Discerning Reader or Jaded Jezebel?

I bought my first Ellora's Cave book back in February 2003. I remember that rush and thrill of buying a naughty book online. With the exception of the guy I live with I didn't tell any one. Of course, I was hooked. It wasn't long before I found other online erotic book stores and tested them all with purchases. I even found independent writers who were selling their books on their individual websites. I was the proverbial kid in a candy store.

In that time I've seen the erotic romance genre grow. There are innumerable sites out there now...lots of books to chose from and the naughty books finally made it into print in a big way. I can even buy them at the local book store.

These edgier romances with more explicit language and sex were thrilling for me and frankly quite liberating. Much like the Whitman's sampler of chocolates there was a wide range of romantic erotic literature out there and I was too curious not to sample all sorts of bits. Like the chocolates, some were devoured and had me wishing for just one more bite. Some were poked or nibbled and put back in the box.

I used to know what day each line released its new books and anxiously looked forward to see what came out. Now, three and a half years later I visited all my favorite online sites this week and pretty much rolled my eyes at the releases.

Is it me or is there just a glut of same old, same old? Beyond that do you find we've moved into the ridiculous with some plots? I often feel this way with print books as well. Every once in a while the publishing world seems to go through a particularly intense period of trying to capitalize on the popularity of one genre. The result being too many books, not very well written, on a worn out theme. Worse when a publisher thinks the readers are too stupid to realize what is happening. There are so many books out there, why do we readers keep buying books we are pretty sure we aren't going to like? I know I do...probably half my book purchases any more are books I'm hoping will be better than I believe they will be. Sad, but true.

Recently my sanity has been saved by an almost exclusive return to print romance. I can't remember when I've had so many good reads in a short period of time as I have the last two months. Very satisfying.

However, after taking a look at the EC releases today I wondered who had changed more? Is it me? Am I a more discerning reader or a more jaded one? Are my favorite online erotic romance bookstores just starved for new writers with many of the most popular authors now writing for print?

What's it been like for you? Oh, and if you have any recs, please don't hesitate to share.

So many thoughts...so little time!

Go check out a guest post from July 13, 2006, by Sarah McCarty at Let's Gab. It's about commas. Yep, sounds dry but actually hits on a peeve of mine; lousy grammar in books. I love a book that flows and that is attributed to two things in my opinion, the author's voice and the grammar. I wholeheartedly agree with Sarah's assessment that reading a book, any book, shouldn't be such hard work!

Which also ties into a post on KarenS blog about how erotic romance is killing the whole damn romance genre. If you go to the link of Ms. Barnett's post in its' entirety you will see she speaks of print runs etc. Of course, me being me I have an opinion on this. I know...nobody asked me...but here it is anyway.

I think that once publishing houses realized how popular the Romance genre (at one point in the late 80's or early 90's 50% of all books sold) it was sell, sell, sell! Can you imagine? Pretty unbelievable right? Now we have book recommends from Oprah to elevate us, sci-fi books that tie into TV series (Star Trek) and whole novels to tell super hero stories (Superman, Batman, X-Men). So the romance genre has some pretty stiff competition and the publishing industry response to this competion? Glut the market!! There are more types and kinds of romance than ever. More books than ever. Of course, this does not necessarily mean BETTER books just MORE books.

So in response to Ms. McCarty's comments I think that the removal of commas is symptomatic of a larger picture which also addresses Ms. Bartlett's comments about smaller print runs...the publishers just want to sell more books by more authors and see which ones the readers find. If a book is good in any genre and strikes a chord with people I still believe it finds its intended audience. With the help of the internet's reader blogs, author sites, and on-line book sellers, readers can find a book at their finger tips. We can search for older books, download books, view covers, read excerts...all to the reader's advantage. However, I think it is a shame that we seem to be sacrificing quality for quantity.

I have my favorite authors that I anxiously await their next book. However, I'd much rather wait for a new book than have an author squeezed to deliver a book by a deadline and not do their best work.