Katiebabs has a really interesting post up at her blog. It’s entitled Don’t Play In Our Sandbox Because You’re Not a Part of the “In-Crowd”.

KB starts by asking a couple of questions:

Does the consensus across book blog land believe there’s an “in-crowd”? Are there specific blogs or bloggers who give off the vibe that they are too cool to associate with or come across like the cool kids at high school who walk down the hallways with their nose in the air, where you don’t have the right to acknowledge them because you’re not important enough to be a part of their group?

Now whenever anybody talks about ‘The Big Blogs’ I automatically assume that they’re talking about the Smartbitches and Dear Author. Oh come on, you know you do too, but for some reason, people seem reluctant to mention them by name.
I could be wrong of course, there could be other Big RomLand Bloggers out there that I’m not aware of.

I did start answering the above questions on Katie’s blog, but you know me, why waste a perfectly good answer on somebody else’s blog when you can post it on your own? Hmmm….Does that make me a bad blogger? Ahhh fuck it.

Anyway, I digress. (more…)

You know, I totally love it when people give me blog fodder. It really makes my day.

Kirk Biglione took exception to my previous post, and didn’t mind saying so:

Wow. Seriously?! Bernie Madoff stole money. Lots of money. Billions. Are you seriously comparing what Madoff did to the failure of a digital publishing startup? If so, you really have no sense of decency.

As someone who was involved in the Quartet “debacle” I can say without hesitation that:

1. No laws were broken.
2. None of the participants behaved unethically.
3. No money is owed (all debts were honored).

Frankly, your attempt to connect the Quartet Press participants to a Ponsi scheme seems actionable. I hope you have a good attorney.

Be still my beating heart. It’s not yet March and I’ve already been threatened with legal action, YAY!! (more…)

If not, then isn’t it just as ridiculous for people who have already tried to launch a digital publishing company and failed, to talk about how to Build A Digital Publishing House? In this case I’m pointing the finger at Kassia Krozser, seeing as Angela James at least already has a proven track record.

Rumour has it that a couple of the other Quartet Press peeps are involved in similar panels. That just seems wrong-headed somehow.

Thanks to you-know-who for the heads up.

Once again, I had a load of posts on my Google Reader to catch up on, so here are some of the more noteworthy ones.

1. Apparently Avatar has made it to the top spot for the sixth week, and has now grossed $552m in the US, which means that it will probably now eclipse Titanic ($600m ) to become the biggest box office hit ever.
On the other hand, The Lovely Bones isn’t faring so well. It’s possible that people don’t want to watch a film where the main protag is a little girl who was raped and murdered. Shocker.

2. RRRJessica is back from South Africa, and she has pictures.

3. Dear Author has news of more ‘white-washing’ going on at Bloomsbury. Remember the uproar over the cover of Justine Larbalestier’s Liar, and how the black protag somehow took on a white face on the cover? Well it seems that this is becoming a trend. Bloomsbury seems to hate black people on covers. The book that has been white-washed this time is Jaclyn Dolamore’s Magic Under Glass. (more…)

I’d like to welcome Raven’s Reviews to Romanceland…

Raven is unusual in that she will be reviewing African American romance, so those of you who insist that colour doesn’t matter in romance, be sure to pop along and say hi.

Those of you who wonder why we can’t all just play nice, may want to look away now.

I was pointed in the general direction of this SB’s post, (I’m assuming most of you have already seen the post and wondered what my thoughts were? Don’t lie, you know you did!) and I have to say, it made me smile somewhat, then I caught this comment from SB Sarah:

I’m glad so many of you liked the feature about our advertisers. But to be clear, both here and on the ad page itself: advertisements do not constitute an endorsement on the part of Smart Bitches. So while Candy or I have reviewed several of the books or authors featured, advertisements are not endorsements.

Of course you guys remember the minor lovefest over the SB’s advertising Chancery Stone’s incest-ridden smut, right?

My question is, why now, and not then?

There seems to be something funny happening in Romland, do you feel it too?

You know when you’ve fallen out with a friend, but there wasn’t an actual ‘official’ falling out moment, and all you’re left with is this uncomfortable feeling that things have changed, and you’re not quite sure how to get back to the way they were?

I believe that we here in Romland are currently undergoing a falling out of sorts. I don’t mean the lovefests and blazing blog rows that have been happening for years, and will continue to happen long after I decide that this blogging lark is no longer for me, no, I mean the kind of where one party kinda feels betrayed by another, but they can’t actually pin-point where and how the betrayal occurred.

When I read Wendy’s rather super rant., I was all fired up to post a response, and I started writing, but I then got bored, so I stopped and thought fuck it, I’ll just write about the things that’s been pissing me off instead.

What can I say, I’m a happy-go-lucky type of girl.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s my very important list of RomLand pet peeves: (more…)

Go read if you haven’t already, it’s very interesting.

I’ll post my thoughts in due course. Bet you can’t fucking wait.

Oh don’t pretend any of you are surprised. It was bound to happen. When you have a thousand blogs nominated for this, that, and the other, there’s bound to be low rumblings amongst the masses. Unfortunately, one of these low rumblings turned into something akin to the Profumo Affair – erm, minus the affair I guess. Heh.

Anyway, this is the story:

BBAW was conceived by My Friend Amy last year, apparently it was a wonderful feel-good affair, which led to it growing exponentially this year. Blogs can either be nominated or they can nominate themselves. Once they are nominated, they needed to register via email, and present five posts that best represented them in the category that they were nominated in. Still with me? Good.

(more…)

I know I said I couldn’t be arsed posting about #RomFailGate, but it’s currently 5am, and I’m wide awake. Also, I’m fond of assessing Blog Lovefests that have nothing to do with me, once the dust settles. I do so like stepping onto Mount Moral High Ground, from time to time, to see what it’s like.

Anyway, I finally got round to reading the follow-up blogposts and consequent comments by various people in Blogland re Romfail.

Here are my thoughts, and they aren’t in any particular order:

(more…)