Bonus Stories, The Death Nell For A Book (My Rant to Romance Publishers)

*I actually started this post quite some time ago, but I wasn't able to finish it then, and I', just getting aback around to it. The thought is just as relevant today as it was then, so I decided to get back into it*

I don't even know where to begin with this post. I am so disgusted right now! For the last 4 days, I've been trying to find a good steamy romance to sink my teeth into, but my search had been a BUST! Usually my Kindle App will do it's shuffle thing and produce a selection that yields at least one book that's appealing. I've stumbled across so many great authors through random searches that never in my wildest dreams would I think that I would come across one the worst books that I've ever tried to read. I try to live by the motto, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Which is why, I won't publish the name of this particular book. Truth be told, this isn't the first time this has happened to be, this is just the first time that I decided to vent about it.

So here's how it went. I did the Kindle Shuffle, and I see a book that I think looks pretty good, it was free with my Kindle Unlimited subscription, so what the heck. (The cover art was suspect...I should have known!) Anyway, I get the book and start reading...it took me 20 minutes to read the title story just to find out that the 90% of the book was comprised of some of the THE MOST TERRIBLE bonus stories that I have every read! There were like 30 of them!.... If I had paid money for this book, I would have had to call Amazon Customer Service and ask for my money back!


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Part of me gets it. Publishers are trying to take a bunch of really short works and pack them in behind the title story, hoping that if you read them, you'll like them and purchase more stories from the author. This might work if it's one or two novellas tucked in after the main story, but if there's more that that, I guarantee you they're going to SUCK!

I don't begrudge any writer from trying to get their stories published, but DAMN, can publishers please put a warning label on these books and say, "Beware going forward! Reading this book bay cause you to want to slap somebody."



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So publishers, if any of you happen to read this, please for the love of Almighty God stop this practice. We just really, really great reads, long, short, it doesn't matter as long as their good. Thank you for your time.

And thank all of you for listening to my rant. This will be the last one for a while, I promise *fingers crossed behind my back*

Much Love,

Pandora

Dear Romance Publishers, Please Stop Giving Readers The "Okie Doke"

Let me start this post by saying that when I first started blogging years ago, I made a promise to myself that I would do my best to only write on topics that I felt positively about. I never wanted to be the kind of blogger that was always spewing negativity. This has become even more important to me while writing book reviews; however, there's a trend that I I've noticed that I just can't ignore any longer. That would be the issue of false advertising in the interracial romance genre.

I've already discussed in previous articles that I am a HUGE fan of boxed sets. I have found more fantabulous authors and stories that I can shake a stick at through this medium; however, I've also noticed that there is more than a little false advertising with boxed sets.

First lets clarify what I expect from a genre search. When I tune up my trusty Kindle App and type BWWM in the search box I expect that all of the results will fall into this category. I have seen the occasion where BBW will also be included in the sear results and that's cool too as long as the leading ladies in these romances are women of color. Don't get me twisted, I am an equal opportunity steamy romance reader. I discriminate against no one, but, If I'm in the mood for something in particular I expect my search results to be accurate. I have also mentioned in previous articles how much the cover art plays an important role in my book selections. So it would stand to reason that If I do a BWWM search, I expect to see evidence of that on the cover.

So let me get back to this boxed set thing. recently I did a BWWM romance search on my app and a boxed set turned up,  (I'm not going to list the title because I don't want to get sued) any way The cover looked great gorgeous Sista with a serious dark haired hottie. Ok, I make my purchase and start reading....first book...as I go along a red flag goes up, no description of the lead female. There's no mention of her beautiful chocolate, cafe au lait, or even golden skin. Not even a side note about her hazel eyes (I have no idea why most Sista Gurls in romances have hazel or light eyes, they just do). I get to the end of the first book in the set and like I suspected the leading lady WAS NOT a BW, she was a BBW, but not a BW BBW. Ok....so I let that one slide.

So on to the second story. So how does it start? By straight off the top describing the leading lady as a petite, raven haired Caucasian curvy woman. All that's well and good, but that wasn't what I was looking for. At this point I just started paging through the stories realizing that story after story was anything but BWWM romance.

I'll be honest with you, I was straight fed-up! Like I said, this isn't the first time this has happened to me, but the sad part is that this won't be the last.  So for all of you publishers and marketing specialists, please stop giving readers the Okie Doke.

Give readers what they ask for. Tag your publications appropriately. You should want readers to be happy with their choices AND want to read more of the authors whose stories you included in your set.

Much Love,

Pandora