All the aspiring authors out there may want to check out the "Dear Lucky Agent" contest, which starting today is taking submissions from unpublished middle grade and YA novels. Entries are judged by a literary agent (Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency) and prizes include a 25-page manuscript critique. After all, just like Hansel, YA is so hot right now.

Whether the book starts with the protagonist staring at themselves in the mirror and mentally taking stock of every detail they see in front of them or the information is fed in little pieces throughout the book, most authors like to give some information about what the major characters look like. Sometimes the description is exhaustive (if you just took the parts of the Twilight saga that talked about Edward Cullen's physique, how many pages do you think it would take up?) and sometimes we don't get much more than "he was short" or "she looked like life had thrown her a few hard knocks."

Since people read differently, it stands to reason that preferences vary as to how much of a physical description you get. Sometimes, though, I'll come across something that totally throws me off. Halfway through the book, there'll be a mention of the heroine having blonde hair when I've spent 200 pages or so envisioning her dark. It's enough to give me a mental stutter, and sometimes I can't bring the two pictures of the heroine together in my head. "Stop telling me she's blonde! I KNOW SHE IS NOT."

Anyone else have this problem? Has it ever frustrated you enough to dampen your enjoyment of a book? How much of a physical description do you like to see in your books?

Publisher: Harper Collins, 2009
Genre: Horror
Sub-genre: Paranormal, YA
Rating: 3 1/2 pints of blood



This is the kind of cover that draws me in. It's moody and atmospheric; check out the fog, the circling birds and the gloomy trees. The lost-looking girl in white floats across the cover; is she real or not? And then the red letters scrawled across the front add a lovely touch of drama. And hey, most of these elements are even relevant to the book. Final verdict? Cover win!

Mason is being marketed as a YA novel, presumably because the protagonists are all high school aged. And, well, there's that whole "YA is so hot right now!" aspect to it, too. It works as a YA novel, but it works as an adult novel as well. Those who are not fond of reading YA should have no qualms about this critter.

( Insert witty tagline here. )

Alright, I know this particular clip has been made into about a million different things (my personal favourite is the grammar nazi), but considering the iPad buzz since Apple's unveiling last week, it seems appropriate to share the same rant most people seem to have been going with (perhaps minus the German).

I'm sure most of you have heard about the huge Amazon/McMillan debaucle over this past weekend, which I totally failed to comment on because the topic has been covered from every angle. I'm going to assume most of you know at least the basics; for those who don't, allow me to sum up. Amazon and McMillan are both jerks who threw tantrums over their disagreement this weekend and were publically caught slapping each other with fishes. More or less.

In light of that, the recent announcement by Hachette about their plans for e-books and e-book pricing is a breath of fresh air. They will be using an agency model, to the benefit of their authors and the readers who buy their books. What does this mean? They'll be releasing their e-books the same day as the paper version, rather than waiting 4-6 months. And the pricing model?

"The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time."

Publishers, take note. This is an e-book pricing/availability plan I can get behind. I am totally willing to pay more than 10$ for an e-book when it's a hardcover release. When the book is available in mass market paperback, though, it seems ludicrous to be charging upwards of 15$, whether it be on first release or on the re-release, a year or so after the hardcover first comes out. And making me wait 4-6 months for the e-book does not make me more likely to buy the paper version; it makes me more likely to forget the book exists and wind up not buying the thing at all. Just sayin'.

Publisher: Delacorte, 2009
Genre: Horror
Sub-genre: Paranormal, YA
Rating: 3 pints of blood



For the most part, the cover is fairly standard for YA fare. What makes it stand out are the roses all along the bottom and side, which are very striking but have little to do with the actual content of the book. The skulls, on the other hand, both over goth girl's head and embedded in the flowers, are appropriate and... well, maybe not pretty exactly, but certainly eye-catching. Actually, I think I would have liked the cover better if the roses weren't there and goth chick were centered more, complete with glowy skulls overhead. (Of course, in the book the heroine's hair has been dyed fire engine red, but let's not niggle with too many details.)

Meridian is one of those books that straddles the line between dark fantasy and horror, so to be on the safe side I've categorized it as horror here. It's intended for older teens and explores the nature of death, so parental-type persons should consider themselves advised.

( It could be like those lame disclaimers on tv they show before every single program ever. 'This book may contain scenes of violence and mature subject matter. Reader discretion is advised.' )

Series: Guilty #3
Publisher: Avon Books 2005
Genre: Romance
Sub-genre: Historical
Rating: 4 pints of blood



I want to say that I find this cover quite ugly and insipid, but if you see the back cover you'll be grateful that all we get is a bed and a rose! The back cover has one of those atrocious painted scenes of tanned hunk with 80s hair groping naked woman (with purple sheet conveniently covering her bits) with her head thrown back like some kind of Madonna video (also from the 80s). It's so awful I consider myself lucky that the front cover is so understated!


( The awful truth after the happy wedding. It's no fairy tale! )

I know a ton of readers who profess a scary love for libraries. The whole idea of a library is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's a whole building full of books! And you can take them home, and they're free to read, which makes trying out new authors a very affordable risk. It's also a wonderful place to find expensive reference material or hard-to-find books that have gone out of print. And the whole place smells like books.

I do have some issues with libraries, though. Mostly in that they seem to want me to give the book back. I am notoriously a book keeper, which kind of explains the state of my bookshelves. I want to be able to go back and read it again at my whim, which is a lot harder to do if I don't have it. And if I'm going out to buy all the library books I've read because I need my own copy, I'm not really saving so much money with that whole "free books" thing.

Anyone else feel this way, or are you all content to return the books to the library and think no more of it?

When asked about the price of e-books for the iPad, Steve Jobs seems quite certain his pricing for e-books will become the new price point (14.99$ instead of Amazon's standard 9.99$). "Publishers are actually withholding their books from Amazon because they're not happy," he says. Well, alright, that part I have no problem believing, but Amazon still has an insane number of e-books available for very cheap and since the iPad will run iPhone reading applications, those e-books are easy enough for iPad users to purchase and download.

Actually, my favourite part is where Jobs says "Ten hours is a long time, you're not going to read for 10 hours." Hands up, everyone who has spent ten hours reading? Oh look, the majority of you readerly-type people. Well, good to know the people making this device totally understand their customer base.

JD Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye died on Wednesday. His literary representative told the New York Times “Despite having broken his hip in May, his health had been excellent until a rather sudden decline after the new year. He was not in any pain before or at the time of his death.” Salinger was 91 years old, and our thoughts go out to his friends and family.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you heard a little something about the tablet Apple has come out with and all the press that's followed. Those who have been waiting for a viable sooper e-reader, something with a bigger/better screen than the iPhone, better multi-tasking than the Kindle, Sony reader and Nook, and a few cool features will be disappointed. You can use the iBooks application, but there aren't any cool add-ons for readers. What does it do that's new? Not actually much, in spite of the sleek and shiny. It's large, too, enough to make one-handed handling awkward.

And yes, there's that whole thing with the name.


Boy, I just can't wait to get my hands on a device whose name brings mental associations of pain, mess, inconvenience and bulk. Awesome.

Looking for a good YA read? Kelley Armstrong's The Summoning is available to be read online for free via HarperTeen. For those unfamiliar with the book, this is the first of a trilogy in what are some of my very favourite YA books, and is reviewed here. But hey, you don't have to take my word for it, you can just click on the link and discover for yourself at 0$ down.

It's no secret that giving your book away will encourage many more people to pick up a copy than otherwise would. People are a lot more willing to take a chance on something they don't have to pay for, and hey, at least that way you know you're being read, right?

Of course, some people aren't taking that point of view, especially with the free e-books being offered across the internet, especially through Amazon's kindle store. Some publishers are using the free books in an effort to spur sales, to help readers discover a new series or a new author or a new product line. Others think giving out free books devalues the price of a book. After all, why buy something if you can just download a book for free?

So what do you think? Do the free e-books you download make you more adventurous in trying out new things, or do you just download and let the unread thing sit on your harddrive? Has a free book ever spurred you to go on and buy another book, or do you leave it off when it stops being free?

Publisher: Drollerie, 2010
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Swords and sorcery, Steampunk
Rating: 3 1/2 pints of blood



Well, what have we here? Some traditionally asian artwork on the front of a fantasy novel heavily influenced by flavours of Asia? Is... is that allowed?

I really like the juxtaposition of the stark image against the warm tones of the rest of the cover. It's pretty and it's appropriate and most importantly, sets the mood for the book. Also, fox!

Stormy Bamboo is pretty unique, as far as fantasy goes. It's epic fantasy in the historic far east with a bit of steampunk thrown in for good measure. You have blood mages and samurai wandering around in a world where steam horses and dirigibles are not so unusual, and a bit of politics thrown in for good measure. It might sound totally random and eclectic, but everything fits together in such a natural way you don't come away thinking "wow, there was a lot going on in there." Instead, you're more likely to think "I've never read anything like that before." Curious? There's an excerpt up at Bewildering Stories. Also, y'know, there's more review to be had if you want to hear more about it, too.

( Spoiler-free, as always. )

Since we're on a "reading in colour" kick, I figured there were a couple things I should highlight. First is the POC Reading Challenge, for those keen on trying it. They have various levels depending on how big of a commitment you want to make, which frees you to read anywhere from 1-25 books written by or written about a person of colour. The site has a few suggested books if you have no idea where to start, but there are any number of options available if you know where to look.

Also, people interested in books featuring books with people of colour (and especially books with covers that match, rather than being subject to whitewashing) may be interested in this petition, which is written to the publishing houses informing them that people do, in fact, want to buy and read these books. "We love books for their story; so if the main character is Asian, Hispanic, African-American, gay or overweight, and is accurately represented on the cover, fear not. If we love the story, we’ll certainly buy the book!"

Good news, everyone. According to Publishers Weekly, Bloomsbury has been sufficiently shamed about their second case of white-washed cover art. They are no longer supplying the original cover, and will re-design it with a more appropriate image before re-releasing. This is actually an expensive decision on their part, and I have to give them small kudos for changing it now instead of promising they'd change it before it went to the printers a second time.

Blogosphere? You be awesome. Bloomsbury and all other publishers? We be watching.

In the wake of Bloomsbury's second cover fail involving whitewashing, I wanted to take a look at ethnic representation in genre fiction. It's out there, but it can be pretty hard to find. Between the whitewashing and the crummy marketing, it's no wonder the powers that be seem convinced people of colour "don't sell." For those of us interested in checking out something other than Mighty Whitey saving the world yet again, it can be hard to find non-white characters who have, like, personality.

It seems strange, though, that this is still a problem. I mean, it's not like this is a new issue. Let's take a look, shall we, at the cast for the original Star Trek, back in the 1960s?



Interesting. We have an asian man and a black woman considered as part of the main cast, as equals to all the white dudes roaming around, as distinctive characters in their own right. Back in 1966. Certainly it was a big deal at the time, but the times, they were a-changing.

Or so we'd like to think. The truth is, though, that most of today's shows and books feature an all-white cast. It's 2010 and for all its faults, a tv show created in 1966 is more racially diverse than most of what we're currently exposed to. Oh sure, we have aliens and vampires and all sorts of non-human characters, but to have persons of colour included, well, that's just crazy talk.

Hey, guys. Remember when the powers that be at Bloomsbury slapped a cover featuring a white chick on Justine Larbalestier's Liar, and such a stink was raised by all and sundry they remedied by creating a new cover with the same concept, but a cover model who matched the race described in the actual story? Remember how we were all so happy at this sign of progression (and then immediately saddened that this was, in fact, a sign of progression and not just the natural state of things)? Well, swallow all that, and take a peek at the open letter Ari (of the blog Reading in Color) has written to Bloomsbury.

Yes, folks, it seems that the same publisher that put out Justine Larbalestier's Liar has whitewashed yet another cover. Take a look at Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass:



It's actually a very pretty cover, as far as it stands, but considering the heroine is described as having "dark" or "brown" skin in the novel, it's pretty clear we can chalk this up as another case of Bloomsbury's white-washing division.

Hey, Bloomsbury, here's a clue: one step forward and two steps back is not progression. It is, in fact, regression, and I'm appalled you've chosen to make a habit of white-washing covers. Would it really be so horrible to put a beautiful dark-skinned woman on a book instead of always defaulting to a beautiful white-skinned woman? It would, contrary to what you seem to believe, make me more likely to pick up the book, not less, because it would stand out from everything else on the shelf. Which is in itself a sad statement; it shouldn't be unusual to have a dark-skinned model, but I'm willing to take this one step at a time, so long as we're moving in a forward direction. Are you, Bloomsbury?

For the cover snobs among us (*cough*), Cover Cafe has opened the nominations for the best and worst covers of 2010, so if you've seen anything that strikes you as worthy of acclaim or infamy, feel free to list it. The nomination rules are pretty simple and straightforward, and nominations will be open for awhile yet if nothing's striking you off the top of your head.

Mmm. Cover art.

Who didn't watch Charlie Brown as a kid? (Ok, for some of us "as a kid" means "still do, every holiday.") Here's hoping the gang's musical efforts as they try to write their book reports will spark some memories for you.



What cracks me up is that I still see all these methods used in reviewing books. Take a look around, I'm pretty sure you'll recognize the styles, even if they aren't reviewing Beatrix Potter.