Reviewing and burnout
Man, writing for a blog is not as easy as I thought it would be. On top of that, all that rather nasty scandal involving plagiarism has kinda kept me distracted. For a split second I was tempted to pipe in too ... but people don't need to keep reading about it me thinks. So, I sat on my hands for a bit. As I was looking around for some distraction (I can't spend all of my free time playing Lord of the Rings Online ... though I've been accused of being a hardcore gamer heh) a little lightbulb turned on: I know, I'll bitch and moan about my review burnout! I am brilliant, but you all knew that already.
I have been a reviewer since 2003. When I first started, I was reviewing for more than three sites not to mention that I also wrote a few independent reviews for yet another site.
I reviewed for so many places because I was bored to tears at work. I am an amazingly fast reader, can put a sentence together without that much effort (thank God for good language skills), and I wanted to have as much to choose from as possible for my reading material. Hey, if you see my book spending budget you'll definitely keel over... thank God I don't spend in much else. Anyway, I used to write over six reviews a week, mostly ebooks (please bear in mind that the majority of erotic romance ebooks, at least five-six years ago, where a lot shorter than a paperback, the longest ebooks usually being mainstream romance).
Once I took over a lot more responsibility at JERR I had to quit the other sites I reviewed for. I just couldn't keep up having to hold a full time job (which stopped being boring) plus my tasks at JERR, although I continued reviewing for JERR on top of my other duties there. At times I reviewed an average of about 6 books per issue of the newsletter (average of twelve books a month).
But something changed, it started gradually, but I am now at a point in which I am fastidiously selective with what I pick for review... and this applies to what I choose as reading material as well. I used to be extremely forgiving. I almost "inhaled" rather than read every bit of erotic romance I could get my hands on. At the time, I was basically purchasing almost every single release from Ellora's Cave, not to mention a few other epublishers like New Concepts Publishing.
Thinking further about this, there definitely are a few factors that, in my opinion, have influenced me and got me to the point I now am (reviewing maybe one book every six months, and being extremely careful with my purchases):
1. Too many stories seem to be more of the same, in other words, I am finding less and less storylines that are new to me, at least in concept. Some stories read way too much alike. Is originality outright passe?
2. Poor editing. I went from being okay with mistakes to noticing almost every error. From the very silly ones i.e. in one page the heroine had green eyes ... and two paragraphs down she had blue eyes, to horrid flow (man, this is so prevalent that makes me want to scream), contrived plot ploys, rushed endings, awkward wording, you name it. This is all stuff that if an author is not able to "see" an experienced editor that has a clue would be able to catch. (This goes back to the "everyone can be an author/editor/publisher/reviewer/proofer all wrapped in one" issue which will probably be the subject of a future rant).
3. Too much sex. Yes, there is such a thing as "too much" sex in erotic romance. I always felt this way, even way back when I first discovered erotic romance and the novelty of it all had me enthralled. Most times this has nothing to do with how many sex scenes there are or how many partners are involved, or what the scenario is, or whatever; but it has EVERYTHING to do with how it is written. You can esentially have a book heavy on sex and still get (a) a romantic plot and (b) feel the emotional connection between the main characters involved in the romantic plot. Some examples of authors that do this well are Emma Holly, Angela Knight, Morgan Hawke and Tielle St. Clare.
4. There is no tactful way to bring up this one: there are too many "authors". Seems like anyone that submits an erotic story, as long as it is full of sex, is now being published. Writing is a craft, not something ordinary and common that everyone is good at. And yes, you can be a natural, but you also need to polish that gift. Anyway, I have seen stories being "published" that should have never ever seen the light of day. Seems like anyone can be an "author" now. Have a story you wrote when you were 9? Sex it up and submit it. Then again, I strongly suspect this goes back to the epublishing overload we've been seeing over the past year and a half. Submission overload in the rather tough competitive environment of erotic romance publishing.
5. Erotic romance is still ROMANCE. Sadly, losing track of that very simple and essential concept seems to be more the rule than the exception these days. An erotic romance reader is still a romance reader. Period. Right now, there is a horrendous mish-mash of erotic romance mixed with every other type of erotic fiction out there, not to mention stuff that reads like the smut you could get for free in online porn sites.
6. The novelty of it all just wore out.
All the reasons mentioned above make me wary of trying new publishers and authors, in all honesty. I fear I may end up with another book deleted from my PC's hard drive or tossed into the trash because I know not even my friends will want to read it (almost all my friends read erotic romance). If I added five authors to my autobuy list over the past year, that could be considered a miracle *sigh*
Have any of you felt this way or feel this way? If so, how long would you say have this been going on for you? Share your thoughts!
Mireya
I have been a reviewer since 2003. When I first started, I was reviewing for more than three sites not to mention that I also wrote a few independent reviews for yet another site.
I reviewed for so many places because I was bored to tears at work. I am an amazingly fast reader, can put a sentence together without that much effort (thank God for good language skills), and I wanted to have as much to choose from as possible for my reading material. Hey, if you see my book spending budget you'll definitely keel over... thank God I don't spend in much else. Anyway, I used to write over six reviews a week, mostly ebooks (please bear in mind that the majority of erotic romance ebooks, at least five-six years ago, where a lot shorter than a paperback, the longest ebooks usually being mainstream romance).
Once I took over a lot more responsibility at JERR I had to quit the other sites I reviewed for. I just couldn't keep up having to hold a full time job (which stopped being boring) plus my tasks at JERR, although I continued reviewing for JERR on top of my other duties there. At times I reviewed an average of about 6 books per issue of the newsletter (average of twelve books a month).
But something changed, it started gradually, but I am now at a point in which I am fastidiously selective with what I pick for review... and this applies to what I choose as reading material as well. I used to be extremely forgiving. I almost "inhaled" rather than read every bit of erotic romance I could get my hands on. At the time, I was basically purchasing almost every single release from Ellora's Cave, not to mention a few other epublishers like New Concepts Publishing.
Thinking further about this, there definitely are a few factors that, in my opinion, have influenced me and got me to the point I now am (reviewing maybe one book every six months, and being extremely careful with my purchases):
1. Too many stories seem to be more of the same, in other words, I am finding less and less storylines that are new to me, at least in concept. Some stories read way too much alike. Is originality outright passe?
2. Poor editing. I went from being okay with mistakes to noticing almost every error. From the very silly ones i.e. in one page the heroine had green eyes ... and two paragraphs down she had blue eyes, to horrid flow (man, this is so prevalent that makes me want to scream), contrived plot ploys, rushed endings, awkward wording, you name it. This is all stuff that if an author is not able to "see" an experienced editor that has a clue would be able to catch. (This goes back to the "everyone can be an author/editor/publisher/reviewer/proofer all wrapped in one" issue which will probably be the subject of a future rant).
3. Too much sex. Yes, there is such a thing as "too much" sex in erotic romance. I always felt this way, even way back when I first discovered erotic romance and the novelty of it all had me enthralled. Most times this has nothing to do with how many sex scenes there are or how many partners are involved, or what the scenario is, or whatever; but it has EVERYTHING to do with how it is written. You can esentially have a book heavy on sex and still get (a) a romantic plot and (b) feel the emotional connection between the main characters involved in the romantic plot. Some examples of authors that do this well are Emma Holly, Angela Knight, Morgan Hawke and Tielle St. Clare.
4. There is no tactful way to bring up this one: there are too many "authors". Seems like anyone that submits an erotic story, as long as it is full of sex, is now being published. Writing is a craft, not something ordinary and common that everyone is good at. And yes, you can be a natural, but you also need to polish that gift. Anyway, I have seen stories being "published" that should have never ever seen the light of day. Seems like anyone can be an "author" now. Have a story you wrote when you were 9? Sex it up and submit it. Then again, I strongly suspect this goes back to the epublishing overload we've been seeing over the past year and a half. Submission overload in the rather tough competitive environment of erotic romance publishing.
5. Erotic romance is still ROMANCE. Sadly, losing track of that very simple and essential concept seems to be more the rule than the exception these days. An erotic romance reader is still a romance reader. Period. Right now, there is a horrendous mish-mash of erotic romance mixed with every other type of erotic fiction out there, not to mention stuff that reads like the smut you could get for free in online porn sites.
6. The novelty of it all just wore out.
All the reasons mentioned above make me wary of trying new publishers and authors, in all honesty. I fear I may end up with another book deleted from my PC's hard drive or tossed into the trash because I know not even my friends will want to read it (almost all my friends read erotic romance). If I added five authors to my autobuy list over the past year, that could be considered a miracle *sigh*
Have any of you felt this way or feel this way? If so, how long would you say have this been going on for you? Share your thoughts!
Mireya
Recent Comments
~Stacia
I knew that if there was go