[Publisher] Ravenous Romance

[eqb]

Actually, when you start browsing the categories, the genre is clearly labeled right beneath the category. So if you click on, say, Breathless, right beneath the category it says Romantic Suspense. Fantastica is Paranormal Romance, etc.

It's obvious once you're on that page, but not when you're scanning the menu itself. It might help if they added the genre to the hover text, or something like that.

Just a small useability quirk that I'm sure will get smoothed out soon enough. Overall a very slick website. (The hammer icon next to Real Man Romance did make me giggle though. Suggestive, no?)

 

[Stacia Kane]

ML is right. It's blaringly obvious what the descriptions of each line are when you click on them and there's a huge bright-colored banner on the top of the page with the line title and line description. (Breathless: Romantic Suspense; Modern Love: Contemporary Romance, etc.) You don't need to download a PDF to read that.

Yeah, as Beth said, it's not "blaringly" obvious when you're just looking at the home page. I don't want to waste my time clicking on every menu option to find what I want, especially not for a publisher with only two releases currently available (if I understood the site correctly; one book a day, and this is the second day, so I assume there's only two books for sale. I could be wrong, but that was the way I read it.) They should seriously consider adding hover text.

It is a very pretty site, although every time I try to click on something it disappears and it seems to take forever to find the right place to click. Overall I find it really confusing and difficult, sorry to say; not particularly user-friendly. When I visit a website I want to get in and get out, not make several attempts to find excerpts and things and end up simply looking at an enlargement of the book's cover.

 

[JanDarby]

There's a note somewhere on the site -- forget where -- that they're releasing the first ten or so books on the first day, but after that, the books will be released one a day.

I'm a skeptic about this publisher, but I have to admit, first, that the site is reasonably user friendly after some initial investigation (I'd be happier with less flashing stuff and without the naked couple in the home page so it would be SFW, and also b/c I just don't find the specific picture particularly appealing) and, second, the cover-copy-style descriptions are very well done by someone who knows how to write this kind of copy. The latter is definitely a positive thing, something that this epublisher offers that not all epublishers do.

I do wonder about the economics of releasing the books at Fictionwise the same day as the original release at the publisher's own site, and how that affects the author's royalties (since fictionwise takes a chunk of the price for itself and, at least with other epublishers, the bulk of sales for a given book occurs in the release month, with spikes later as new books are released by the author).

JD

 

[jennontheisland]

I do wonder about the economics of releasing the books at Fictionwise the same day as the original release at the publisher's own site, and how that affects the author's royalties (since fictionwise takes a chunk of the price for itself and, at least with other epublishers, the bulk of sales for a given book occurs in the release month, with spikes later as new books are released by the author).

Oh! That's where the 6.99 "retail" price comes from. I was wondering about that.

 

[Stacia Kane]

I should have said. Yes, the blurbs are nicely written, and I like that the excerpts are more than a few paragraphs long. That's very important.

But I still think the site is confusing.

 

[para]

Maybe its the time of day or something but the site seems rather slow. It's not a site I would visit if I had dial up.

 

[Stlight]

Yep, it's pretty slow on dial-up. Take the flash thing off your computer and you won't get naked couple. Guess you don't have that option at work, huh.

 

[Stacia Kane]

There are 14 books for sale, and another dozen or so short stories, all of which were available at launch. They are going to the book-a-day schedule starting Dec. 14. This is all clearly listed on the site.

I guess I'm just stupid, huh? Because you keep going out of your way to insist everything is "blaringly" obvious and "clearly listed", so I guess the point you're making is that I am dumb not to have seen/understood it.

Let's hope people looking to buy the books are smarter than me.

 

[Deb Kinnard]

I haven't visited the RR site, but in my experience with small press and starting-up web sites, they usually begin a little bit clumsy until customers complain. Then the glitches are ironed out and you get a more user-friendly site. If stuff is "obvious" on a site such as these, it simply means you've learned how to navigate it by investing some time there.

Of course there are sites that never really come up to user-friendly. Check the Light Sword thread if you want the straight skinnay on such a site...

 

[jennontheisland]

I guess I'm just stupid, huh? Because you keep going out of your way to insist everything is "blaringly" obvious and "clearly listed", so I guess the point you're making is that I am dumb not to have seen/understood it.

Let's hope people looking to buy the books are smarter than me.

Yeah, I had to click through each catagory to find out what it was. Not blaringly obvious from the main page by any stretch of the imagination. And I've yet to find any decription of the 14 books now, book a day later. Guess I'm not looking hard enough.

 

[IceCreamEmpress]

I guess I'm just stupid, huh? Because you keep going out of your way to insist everything is "blaringly" obvious and "clearly listed", so I guess the point you're making is that I am dumb not to have seen/understood it.

It's a fascinating public relations technique.

 

[Stacia Kane]

While this all looks like 'junk' to me, Jenny Rappaport does report that agent Lori Perkins is working with Ravenous Romance. I guess that gives them gravitas.

http://litsoup.blogspot.com/2008/12/ravenous-romance-launch.html

Yes, the Perkins connection--and what exactly it gives them--has been discussed extensively in this thread. You might want to read it; it may seem less like "junk" to you then.

 

[IceCreamEmpress]

"Junk" was my polite euphemism for smut.

That's not a euphemism at all, and it's hardly "polite".

People who write and read erotica don't mind the genre they enjoy being called "smut" so much as they mind it being called "junk".

"Junk" is a value statement, and really not appropriate here. If erotica's not for you, it's not for you, but that doesn't make it "junk"--nobody's making you read it, or the threads about the houses who publish it.

 

[mlhernandez]

"Junk" was my polite euphemism for smut. Sorry, but I write for children and erotica is just not on my list of 'to-read'. It will be junk to me no matter what names support it.

I only posted about the Perkins connection since I saw it on Jenny's blog.

Uh, harsh much? You may not care for erotica or erotic romance but to call it smut or junk is insulting to those of who do enjoy reading and/or writing it. For that matter, some of the most beautifully written literary works are erotica. Anais Nin's Delta of Venus, for example.

 

[Fae Sutherland]

Wow, if calling an entire genre, and one of the hottest selling genres at that, 'junk' is polite, I'd hate to see what she thinks is *impolite*.

Manners, get you some.

 

[Marva]

Wow, if calling an entire genre, and one of the hottest selling genres at that, 'junk' is polite, I'd hate to see what she thinks is *impolite*.

Manners, get you some.

Manners? How about those who don't allow another person their opinion? That's pretty rude.

 

[Jersey Chick]

There's nothing wrong with your opinion, so much as how you phrased said opinion.

To a certain group of writers, referring to their genre as "junk" is kind of like me coming into your house and saying, "Hmm... this furniture's crap."

I'm entitled to think your furniture is crap, but there's a nicer way to say it.

That's all.

 

[Chumplet]

Going to to a thread that discusses a subject you have no interest in, and then calling the genre 'junk' (and thinking it is smut) is like a romance author going to the children's forum and calling the genre 'immature'.

This thread is not about opinion of what is tasteful or not tasteful, it is discussion of an erotica publisher. It isn't about 'allowing' anything. Everyone is allowed their opinion, but pushing your views on others just isn't nice.

It's like going to a theater to watch a horror film, then complaining to the other patrons about how you don't like horror films.

 

[Fae Sutherland]

Manners? How about those who don't allow another person their opinion? That's pretty rude.

You're welcome to your opinion. I'm welcome to my opinion that calling other authors hard work junk is rude and lacking in manners. Maybe I think childrens books are junk (which I don't, but if I did) it'd be rude of me to go into a thread specifically for childrens authors and say "God this is all a bunch of junk you guys write." I'm sure you work hard on your 'junk', and we do too.

 

[Stacia Kane]

Manners? How about those who don't allow another person their opinion? That's pretty rude.

Perhaps you should read the rules of this forum again. We respect our fellow writers here; that means we do not leap into threads about publishers in certain genres, simply to point out that the writers participating in it write "junk"--there was no other reason for your comment, which made it clear you hadn't bothered to read any of the thread at all, but simply wanted to pop in and tell us all how we write junk and you are so much better than the rest of us because you don't.

As has been said, would you like me to walk into your house and say "Wow, your furniture is crap"?

Or, more to the point, shall I start a thread about your publisher, and say "I'm not bothering to look at their site or anything they do, but I think it's a bunch of garbage"?

Would you still think I had a right to my opinion then?

You can think erotica is "junk" all you like--it makes me feel pretty sorry for you, frankly, that you are so unimaginative, and that you regard the physical expression of love as "junk", but perhaps that's just me--but to come into this thread with the sole purpose of telling us all how worthless we (and our work) are was incredibly rude, and if you thought about it for a minute you'd know that.

 

[eqb]

Well said, December.

And getting back to the *real* topic....

Yes, there are some minor usability glitches with the website, but that's not unusual for a launch. (And I'm sure the owners will take comments into account, and won't simply dismiss them. They're professionals.)

I am concerned how they'll be able to keep up the high volume of quality releases, but that's something that will become clear over the next few months. It's an interesting venture, though.

 

[veinglory]

One method seems to be breaking books into installments--so not every day's feature would be a whole new book?

 

[JanDarby]

One method seems to be breaking books into installments

Except that's not what they're promising (although they are offering some books as installments, but they only count for one day's release, as far as I can tell). They're promising one novel AND one short story a day. Somewhere they specifically said (in a press release?) 365 novels AND 365 short stories a year.

Just the one short story a day is a challenging goal. Ruthie's Club probably does around 30 stories a month, but they're not ALSO doing 30 novels. Places like ERWA and Clean Sheets have less than a dozen stories in a month and a few other sites (fishnetmag is the only one I can think of, off the top of my head) average one or two stories a month, if that.

Not saying it can't be done, but it's a challenge to maintain quality and to establish a niche that's different from what's already out there, much of it for free.

JD

 

[emlynley]

One method seems to be breaking books into installments--so not every day's feature would be a whole new book?

From what I gather from Lori and Holly they are trying to have one serialized book per week, in addition to a new novel per day and one new story per day. I know they'd contracted at least 80 books as of a month ago, so they have new releases through at least the end of January, and that isn't even counting anything new they've taken since then. My novel is slated for January though I don't have date yet, and I got the contract in late October.

I don't think the pipeline of stories is quite as full, but I haven't been paying as much attention to those numbers.

 

[Irysangel]

I did notice that the main graphic changed, so I suspect that whatever 'complaints' we have here are getting fed back to the publisher so they can tweak.

If this is the case, can you tell them that the last 2 days, I've checked the site and the 'Book of the Day' is blank, as well as the short story of the day. I see the graphic that says "Buy here! Buy today's book!" etc, but no actual book.

Just thought I'd pass that along. I'm much happier that the main photo is now just of people kissing instead of almost-nudity. Much safer for work.