope, and I really enjoyed the lead male character. As her next scheduled book is also set in the same town as this one, I’m looking forward to revisiting these engaging characters.

Reread

• None.

Listened to

• Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer – you will pry this audiobook (and one other) from my cold, dead hands. This is one of two audiobooks that I try to make a point to listen to at least once a year because they give me such joy.

Novellas

• With This Kiss, Parts One, Two & Three by Eloisa James – eARCs from publisher – This is going to be released in serialized format, so if that publication schedule annoys you, wait until it’s packaged up together. This was a sweet story and typical James. If you enjoyed The Ugly Duchess and the novella Seduced by a Pirate, definitely pick this up. It can stand on its own from those two, but I don’t know that I’d recommend this as an intro to James’ work.

Children’s

• None

Total read in January: 7
Total read in 2013: 19

If you follow me on Twitter, you likely already know that I’ve been working on an article for Library Journal on the erotica genre. My joy knew no bounds when I was informed it was selected by the editorial board to be the cover feature for the issue–February 15, 2013.  The cover artist’s design is spicy, no?

The article went live online today: Erotica: Full-Frontal Shelving. I am really looking forward to seeing the reactions from people both to the cover and the article. So far everyone who has seen either or both has been very positive, and I hope that continues. I am not naïve enough to think there won’t be pushback, but I hope people will see the article as useful to the decisions they make for their libraries whichever way they fall on the divide. All I ask of library professionals is that they make an informed decision about collection options. I fully recognize for some collections erotica is not the best option, but as long as library staff choose that route as fully informed as they can be, more power to them.

Some readers may note in the bio my “coming out” as an author of erotic fiction. Yes, I have been published under a pseudonym for over five years and even have a story in a recently released anthology. There are family reasons why I continue to choose to keep my pseudonym as separate from my real name as possible. At least publicly online. I’m happy to tell people my pen name in person. With this article and some potential future projects, there might be some further blurring of the dividing line of my personalities, but I will continue to do my best to keep my fiction as fiction

If you do have any commentary about the article, please toss it in LJ’s direction so my editor and her higher ups can see! Thanks!

PS – If you are a librarian and your library collects sex materials (books, videos, magazines, fiction, non-fiction), please consider participating in this research survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NZT9P79

I’ve gotten so bad at both posting on time and having an updated list on what’s coming out, that I’m not going to make a point of doing the watchlist unless there’s something particularly big for me that I’m looking forward to. So, with that, I’m also adding in notations for which kids books I’ve read. These are mainly going to be picture books, and ones that cross my desk at work. And, no, once again, I am not a children’s/YA librarian I am a sucker for a good picture book, though.

Read

• And the Miss Ran Away with the Rake by Elizabeth Boyle – eARC provided by publisher. I really enjoyed this. I had started it while in a reading funk, so had set it aside, but came back after the holidays and it hit the spot. Sequel to Along Came a Duke. I’m looking forward to the next book in the Kempton Brides series!
• Shadow Woman by Linda Howard – I’d gotten an eARC from the publisher, but didn’t get around to reading it before it expired, so I got this copy from the library. I enjoyed this. It’s definitely more on the suspense end of her romantic suspense spectrum, like Cover of Night.
• Dream Eyes by Jayne Ann Krentz – I got a paper ARC of this through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Very enjoyable, but I also freely admit that JAK in all her incarnations is one of my crack authors.

Reread

• A Fine Passion by Stephanie Laurens – Part of the Bastion Club series. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed this particular entry. In fact, I think that this is the one that hooked me into the series despite being in the middle of it. I’d tried the first, but lost interest and had decided that this series may just not work for me. I came back via this one, I think, and ended up on a binge of the ones that were out at the time.
• Temptation and Surrender by Stephanie Laurens – Part of the Cynster series spin offs. This is the first time I’ve reread it, and definitely enjoyable.

Listened to

• Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich – Like all of the recent entries in this series, very little to no character development, and while Stephanie seems to acknowledge these days that a choice needs to be made about her relationship status (I contend there are four possibilities: Joe, Ranger, both, neither), she continues to refuse to actually do anything about it. Seriously, the only reasons to continue with the series is if you like the situational humor and, for me, the narrator, Lorelei King.

Novella

• None

Children’s

• The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce – This was actually my first completed read of 2013. This is absolutely fabulous and a book I want to get for my mom, also a librarian, so she can share it with my nephews and niece.
• There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived by Matt Tavares – An interesting biography of one of my baseball heroes. It’s got a great lesson for kids on the importance of spending time working on things you love to do in order to get better at it.
• Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team by Audrey Vernick – I read this right after the Ted Williams book and this was a great complement to it.
• Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington by Jabari Asim – I learned a lot about Booker T. Washington when I was a kid in school, but I’m not sure how he’s taught these days. This is a neat book in that it focuses tightly in on Washington’s journey to attend formal school as a kid.
• Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson – This book doesn’t shy away from having a message, but at the same time, the author isn’t heavy handed with it.

Total read in January: 11
Total read in 2013: 11

This is a topic my mind’s been flirting with off and on for the last few years. A couple of posts on other blogs made their way around Twitter and other places over the weekend. The first from “Hi Miss Julie!” and a response with tips from Andromeda Yelton*. With those brewing in the back of my head, I found out today that an article I wrote for Library Journal was selected to be the cover article. At this point in time, I think some people would go, “of course you got the cover!” Thanks for your confidence in me! I know others are possibly wondering how they can be the next me. Well, you can’t be the next me. You can be the next you.

I’ve had a lot of doors to opportunities opened for me over the years. When I think of how long it actually has been, my mind is blown. So much of it feels like only yesterday. The great majority of these doors were shown to me after much time spent asking questions, answering questions, and talking to people about topics I was, and am, interested in. By doing this, I built a reputation. When I first graduated from library school, there was no Twitter. I participated on listserves like Fiction_L. Thanks to the contacts I made there, and through conference attendance, I was asked to be on the inaugural committee of The Reading List after the 2007 ALA Midwinter meeting. Funnily enough, at that same conference, I was also asked if I’d be willing to create a bibliography on erotica for a panel that was being held at the Annual conference that summer in DC. More on that later, though.

I got on to Twitter almost six years ago because of a passing comment a friend made about the creation of a group I was interested in. The group got its start due to a conversation on Twitter. I wanted to be where conversations like that were happening. While on Twitter, I started interacting with people who shared my interests. First library people, then romance genre people, and as an extension of romance, publishing people.

In the summer of 2010, I got back on Fiction_L and asked if anyone had changed or adjusted how they handled reader’s advisory services with the advent of ebook collections in libraries. I asked the same on Twitter. Things blew up from there. Due to relationships I had been building, I was approached to write articles for RUSQ and Romance Writers Report of the Romance Writers of America, do interviews of publishing professionals for Library Journal, and appear on a number of panels at publishing and library conferences to discuss ebooks in libraries and reader’s advisory and ebooks. My head was spinning.

Then, I changed jobs. My day-to-day duties no longer included management of an ebook collection, so I started losing touch with the immediate concerns of what was going on with that topic. Frankly, I was fine with the situation. I was getting a bit burned out.

Let’s go back to that erotica bibliography. The panel I did the bibliography for? Zane was on it. When the committee putting together the panel listed the bibliographies they planned to have on hand, erotica was not on that list. Romance was, but not erotica. When I raised my hand in the committee meeting–and I was there as a guest, mind you–I asked if they planned to incorporate erotica into romance or if they were going to do a separate bibliography. The committee chair asked if I’d be willing to write the bibliography, and without a second’s hesitation I said yes. There was no way on Earth I was going to let there be no erotica bibliography for a panel where Zane was a guest!

Friends remembered I was interested in the topic, especially when I continued to talk about what I was reading on Twitter, and talking to friends who wrote erotica and erotic romance. I also came out to some friends as being a writer of erotica. Now, most of these friends can tell you I write it, but many of them can’t remember my pseudonym. Again, this is something I’m okay with–if not exactly ecstatic about–because I have two sisters-in-law whose professions have led them to working in schools and we share the same name. I do not want what I write to at all affect their careers which is why I only refer to my alter ego as “alter ego” when writing as myself.

Around the time I was starting my current job, there was this book that was making the rounds. Anyone heard of Fifty Shades of Grey? I thought so. Leaving off my thoughts on it, librarians who knew me started asking me about erotica. First for stories/authors for them to read and for them to recommend to their patrons. One friend suggested my name to another friend of hers to be a part of a panel presentation (admittedly, the panel proposal was done in fall 2011, but the panel itself was around the time 50SOG really hit). Since that panel, three more speaking opportunities have presented themselves, though I was only able to take on two due to scheduling.  Then, I was asked to write an article for LJ on the topic. That will be out in the February 15th issue and will be the cover article!

All of this because I asked some questions about the topics I was interested in. These are the topics I am and have been passionate about. I’ve let my passion shine through. The speaking opportunities were definitely helped by the fact in my previous position I was responsible for preparing and delivering continuing education classes on a regular basis. The writing opportunities were helped by the fact I routinely wrote for publication, both fiction and non-fiction. By the way, with either fiction or non-fiction, you really need to grow a thick hide and get used to having to do revisions. It *really* helps if you want repeat business. I’ve found that opportunities tend to breed other opportunities. Though, I will also admit to totally being in the right place at the right time for a good many of these same opportunities.

Ultimately, having a good and friendly attitude gets you far. I don’t mean you have to be a suck up. I *so* do not mean you have to be a suck up. That’s just as annoying as dealing with someone with a diva complex. What I do mean is: be yourself, be positive, be passionate.

*Also, I am available for speaking engagements including keynotes

Totaling up the reads for the year resulted in 102 titles for 2012. This only includes books and novellas I finished. For short stories, if they are part of an anthology, there’s a 50/50 shot that I’ll record reading them. Quite a few of the short stories I read this year didn’t get recorded because there wasn’t an easy way for me to tag them in LibraryThing by themselves. There were quite a few books I started but never finished, let alone all of the books I skim as part of my job. Most of the unfinished books are ones I plan on going back to as they got caught in my depressive mood of the last third of the year where I ended up buffeting books rather than finishing.

The majority of the books I read fell somewhere in the romance spectrum. Many were straight up romances, and those that weren’t tended to have a strong romance element to them. The short stories in anthologies that I mentioned above that didn’t get recorded? Those tended to be erotica or erotic romance. This is what I like to read for pleasure and it’s really hard to dynamite me out of my wallow zone. I’ve tried. The only time I was able to do it was when I was on an award committee, and that frankly burned me out on reading. Since I’m not one for reading broadly, I do try to read deeply. I still don’t have time for everything. Once again, MacArthur Foundation, if you’re listening, I’d like a genius grant to study the current state of genre literature in America. Thanks!

Getting back to that 102 titles read. Looking over past years stats, this is pretty on par for me. I think I would have read more this year were it not for the depressive episode. However, I also am beginning to see that I generally get hit with at least one of those episodes every year. I’m lucky in that the general cure for me just seems to be the passage of time. For getting out of the buffeting of books habit it results in, that seems to be rereading books that I know I love and enjoy.

This year is shaping up to be a good year, if a busy one. I’m curious to see how my plan of trying to keep my schedule clear after July will affect how much I read. For me, the “reading goals” thing has rarely worked in the past. If anything, it’s not the amount of reading I do being an issue, it’s that if I’m not sucked in by a book that is outside of my comfort zone, I’m not likely to read it at an appreciable speed, and then will get caught in a circle of “no, should finish this book…but I’m only plodding along with it!” When that happens, it’s not pretty.

When ALA’s The Reading List gets announced later this month, I do plan on updating the Genre Book Challenge info with the new titles, but I’m going to rethink how/if I approach it myself this coming year. So that’s my summary of 2012. How was yours?

I was so pumped the last time I posted a read list for the previous month and would not have imagined that I’d go four months without updating. We had a major loss in the family soon after the August reads list posted, and it threw me off stride big time. Now that we’re through the holidays, and it’s the new year, it’s time for a fresh start. I still need to update my watchlist for 2013, but here’s what I read during the last third of 2012. Unless the book made a big enough impact on me to punch through the depressive emotions to stick, I’m not going to include any commentary. Suffice it to say, me finishing a book during this kind of episode says a lot about how well it worked for me.

Read

• The Lost Night by Jayne Castle
• The Lady Most Willing by Julia Quinn, Connie Brockway and Eloisa James – ARC from publisher
• Archangel’s Storm by Nalini Singh
• Kissing Comfort by Jo Goodman
• Skies of Steel by Zoe Archer – ARC from publisher
• Lord’s Fall by Thea Harrison – You definitely need to read Dragon Bound before reading this. Reading the other novels in the world is also helpful, but not as crucial to understanding what’s going on.
• A Night of No Return by Sarah Morgan – ARC from publisher. reading Sarah’s books always remind me of how great Harlequin series books can be.
• Nights of Steel by Nico Rosso – ARC from publisher
• Moonlight and Mechanicals by Cindy Spencer Pape
• City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte – ARC from publisher. I had a few issues with the technical side of the storytelling, but the author’s voice and pacing really sucked me in. Definitely for those who enjoyed A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.
• Without a Summer by Mary Robinette Kowal – ARC from publisher. I love this series so much, and I am so not a fan of Austen who is very much the inspiration behind Kowal’s style for these books. This is a great series that continues to build upon itself and makes each book a richer experience.
• Alien vs. Alien by Gini Koch
• The First Prophet by Kay Hooper
• And Then She Fell by Stephanie Laurens – ARC from publisher
• Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
• Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs
• Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

Reread

• The Brazen Bride by Stephanie Laurens
• The Curious Sofa by Ogdred Weary (Edward Gorey) – This is a unique little book and is highly suggestive without ever really tripping into explicitness.
• The Untamed Bride by Stephanie Laurens
• The Elusive Bride by Stephanie Laurens
• The Reckless Bride by Stephanie Laurens

Listened to

• Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn – from work

Novellas

• Hunter’s Season by Thea Harrison
• Seduced by a Pirate by Eloisa James
• Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs

Total read in September through December: 26
Total read in 2012: 102

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m still alive. I plan on doing a year end wrap up of books read for the last few months, and maybe a year in reading review. Things have been busy with some personal things, and writing of articles. The first six months of the year are shaping up to be busy ones, especially May. Thankfully, though, it’s a step down in busyness from last year which came close to getting out of hand. When I’m home in Chicago next week, I’ll be doing site-wide updates. Oh, and if you haven’t heard, erotica’s hot in libraries. Expect to be inundated with the topic at conferences next year.

On my way into work this morning, I was musing about a couple of presentations I’m working on and will be delivering in the next couple of weeks. One of them is erotic fiction in libraries.

An issue that I’ve been struggling with since I first started talking about the topic is how to effectively promote erotic titles a library owns without drawing unnecessary attention from people who think fun is dictating what other people in their community can and cannot read. A guerrilla marketing technique I liked to employ when I worked in public libraries and had the duties of marketing the collection was to include readalike bookmarks in books. This morning, my thoughts turned to: but how do you determine which books will give those bookmarks the widest exposure?

Gateway books.

It’s a term I have not run across before, but it’s a concept I think all reader’s advisors are familiar with.

Gateway book – noun – title that entices a reader to further explore a genre/subgenre they have little to no experience reading.

Gateway books are the ones you want those readalike bookmarks in. Some examples:

• Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James – Erotica/erotic fiction
• Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin – Epic fantasy
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Young Adult

As you can see from the examples above, three of the four are the basis for movies or a tv show with the fourth working its way through the production process as I type. For this reason alone, gateway books can and will change through the years.

Now that you’ve got the concept of gateway books fixed in your mind, what other titles would you classify as a gateway book and how would you exploit the status in your marketing efforts?

Happy Labor Day! And happy posting at the beginning of the month to me! Definitely an uptick in rereads, but overall a fairly well-read month. Even better is I don’t have a lot of books I started but abandoned. I hate it when that happened. I usually only mark a book as DNF if I can tell there’s something there that I do want to read, but for whatever reason I’m not in the mood to read it at the time. That happened with the first in Kristen Painter’s House of Comarre series.

Read

• The Chilling Deception by Jayne Castle – Number 2 in her Guinevere Jones series from the mid-1980s. Enjoyable.
• Pleasure Rush by Farrah Rochon – Part of the New York Sabers series. Loved it!
• Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood – Got this as an ARC from the publisher. I was a bit leery as the last few by her have been lacking something. This one feels like she’s getting back to form. Her author voice is immensely readable for me, and it felt like the plotting and storytelling were more cohesive.
• Samurai Game by Christine Feehan – I don’t know what it is about this series for me. I keep reading them even though I feel like I’ve missed a couple of books with regard to the overarching story, and I’m almost positive I haven’t. I know a lot of reader friends who say certain series are laced with crack because they keep going back. This is definitely one of mine.
• Haven by Kay Hooper – Latest in her Bishop/SCU series. Yay!!! There were some twists I wasn’t expecting in this story, which surprised me a bit as I’ve been reading this series from book one and Kay has pulled this kind of twist before. I’m very much looking forward to the next one.
• Riveted by Meljean Brook – First, thanks, Meljean! This comes out on 9/4 and Meljean was kind enough to supply me with an early copy. I love this series so much partially because she takes each book in slightly different directions which keeps the world fresh and interesting. Meljean’s also great with addressing various social issues in her world, and this one’s a doozy.
• The Sinister Touch by Jayne Castle – Third in her Guinevere Jones series. Enjoyable.

Reread

• Blood Ties by Kay Hooper – After reading Haven, I had to go back and reread this.
• Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase – One of my favorites by her.
• Now You See Her by Linda Howard – One of my all-time favorite romances period. I love how anti-social Sweeney is.

Listened to

• None

Novella

• Mina Wentworth and the Invisible City by Meljean Brook – I loved the look into Mina and Rhys’ marriage after they’ve been together for a while. Definitely a neat reminder that an “HEA” is always a work in progress.
• Reaper by Mina Carter – I’ve had this for a while and thought it was an intriguing post-apocalyptic world. If Carter’s got any other books planned for this world, I’m willing to read them!

Total read in August: 12
Total read in 2012: 76

September watchlist:

1. Archangel’s Storm by Nalini Singh (9/4) – Next in her Guild Hunter series. I am so in love with this series and have been taunted all weekend by friends who’ve read early copies.
2. Riveted by Meljean Brook (9/4) – At least I get to be the taunter on this one. So good!
3. The Lost Night by Jayne Castle (9/4) – Spin off of her Harmony/Ghost Hunters series.
4. The Dirty Girls Book Club by Savanna Fox (9/4) – I’ve had a Post-It with this title sitting on my desk for months now, and I’m not sure why. Seems to be trade paperback erotic romance, so will see if I can get it through the library.
5. The Last Renegade by Jo Goodman (9/4) – I’ve really enjoyed Goodman in the past, but have yet to read her last few books, so this may get put on the backburner.
6. All He Ever Needed by Shannon Stacey (9/10) – Latest in her Kowalski series.
7. Delusion in Death by JD Robb (9/11) – Latest in the Eve Dallas series.
8. Hunter’s Season by Thea Harrison (9/18) – Latest of her novellas in her Elder Races series. Already pre-ordered.
9. The Lady Risks All by Stephanie Laurens (9/25) – Roscoe’s story. I’ve already read and greatly enjoyed!

Looking at this by sheer numbers, July was on the low end for me. However, two of those books–the Harkness All Souls trilogy ones–were big fat doorstoppers. Since it’s so late in the month, I’m not doing an August watchlist…also because I need to update my list of what’s on it for the second half of the year.

Read

• All for You by Lynn Kurland – Latest in her de Piaget family chronicles. This series is one of my candy ones where I greatly enjoy it as I’m reading, but falls a little flat as soon as I finish.
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness – Yes, I know. I’m a year behind on reading this. I picked this up because the publisher ran a sale on the electronic edition in preparation for the release of the sequel. $2.99 was a damn good deal for a book this size! As I was not expecting this book to be a romance, even though there’s a strong and important romance plot line, all of the various storytelling elements worked well for me. As for the ending, let’s just say I was very glad to have the second book ready and waiting for me.
• Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness – I had gotten this as an ARC from the publisher a while back. Hence why I finally decided to read book one (in addition to the sale price). I liked the way Harkness took the story back to the Elizabethan Age. She didn’t shy away from the realities of the time and all of the story lines came together well for me. To a point. And sadly that point was toward the end. I ended the book feeling frustrated that some major events that happened to the secondary characters were mentioned and then glossed over. As this series is not strictly in first person, I felt that at least one of the really big events could have been included within the scope of the story.
• Huddle With Me Tonight by Farrah Rochon – This is the first in Rochon’s New York Sabers series, and I picked it up after reading the second one for the Smart Bitches RITA review series. Like “I’ll Catch You”, the main characters act like adults. Even when they periodically revert to childish behavior, it never lasts long.
• The Desperate Game by Jayne Castle – The first in the Genevieve Jones series from the 1980′s. I’ve heard about this series for years, and was so excited to see that it was being reissued as an ebook. This is definitely a book from the 80′s, but you can see why Genevieve was such a standout heroine for the time.
• Field of Pleasure by Farrah Rochon – Third in the New York Sabers series. Seriously, just run out and buy this series. They’re all fabulous!

Reread

• None

Listened to

• None

Novella

• “A Return Engagement” by Stephanie Laurens in the Royal Bridesmaids anthology – This was a sweet story of reunited lovers. ARC from the publisher.
• “Lord Lovedon’s Duel” by Loretta Chase in the Royal Bridesmaids anthology – Trademarked Chase humor carried this story. ARC from the publisher.
• True Colors by Thea Harrison – Technically a reread. Great little murder mystery.

Total read in July: 9
Total read in 2012: 64