Juno Books

In a fairly uninformed article on dark fiction in the Detroit Free Press, Marta Salij reports (among other obvious points and a few quoted authors) that:

…creatures of the night have become a big part of the hearts and flowers of romance fiction…Nocturne is a new imprint for Silhouette romances, but the publisher has been producing stories with paranormal and fantasy elements for years….Why a new imprint now?…In part, says Marleah Stout, senior manager of public relations at Harlequin…because today’s culture seems ready for dark magic. Take TV shows like “Lost” or “Heroes,” which focus on the paranormal, or Gothic clothes on the catwalk.”Paranormal has always been popular,” Stout says, “but it seems like now it’s even more popular.”

We’re looking for suggestions on publicizing Juno Books — we’ve sent out review copies of Jade Tiger, but I’m not sure we have every reviewer who might be interested in an martial-arts-action-adventure-romance novel with tigers. Email me with suggestions! (editor@juno-books.com) Same as far as publicity opportunities — from whence do you hear about new books?

Democrat Fred Head, who is running for the job of State Comptroller in Texas has accused a Republican opponent, Susan Combs, of writing “pornography”. The book in question, A Perfect Match, was published in 1990 and is described as a “romance novel” by Combs and her staff.

STAR-TELEGRAM AUSTIN BUREAU

JADE TIGER is actually ready to ship or shipping! Stephen Seagal did a great job on the cover design with artwork by the fabulous Tim Lantz. Do click the image or link for a full look at the cover!

According to the New York Times, a Washington DC-area group promoting the region’s abundance of well-educated residents ran subway posters that feature two people reading books on a train. The man reading Plato’s Republic is captioned “Greater Washington Subway Reading”; next to him is a man reading a romance novel, captioned “Average Subway Reading”. Among those writing to the organization to object was local resident Nora Roberts: “The fact that Romance novels make up about 50 percent of sales of all mass market fiction should be an indication of how many passengers are reading a Romance novel on the D.C. Metro, and how many might be insulted by this ad.”

The guidelines have been updated for both BEST NEW PARANORMAL and the novels. I really could use recommendations for BNPR and if you’ve been thinking about submiting a novel, this would be a good time to get it in.

Do pass the word on to any writers groups and individuals you may think are interested!

This is the first time I’ve been to this nice small convention in Columbus, OH. (About 2.5 hr drive from where I live.) People are friendly and attentive. The scheduling is somewhat disorganized, but everyone seems to go with the flow.

Gary Braunbeck and Tim Waggoner did some excellent horror panels, even though this is more of an SF event, I think. Sorry I didn’t get everyone’s names on the “what is horror?” panel last night, but it was one of the best panels of that type I’ve seen. Rosemary Laurey did a paranormal workshop, so I gave her lots of Juno things to hand out and have talked to several folks about submitting to Juno. (Hint: I’m looking at submissions very seriously right now!)

GoH Maureen McHugh interviewed Ellen Datlow this afternoon and Ellen and I were talking to Maurice Broadus afterwards, I’d never met him before although Ellen had, and we probably babbled far too much. In fact, Ellen and I have had so much gossip and chat time…I think we are all out! So everyone in genre publishing, please do interesting things in the next few weeks before World Fantasy so we’ll have more to talk about.

I won’t be catching the Mike Resnick Roast tonight or tomorrow’s programming, but think it has (other than chat) been worthwhile.

I’ll post this over at DarkEcho, too.

We finally have updated the site with the FINISHED covers for the first two books and a list of the first four monhs of 2007’s releases. We have lots more news and information to post next week and we’ll also be blogging more. Right now I’m off to a convention in Columbus, Ohio where my friend Ellen Datlow is editor GoH. Dashing…

PWDaily reports the Torstar restructuring will eliminate 4% of it global workforce, or about 40 positions. Executives were unavailable for comment on where the cuts will occur. A combination of currency fluctuations and higher costs have battered Harlequin’s margins in 2006. For the first half of 2006, operating profit was down 47% on a 6% decline in sales.

Reuters report Harlequin’s parent company, Torstar Corp.will cut 4 percent of jobs at its Harlequin Enterprises book-publishing division and take a C$2.5 million ($2.2 million) restructuring charge as a result. Cuts at the division, known for its popular romance novels, would save it about C$3 million a year.