Romance is often dismissed as mindless dreck with predictable plots, but really, the best of romance is far from mindless and silly. Each of these books — and many others — feature savvy, sharp women, and stories that won’t let go of you.

So they are perfect for a hot, sunny day when you want to relax and escape for a few hours to find your own happily ever after.

I created a hot summer reading list for Salon.com, including books from paranormal, contemporary, and historical authors.

Even if you’re not at the beach or anywhere near sandy relaxation, a great romance novel can provide the perfect escape from everyday stress. The best part of romance fiction is that happy endings are guaranteed. While the perfect tan requires careful sunscreen, enjoying a romance requires only two things: a belief that everyone deserves a happily-ever-after, and the ability to ignore anyone who sniffs at your choice of reading material. A good romance novel is like the perfect day at the beach: wonderful and restorative from start to finish.

The best part, though, are the comments, like this one from Matt: “A friend of mine buys romance books and leaves them around for her teen-age son to pick up. She thinks that the books contain some good role models for the kid, who like many, is growing up with a single parent who hasn’t had a lot of luck in real life romance. I think he probably likes the sexy parts, but if he can learn anything about mutual respect and how not to smother his girlfriends with demands and jealousy, I’m all for it. From what I’ve seen of the new romance novels the female leads are not the weak Cinderella types, either – a lot of them may be insecure but they get their acts together by the end of the books. (Yep, I’m a reader, too – although the pink & rose bodice-ripper covers have to be hidden when I commute to work.)”

And also, this comment from Dabney rocks my socks: “this article, up front and center, about romance novels made me realize that the site still is capable of greatness.” Dabney and Matt, drinks are on me.

If you haven’t read last week’s post on Online Networking, double back and do so now. With the help of writer Ryan Viergutz, I explained how people use the internet to network and to gather information. In private e-mails, a few of you expressed concern that I was confusing networking with marketing in that post. But I didn’t: as you’ll see in the next few posts, online networking and marketing go hand-in-hand.

I think this is best summed up by Sarah Wendell who, along with Candy Tan, writes a marvelous blog about romance novels called Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Smart Bitch Sarah, as she signed her letter to me, also has her own blog, sbsarah.com.

She wrote, “I network on the internet by talking to people who share my interest or by answering questions from those who are curious. It helps my business, but then, my business is creating a space for conversations about romance novels.”

I found her via Twitter, but I found her blog because of a review of a book she and Candy Tan wrote called Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. (It’s in my Recommended Reading list. Check it out here.) What I like about Sarah’s Tweets are the fact that they maintain the same attitude as her blog, but they also provide a link to the romance community online, since she forwards other people’s tweets (called retweeting, for those of you not on Twitter) and she often has links to good blog posts elsewhere.

In other words, her networking isn’t just me, me, me. It’s useful and fascinating and opens doors to other worlds.

Ok, that’s about one of the finest compliments I’ve ever received, especially since I was absolutely dumbfounded by Twitter when I first signed on. “What are YOU doing?” “I’m drinking an import and watching the market returns!” Thank you, Kris!

I had no idea until Genevieve from Tango emailed me – but I LOVE the intro from GLO :

While we’re guilty-as-charged chick-lit aficionados, we haven’t dappled in romance novels much beyond the Twilight series. Yet, we were so enamored by this defense of the genre that we’ve added a few to our spring reading list. Check out the slideshow of Harlequin romances, left.

Yay! More curious readers? Win!

It’s mostly a look at Carina Press and Harlequin, with a discussion of why they are as digitally-centered as they are:

But those readers—women from 31 to 49, in a romantic relationship—are still handling most of the nation’s child care, and that’s without even mentioning professional responsibilities. So e-books are quicker to buy and read on the go.

Online communities of readers are also pressing loudly for more digital options. Two voices have emerged to lead the online chorus for e-books: Sarah Wendell, the co-founder of SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com, and Jane Litte, the proprietor of DearAuthor.com. Both juggle careers and Web sites, as well as raising young children, and they’ve turned to digital formats for ease. “It’s a form of reading so attuned to a woman’s lifestyle right now,” says Wendell.

I think this is my favorite part of the article though: “So while the bulk of Harlequin’s revenue will still come from print, Carina could attract new customers. Most mainstream publishers won’t jilt their blockbuster authors to dally with new talents in the digital space. But they could learn a move or two.”

]]> http://sbsarah.com/2010/04/the-big-money-digital-publishing/feed/ 0 http://sbsarah.com/2010/03/on-nprs-monkey-see-blog-harlequin-titles-and-womens-desires/ http://sbsarah.com/2010/03/on-nprs-monkey-see-blog-harlequin-titles-and-womens-desires/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:19:52 +0000 Sarah http://sbsarah.com/?p=390 I’m over at the NPR Monkey See blog today, responding with a big ol’ DUH to research into Harlequin titles and what they reveal about women’s desires:

Stop the presses: Harlequin titles reveal our — by “our” I of course mean “women’s” — evolutionary coding and psychological desire for … wait for it, wait for it … You sitting down? Good.

We prefer to mate with “a physically fit, financially secure man who will provide the resources needed to successfully raise a family.”

In other news, ice is slippery, water is still wet, and those silly romance readers are once again looking for fantasy men. Pah.

]]> http://sbsarah.com/2010/03/on-nprs-monkey-see-blog-harlequin-titles-and-womens-desires/feed/ 0 http://sbsarah.com/2010/01/salons-laura-miller-on-book-trailers/ http://sbsarah.com/2010/01/salons-laura-miller-on-book-trailers/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:52:41 +0000 Sarah http://sbsarah.com/?p=384 Salon Magazine’s Laura Miller wrote a critical article on book trailers, and included quotes from me about whether they work. Never coming to a screen near you looks at the idea that trailers, or movies about books, don’t sell books to consumers.

She and I had a lengthy email conversation about book trailers – I’m convinced that unless there’s a unique hook or angle to the trailer itself, book trailers that are only about the book itself are only interesting to other authors (who are told they Must Have One). (Note: you do not have to have a book trailer.)

From that conversation, Miller quoted me talking about live action trailers featuring actors who were singularly unattractive to me:

Mind-blowing science fiction about nanotechnology or interplanetary travel is pretty hard to reproduce on your Flip HD, and affordable actors seldom measure up to the gorgeous heroines and heroes of romance. As Sarah Wendell, a co-founder of the Web site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and coauthor of “Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels,” told me in an e-mail, “as a reader and shopper for genre fiction, I’ve never been swayed to make a book purchase based on a trailer … A few have featured actors so unattractive to me I was totally turned off.”

There have been some great book trailers in romance – many of which created by the authors themselves on a minuscule budget. But most of them leave me uninterested, and I have never purchased a book because the trailer was amazing. They may lead me to look up an author whose trailer is creative and witty, but they’ve never made me think, ‘I MUST have that book.’

]]> http://sbsarah.com/2010/01/salons-laura-miller-on-book-trailers/feed/ 0 http://sbsarah.com/2010/01/bosoms-are-required-reading-at-yale/ http://sbsarah.com/2010/01/bosoms-are-required-reading-at-yale/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:42:46 +0000 Sarah http://sbsarah.com/?p=382 Hot diggity! Beyond Heaving Bosoms is required reading at Yale University, and both the local and campus newspapers are talking about the course to be taught this spring by Lauren Willig and Andrea Darif.

First, from the New Haven Register:

Willig is not surprised by either the popularity of the course (80 applied for 18 spots) nor the willingness of the university to endorse it. The genre has been embraced by academia for years, early on by Eric Selinger at DePaul and Sarah Frantz at Fayetteville.

“The two of them have been instrumental in the movement to treat romance novels as text in their own right, rather than a sociological construct,” says Willig. “The trend was to treat romance novels only as interesting as to what they told us about the readership. They weren’t being looked at in terms of structure, theme and the usual critical literary apparatus.”

Then, at the Yale Herald:

It was, however, very surprising to see my suitemate come home from the Yale bookstore with books with titles such as Regency Buck, The Accidental Duchess, and to top it all off: Beyond Heaving Bosoms; The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels. It wasn’t so surprising to see her with all those books, especially after the time she dragged me along to an erotica writing workshop (side note: erotica and romance novels are two different genres, but romance novels often contain erotic imagery), but the fact that the books came from the Yale bookstore and were to be read for course credit made me confused, jealous, and hot.

]]> http://sbsarah.com/2010/01/bosoms-are-required-reading-at-yale/feed/ 0 http://sbsarah.com/2009/12/im-a-pop-culture-human-standing-next-to-drew-barrymore/ http://sbsarah.com/2009/12/im-a-pop-culture-human-standing-next-to-drew-barrymore/#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:12:56 +0000 Sarah http://sbsarah.com/?p=380 Linda Holmes, mastermind of the NPR blog Monkey See, has named me among her Top 10 Favorite Pop-Culture Humans of 2009. I don’t think there is a better compliment than “pop culture human.” Even better? I’m #8 between Drew Barrymore and Ben Folds. Sweet Holy Crap.

8. SB Sarah. One of the founders, and seemingly the current primary blogger, at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, Sarah Wendell is fearless and opinionated and puts her chin out every day to do one of the toughest jobs a lady can assign herself, which is to challenge people’s preconceptions and prejudices about culture. In Sarah’s case, she writes thoughtfully and hilariously about romance novels, dumping on the worst cliches and celebrating the writers who find ways to make a difficult genre interesting.

She’s also become very knowledgeable about e-books (which are perfect for romance readers), and wrote wisely and well about the new FTC guidelines for bloggers. Nothing warms my heart like a stereotype-buster, and nobody busts the stereotype that women who read romances are dumb, unthinking, or anti-feminist quite like Sarah.

I have fainted with the power of the compliment above. Gracefully, of course, and my skirt didn’t fly up and reveal my shapely ankles or anything. HOLY CRAP. Thank you, ma’am.

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