Juno Books

First, yes, the antholgy series’ second volume is now BEST NEW ROMANTIC FANTASY (not “Paranormal Romance”). More about that in a few days in a newsletter. (Not signed up? Sign up here.)
Second, fifteen emails have gone out. Once I receive acceptances from (I hope all) the authors, I will announce the list.

Cue the anticipatory music…

The best bits:

“Some readers may not be able to handle the creepy and sometimes downright revolting actions of the villain, but the unusual portrait of evil in this book does make for a readable story…. her ideas are original and, with more experience, she may definitely be one to watch. Her publisher advertises itself as a fantasy publisher with a focus on strong female characters. If this book is anything to go by, I will be very curious to see more from them and from this author.”

– Lynn Spencer on “All About Romance”

Fair enough. They weren’t thrilled, but a “B-” (which they do consider a recommendation) is very good from a primarily romance site for this one — it is very dark and not real romance-y.

Yeah, I’m really curious what the publisher is doing, too. Right now, all I see are mistakes we’ve made! *I* think we REALLY should not have launched so soon and should have gone with only one title a month instead of two and done far more pre-planning. But we didn’t…

I also am beginning to wonder if we SHOULD do such a wide variety of books. Maybe we are just confusing people.

…someone asked below.

It’s a good question. I’ve had the books (direct from the printer) for a couple of weeks, review copies went out about 10 days ago. But they evidently only got to the distributor this week and I have no idea how long from then till when they get to the stores. I’m guessing they will make it to shelves the last week of February

My only indication they are in stores is that I see them on Amazon.

Which is why I’ve taken the dates down from releases. A MORTAL GLAMOUR and THE STRANGELING were “February” books and I fully expected them to be in stores by mid-month.

But we are still learning, I guess.

I do think we will be starting direct sales from the Wildside site soon though. That way we can direct customers there and know they will get books as soon as possible. Frankly, fulfillment (that’s what you call getting book orders and fulfilling them by shipping the books and all) is not something we want to deal with. But I think we’ll have to.

We also had an author who reported someone tried to order one of the earlier books from their B&N store and was told they couldn’t! Since B&N is stocking the books in some stores, that is entirely bizarre. So, we are checking that out, too.

Meanwhile NIMAUR’S LOSS and THE BONE WHISTLE have been printed, so let’s see how long THAT takes…

Harriet Klausner:
“This short novel (175 pages) packs a lot of action and three well developed characters in the exciting story line. Most fascinating is how similar Veldar and Bron are though at the same time they are opposites as each fervently and passionately believe in what they are doing yet the villainous druid is a megalomaniac while the hero is a caring kindhearted soul. That comparison along with the coming of age of Maerose from a village mouse into a superhero provides the audience with a wonderful one sitting fantasy.”

(Nice review, but odd that she refers to “Elders” as “Druids” and “Samhein”.)

Front Street Reviews:

“My only real complaint is that I wish more time was spent developing the setting and exploring the secondary characters. It has a lot of potential as a fantasy story which is overshadowed by the dominance of the romantic theme. However, it just depends on what the reader is looking for. Erotica readers will find the story right on target.”

Mmmmm, well. This one IS a romance. That’s why the story is dominated by romance.

At least two people have gotten the wrong impression from the thread here on romance and erotic writing…

I ran across some god-awful sex scenes. It reminded how difficult it is to write good sex and that many authors seem woefully lacking in their attempts.

Just because I’m writing about this and suggesting some resources does not mean I am looking for romances (as defined by the marketing category) or erotica for Juno Books. Some editors write about chocolate. That doesn’t mean they want you to submit chocolate.[Although they probably wouldn’t mind the occasional gift-chocolate. (Not ME…see, now I’m worried you’ll take that to mean I like chocolate and want you to send it to me. Oh, well, good, you can’t…I ask for electronic subs only. Ha!)

But that doesn’t mean I’m looking for either “romance” or “erotica”. Read the guidelines…[she waits patiently]…

Some Juno books have some fairly steamy sex — and it is integral to and advances the plot. Some has none at all and no love scenes and even “minimal” relationship.

In general, I think that fantasy or adventure or whatever that focuses on women or a woman usually has a relationship as an element…sometimes central, sometimes not. But Maybe mentioning that confuses people. Using the term “paranormal romance” — even though it was ALWAYS explained and defined and never allowed to mean “by the romance rules” — confused people. If I say we want novels “like” such-and-such and so-and-so and name example titles, then that is misleading, too, because much of what we have bought would be (or, in some cases, was) rejected as “not romance” or “not fantasy” or not *enough* of something or *too little* of something.

Jennifer asks (in a comment below): Isn’t there a bad sex writing contest in England every year? Yes, that would be the annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Awards now in its fifteenth year. “The awards were set up by Auberon Waugh with the aim of gently dissuading authors and publishers from including unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels. Previous winners include Tom Wolfe, AA Gill, Sebastian Faulks, and Melvyn Bragg.” Past nominees include Gabriel García Márquez, Paul Theroux, John Updike and Salman Rushdie. Last year’s winner, Iain Hollingshead, reflects on his “victory” here.

So, Jennifer’s opinion — I think that even very good writers can have difficulty with sex scenes — is dead on.

Her theory of taking “a certain predilection for poetry…in order to bring off a really convincing love scene” probably is true at least to the extent that rhythm and careful word choice is involved.

She also asks: Oh, can that be the difference? A sex scene VS a love scene?

Well, no. Sex is sex and love is love and neither need have to have anything to do with the other.

Sex is difficult to write for a number of reasons and literary skill need not be one of them. I already recomended M. Christian’s brief article. The following I don’t recommend so much as point as as available. I do, however, think that Steve Almond makes a vaild point with “Remember that the sexiest thing about sex is really desire…”

• Writing Sex by Steve Almond
• Steaming Up Your Love Scenesby Emma Holly
• The Art of the Sex Scene by Catherine Knepper
• On Writing Sex Scenes by Marge Piercy
• Writing the Love Scene (Meeting Recap with Mary Gillgannon) by Rosanne Boettinger
• 20 Steps to Writing Great Love Scenes by Karen Wiesner
• The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers by Elizabeth Benedict
• Definitions: Is it Erotica, Erotic Romance or Sensual Romance? by Kathryn Anne Dubois

These resources are more “adult-oriented”, so I list them separately:

• The Erotica Readers & Writers Association is a reference and resource organization dedicated to readers and writers of erotica, and people interested in sexuality with numerous articles.
• Writing Erotica by John McMullen
• Sex in the Romance: A Review of Romantic Encounters of the Close Kind John L. Ferri

I read a smarmy comment somewhere — by someone who comments without reading much of what is being commented on — about paranormals having obligatory sex scenes.

Hello? A *good* novel — no matter what genre it may be or not be — does not have obligatory sex scenes. Its sex scenes (if any) are integral to the plot and that advance the story just as any scene would. Hardly obligatory.

* * *

Other phrases that “blow things”:

• hearts thudding or slamming against ribs
• enraged senses
• eyes gazing over or up and down anything (gazing is looking fixedly, steadily, unwaveringly)
• clothing that can’t rustle rustling (rustling is “a swishing or soft crackling sound such as that made by dry leaves rubbing together”; T-shirts, silk, even comfortable sheets tend not to rustle)
• a quiver surging (we discused quivers already, of course; you can even feel a surge of emotion, but quivers…?)

So I’m reading these stories and I keep coming across sentences that, if I were eating a bowl of cereal, would make me snort milk through my nostrils. I wish I could quote them here, but the Internet is not such a big place and the authors (and I use the term loosely) might get all huffy.

They aren’t just hilarious because of the bad writing, either. Nope. It’s the physical impossibilities involved. Look, just because we are dealing with fantasy does not mean we can abandon basic human anatomy and Newtonian physics (unless you’ve worked that rather effectively into the plot.)

As M. Christian (who, I contend, is one of the finest writers of the erotic you are apt to find and whose new novel, The Very Bloody Marys, is the best hard-boiled queer vampire mystery ever written) once wrote in “Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker” about writing erotica: “…when you find the wrong tab A in slot B it blows the whole thing.”

The same holds true of the vocabulary used. Writing that slot B does something it can’t or that tab A is something it cannot be blows the whole thing.

I found these all in one story…without even looking. I would hate to actually examine it further.

groin: According to Merriam-Webster, it is “the fold or depression marking the juncture of the lower abdomen and the inner part of the thigh”. Yes, I know, it can informally refer to “the area between the abdomen and the thigh or the region of the genitals”. Still, one must be careful about making it ache, throb, thrust, grind, arouse, or come to life. We know it’s not the groin you are writing about and hope you know it, too.

pheromones: “Small molecules that, when released by one organism, act as chemical signals to induce a certain behavior in another organism. Scents that attract animals to each other in a mating process are an example of pheromones.” (The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy) These chemicals should not be allowed to dance, circle, whirl, or float.

thong: A thong can be a type of garment for the lower body that exposes the buttocks. However, “thongs” are something one wears on one’s feet or uses to bind something. Your hero may be happy to see your heroine is wearing a thong, but unless you are writing about a foot-fetishist he would not be so delighted to notice her thongs.

vice: In the throes (not throws) of passion something might be held, squeezed, or pressed, but it is not being viced, it is being (if you must, and I really wish you wouldn’t) vised. Vice is a noun meaning moral depravity and other fun stuff like that.

snake: The author used the verb snake to mean “wind around in the manner of a snake”, which is fine. However, it was also used to indicate a movement. In that case, as an intransitive verb, it means “to crawl, move, or extend silently, secretly, or sinuously.” That may or may not be what was meant. ( I rather think an undulating motion was meant rather than a serpentine one as “waves” were involved.)

shudders or quivers: These words should not be used as nouns as in “The shudders rippled down his back” or “Quivers ran across her flesh.” A shudder is the act of shuddering, a quiver carries arrows or is the act of quivering. See further clarification in comment below

Now, if you enjoy using quivers in your consensual sex, please do so. (C’mon — Legolas or Robin Hood, hmm? Never mind.) But I imagine if you are that creative you would never have written anything quite so inaccurate as this story.

Eight -to-12 weeks is not bad. Although I now see I am coming up on 12 weeks…okay. Really. SOON…

Please don’t take this as a whine or put down. Consider it instructive.

I sent a newsletter out to everyone who has submitted to Juno a week or so back. It was a one-time thing and, unless they subscribe, they won’t be bothered again. However, at least for now, everyone was updated and told that submissions received before mid-November have received a response, those after have not.

I’ve also mentioned this here on the blog.

Generally 8-12 weeks is the response time, but I’ve tried to let people know that it is slower right now. And, once I send responses out, I imagine the “average” will still be that, or less. (Lucky person A gets response in 1 week due to timing + Unlucky person B who gets response in 16 weeks = 8.5 weeks average.)
But I am still getting almost daily emails from people wanting to know when I will respond. None of them have been waiting for more than 10-11 weeks. Some much less.

If anything, just inquire to see if I got it?

Of the few publishers that even accept unsolicited/unagented ms.:

Tor states: Please allow at least four to six months for your manuscript to be considered.

Dorchester: Our review process typically takes 6-8 months

Harlequin:All material will be evaluated in as timely a fashion as volume allows. Please do not call regarding the status of your manuscript. You will be notified by mail as soon as your work has been reviewed.

Baen Booksreporting time: usually within 9 to 12 Months.

Oh but those are BIG publishers with LOTS of submissions. Well, yeah. but they also have asst. editors, interns, and slush readers.

So, all I am saying is: Try to be knowledgeable about publishing if you want to be published? Realize what a typical response time is. And take advantage of the fact I do try to keep people updated here and in a newsletter.

Vera Nazarian has a nice little Q & A with Roby James (BEYOND THE HEDGE) on her Live Journal!

I KNOW it comes out in April. I AM working on this blasted BEST NEW WHATEVER IT IS (because we can’t call it *romance* can we?) anthology.(How about: THE ANTHOLOGY FORMERLY KNOWN AS BEST NEW PARANORMAL ROMANCE?)

Guess there won’t be any ARCs this year…

You read. You go back and read again. You keep looking…oh and meanwhile you start looking for THIS year.

There are three stories (from 2006) I know I want and I’ve known I wanted them for some time. Each is over 11,000 words, so that’s a good start. (Of course, you can’t take too many of those longer ones…) Oh, and there’s a fourth one, under 5000. I suppose I should just track these people down and ask them, but then word sort of slips out and other people wonder why you didn’t contact THEM right away. Did that mean their stories were second rate? Well, no, of course not. It’s mostly a matter of balance and when you find/read the story and all. Still, one doesn’t wish to insult anyone, especially since the idea here is to be honoring them, so emailing everyone fairly closely together is a good idea.

Besides, one way of deciding a good story is a good story is that it “stays” with you long after you first read it. I read all four of the “sure-thing” stories months ago, but some “almost-sures” may have been read more recently.

Then there is the “moment of ‘aarrggh!’” — that’s when you realize YOUR story (that’s how you are feeling about it, “that’s a story for MY ANTHOLOGY, yup”), has been chosen by another editor for another “year’s best”. Already has happened. But at least it is not as if there are any other “best of whatever this is” fiction anthologies. Yet.

Which reminds me: There’s something of a debate swirling about there being too many such genre anthologies. I look at it from a marketing angle. I know *my* anthology series isn’t going to last forever unless it sells; decent sales=life, low sales=death. Easy. I have to assume the same is true of the other sf/f/h/novella/region/flavor anthologies. As for what you title these compilations, you can hardly call them Gardner’s Personal SF Picks of the Year or Ellen’s Idea of Excellent Dark Fiction or David & Kathryn Like This Stuff in the Fantasy Vein…etc. So they get called what they get called: “Year’s Best…” “Best New…”

I have enough problems with this anthology title. Don’t give me grief over it being a “best of/year’s best”.

Where was I…um. That was four stories on the *yes* pile, about 40,000 words.

Then you run into the “Imagination Cloud Problem”. The ICP is so termed because it has been (not very seriously) theorized that there must be some sort of cosmic cloud hanging over writers that drips a particular idea into a lot of them at once. So you come up with a bunch of stories all published reasonably close together with the same theme or at least some similar threads. Now, there are obvious rational reasons for similar stories, of course: theme anthologies, popular trends, world affairs/societal influence. There’s also the insidious pool of “doomed theme anthology” stories. Here, the anthology is never published for one reason or another, but authors have already written stories specifically for it and are all trying to place them at the same time, more or less.

This year I found lots and lots of fairy tales. 0! Angela Carter and Teri Windling what hast thou wrought? A stories with fairies. Also ran across a lot of Japanese stories. And, for some reason, there are a lot of stories with the sea featured one way or another.

So, what if I find three good “Japanese-y” stories? That might be one fourth of the whole anthology! Bit heavy, that. So, you do triage. Is there one that is DEFINITELY superior? Then it is #1 and gets a slot. You wait a while on the other two.

Or it can be a lot broader — too many whimsical humorous stories or dark and gloomy or poetically surreal…

Now, wait, you are saying, what happened to this “best of” criteria? Hey, I already said that wasn’t exactly accurate. So, here’s another factor in inaccuracy: it there are six outstanding robot stories in 2007, chances of them ALL getting in a “best sf” antho (or at least a single one) are nil.

But, this is A Good Thing, in a way. This hones your instincts; this makes you realize what makes a “good story” better than another “good story”. It also makes you realize that three stories that have something in common may also have nothing else in common but level of quality.

At least I don’t need to worry about “name” writers. That’s something “bests” editors often contend with. Let’s see: I have 50 great stories, I have room for 20…chances are, at that point, Neil Gaiman has a better shot at a slot than, oh, Deborah Debutauthor. (If you wonder why one prefers “name” over “no name” remember you have to SELL BOOKS.)

But, if you read anything about me trying to determine best “paranormals” last year (or you red the introduction to BEST NEW PARANORMAL ROMANCE) you discovered that most professional “romance” (please note the italics) anthologies (wherein you will find the better-known authors) (1) tend to feature long novellas (rather than short stories or short novellas) and (2) have tied the reprint rights up for near-eternity.

Those novellas often seem to read more like an excerpt from a novel than a real story, too.

And, since the short form is unusual on the “romance” side of paranormality, authors seldom have collections. (Yes. The was one best-selling collection last year from a best-selling paranormalist. I read it.)

There are a few small press anthologies, but the quality tends to be low. I’m looking at three small press anthologies now, but nothing by anyone recognizable, really.

Last year I found two stories in a small press anthology, and they happened to be from Catherine Asaro and Rebecca York.

Asaro, btw, had another story last year in a genre antho edited by Mike Resnick that would have made it in. There’s another problem: more than one good story in a year from one author. And York, this year, had two good novellas in two Tor anthologies (one might hope Tor would be better about allowing as reprint), as did some other writers, but they were just too long for this…

MEANWHILE, back on the “non-romance” side of paranormality…we’ve lost SciFiction (2 stories in BNPR and might have been more), I’ve found only two contenders so far in anthologies. I’ve found more sf-ish stories this year than last but, again, need to avoid too many — and there we go with that title again…”paranormal romance” usually includes “futuristics”…but does “romantic fantasy?

Oy.

Noting the news about Christopher Moore’s vampire-comic-horror novel and Harry Potter over on the DarkEcho Blog, here I’ll also mention that Sidney Sheldon’s death brings to mind his quote about women being fans of his titles because “I like to write about
women who are talented and capable, but most important, retain their
femininity. Women have tremendous power–their femininity, because men
can’t do without it.'’ Or, as his AP obit notes: “best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world of ruthless men.”

Had fun with the live chat last night — and I learned that it might benefit our authors  if we do the RWA thing.

Also, evidently A MORTAL GLAMOUR and THE STRANGELING are hot off the presses…but don’t know when they will ship.  THE BONE WHISTLE and NIMUAR’s LOSS soon…