Tag Archives: Fifty Shades of Grey

Hacking GoodReads to find your perfect book (and help others find theirs)

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I’ve been looking through some GoodReads romance lists and it’s fairly disappointing. Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels are still listed in top romance categories like “Hottest Adult and Young Adult” (emphasis mine). It’s past time to fight back against this type of thing.

It’s time to hack GoodReads.

I found hope for this in the comments on the “Hottest” and “Most Popular” lists. Romance readers are ready for—and have discovered—indie romances in so many more than fifty shades. Romances by authors of different ethnicities, romances featuring other than the typical male/female couple. Romances without BDSM—remember those?

Are you a reader who’s ready to hack GoodReads and lead the revolution? Here’s a “how-to” guide.

  1. Search for lists with “different” or “indie” in the heading. They’re out there. A list called “Books You Wish More People Knew About” has 16,000+ books!
  2. Create a list! Did you just read the wackiest book ever with a werewolf heroine whose cubs are in school so she joins the PTA? Find some friends who’ve read wacky books that don’t fit into any other lists and make the list. Cross genre is a definite thing in today’s world.
  3. Most of all, if you’ve read a book that you loved, find a list for it! Especially if it’s an indie author. Indie authors would love to see their books on a list where more readers might find it.
  4. Comment on the “Hottest” and “Most Popular” list if you know an author or title which should have been included. You never know when you might be able to point a reader to a book they’ll love but never would have found without you!

The revolution in the publishing industry has begun. Battle lines have been drawn between big publishers and small, between more of the same and originality. The battlefields are places like Amazon, Smashwords, indie book stores, chain bookstores, online ebook retailers and especially a place like GoodReads. What’s at stake? The right of the reader to buy into the ideas of their choosing—not what’s chosen for them.

Blog Tour Stop: My Evolution as a Writer

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Teaser_BecomingMagicToday  I’m promoting Becoming Magic over on Ally Swanson’s blog “Fabulous and Brunette.” Please stop by and say hello! I’m giving away a $50 gift certificate (Amazon or Barnes & Noble) to one random visitor to my tour, so make sure you register to win while you’re there!

Ally asked me to write a guest post about my evolution as a writer. This works perfectly for me, because Becoming Magic was a sort of turning point in my writing career. Time and again I’ve been asked if my books are like Fifty Shades. I can never tell or not if people are happy with my answer, either. Because they’re not and never have been, but I, like many in my genre, have fallen into other traps of our genre.

I’ve been guilty of glorifying alpha males. If you ever actually meet an alpha male, it’s unlikely you’d actually want to spend much time with him. Being demanding isn’t, in my book, very sexy.

I’ve also had themes like kidnapping (one was friendly and one was necessary, but still). No, guys, we don’t want to be kidnapped. Oh, and a couple of times the heroine could have claimed sexual harassment—and in one case, the hero!

On “Fabulous and Brunette” I talk about how it’s important to avoid these issues and how it is possible for a hero (and heroine) to be sexy without them. So join me over there to explore the “Evolution of a Writer”.

Plastic fiction: What happens when writers give up on soul

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Three years ago, Ursula K. Le Guin gave an impassioned speech in which she basically implored writers to write what they wanted to write and not what the publishing industry told them to write. She asked that literature in all forms return to being considered an art form. “Books aren’t just commodities,” she said.

I’ve often wondered if I would sell out if someone offered me the opportunity to sign with a big publisher that would basically guarantee my book would be a bestseller with an awesome marketing plan and everything all taken care of—but I had to write a book the publisher wanted with the plot all spelled out for me. Would I do it? Would I sell out? Would I turn out a plastic fiction book with no soul and no art just to gain readers?

I can’t answer that question. I fear I might. It’d probably be easy enough to write if I didn’t have to come up with the plot myself. And I have a respectable backlist now. Surely I should consider that in the equation. If I gained lots of readers with my plastic fiction—readers who enjoyed my style of writing and who would then consume my other books—wouldn’t it be worth it? But then, too, I’d be feeding the plastic fiction industry that has taken over the publishing world and made it more difficult for writers to be the artists they are meant to be.

Not sure you know what I mean by plastic fiction? Oh yes, you do. It’s especially prevalent in my chosen genre at the moment. For a while it was vampire romances (which has now morphed to include werewolves and shapeshifters and lots of other paranormals). I’m not saying these are all bad. I’ve even read a few that are exceptionally good. But those can be hard to find. And then there’s the fifty-shades phenomenon that is reflected in everything from content (way more explicit than just a few years ago) to covers (haven’t you noticed the trend to monochromatic still life since Christian Grey’s silk tie?).

I think the surge in independent publishing has been a reaction to writers trying to avoid the plastic fiction publishing industry. I’m proud to be a part of that surge. I love what I write, and I love publishing my little bits of art. They aren’t the highest quality—maybe they’re made of aluminum instead of gold or silver—but they aren’t plastic, either. I know this because they come from my heart and contain bits of my soul.