Ravenous Romance Loving: AKA Why Are We Still Talking About Them?
Sunday, March 21, 2010Posted in: e-pubbed authors behaving like fucktards?, E-publishers Behaving Very Badly
Over at Mrs Giggles’ blog, there’s a post entitled, Ravenous Romance Critics – What is The Deal Here?
She doesn’t get why there’s still so much hate for Ravenous Romance:
I’m not being facetious, I’m genuinely puzzled. Every time I or someone blogs about Ravenous Romance in an even remotely positive manner, the same slew of Anonymous people will show up saying the following. You can make a drinking game out of it.
1. Jamaica Layne is a bitch.
2. Lori Perkins’s middle names are Conflict of Interest.
3. Ravenous Romance books are porn and smut and crappy.
4. Unspoken implication: Anonymous’s own publisher/company/books are better than Ravenous Romance.
I tweeted to Jane the other day about how Dear Author ironically enough have probably helped RR stay in business, and I honestly think it’s true. It does make one wonder though who is buying their books, and why, if the books are so bad. Mind you, My Friend Carol Lynne apparently is still selling like hotcakes, and I’m willing to bet her writing is on par with some of those really bad RR writers.
It’s a simple fact that some romance readers don’t care about good writing, as long as there’s enough hot nasty sex in the books to satisfy them.
As for the RR Hating, well they kinda brought it on themselves before they even opened, with all their claims of “blowing the competition out of the water” so I have no sympathy for them. Also, some of their more vocal reps are actually arseholes, which in turn leads people to assume that the whole company is full of assholic nutters.
Having said all of that, they’re still in business, whilst Quartet Press never got off the ground, so I guess that means they did a better job during the pre-planning stage.
For the rest of the post, pop over to Mrs G’s blog. You’ll see that Jamaica Lynne is the first one to comment, which will have secretly probably pissed Mrs G off, because although she likes to side with the underdogs of RomLand, she generally hates them polluting her corner of the world *g*
theo
March 21
2:37 pm
I think you’re right, of course. The total arrogance of Ms. Perkins/Jamaica Layne even before RR opened it’s doors, that it would be the standard all others would have to strive to meet was so off-putting to the general romance population, they shot themselves in the foot before even beginning.
Fortunately, most people tend not to strive downward.
Add to that some really horrible books and they’ve done nothing to change their standing in the community.
Is it any surprise the comments rage on then? I still fail to see how anyone can defend them, but that’s just me.
Lori
March 21
3:08 pm
I work too hard to spend my money on crap. So I haven’t bought from them. But a lot of people must or they wouldn’t still be in business. So is it all crap? Is it possible there’s something good there?
Melissa Blue
March 21
5:38 pm
First impressions are lasting impressions added to that when you become the center of a clusterfuck people tend to remember you vividly. I wasn’t bothered by the “blow you out of the water” statement. I’m steeped in the hip hop culture and if I received a penny for every rapper who said that…But it was the behavior and attitude of Jamaica Layne. (Mainly on Absolute Write when asked simple questions about RR) The almost obstinate attitude of Lori Perkins that owning a publishing house and having her clients pubbed with the same publishing house wasn’t full of conflict of interest. It didn’t endear me to either one of them. In my head they are Ravenous Romance. Just like Angela James was Samhain.
With all that said I’m in the romance industry. I’m aware of all this and I’d rather not give them my dollars. But, of course, I think about the people who didn’t think their novels were as bad as DA made them out to be and found another e-pub to buy from. So, yeah, any publicity rules here.
Shiloh Walker
March 21
7:03 pm
They are pretty much a non-entity for me.
They didn’t impress with me the ‘we’ll blow everybody out of the water’ line, and I wasn’t surprised when they didn’t. Did all their big talk turn me off of them? Nah. Not exactly. Arrogance can be very off-putting, but I’m good at ignoring tings.
The way some of them have presented themselves online, though, that’s done more damage to their image-in my mind- than the ‘we’ll blow everybody out of the water’ bit. I’m sorry, but when you’ve got a few individuals who seem to speak louder than others, and those individuals have a way being abrasive, insulting, condescending, rude… all of the above…they tend to drown the others out.
I know there have been some writers there who handled themselves gracefully, but it’s often human nature that the unpleasant ones stick in your mind more.
One thing that really turned me off though was the whole ‘smut’ deal. I can’t remember the entire discussion, but it was on a blog, probably ROmancing the Blog, open blog night. One of the top people, maybe Lori P, can’t recall-it was a post about romance and smut. That one pretty much cemented it for me.
I don’t write smut. I write romance. Yep, some of it is hot, most of it is erotic. I don’t read smut. I read romance.
I equate ‘smut’ with something trashy. By definition, depending on the dictionary, smut is defined as pornography, something obscene, to taint or blacken.
Perhaps it was intended to be tongue in cheek, I dunno, but if they consider their stuff smut, then I’m not their target audience.
Why are people still talking about them? Melissa B probably nailed it. First impressions are lasting ones.
Sweets
March 21
7:58 pm
I didn’t know that Lynne was writing from them also. Mostly I’ve seen her titles at Total-E-Bound and Resplendence. I have to say in her defense. She writes M/M ten times better than M/F(does she even write M/F anymore?). I think she, just doesn’t know how to write stories with female characters in them. She does have a really loyal following for her M/M series/books. Some of them are pretty good.
K. Z. Snow
March 21
8:13 pm
Bingo. That’s never going to change, so why fuss about it? All the pontificating in the world won’t “refine” people’s tastes.
Jennifer McKenzie
March 21
10:06 pm
I’m with Melissa on this one.
First impressions stick and I wasn’t impressed with Lori Perkins (who, as far as I know, still negotiates contracts with herself for her clients). Like Melissa, Perkins represents RR. *shrugs* I don’t hate them, but I don’t read them and I don’t recommend subbing to them.
Having said that, my own publishers have been boycotted/trashed so it’s not like I don’t see the point.
I don’t buy New Concepts book either. I’m sure they don’t miss my money.
Plus, nothing Ms. Perkins has presented since then has endeared me to her or RR. But see, that’s all my opinion. And that’s ALL it is.
Fae Sutherland
March 22
12:02 pm
The extent of the talking I do about them anymore is, if someone asks, I’ll say why I don’t recommend submitting to them. Sure, if the topic comes up somewhere, I’ll remember how irritating they were a year ago and I’ll get all annoyed again, but it lasts as long as it takes to finish reading whatever blog is mentioning them now…which aren’t many, really.
Mostly they don’t register on my radar. Oh, and Sweets, I don’t think Carol Lynne writes for them (unless I’m completely out of the loop). I got the impression Karen was simply comparing her writing to that of RR authors and going “Well, if Carol Lynne is still selling, why not the RR authors, too?” (I’ve never read Carol’s work, so I’m not passing judgement on her writing at all, just pointing out my interpretation of Karen’s comment)
I have, however, read a couple RR books and bleh. Awful stuff. But then, there’s awful stuff at every pub, including NY, isn’t there? It’s far less about the quality of their books for me as it is about how they continue to present themselves to the world as the leaders, the standard, in epublishing when in fact they are at best a third tier start-up epub with serious management, payment and quality control issues.
Anna
November 18
3:14 am
Finding an agent or publisher is so much damn harder than writing the book!
I didn’t trust RR to begin with, I’m trying for the publishers that are well known and that I also read.
Well…more Google searching…