Quick update. My contemporary romance, Lucifer’s Lover, just hit print.  It looks gorgeous!  Especially with that cover.  And it’s a long novel, so it’s a pretty hefty tome, too.  You can pick up a copy directly from Createspace right now, or wait a few days for the print page to populate over at Amazon.

And The Royal Talisman, my erotic historical romantic suspense, has popped up at Barnes & Noble.com for all you Nook readers.  Although, as usual, no sign of a blurb, excerpt or author information, despite faithfully filing all that guff when I uploaded…  So I’m directing you to the book’s page here, first, then you can click through to B&N…

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1. LUCIFER’S LOVER is Out! I just released Lucifer’s Lover on All Romance eBooks, and on Amazon, and over the next few days will be formatting and uploading to the...
2. THE ROYAL TALISMAN Now Available at Apple and Kobo My erotic historical romantic suspense, The Royal Talisman, has just been uploaded to the Apple Store and on to Kobo today. Barnes & Noble and...
3. Blood Knot Now Out In Print Some quick housekeeping notes. 1.  Blood Knot, my erotic MMF urban fantasy romance, has just been released in print and is available on Amazon for $11.97....
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Last time around, for working notes, I had skipped over two books, and had to back track.

This time, I don’t have a book to talk about at all, because of another phenomenon of the indie publishing industry:  doing it yourself means actually doing it all yourself.  Everything.  The formatting, uploading, releasing, technical un-hitching, acquiring of ISBN numbers, the lot.

For the last week, since I finished with Lucifer’s Lover, I thought I would be able to dive right back into the second book of the Beloved Bloody Time series (and it is about bloody time, too – I’m dying to get back to it).  Ha!

Hoisted by my own petard, as they say.

Fact is (was…still is, as I write this), I wasn’t quite finished with formatting and creating  and releasing versions of Lucifer’s Lover, and technically difficulties mean that here I am, a week later, still struggling with getting the last two versions out the door.

One of the primary difficulties was simply a matter of time:  I’m also smack dab in the middle of the book tour for Bannockburn Binding, and I have to keep up with that, as well.  And as luck would have it, all my scheduled posts for my blog ran out at the same time.  So, I suddenly had to drop a few higher priorities in order to address a few urgent ones:  posts for this blog, guest posts for the blog tour…I figure you would like to read something interesting when you visit here and there, no?

Then, and only then, could I get back to formatting and uploading the last two versions of Lucifer – namely, Smashwords, and Createspace.  (Createspace is the print version – and feeds the Amazon print page, too.)

So for my “snippet” of my current work today, I thought I would give you a sample of the list of steps I go through to get a book out there, along with some notations.  I don’t always follow every single step, because some books are re-releases, for example, or for some other reason I might leave off steps.  But this is a standard, all-inclusive checklist for self-publishing a book, if you’re not paying for a lot of external processes like editing, formatting, distribution, etc.  I do everything myself but design the cover—but I have magazine editing experience.

First draft:  Write the book.  Pretty obvious, but just finishing a book is a milestone and should always be celebrated.

Final title for book.  A book`s title can change during the writing.  The final title is a marketing decision, weighed up with a careful eye toward reader appeal, with a dozen different criteria guiding the selection, including length, the initial letter of the title, the use or overuse of certain words and more.

Spell check and grammar check draft manuscript, then put book away to freeze.  (Get on with another book) I drift between not-very-good to terrible at following this step.  Oh, I spell check and grammar check the nuts off a script, no problems.  But putting it away and letting it freeze?  Yeah…not so good on that one.  But I do try, because I know how much more of a book’s strengths and weaknesses I will spot if I get just a little more distance from it.

Write blurb  This is a pretty standard duty for authors, but for me, there isn’t an editor or marketing department standing over my shoulder telling me if the blurb works or not.  So I sweat this task out, working and re-working the blurb, comparing it to best-selling books in my genre, tweaking until I think the blurb has the necessary come-hither quality.

Create book page on website and update site for upcoming book, etc. Again, another chore that was always mine.

Complete cover art questionnaire and send to cover designer.  Most authors get to fill in art questionnaires for their publishers, but I’m betting none of them have to provide the designer with printer’s specifications, spine width, trim allowances, bleed information, paper width and variations, the price of the book (which I have to figure out on my own, too), and more technical and graphic specifications of this sort.  I provide all this, along with the hero’s eye colour and the heroine’s full lips and pouty expression…

Read through book as a reader for impressions.  Mark up as necessary.  Here is where leaving the book alone for a while pays off.  I get to read it with relatively fresh eyes, and enjoy the read.  But often, if I haven’t left the book alone long enough, I’m reading and mentally editing as I go.  Still, I try to read like a reader…

Edit carefully.  Then spell check and grammar check.  Round two of the editing/checking/line editing/checking, typo-filtering process.  It’s here that I slide in professional editing or line-editing services if the book warrants it (it’s not a re-release, has never been edited before, or other circumstances).

Create Master manuscript with front and end matter.  It’s here that the publishing process really starts to depart from a normal author’s lot.  All the front and end matter that appears in a book I get to create myself, instead of the publisher doing it for me, because I am the publisher.  And I don’t get to invent it…it all means something.  This is where the acquiring of ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) comes into play, one for each version of the book – the Amazon, Smashwords, All Romance eBooks and Createspace version each have to have their own ISBN.  Then each have their own front copyright pages and copyright requirements.  Plus I’m also creating a “pretty” version as an Advanced Reader Copy.

Pour into Createspace template and format for page count.  This gets even more technical.  This is the two-page internal page layout for the print version, complete with bleeds, trim lines, folios (what you, the reader, calls a page number, but the printing industry gives a different name just to fool you), special fonts for the title page, justified text, kerning tweaks, and more.  This file determines how many physical pages will be in the print edition, which drives the price of the print edition, and also the spine width, which the cover designer needs to know to finish the cover.

Upload to Createspace.  The interior of the book gets uploaded to Createspace and waits for the final artwork, so I can hit the “publish” button on the print version and order a proof.

Create Amazon version from Master file and upload to Amazon.  Now I’m into full publication mode.  This task sounds simple enough, but there’s a lot of formatting involved to meet Amazon’s technical specifications, plus I have to resupply the same basic information all over again (Title, author, blurb, price, category, genre, tags, keywords, ISBN, bio).  Usually, each distribution platform wants the cover art formatted to their specific sizing, too, calling for a tweak of the original art files.

Format file for Smashwords and upload.  I admit I tend to procrastinate about Smashwords, because it’s technically the most fussy and difficult to meet the technical requirements.  They’re demanding, although they’re getting better.  Just like Amazon, I end up re-supplying the same basic information, re-shaped to Smashword’s specifications.

Format file for All About Romance and upload.  The fourth distribution outlet, and one of the easiest to deal with (except I usually end up forgetting to rename all my file formats and having to go back and re-do my book page anyway).

Send out requests for review and/or blog tour.  If the book is an Author Edition, or a re-release, I don’t do a blog tour.  If it has a huge number of glowing reviews already (like Lucifer’s Lover), I don’t even bother with the review requests.  Asking for reviews is a semi-new task for me.  Ellora’s Cave used to send out all their titles to a pre-set list of review sites, saving me the bother, until I built a list of other review sites that I liked and approached on my own.  Now, as an indie author, I have to find sites that will deal with indie published romances at all, and then do my own asking.

Update my site.  The book is officially released now, so there’s a ton of changes that have to be made on my website to reflect that fact.  Links, cover art, book page updates, widgets in sidebars, and more.  I also upload a copy of the book’s cover into my Facebook page.

Blog post about the release.  And then, finally, after all that, I get to tell you about the release.  Talk about the tip of the iceberg, huh?

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I just released Lucifer’s Lover on All Romance eBooks, and on Amazon, and over the next few days will be formatting and uploading to the other distributors — Smashwords, Createspace (print).  So it’s official, Lucifer’s Lover is published.

This may come as a surprise to you because I didn’t really given anyone a heads up about this one.  It’s one of my Author Edition titles, which I’m not releasing with as much fanfare as I would a brand new title, like Bannockburn Binding, as they’ve already been published elsewhere.

But neither are these Author Editions simply regurgitated re-releases with new covers.  I’m reworking all of them and adding additional features.  The Royal Talisman, for instance, became its own stand-alone title by the time I’d finished with it, and it used to be only a novella, when it was first released.

Ditto with Lucifer’s Lover, although I didn’t extend the story nearly as much as I did with Talisman.  Lucifer’s Lover was already very long, so I tightened up and cleaned up as much as I added…I’ve learned a thing or two since the book was first published back in 2006.

The nicest thing about this second edition of Lucifer’s Lover is the cover, which is just amazing.  Dar Albert does it again.  If you have a small monitor, or have this window crunched down, then double-click on the image to the left so you can see it at full size.  It’s really something else.  There’s a whole history about the cover that I explain in the book, too.

You can pick up Lucifer’s Lover in all the popular formats at All Romance eBooks, and in the next twelve to twenty-four hours, the page will build itself at Amazon, too.

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Once you’ve made the leap and you’re reading e-books exclusively — and it doesn’t take long to reach a point where you simply don’t like reading paper anymore — it’s at this point in time you can start systematically moving yourself to 100% paperless.

There are lots of advantages to making the transition:

1.  You’ll have all your books, including your keepers and favourites, at your fingertips, instead of scattered across different formats and locations, making you have to remember where they’re located.

2.  You’ll never again lose any of your books because of aging paperbacks, friends failing to return borrowed books, or simply loosing the physical copy of the book.  And your dog will never be able to chew your favourite book to pieces.

3.  In the long run, you’ll save money.  Once you’ve replaced your paperback copies, you’ll never have to do it again.

4.  You’ll save space in your home.

5.  Your library of books will be super-portable from now on.

There’s three simple steps to moving to paperless:

Replace your paper books

This will be a gradual process, dictated by your bank account, how many paper books you’re hanging on to, and also, how many of those books are available in e-book format now.

Not all romances are available in e-book — yet.  This is a self-correcting condition, though.  Publishers are working to bring old titles out in e-book format, and if they’re not, authors are fighting to get their rights back and self-publish those titles.  Sooner or later, the keepers you have on your shelf will re-emerge as e-books, allowing you to replace them.

You can figure out for yourself the best way to work through your paper collection.  Start with your favourites, or start at the A’s and work through to the Z’s.  Or start with a sub-category or series, or an author.  Your choice.

Once you have replaced the paper book with an e-book, you get to decide what you are going to do with the paper copy.

The obvious solution is to sell the paper copy to a second-hand bookstore, and recoup some of your original investment.

Here’s something to keep in mind, however:  You’re not the only reader who is replacing their paper book collection with e-books, and the rate that this is happening is only going to speed up in the next few years.  Second-hand bookstores will start to be inundated with paper books soon, and the chances that you will be able to get any money for your paper collection will diminish the longer you wait to replace it.

If you find you want to hang on to a paper copy of a particularly beloved favourite because of fond memories, or the fabulous cover, here’s some more thoughts:

• The paper copy will not last forever.  It is going to fall apart as the glue dries and the paper disintegrates.  Then you’ll have lost it, anyway.
• If you love the cover, why not find a high resolution copy of it on-line, or get it professionally scanned, then have it printed and framed for your wall?  Then you’ll have the best of both worlds:  A well-preserved reminder of the book, and the permanent e-book of the contents.

Use a content management program to manage your e-books

If you use a Kindle to read your books, then your Kindle device already “manages” your content for you.  There will be a directory on your hard drive called “My Kindle Content” that contains all your e-books, along with all the meta-data for those books (you tags, dictionaries, bookmarks, comments, etc).

If you’re using any other reading device, including iPhones, iPads, Smartphone, your desktop or laptop computer, or a dedicated e-reader that has sucky software, then you should consider downloading and using an e-book library manager like Calibre, that keeps your e-books catalogued and organized on your hard drive, plus talks to and synchronizes and formats your e-books with your reading device(s).  You can also use Calibre to shop for new books, too.

If you’re using Apple devices (iPad, iPod Touch, or an iPhone), then you can also use iTunes to manage your e-books, keep them synchronized on your reading devices, plus shop for new books, too.  The only limitation with iTunes is that it will only let you shop at the Apple store.

Back-up your e-books to another off-site drive

If you’re not already backing up your computer data to some sort of off-site storage facility — a data hard drive on your home network, or an Internet data back-up services, or a back-up media drive, etc, then at the very least, back-up your e-book directory once a week or once a month, and store that back-up somewhere safe.

How soul-destroying would it be to lose your entire library of books?  Think about that, then put some sort of back-up plan into action.

Even if you’re using a Kindle, do not depend on Amazon to keep your library safe and sound for you, forever.  Back up your “My Kindle Content” directory.  Even if you’re dumping a copy onto a thumb-drive once a week and tossing it into a drawer, you’ll be glad you did if Amazon ever again pulls a stunt like they did a couple of years ago when they literally took back books off readers’ Kindle overnight when they had an argument with a publisher that wanted to withdraw copies from publication.  Readers woke up to find books they had bought had simply disappeared from their Kindles.  There’s no reason why Amazon might not make a mistake and delete titles from your personal library.  Play it safe.  Back up your library for yourself.

Also, do not depend on on-line booksellers to keep copies of your purchased books on “your” bookshelf in their store forever, either.  I made this mistake with one on-line bookseller, and found that after a certain amount of time passed, they simply deleted the books from my shelf – with no warning.   Always download purchased e-books to your own hard drive and consider that to be your master copy.

How often you back up your e-books depends on how frequently you’re buying new titles.  If you’re a rabid reader and buying dozens of titles a week, then weekly back-ups might be wise.

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A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

This is Part 5  (and the last) of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

________________________

If you’re mining the Internet for everyone else’s opinions about the worth of a romance novel, in order to figure out whether you should buy it or not, it’s only fair that you contribute back to the system in order to keep it going for other readers, too.

Once you’ve read a romance, you should tell others what you think about it.

Romanceland is a changing world — if this series hasn’t convinced you, just wait a while and you’ll see for yourself, if you haven’t noticed already.  Once upon a time you may have thought it was the purview of the professional editors and reviewers to give a public opinion on the worth (or not) of a published book.

Not anymore.

Authors are publishing directly to the public now:  Directly to readers, and cutting out all middlemen.

That means word-of-mouth — readers talking to readers — is now the most effective means of sorting out the quality books.

You may think that adding your simple review or rating to the cacophony already out there will be a waste of time and energy, because no one is going to hear you or pay any attention.  You’re quite wrong, if that’s what you are thinking.  Your review or rating may not get a direct reaction.  You may not get anyone commenting or responding to you.  It’s highly unlikely the author will thank you — authors are taught or trained by hard experience to stay far, far away from reviewers and reviews to avoid publicity nightmares.

However your rating and/or review will be noticed.  I’ve used this analogy before, because it’s an exact one:  I’m a dedicated blogger, and my blog posts get incredible amounts of traffic every day.  Yet I consider myself lucky if I get one or two comments a month on my blog.  But I know that people are reading and reacting to the posts because my stats tell me they are.

It’s the same with reader ratings and reviews.  You may not get any direct reaction at all, ever.  But your review will be read.  The author will absolutely read it, and if your review is a positive one, I promise you the author will be pathetically grateful.  Then, every single potential buyer who considers the book will read your review once you’ve posted it.  You will have influence over their buying decision, and depending on how you write your review, your influence could be small or large.  Your rating will also form part of the average star rating for the book.

Every time you post a review and rating for another romance book, you’re adding to the weight of information out there for other readers to find.

What goes around, comes around.  Romanceland is becoming a true community of readers.  It’ll pay off big time to contribute meaningfully to that community.

Review on Amazon, even if you didn’t buy there

You only have to write one review, then you can copy and paste it to all your favourite review locations.

Amazon should absolutely top that list.

You’re using Amazon as a primary search tool for book titles, and as an assessment database, too.  Putting your review and rating on there is only fair.

There’s a small bonus to adding your review to Amazon, too.  People can rate your review for its usefulness.  So you can get a little feedback on your reviewing!

Once you’ve pasted your review and rated the book on Amazon, consider adding the review to all the “biggies”.  You can pick and choose amongst your favourite booksellers and review sites:

• Barnes & Noble.com
• Kobo.com (which has the potential now of becoming the next Amazon, thanks to the recent Japanese buy out)
• The bookseller where you bought the book, if they allow reader reviews.
• Goodreads
• Shelfari
• Google Books
• The book’s page on Facebook
• Any reader groups you belong to
• Your own blog, if you have one, or your Facebook page
• A rating line and link back to the review on Twitter

 A review is better than just a rating

Many review sites and booksellers will let you just rate the book and forego the review.  If you’re not good at stringing words together, it might be tempting to avoid writing a review and just click on a star rating and consider your contribution done.

You’ll be short-changing the system if you don’t write a review as well.

No one is expecting perfect prose for reader reviews.  You’ve been reading enough of them yourself to know that they’re not always grammatically perfect, or even close to well-written.  Sometimes even the spelling sucks big time, and if you can pick up on that much, you know you won’t embarrass yourself with your own review, right?

You also don’t have to write pages and pages.  A short paragraph is all you need, explaining why you enjoyed the book — or why not.

Your review, however, should be considered.  If you absolutely hated the book, try very hard to analyse why you hated the book and state it in objective terms in the review.  Don’t just verbally puke all over it and walk away.  That’s not going to help the next reader figure out if the book might still work for her.

It’s also not going to help the author.  If you think the author isn’t going to try to understand why you didn’t like it, again, you’re wrong.  Authors always read their reviews, even the bad ones.  Especially the bad ones.  And yes, they listen.  If enough readers are complaining about the same weakness in a book, you bet the author is going to fix it next time around.  Especially indie authors, who are writing directly for readers.  They need feedback.  So make it constructive feedback.

Your reviews for great books should be just as constructive and considered.  What made it so great?  What works so well in the book to make it fabulous?  Readers will want to know why it’s such a great read — they will want proof that it’s a winner before they buy it.  And the author will want to know what works well so they can repeat it in future books.

Use A Plain Text Editor

Write your review in a plain text editor like Notepad.  Don’t use Word or Wordperfect, because these programs add a lot of hidden coding to your text, so when you cut and paste to websites, all that coding goes with it and can completely screw up your pasting.  Using Notepad ensures there’s no hidden crap, just text.  If you want to use features like Spellcheck and Grammar check, then you’ll have to use a full text editor program like Word, but paste the text over to Notepad once you’re done, then save the file in Notepad as a text file, and shut it down.  Open it again, and then copy and paste to websites.  You’ll have got rid of all the hidden codes this way.

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This is the final post of this series.  You now have a full set of tools and a good collection of resources for keeping up with the shifts and upheavals in Romanceland.  The evolution of the romance industry is ongoing and changes will keep happening for quite a while before anything that looks like stability will appear — if it ever does.  In order for you to keep finding the very best romance novels to suit your tastes and preferences, you need to stay on your toes, and keep looking in unexpected places.

Romanceland isn’t the same place it was even a year ago, and it won’t look this way next year.  You have to keep redrawing your map…or simply throw the map away and enjoy the freedom of exploring new territory every day.

Have fun!

Related posts:

1. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part IV A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Assessing Books This is Part 4 of a series: Part 1:Romanceland...
2. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part III A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Finding Books – Part 2 This is Part 3 of a...
3. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part 1 A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Romanceland Meltdown This is Part 1 of a series: Part 1:Romanceland...
4. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part II A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Finding Books – Part 1 This is Part 2 of a...
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A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Assessing Books

This is Part 4 of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

________________________

By now, if you have set up your Google Alerts; mined the depths of Amazon, romance-related websites, blogs and news sites; plus the various RSS feeds and newsletters you have temporarily subscribed to; along with any romance-related groups you may have joined, you should have built up a satisfyingly long list of potential romance titles to investigate.

The titles you placed on your list you should know very little about, except that for some small reason, they appealed to you, and they’re in your preferred reading niche(s).  The authors, publishers, and general quality of the books could (and should) be a complete mystery to you.

Now, you get to assess those titles and find out if they’re worth buying.

The breakup and fracturing of Romanceland is bringing a flood of new titles onto the market.  There are new e-publishers springing up every day.  They edit their books, yes, but how good are those editors?

There’s no guarantee that just because a book comes from a New York publisher, its quality is guaranteed, either.  Recently, an e-book published by a New York publisher garnered so many complaints about formatting problems, editing and spelling errors in the text and more, that the publisher was forced to withdraw the book from sale and issue refunds.

Too, indie authors’ books have long suffered the reputation of being poorly edited and badly written.  Sometimes this is true.  Often, it isn’t — indie authors are increasingly becoming more savvy about their work; they hire professional editors, and book formatters to build their e-books for them, plus professional cover designers (I do, for instance).  The product indie authors put on the virtual shelves can be indistinguishable from New York books.

There is nothing stopping indie authors from publishing whatever they want, whenever they want.  Titles are hitting the market every day.

The flurry of new e-publishers means those publishers are also pumping out new titles every week, too.

And New York is gamely trying to keep up its output, as well.

The fact is that with the fracturing and breakup of Romanceland, there will be hundreds more exciting, different and interesting romances flooding the market.

The price for all that innovation and creativity is that some of the books are going to suck.  Romanceland is turning into a free market, where anyone can publish anything — and will.  And some of what will be published will be fabulous.  The flip side of getting all that fabulous stuff is that you also get the stinky stuff.

You have to learn how to recognize the stinky stuff before you put your money down.

Relying on other people to tell you what is good is no longer going to work.

No single review site can keep up with the deluge.  They haven’t been able to do that for a while now.  Most review sites run anywhere up to six months behind release dates — or more.  I’ve had reviews of my books emerge up to a year after the book was released.  The lag can only get worse as the number of romance titles released per week rises.

There is no single best-seller list that incorporates every single romance title for sale.  There never has been.  The New York Times Best Seller list, for instance, never included Harlequin/Silhouette category romances, which regularly outsold the #1 best-seller.  The NYT list only started included e-books in mid-2011.  It still doesn’t include indie titles.

There are only two ways you can find out if a book sucks, or if it is worth reading.  One way is to read it.  But that gets expensive, especially if you keep hitting sucky books.

The other way to find out if a book sucks or not is to tap into word-of-mouth sources.  Consult other readers.

There’s a number of ways to do that.  If you use a combination of these tools and resources in a systematic way, then you’ll get a pretty good idea, very quickly, if the book you’re considering is a dud, or not.

Amazon

Amazon is the best place to start, because something like 99% of every romance book ever published is there, and because 99% of every review for the books on there are reader reviews.

In addition, you get reader ratings — the five star rating that is an average of every readers’ rating.

There will also be the odd professional review, too.

Read through all the reviews, both the good and the bad.  Reader reviews are usually not very specific about why a book doesn’t work for them, but see if you can determine why the book failed to please the readers who didn’t like it.  If it is for reasons that won’t affect you (they don’t like European settings, say), then you can safely discount the negative reviews.

If the book gets consistently bad reviews, you may need to cross it off your list.  Put a question mark next to it for now.

If the book is part of the “Look Inside” program, you can even read an excerpt and see if it intrigues you.

Professional Reviews

Hunt down some professional reviews for the book.  Using Google, or your favourite search engine, put in the book title, the author’s name and “review”.

Amongst a few negative results, you will get a listing of links to reviews of the book.  Check them out for overall impressions on the quality of the book.

If the book received crushing reader reviews and ratings on Amazon, and the professional reviews support the bad rap, then it’s probably time to knock the book off your list.

However, if the reviews are all glowing, or even just generally positive, you can move onto the next step, if you are still uncertain about whether you want to buy the book or not.  If you’re already convinced you want the book and are comfortable enough to buy it, then you don’t have to search for further word-of-mouth.

While you are browsing the review sites, if you find that there is a particular reviewer whose voice you like, bookmark the site, or subscribe to their feed.  This is a reviewer who reviews romances in the niche you read.  They may review a romance you will like in the future.  It could pay to keep up with their reviews.

Goodreads

Goodreads and other social reading networks will provide you with one more average reader rating on the book you’re researching — if it has been listed on that network.

There may also be the odd reader review (more like short comments).

The feedback you get from these reader networks usually isn’t comprehensive, but it will provide confirmation and back-up for whatever you’ve already learned about a title.

Reader Groups

If you belong to a reader group, this is the perfect place to actively ask for information.  Put the question to your group:  “What did you think of xxxx?”

If the group has archives or a database of titles you can access, even better.  You can check out members’ reviews of the title for yourself.

Too Little Information

It sometimes happens that a title is too new to have gathered enough information to help you make a decision about its quality.  There won’t be any, or too few, reader reviews on Amazon to reassure you.  If a title is very new, there likely won’t be any professional reviews for it, either.  If it is an indie title, professional reviews are even harder to acquire as many review houses refuse to review indie authors at all.

In this case, what you can do is:

1)   Read an excerpt of the book and check the quality that way.  If the excerpt reads okay, and you don’t notice any obvious grammar and spelling mistakes, typos or other formatting flaws, then the rest of the book should be of similar quality.

2)   Go to the author’s website.  If there are any reviews or positive feedback at all, there’s a good bet the author will have them listed there for the title. (But keep in mind that the author won’t report bad reviews!)

3)   Research one of the author’s other, older titles, in the same or a similar niche as the one you’re interested in.  If that other title got glowing reviews and high ratings, then you’re probably on safe ground with the new book.  Check several of the author’s books, if you really want to be sure.  If they’re all high ratings and good reviews, you’ll feel that much more certain about the new book — and you’ll have more titles on your to-buy list, too!

Sometimes you’ll hit a book where there’s little information and no other titles by the author.  (Every author has a first or second book).  Ultimately, you’ll have to make a decision about whether to buy, or not, based on your gut feeling.

If it’s an indie author, the chances are the price will be very low, so taking a chance on the book won’t be such a big deal.

For New York titles, where the price isn’t so reasonable, you may decide to wait a few days or weeks until the book has gathered reviews and ratings…or not.

For any title where the blurb and excerpt have really grabbed you by the throat and you decide to risk it; go for it.  Why not?  Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet and see where it takes you.  And sometimes that jump will pay off with the most unexpectedly delightful story you’ve read in ages.

That’s the bonus of a free Romanceland market.  You get to be surprised and delighted every now and again, when you reach out and try something new.

Enjoy your hunting.

__________

Next:  Contributing to Word-of-Mouth

Related posts:

1. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part III A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Finding Books – Part 2 This is Part 3 of a...
2. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part 1 A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Romanceland Meltdown This is Part 1 of a series: Part 1:Romanceland...
3. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part II A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Finding Books – Part 1 This is Part 2 of a...
4. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part IV Where To Find Your MMF Romances This is Part Four of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part...
5. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part V Narrow Down Your List of Potential MMF Novels To Read This is part five of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can...

A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Finding Books – Part 2

This is Part 3 of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

________________________

Last post, we explored all the ways of using Google Alerts results to mine the Internet for useful blogs, sites and newsites, and the bounty they give up:  romance titles for your growing list of potential books to buy.

Here are even more resources to tap.

Amazon

Even if Amazon doesn’t have every single romance title published available for sale on its virtual shelves (and if it doesn’t, it’s only by a gnat’s whisker), it comes a lot closer to 100% than any other bookseller in the world.  For this reason, and one other, Amazon is one of the most advanced search tools on the Internet.

The other reason Amazon outranks any other publisher, bookseller or database in the world when it comes to searching for books, is that readers, publishers, authors…anyone…can categorize and tag the books that Amazon offers for sale.  In other words:  keywords.

And those keywords are searchable.

You may not like shopping via Amazon.  But searching via Amazon is hard to argue with.

With your keyword groups in hand, head over to Amazon, and in the Departments drop down box, select “Books” and hit the “go” button.

Underneath the search bar, you’ll get a row of menu items, including the “Advanced Search” link.  Click on that.

You’ll come up with a screen called “Book Search” and the first row of the range of fields you can fill in is…keywords.  J

Don’t add any other conditions than your keywords.  You’re not trying to narrow down the range at this stage (quantity, remember?).  Just add your keywords, separated by commas, and hit enter.

You’ll come up with a list of titles that may be surprisingly long or short.  If you think your list is too short, try searching again, and dropping off one of your keywords — whichever one is the least critical in your opinion.

For each title that pops up in the search, open up that book’s page (use the right hand mouse button to open the book up in a new tab, so you can save the search page and come back to it later).  Have a quick look at the blurb, etc, and add the book to your list if it makes your interest level twitch at all.

Also check out the books listed under the “Frequently Bought Together” titles and add them to your list, if they beckon in the slightest.

Then check the books listed under the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought….” section.  Books under this section are often similar, but not always.  A quick look at the blurb will tell you if you can add them to your list or not.

And don’t forget, for each book that you click through to, you should also check their “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought….” sections for similar types of titles.

And start adding titles to your list.

Repeat this with all of your keyword groups.

Reader groups

There are romance reader groups all over the Internet.  And I will give you a list of places where you can start looking for like-minded peer groups in a minute.

But there are strong pros and cons to joining reader groups of which you should be aware before signing up.

Pros

A romance reader group that works well is a fabulous resource for word-of-mouth about great romance novels, changes in the industry, help, support, friendship, and fun.  When reader groups work well, they’re fabulous places to hang out.  And you will hear of so many great books you will never catch up!

If you can find a group that is “closed” (there is some sort of formal subscription process) and has a stable membership, you’ll find yourself making friendships that last years.  If the group caters to a small niche category that you love and adore, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.

Reader groups that function well bring all the best qualities of each of its members to the group.  The knowledge of each member provides a pool of information that all members draw upon for a unique resource that provides support for the group as a whole and enhances it.  A strong coordinator/manager is a must.

Cons

Many “reader” groups are over-subscribed, or open, and subject to spam, hackers, or the abuse of authors who use the group as promotional platforms, to the detriment of free discussion and fellowship.  In the very large reader groups, you will hear of many, many romance titles via promo posts from authors or promotional companies, but not much else.  These larger groups are rarely niche groups.  They cater to larger divisions of romance (e.g. “erotic romance” or “paranormal romance”).

Smaller niche groups have tiny memberships and are often moribund through lack of activity or current interest in the niche.

All groups may also be subject to bias via group pressure.  If the group is aligned with a website or publisher, then discussion will be limited to that website’s reviews, or publisher’s books.  There may also be more subtle or political prejudices:  The group may have a bias against indie titles, or e-books, that isn’t apparent on the surface, but only via consistently bad reviews of anything other than New York published titles, for instance.

Even if none of the above occurs, groups sometimes break out into bickering and sniping, if there is one or two forceful members who don’t see eye-to-eye.  If these frictions are not resolved, groups can end up disbanded or deserted because members grow tired of the conflict.

—

Despite the downsides, there are more well-functioning groups than not.  Each group has a lifecycle and groups are forming and disbanding all the time.  You just need to find a group that works for you, if you think one would be useful for you.

Where to find Groups

Yahoo Groups – The grand-daddy of groups, Yahoo is still the one most people think of when they talk about “groups”.  Posts are delivered via email as a defaul, although you can check your group’s postings online if you want.  There are dozens, if not a hundred or more, romance novel-related groups on Yahoo.

Google Groups – Google took over the old Usenet bulletin board style groups, then added their own Groups on top.  One of the oldest writing groups on the usenet boards is still going on Google – rec.arts.sf.composition.  One of the problems with Google, though, is that the groups are semi-open, so hackers and spam is rife.  I’ve looked for romance novel groups there, but didn’t find any.  However, if usenet groups are your thing — and some people like them — then you may consider the idea of creating one of your own in your favourite niche.

Facebook – Whatever you think of Facebook, there’s no denying the numbers it commands.  It’s #2 on Alexa (Google is #1).  And Groups is Facebook’s next “thing”.  If you’re a member, go to your home page, and type your keywords into the search bar at the top.  There’s potentially a group page will pop up with your keywords.  If not, drop the least critical keyword off and try again.  Sooner or later you’ll end up with a group showing up in your search results.  I guarantee that group will be talking about romance books in your niche.  And you can always ask for recommendations, too — and brace yourself for impact.

__________

Next:  Assessing your List Of Potentials

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2. A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland – Part 1 A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe) Romanceland Meltdown This is Part 1 of a series: Part 1:Romanceland...
3. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part IV Where To Find Your MMF Romances This is Part Four of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part...
4. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part I Ménages Categorized This is Part One of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part 3: How To Read...
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A Toolkit And Compass for Romanceland

Because All The Roads Are Being Re-Built (Maybe)

Romanceland Meltdown

This is Part 1 of a series:
Part 1:Romanceland Meltdown
Part 2: Finding Books – Part 1
Part 3: Finding Books – Part 2
Part 4: Assessing Books
Part 5: Contributing To Word-of-Mouth

(Series based upon a guest post at The Bookish Snob)

________________________

How you shop for romance novels and how authors write and sell them is going through a fundamental revolution right now.  You, the reader, will benefit from the massive changes that aren’t just coming down the pipe…they’re already here.  They just haven’t popped into gear all over town yet.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, then you get this stuff.  So you’ll like what I’m about to tell you, if you don’t already know it.  Most of what I’m about to say you’ll understand intuitively.  It just makes sense.  But it takes someone saying it out loud to make it jell.

The publishing industry is transitioning from paper books to electronic books.  Soon, paper books will be like candles:  they’ll still exist, but they’ll be expensive specialty items, while the majority of the world uses e-books by default.  Already, e-books outsell paperbacks and many publishers are already considering paperback rights to be subsidiary rights to e-book rights.  About the only real mystery is how long the shift takes to happen.

But the next big revolutionary step is that authors are shrugging off royalty-paying publishers altogether, and moving to self-publishing, using a number of platforms that let them publish e-books directly to on-line booksellers like Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble and All Romance E-books.  They’re becoming independent authors.

This second revolution is the one that is causing the most angst in the industry right now, because it will topple the centuries old power structure that used to exist, where publishers used to dictate which books got published, usually with two year production schedules for each title.  Now, authors publish their books as fast as they can write them, which means you, the reader, get to pick from all the books that are written, instead of just the books the publishers think you might like.

The other benefit of this revolution is that authors are pitching their prices very, very low. $2.99 and 99 cents are common prices. Free is not unheard of.  Indie authors can afford to set these prices, because they are getting the lion’s share of the profit from each sale.  Legacy publishers can’t afford those prices because they have huge expenses to off-set, and they are struggling to come to terms with the whole idea of “cheap equals more sales”.

Indie authors who have several titles out there already have noticed a buying pattern emerging:  Readers will buy one “test” title.  Then they’ll come back and buy every single title the author has released, in one buying session — because the prices are so low.  Or they’ll buy all the titles in one series, in one shopping session.  Then they’ll come back and buy the next series, later.

This group-buying and author-buying trend points toward the future.

So does indie-publishing in general.  Because Amazon, Smashwords, and other on-line bookstores have virtual bookshelves, there is no competition for space.  An author doesn’t have to get “permission” to upload.  She just uploads.  As long as her book is correctly formatted, and she follows a few simple rules, she can publish any novel she cares to.

This has huge implications for the future of popular fiction, and for you, the reader.

Whereas once upon a time, the bookshelves at your local store were strictly limited to “romance” and maybe “fantasy”, and you had to carefully comb through them to find the authors you knew, or an imprint you knew that published the sort of books you liked. However, with virtual book sellers, the game has changed.

Indie authors can publish any sort of cross-genred, out-of-genre, weird-mixed, wonderfully inventive, whole-new-unique-to-her-genre romance they want.  It can have fairies and giants, krakens and mushrooms, as long as it has a happy-ever-after and a to-die-for hero (perhaps the only two constants of a romance, these days.)  Her romance doesn’t have to fit into a pre-defined category anymore, because she doesn`t have to get an editor of the big six publishing houses to like it to get it published.  If the romance works, the author can publish it and let the readers decide if it`s good, or not.

Of course, it helps that her romance be well written, or no one will read it.  But that’s one of the joys of the indie publishing game.  We enter it at our own risk.  If an author can’t write for peanuts, she’ll soon find out — the hard way.  Readers get to tell her with their wallets.  The indie publishing scene is a perfect feedback mechanism, because authors get their feedback directly from the readers via sales and/or communications like blogs and emails.  (But sales are more truthful.)  No gatekeepers like agents and editors exist to filter and distort the information.

So what will happen to the romance industry in the near future?

Here’s what I think will happen.  Here’s where I can see it going.  Here’s where I think you, the reader, get to have it all.

More and more authors are going to go indie.  And they’re going to realize they can write the books they really want to write, instead of staying in the straight jackets that the publishers, marketers and brick & mortar booksellers have insisted on for years.

That means the romance field is going to explode with interesting and varied romances the likes of which you have never seen before.  The shackles will be off authors’ imaginations, and you are going to have a buffet of romances to choose from, and not too many signposts to guide you.  If you thought the explosion of e-books from epublishers made it difficult, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

That means you will need to build your own tools and sources for finding decent romances.  It will no longer be good enough to simply buy up everything a single publisher releases, because you`ll be limiting yourself to a tiny corner of the market and (possibly) quickly grow bored with your romances.

Word-of-mouth about hot new series and titles will become the best way to find out who to buy next, because there will simply be so many authors out there, you won’t know who will be a good fit for your tastes, after you’ve bought up every title of the last author you fell in love with.  Amazon’s “if you like this, you’ll like that” links will help, but they won’t always tell you if the author they’re recommending can’t spell worth a damn or if the novel is full of grammar mistakes and typos…or if it’s just plain bad.

This is where you adding reader reviews and ratings becomes incredibly important, too.  If you’ve never bothered before, think about starting now.  Soon, readers will be the only guide for other readers.

The romance industry is already huge.  It’s about to become a giant industry, because romance authors, who were at the forefront of e-books and e-readers, are also now embracing indie publishing with a vengeance, too.  With their imagination, and with all the paranormal and fantasy worlds to explore, and the historical and romantic suspense fields to re-invent, mash-up, and re-live, you as a reader are in for thousands of special treats.

You just have to learn how to find them, because authors won’t be able to reach out and be heard across the whole industry.  It’ll be too damn big.  You’ll have to meet us half-way.

This series will offer you a set of tools, ideas, tips and tricks for finding good romances no matter where they’re hiding, and for making sure you’re staying on top of continual changes in the landscape of Romanceland.

Next:  Finding Books.

Related posts:

1. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part IV Where To Find Your MMF Romances This is Part Four of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part...
2. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part V Narrow Down Your List of Potential MMF Novels To Read This is part five of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can...
3. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances — Part VI Keeping Track This is the final part of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part 3: How To...

Keeping Track

This is the final part of a Series
Part 1: Ménages Categorized
Part 2: How can MMF be romantic?
Part 3: How To Read Your First MMF Romance
Part 4: Where To Find Your MMF Romances
Part 5: Narrow Down Your List of Potential MMF Novels To Read
Part 6: Keeping Track
_____

Even as you seach for your first MMF romance to read, you’ll be generating a lot of information to keep track of, because a centralized database of decent MMF romances in your preferred genre doesn’t exist.

Raw MMF Romance Titles

There’s the raw lists of potential MMF romances you have yet to research, if you didn’t finish researching the first time around.

I guarantee this list will get added to as you hear of titles along the way from reviewers, bloggers, other readers, and on Amazon discussion lists.

 Must-Have’s

You’ll also eventually end up with a list of must-have’s.  These are books you’ve researched, or don’t need to, but haven’t yet acquired.

List of to-be-reads

This list is almost exactly the same as the Must-Have’s list, except that these books you have already acquired.  You’re just shifting the books from one list to the other.  You can even combine the two and add an extra field that indicates you now own the book.

 List Of Have-Reads

After you have finished reading the book, it’s a good idea to quickly capture your impressions about that book, including:

• Your overall enjoyment of the book
• How much MM action (romance and sex) was in the book
• How much general romance was in the book
• How much other story was in the book (as opposed to sex and romance)
• Was the book true to your sub-genre (e.g., was it really a paranormal, or just a sex romp wearing a cape?)
• Was the sex hot enough for you?

Most of these answers are one digit or one word answers, that you should scribble down quickly as soon as you’ve read the book.  It doesn’t have to be scientific, count-the-pages stuff.  Work out your own rating system, and go with your gut.  How much MM stuff?  Mmm, make that 4 out of 10, if 10 is all the sex and romance in the entire book.  And so on.

Don’t rate only the books you like.

You should most especially reate the books that you consider duds, or not so fabulous, or that there was just something…off.  In this way, you’ll begin to figure out what works for you, personally, and what doesn’t, plus you’ll be able to guide other MMF romance fans if they ever ask you for recommendations.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts in this series, this information will aid you in finding more MMF romances that suit your tastes.  If the book was just perfect, you can head right over to that author’s back list, and quickly snatch up the rest of the series, and any other series she has written that looks intriguing (but do some research on any new series the same as you would for new titles – things can change between series, publishers, and as the author learns her craft.)

If the book wasn’t quite right for you, you can still mine her backlist to see if there’s something better.  Again, things can change between series, publishers and as the authors learns her craft and tries different things.  If this book didn’t do it for you, the perfect book or series might be lurking in her backlist.

If the book was awful, don’t completely give up on the author — yet.  Go back to the Amazon page for the book and read the one and two star reader reviews for the book and see if they agree with you on what was awful about the book.

Sometimes, reader have astonishing information to give about a book and its author that will show you why it was such a stinker:  The book was dashed off in three days to get the author out of contractual obligations; everyone knows the author hated writing that book, her others are much better; and so on.  Granted, this information perhaps should have surfaced when you were first researching, but you were looking for positive, go-for-it messages then.

Even if you don’t find a good excuse for the stinker book, still don’t drop the author.  Mine her back list for just one more possibility and try it.  After all, you picked her for more than one good reason.  Give her a second chance.  But not a third.

If her second title still fails to impress, then reluctantly let her go and cross that author off your list of regulars.

How to keep your information

Three choices stand out amongst many, mainly because of ease of use, and they’re free.

Spreadsheets

The easiest and quickest to set up are Excel or Word spreadsheets.

They’re also the most labour intensive, because they’re 100% manual, mechanical work.  There is no automation.

Still, they will keep every list you need to make, in the form you want to keep it.  If you already own Microsoft Office, they’re free.  Or you can use the Open Office alternative, instead, which is free to download and use, or Google Documents, if you would like to keep your lists on-line.

Goodreads

Goodreads, and other social networks for book lovers, is a great way to keep track of either paperback or ebooks you intend to or already own, and/or have already read.  The only limitation is that you can’t add custom fields to your reviews and ratings such as the ones I suggest.  So I would suggest using these sites only as wanna buy/to-be-read tools, in combination with either spreadsheets, or

Calibre

Calibre is the master ebook library manager for ebook lovers.  It will manage ebooks across multiple devices, and just like iTunes controls music files, it sorts your books on your hard drive for you, if you want it to.  It displays full book information, including the cover, back cover blurb, and with the click of a button, the inside contents.  If any information is missing (publishing date, publisher, blurb, cover and much, much more), Calibre will go off and get it for you.

With a single click of a button, you can convert and download your book to your favourite reading device, and you can see at a glance what books you already have loaded.  You can also delete book on your ereader from inside Calibre.  Calibre works in conjuction with Amazon, so you can get an average Amazon reader rating right from inside Calibre.

And no, I don’t get any commission for talking up Calibre.  Calibre is free!  I first started using Calibre four years ago when the software that came with my first dedicated ebook reader was so woefully inadequate I went looking for better.  I found Calibre, and have been using it ever since for every ebook reading device I own, even though that ebook reader has long since bit the dust.

And the beauty of Calibre is that it is also tailorable.  You can add your own user fields, hide standard fields from view, arrange fields in the order you want them to display, so that you end up with a customized view that is exactly what you need to pick through your full library of ebooks.

Could you use Calibre with paperbacks?  It would be difficult.  Calibre “imports” actual ebook files into its system – it’s a true manager, not simply an index.

There’s a teeny learning curve to the program, but there is also a full support discussion board on the program’s download site, so you’re not alone, if you’re not technically oriented.

If you’re not fully convinced by my raving about Calibre, head over to the site and sit through the 60 second demo video on the front page.  That was what sold me!

Finally, Pay It Forward

Once you’ve finished a book, you should help make MMF Romances a bit more accessible for all romance lovers, by adding your opinion about the book to the on-line world for others to find.  It may feel to you that no one is listening and cares less, but if you’re using those reviews to make a decision, you can be damned sure hundreds of others are, too.

This is something that I have learned from blogging.  I get no comments, no feedback at all, day in and day out, but my statistics tell me that hundreds of romance readers are reading my posts every day.  The odd comment I get is the tiny tip of a large iceberg.

So yes, what you say will be taken onboard by very many others, even if you never get to hear them say so.

Pay it forward by leaving your review and rating on Amazon, at least (because that’s where nearly everyone looks).

If you’re keeping any of your lists on Goodread, et al, then it will be pretty easy to add a simple rating and a few words about the book, once you’re read it.  If you’ve already done your Amazon review, you can cut and paste.  Many do.

_____________

 This is the last post in this series on easing yourself into MMF Romance.  I hope you enjoy your new world of MMF Romance and the wonderful stories you’ll discover there!

_____

More resources:

My MMF Romances

Additional Articles:

The MMF Thing…How to Get It

MM and MMF – Let’s Try Again. Why Do Women Like Men Who Like Men?

Do Women Like MMF?

The Heroes in MMF Romance Don’t Need Classification

__________________

Related posts:

1. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part V Narrow Down Your List of Potential MMF Novels To Read This is part five of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can...
2. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part IV Where To Find Your MMF Romances This is Part Four of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part...
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5. Ease Yourself Into MMF Romances – Part I Ménages Categorized This is Part One of a Series Part 1: Ménages Categorized Part 2: How can MMF be romantic? Part 3: How To Read...

Narrow Down Your List of
Potential MMF Novels To Read

This is part five of a Series
Part 1: Ménages Categorized
Part 2: How can MMF be romantic?
Part 3: How To Read Your First MMF Romance
Part 4: Where To Find Your MMF Romances
Part 5: Narrow Down Your List of Potential MMF Novels To Read
Part 6: Keeping Track
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If you did the exercise suggested in the last post, and searched the resources I gave you for potential MMF romances to read, you would have;

a) spent a lot of time astonishing yourself at the sheer number of MMF romances out there, and the sheer range of stories, categories and styles available.

b) built a very long list of possibilities (I hope), and scared yourself silly about, hell’s bells, which one are you going to pick???

c)  or else no list at all because you genuinely felt like you really didn’t know where to start.

If you’re in camp (c), then go back and start building a list.  Any list.  It really doesn’t matter.  You’re picking titles that look intriguing because of their title, and the back cover blurb, and because they are MMF romances, and they’re in the right sub-category for you (historical, paranormal, romantic suspense, etc).  You don’t have to be too, too fussy after that, because narrowing down your choices once you’ve got ‘em on the list is what this post is about.

Do not sort your list into preferences, or A’s, B’s, or C’s, or anything like that.  Don’t pre-determine whether you’ll like a book or not, because then you’ll be researching the book with bias already built in.  Just leave the list in the order you wrote the titles down and start from the top or bottom, or stab at the list with your pen.

There are several key facts and information about the novels you need to gather before you will feel comfortable choosing your first MMF romance.

1.  How much MM stuff is involved?  You can interpret “stuff” as sex or romance, or both.  If you’re still not comfortable with two guys locking lips, then even mild MM romantic scenes fall under the “stuff” label for you.  You’re looking for the smallest injection of MM possible in your MMF romances.

2.  How romantic in general is the author?  Some authors seem to focus in tightly on torrid sex plot lines, and romance seems to only pop up at the end of the story.  Other authors develop their romances right along with the sex, the suspense, and everything else that is happening.  What is your preference?

3.  How good is the story, period?  You don’t want to read a dud, do you?

Luckily, most of the resources I suggested to you, last post, self-sort themselves into recommended and best-seller lists quite naturally.  However, that doesn’t cover the first two points, or mean that what works for everyone else is going to work for you.

That’s where the wonderful world of word of mouth comes to the rescue.

Again, you get to hear what everyone else thinks of the books you’re thinking about buying via the Internet (charge up your coffee cup again). This is an advantage no brick and mortar bookshop in the world can offer.

Amazon

Amazon has the best collection of reader review and ratings ever.  And the readers rarely pull punches.  If they don’t like a book, they’ll say so — I know, because I’ve been on the end of a few of those frank reviews.

Head over to Amazon and closely read what the reviews are saying about all the books on your list.  Apart from knocking a few titles off your list, you may also be able to figure from the wording of the reviews how much MM action is in the book, how romantic the book is, and if the book is really for you.

Also, if the book is part of the “Look Inside” program, you can even read an excerpt and see if it intrigues you.

Amazon will also have professional reviews listed as well.

Review Sites

Your next stop for feedback is the review sites and blogs.  Head over to Google and put in the book title, the author’s name and “review”.  Amongst a few negative results, you will get a listing of links to reviews of the book.  Check them out, both for overall impressions on the quality of the book and for hints about how much romance and MM action are contained within the story.

While you are cruising these review sites, if you find that there is a particular reviewer whose voice you like, bookmark the site, or subscribe to their feed.  This is a reviewer who is into MMF romances in your sub-category, and they may review an MMF romance you will like in the future.

Goodreads

Goodreads won’t provide you with much feedback.  Readers tend to rate books, but rarely review them, except for a few words here and there, and even then, the words are often misleading or over- or underrated compared to the rating they give a book. (One reader’s three stars is another reader’s five, and another’s two, and the odd comments reflect that.)

What Goodreads will do is give you a second composite star rating on a book (if Amazon’s isn’t enough), just in case you’re dithering and can’t decide yes or no on a title.

Your Rejects

Don’t completely give up on your rejects straight away.  They made it onto your list for a reason.  What was that reason?

If you rejected the book because of a technicality (the novel has too much MM, say), what about checking that author’s other titles out?  She may have other MMF romances that don’t feature as much MM action in them.  Speaking from personal experience, as an author, I inched my way into this genre, so my earliest MMF titles have the least amount of MM stuff in them.  Later on, though…  This may not hold true for all authors, but it may for some of them, and some authors may write less MM for different publishers, because that’s a house requirement there.  So it’s worth checking out.  Other factors, such as the romance factor, may also vary between an author’s books, series, and publishers.  You could end up with the perfect title and it wasn’t on your list in the first place.

Also, if you find many of your titles are grouped together from the same publisher, try wandering over to the publisher’s site and doing a direct seach (although you’re back to the same problem as last post: trying to find the MMF amongst usually bad search tools and little or no categorization or tags — in which case, fall back on Google Advanced Search again).

Select Your Final Title(s)

All this research should make at least one or three titles pop out at you, going Buy me! Buy me!  If you can wait patiently to finish researching your whole list to see if there are any other must-buys on your list, then your problem is now solved.  You have at least your first MMF romance novel selected.

Go buy it from your favourite bookseller, in your favourite format.

Once you have read it, if you like it, you can either buy that author’s back list, or see what else Amazon recommends on that book’s page, or see what else readers bought who bought that book on Amazon (another way of researching similar books).

Or you can buy the next MMF Romance that popped up on your Buy Me! list, and buy that author’s back list, once you’re done reading that book.

And just like that, you’ve eased yourself into the MMF romance genre.

Simple, huh?

Next: Keeping Track of MMF Titles

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More resources:

My MMF Romances

Additional Articles:

The MMF Thing…How to Get It

MM and MMF – Let’s Try Again. Why Do Women Like Men Who Like Men?

Do Women Like MMF?

The Heroes in MMF Romance Don’t Need Classification

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