This is a rant

Pure and simple – it’s a rant. You can tell it’s a rant because I’m capitalizing. And probably using exclamation points! And maybe even a cuss word or two! When I do that you know Krisite is coming out!

This is an all too common story and includes a number of things that bug the hell out of me about the romance industry. Now nobody could be a bigger supporter than me! I buy most of my books new and I concentrate on new and mid-list authors in particular. I’ve been buying/reading primarily romance for well over 15 years now and I’ve seen trends come and go. I’ve gotten discouraged when favourite authors seem to disappear for a while; for example Loretta Chase after writing The Last Hellion, only to dance with delight when she came back to us. I’m still waiting for that with Judith Ivory and; dare I say it; Elizabeth Elliot. My feet are ready to do that happy tap. But I read something today that just fried my socks. Now first off – none of my ire is directed to the author. NOT EVEN a tiny bit. By the sounds of it, she isn’t that happy about the situation either. I’ve read quite a few books by her and the first two in the latest series. It seemed a while and the third one wasn’t out yet so I checked to see when we might expect it and this is what I found.

This rant starts out with series then branches out. Why does almost every single historical book written today have to be part of a damn “series”? Why can’t we have the occasional books that are just fine being standalones? Because you know why I hate this? Because we readers get invested in them! We get sucked in! Some of us don’t want this to happen – but there is no choice. And do you know why I hate the series????? Because, when you least expect it, WHAM! Before the series is done, IT GETS CANCELLED!!!

Nope – this one is directed at PUBLISHERS. It bugs me to no end that they have such a large say in what gets published. I know – that does sound kind of stupid doesn’t it? But really – I’m sure I’m not the only one that has been following along with this series and other series also. I’m sure it’s PUBLISHERS that insist on the series and then they pull the rug before it’s done! How DARE they do that to us readers!! This is only one case but I’m sure it happens all the time. Not long ago Lucy Blue started new series with *surprise* vampires. Now I don’t often read these but I had read her books under Jayel Wylie and liked her voice so I was willing to try these ones. And I thought she had a good thing going. They were paranormal – the current rage. But nooooo. Apparently MEDIEVAL paranormals aren’t good enough because ACCORDING TO PUBLISHERS, the medieval market isn’t solid enough these days. So it wasn’t that long ago that she posted on an AAR board that the PUBLISHER didn’t want anymore. She wrote the third one and that was going to be the final one. I’m not sure what she was planning on after that. According to what she said, she was leaving the romance market for a while. That was some time ago and hopefully she will change her mind. But here she was writing what’s supposed to be “hot” and it still wasn’t good enough for the PUBLISHERS. Her books under Jayel Wylie were also in the paranormal vein.

Now Ms. Kerstan doesn’t say what genre the publishers want but I’m willing to bet it’s PARANORMAL.

Why don’t the publishers let the authors write what they want to write? Why do they have to be so concerned with WHAT’S HOT? I know that some genres sell better than others – paranormals at the moment. But that can change in the blink of an eye. Yea – there are some hot authors writing paranormals these days – Christine Feehan, Sherilyn Kenyon and JR Ward come to mind the most, and the last thing I want to do is deny fans of these authors and genres the kind of books they want to read. BUT I DON’T WANT IT DONE AT MY EXPENSE!!! I love medievals. I love historicals – at least I did until so many of them became almost clones of each other. But looking back at last years reads it’s still the number one genre I read. So how come I’m not able to get many of the books I want?!?!?! Because the PUBLISHERS have decided that’s not what the big sellers are these days.

Well – screw that. There didn’t used to be this big concentration on one particular genre. When I started reading romance, I started with historicals and there were a lot to choose from. Then I was ready to branch out. The off-shoot branch started with Westerns – there were a lot of those, then that branch moved to Colonial and they were plentiful. Then I got a hankering for Medievals and had no problem finding those ones. Then my appetite spread to ghost, time travel and futurists. Found them, found them, found them – all in plentiful supply.

Whenever something gains rapidly in popularity, it seems the rush is on to get as many in the same style out there as quickly as they can be gotten. Remember Who Wants to be a Millionaire? They couldn’t get copy cat shows on the air quick enough after the success of that one. And how many of them are left? Only the original and it isn’t even in prime time any more. Yet at one time it was on for an hour every night almost.

Same thing with books!!! Paranormals are hot – therefore we need to have an overabundance of paranormals. But even that wouldn’t bother me so much except – finish the freakin’ series of books that are already started!!!

I’ve been wondering when the third book in this series would be out – and now it looks like we might never get one.

The last time I was this annoyed over pretty much the same principal was when they cancelled The Nine!!! Get us – the consumers/the viewers/the readers hooked and reeled, then clump us over the head. That’s what it seems they like to do – the jerks!

OK – its 4:30 and time for me to go home and try and settle down.

‘til later

***ETA***

A!Ha! Just thought of another anology! It's like when someone buys a sports team and then thinks because he loves sports and owns the team - that qualifies him to run it. It doesn't!! Can anyone say George Steinbrenner?? (although come to think of it the Yankees have won a number of World Series - but then we have.......Harold Ballard. Yes! Now there's an example)

So I say again - publishers should stick to publishing and not telling authors what to write.