Romance Novels ~ Coming of Age?

Sooner or later, most romance novel readers experience the sting of criticism from someone who looks down on such reading material.
 

Whether you were caught off guard while reading a romance, or mentioned how enjoyable you found a particular book, you were probably shocked when you saw the veil of judgment descend across your friend’s face.

The self-appointed judge and jury stared at you with a condescending smirk. Or worse, made a cutting remark about ‘silly’ novels, or announced they’d never have suspected you enjoy reading such ‘trashy’ material. 

For those of us who admit over cocktails at a dinner party that we write romance novels, the judgmental looks and comments can take on an even dimmer degree of censure. The slant shifts to, “you must be a millionaire since so many people read that drivel,” or, “anyone can write one since there’s nothing in them.”

And it’s not just men – a fair share of women look down on romance novels. I’ve often wondered what lies behind this attitude. 

The pages of romance novels mirror our lives. They are filled with love, doubts, getting along, overcoming obstacles, loyalty, loss, truth, trust and compromise. They are often about sexuality, whether the bedroom door is open or closed. 

Always complex, they deal with psychology. Two flawed people face their fears and grow. We cheer them on and journey with them. By the end of the story, the heroine is empowered and more self-confident than she was at the beginning. She faced her greatest challenges and also found love.

That’s just the love aspect... we also have all the different genres, locations and lifestyles to choose from. We can time travel to ancient Ireland where we fall for a king, or fall in love with an alien on a different planet. We can learn history from the historical romance set in ancient Egypt or be stalked by a lonely billionaire in downtown New York. There’s a romance for everyone. 

Romance novels are entertaining, but are also relationship teaching tools. We learn from the cause and effect that plays out between the covers. 

Many people believe bodice-ripping covers caused some misperception over the years. 

If so, how do we account for the explosive sales figures of erotic romance, and the lengthy bestseller status of 50 Shades of Grey? Millions of people have purchased it, many of whom aren’t your average romance readers.

It’s been said that people don’t buy 50 Shades of Grey for the sex; it’s the dynamic of the man/woman relationship that fascinates them. Just like men buy men’s magazines for the articles, not the pictures. 

Romance writing has morphed over the past two decades, and this makes it possible for more people to enjoy it. Characters and plots are often more realistic now, and just about anything is possible. Sassy, opinionated heroines who don’t need a relationship are swept off their feet by the guy next door, a poet who is in touch with his emotions and oozes tenderness and strength all at once. Not that the aloof billionaire has sailed off into the sunset in a mega yacht just yet... 

As more readers can relate to these ‘new’ heroes and heroines, it’s likely the public view of romance novels will be more positive. 

What do you think? Have romance novels generally come of age in the eyes of the public? Do you think the wave of popularity surrounding erotic romance has helped shift public perception?

 

There Is No Such Thing...

EDITORIAL NOTE: what follows is MY OPINION about trends in behavior amongst authors and their various audiences including reviewers and other authors. It is in no way meant to be taken as a treatise on what you should read or enjoy. Please do not take it that way. 
Liz

I've been following a few recent internecine public spats in the author world.

It's not a new thing, this concept of authors behaving badly, especially towards each other.

 I was recently dismayed to find out that one of my favorite authors (although I surely don't agree with all his politics) Jonathan Franzen has his very own hater group in the form of none other than successful  authors Jody Picoult and some other one I have never heard of but who is a NYT Best seller apparently. They got themselves in a snit over the fact that Franzen's most recent (amazing yet difficult) novel "Freedom" got such great press and he got the cover of time Magazine (this was a couple of years ago but people are still "belly aching" about it apparently). Wonder how Ms. Picoult feels about all the covers her best selling compatriot E.L. James has gotten since?

I can surmise from this that making a zillion dollars telling stories about teenagers dying and selling them to Hollywood is not enough for some authors to just...enjoy? Comparing "My Sister's Keeper" with books like "Freedom" is to my English Lit Degree Holding Mind sort of like comparing "East of Eden" with "War and Peace." Two good and famous authors writing two very different books for two very different reading audiences. Both well executed in their own right, and, given the opportunity, books that are worth reading. But comparing them is an exercise in total futility.

But my point is more along the lines of ... how much harm do you do yourself as an author when you react to such attacks? Having been the victim of a pretty nasty twitter flaming campaign last year, when a few bloggers/reviewers/readers felt that my book Paradise Hops was, um, let's say, "unsatisfactory to their needs as readers" and felt a need to attack pretty much everything I have written and claim that I was "an author worth avoiding at all costs." And having been talked down off the ledge after engaging with them in direct messages asking that they are welcome to talk with me about what they didn't like about any of my 20 or so books--because one of them said "this is my 7th book by this author and I can tell you she sucks"I come at this sort of thing with a bit of knowledge at least on my own, small, scale.

There are all sorts of examples of authors coming to the defense of their work in inadvisable ways. From sending your husband out to engage with a bad reviewer, reporting bad reviews to the FBI, to having a public snit on your blog about being witch hunted (when your book is being optioned by Warner Brothers), to big-timers dissing dead famous authors, and video Best Selling Author author-on-Best Selling author rants all the way up to our new favorite "OMG did you see what E.L. James did at RT?" (I didn't attend, nor do I ever plan to but this "recap" of the craziness is just a perfect example of why we should all ... grow the hell up and find something worthwhile to care about).

Authors love to hear themselves talk, or read their own words repeated. But as tempting as it may be, when my Stewart Realty series REALLY hits it big and I am in the HBO Green Room watching it be filmed with a cast of my choosing, I won't take the time to slam anyone else, no matter how much I think my hero is hotter, my plots stronger or my cable deal better. Promise. It's what grown ups do, the non-back stabbing thing. It's easy to diss those who are way up on top of the mountain  where we wish we could get a toehold. Just google "Fifty Shades of Crap" and see what you get. But honestly, no matter how much you cringe when you hear the phrase "holy crap," or read the word "Laters" (that one gets me every time) you gotta get your head around the fact that the dang book touched some kind of nerve that we are all coat tailing on to some extent.  And there will always be "that book" that is loved, hated, blessed as life changing and excoriated as the reason why our youth are culturally illiterate. It's "erotic romance" this year, next year it will be something else.

...this is funny...

I don't care for 95% of what's being touted as "best selling" and I really don't like all the copy catting that's going on which, in typical pop culture fashion, is being snapped up by publishing houses and movie studios alike.  But it will run its course, just like everything else, including gut wrenching stories about kids with cancer (Hey! Jodi Picoult, you did that first. Maybe you should pick a fight with John Greene instead?). But reading about all this nonsense behavior between authors who should know better or at least be too busy enough counting their money and thanking their fans to care? I really, really don't like that.

 I'll give you a real estate comparison: we all once thought the "all white kitchen" was the bomb. Then, everybody got a white kitchen. Now, we hate them and they are a reason to bid a house down because the kitchen "needs work." I think we will get to the point in the next year or two when the thought of a sexual Dom and his innocent new girlfriend makes us all want to stick our fingers down our collective throats. But for now, it's what's hot. I've written a version or two of myself, sans the "innocent" part. And my advice to authors tempted to behave badly in public when their version of it falls flat while others are flying high? Don't. Because you lose credibility. Because there IS such a thing as bad publicity.

I'm not saying don't have an opinion about books you read.  Just resist the urge to turn your green eyed monster into a personal rant, on line. It's bad form.

But, just so you know, this sort of thing has gone on for a long time. I give you, the top ten harshest "author on author" insults (there are more):

10. Henry James on Edgar Allan Poe (1876)

“An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.”

9. Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac

“That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

8. Elizabeth Bishop on J.D. Salinger

“I HATED [Catcher in the Rye]. It took me days to go through it, gingerly, a page at a time, and blushing with embarrassment for him every ridiculous sentence of the way. How can they let him do it?”

7. D.H. Lawrence on Herman Melville (1923)

“Nobody can be more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste, than Herman Melville, even in a great book like ‘Moby Dick’….One wearies of the grand serieux. There’s something false about it. And that’s Melville. Oh dear, when the solemn ass brays! brays! brays!”

6. W. H. Auden on Robert Browning

“I don’t think Robert Browning was very good in bed. His wife probably didn’t care for him very much. He snored and had fantasies about twelve-year-old girls.”

5. Evelyn Waugh on Marcel Proust (1948)

“I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.”

4. Mark Twain on Jane Austen (1898)

“I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE.

3. Virginia Woolf on James Joyce

“[Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”

2. William Faulkner on Mark Twain (1922)

“A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.”

1. D.H. Lawrence on James Joyce (1928)

“My God, what a clumsy olla putrida James Joyce is! Nothing but old fags and cabbage stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest stewed in the juice of deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness.”

Yeah, those guys knew how to toss an INSULT.

*egregious promotional moment because I don't have a Jamie Mcguire/E.L. James/Sylvia Day karma fairy on my shoulder*
Three of my personal favorite Liz Crowe books:

Essence of Time

Paradise Hops

Vegas Miracle







are all on sale right now! Just $1.99 for each of these three novels. I've made the titles live to link to Amazon but they are on sale at B&N and ARe as well. Click here for excerpts and blurbs.

Behave yourselves. It's a jungle out here...

cheers
Liz
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The Wave is Still Coming

So this 50 Shades of Grey craze continues to explode. My sister-in-law (who doesn't have time to read in her busy life) is now carving out some precious minutes to read this trilogy. These books are EVERYWHERE!

So I'm doing my usual surfing around this morning and what do I stumble upon? Several erotic books jumping into the waters and riding EL James's wave of success. It's not plagiarism. It's commercialism. And if I could write fast enough (or had thought of it), I totally would be grabbing my bathing suit (though I didn't say I'd actually put it on) and jumping into these waters as well. Doing a parody of someone else's work seems to be "in". I haven't read anymore than the sample and the reviews of the following books, but I'm thinking of picking up the first. It looks hot ... and rather amusing. Frankly, I'm thinking of buying it just for the cover art!

50 Shades of Alice in Wonderland
BEYOND 50 SHADES OF GREY...
Eighteen-year-old Alice is unhappy. Her boyfriend is nice and polite, but he's also quick and careless in bed, and doesn't give Alice the attention and variety she craves. But he's not entirely to blame, because Alice herself doesn't understand her own needs. She's heard about what sex is supposed to be like, but has never felt anything remotely close to what she's read about in runaway bestselling books.

BEYOND 9 1/2 WEEKS...
Then Alice follows a vibrating white rabbit down a deep, dark hole, which leads to a place beyond her wildest imagination. There are no nice boys--or girls--down here. Only those who indulge in secret, forbidden, kinky fantasies.

BEYOND PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES...
Alice is confused and frightened and... aroused. She is bound. Teased. Spanked. Toyed. Brought to the limits of sexual endurance. And during her trials, she begins to understand her body's needs for the very first time.

BEYOND THUNDERDOME...
This isn't the fairy tale you grew up reading. This isn't for children at all.

This is for those with dark desires, who wish to explore erotic excess beyond the plain vanilla of everyday life. Follow Alice down the rabbit hole, if you dare...

Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland is slightly longer than the Lewis Carroll version, roughly 32,000 words or 115 paper pages long. Melinda DuChamp is the pen name of bestselling author who has written over 50 novels, mostly romance.

50 Shades of Silver Hair and Socks
When old fart blogger Mormon Silver goes to interview young entrepreneur Bea Plastique, he encounters a woman who is stunning, smart, and scary. The unsophisticated, horny Silver is startled to realize he wants this woman (from behind, mostly) and, despite her mysterious love of ice hockey, finds he is desperate to get close to her (and honk her boobies). Unable to resist Silver's oral skills, silver chin fur, and argyle socks, Plastique admits she wants him, too--but on her own terms.

Stunned yet delighted by Plastique's kinkiness, Silver hesitates. For all of her success--her multinational assortment of lubricants, her gay assistant, her condo on a high floor (I mean, really high--you're almost above the clouds, for Christ's sake)--Plastique is a woman haunted by her past and consumed by the need to have hockey-related sex. When the couple embarks on a bold, twisted physical affair, Mormon discovers Bea Plastique's secrets (including a naughty uncle) and explores his own icky, sticky desires.

Silly, sexy, and deeply disturbing, Fifty Shades of Silver Hair and Socks is a tale that will make you horny, tickle you, and give you some great ideas to try on an unsuspecting lover.
(And this one comes in a full trilogy!)

50 Shades of Red Riding Hood
It was a romance that the world would never understand. He was a big bad wolf; she was just a young woman with no self-respect.

Little Red Riding Hood knows it’s wrong. She knows their needs would never match. Yet she finds herself inexplicably drawn to Mr Wolf and his ‘specific tastes’.

Repetitive, badly written and poorly edited, ‘Fifty Shades of Red Riding Hood’ has all the ingredients necessary to become a runaway success.

This is a short story with only 6500 words, but geez, these words are freaking hot!
(Definitely a parody with several typos and bad editing!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~

So what do you think? Worth checking out? Does it give you any ideas of other books you'd like to see?

It's All Kind of Grey

I've been writing erotic romance for about six years. I have lots of wonderful readers who enjoy my books. And though my family is very proud of all that I've accomplished, very few of them want to read my books. That's fine. They aren't for everyone. And up until the last year, most of my extended family didn't even know the words kindle or nook. Now, many of them own one.

It's only recently that authors have been able to take complete control of their publishing careers and self-publish their books. Many of the books on the NYT Bestseller list are now self-published e-books. But I'm not sure any of them are getting the buzz that 50 Shades of Grey is receiving. It seems every time I turn on the television someone is talking about this erotic romance book with it's BDSM themes. Kelly Ripa was discussing it on her show. Ellen DeGeneres was sorta reading excerpts on her program.

The book world is on fire with chatter about this trilogy. And I keep wondering ... why this book? Did the author, EL James, a television executive know some trick to marketing that the rest of us haven't tried? I can't say I've seen an interview of her, though I do understand she's been on a couple of morning shows.

In the long run all this attention is helpful for all erotic romance authors ... like me!

The media is terming her story "Mommy Porn" because so many mainstream romance readers are falling in love with Mr. Grey, Anastasia and their less-than-mainstream relationship. I'm not sure readers are happy with this catch phrase, but hey, why not? I'll be the first to tell people I write smut. Of course I say it lovingly, knowing that my stories (like all good erotic romance books) aren't just one sex scene loosely connected to another sex scene. There are flawed characters with real emotional problems all set within a plot that twists and turns and hopefully surprises my readers.

I don't know about this particular book. Since reader reviews are all over the place on this one, I'm not sure if I want to plunk down part of my monthly book budget (don't laugh, I can pretend I have one) just to see what all the buzz is about. But whether people like this book or not, there's no arguing with the number of books flying off the virtual shelves. Which means these readers, many who are new to the erotic romance genre, may be looking for other sexy reads. That's wonderful news for the rest of us working to market our books. Because the truth is, some of us are just trying to figure out what Ms. James did right to bring so much attention to her trilogy. I'd like to repeat her success.

What about you? Have you read this? Are you planning on checking it out? And if you have insight as to why this particular book has hit the big time, do share. You know me, I'm always curious about stuff like that.