(no subject)

[jdemorae.livejournal.com]

Hello! I'm a newbie--found the comm through the Amazon discussion threads and Google.

Speaking of Amazon... I've been going through my recommendations and something hit me: there are an awful lot of vampire, shapeshifter, fae, whatever books out right now. I don't just mean the paranormal romances, but adventure stories, too.

"How does she stay published/how can they publish this crap?" (especially in light of the recent Harlequin spoiler) is a frequent lament here. It occured to me, just looking over the recommendations here, LKH going bad was perhaps a gift to publishers. People drawn in to 'vintage' Anita Blake and unhappy with the current books have gone looking for something better, but in the same genre. There is demand... and there are sales. Lots of sales.

So it's kind of a 'no press is bad press' thing, but it's in favor of the publishers, not LKH. They let her churn out her sexploitation dreck, and the number of disappointed readers grow, they look for other authors, other titles, other series-length stories. Then the publishers smile and produce several books with, "If you liked the early Anita Blake..."

Her sales drop, but they make up for it by selling other books, books that become more popular as more disgruntled fans say, "Hey, I know you liked the Anita Blake stuff when it was good. Try this!"

The savvy marketing isn't LKH's doing. It's the publishers. She didn't create the genre, but the decay of her storytelling ability created a market.

Comments

[missamii.livejournal.com]

Well that explains were her readership is coming from. As for myself, I once bought two e-books from Ellora's Cave and I don't think I'll ever buy another e-book again because of it. The scary thing is that after a recent blog-o-sphere bruhaha between blogger Karen Scott and crazy Romantic Times magazine owner Kathryn Falks who has been dumping money into that smutty little press the general concensus between erotic e-book readers is that quality has gotten even worse.

[vmisery.livejournal.com]

My writer's group had a run-in with a writer published by Ellora's Cave, which is what led me to check them out. The only thing I could have said was, well at least they're not wasting paper, but they actually are now, some of their books actually make it to print and to bookstore shelves. I don't have anything against erotica, just...hello, quality control where r u?

Erotic paranormal romance is rampant, it's got its own section at the bookstore now, there's quite a few companies that do it, and I think that is where a lot of LKH's new readership is coming from.