Please Boycott Amazon!

Okay, it's Easter Sunday (hope you're enjoying it!), which is one of the last days of the year I want to wake up to such disturbing news, let alone have to post about it.

It seems, my friends, I've been amazon ranked.

You see, in the past few days Amazon has decided that its customers must be protected from books with "adult" content and has "delisted" the sales rankings for books with erotic or GLBT themes. (See Dear Author post here for initial story and analysis.) At first, I was relatively unconcerned, as I thought it just meant my book would no longer have that "sales ranking" number, which frankly, of late, only serves to depress me.

It turns out, however, that this "delisting" has a number of other negative consequences, since it also hinders direct searches for books that have been determined to be in the "adult" category. This means that, if you search on Amazon in "All Departments" for either my name or my book title or a combination of both, my book does not come back in the search results and, in fact, my last name is even crossed out as though I don't exist. (Apparently, if you narrow your search to Books, I magically exist as does the bookThe problem with this is that, if you have just searched "All Departments" and have been assured no matching product exists, your next thought is not going to be, "Well, it's a book. Maybe I should search there." I mean, if there is no matching product in all departments, how can there be one in books?)



Now, I can (as a parent with young children) have some sympathy for the notion that content should be filterable to prevent the small fry from finding books that are inappropriate for them, and I would say the erotic books qualify as inappropriate (though the notion that any book with a GLBT theme, including non-fiction and YA stories, should be hidden from is simply appalling and mind-blowing). But why not have a simple toggle swtich--something to allow the end-user to indicate they DON'T want the adult content filtered out? Granted, kids could click on it, but really, they can click the "I'm an adult" link on YouPorn and get in, for crap's sake.

Of course, while we're at it, there is the fact that all novels with clearly sexual and adult content aren't being blocked by Amazon. All of Laurell K. Hamilton's books are still right there, easily accessible, and though I've never read any of her work, there's no doubting they're brimming with erotic content. The sheer arbitrariness of which books get delisted or not is breathtaking and frightening. With a single swoop of their pen, Amazon has decided that it's perfectly okay to destroy some authors' careers while preserving others. That is...atrocious.

So, please, until Amazon rectifies this grievous wrong, do not purchase anything from them. It isn't often that I believe the world is out to get us, but in this case, paranoia is warranted. And please help all the authors who have been affected by this (it's not just me, not by a longshot) by contacting Amazon's customer support, either by email at ecr@amazon.com and the customer service phone number is 1-800-201-7575.

Thank you for your support.

What's So Twit-tastic About It?

A little over a week ago, I succumbed to a combination of peer pressure, curiosity, and Brent Spiner¹ and joined the Twitterverse. I must admit, I've been enjoying it--far too much, in fact. When people tried to explain the concept to me, I truly didn't get it. People would post 140-character blog entries that I could "follow." But what could anyone say in 140 characters that I'd be interested in following?

But within a few hours of my first Tweet, all became clear. Turns out, Twitter is this magical place that spans the gap between blogs and IM chat. It's a little like a Facebook home page, but without all the invitations to events and requests for Sea Garden creatures and whatnot coming along for the ride.

So, now that I'm impossibly hooked, why not come follow me? You can find me at http://www.twitter.com/jackiebarbosa. If you follow me, I'll follow you ;)!

¹The actor who played Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, my all-time favorite character in the Star Trek universe. When I learned Mr. Spiner was a twitterer, all my resistance was futile. I have indeed been assimilated.

Why Do We Do It?

Now, now, get your mind out of the gutter. (Okay, yes, that's probably where it belongs when you're reading the blog of an erotic romance writer, but seriously, I don't talk about that particular it that much here! I save it for the books.)

No, today, I'm mulling about why writers write. More specifically, why I write. I've been asking myself the question a lot lately because, at the moment, I am not writing because I have to--at least not in any contractual sense. No one is breathing down my neck for this manuscript, and when it is done, there is no guarantee that anyone will be beating down my agent's door to buy it.

Some days, usually when the story refuses to bend to my will and the words are coming with great difficulty, writing really does seem like a colossal waste of time and effort. I'm not enjoying it, there's no assurance anyone but my CPs and my agent will ever read it, and there must be a thousand more immediately productive things I could be doing with my time.

And yet, I can't seem to stop. There's a drive, an urge to do it, even when it feels about as pleasurable as peeling my skin off, inch by excruciating inch.

My father (who wrote two novels and did lots of freelance nonfiction writing) used to say that he had to write. It wasn't something he did because he wanted to, but because he needed to. That's not to say wanting to was never part of the equation. After all, we need to eat to survive, but most of us enjoy our food, at least a significant proportion of the time.

All of that said, I know plenty of writers who claim no particular compulsion to write. They do it because they enjoy it and/or they make a living at it, and it's better than any other job they could be doing. And more power to them.

But for me, the compulsion is the thing that keeps me going even when it's rough, when the doubts set in. Because the doubts will set in. Is my hero really as hawt and sexy as my CP says? Is my heroine TSTL or just plain bitchy and unlikeable? Is my amazing and clever plot really stupid and boring? And the love scenes--are they sexy and erotic and emotionally engaging or just...meh? But I'll never know the answers unless I soldier on, so I'm glad that I can keep writing, even when it hurts.

YOUR TURN: What about you? If you write, why do you it? And if you don't, do you wonder why other people do? Or wish you could?

A Whine about Taxes

Okay, nothing to do with them being too much or too difficult to prepare or anything like that. But honestly, who in DOG'S name thought that it would be a good idea to have people PAY to e-file?

Hello, IRS and Franchise Tax Board--you have said on more than one occasion that efilers save the government money. Their returns require fewer hours of human manpower for processing, thereby reducing costs. And yet you still want us to pay you? Are you mad?

This year, my TurboTax software came with five free federal efiles. So I will definitely be filing my federal taxes electronically. But the state of California wants to charge me $19.95 per return. Hello, it costs me <$5 to print and mail you the bloody thing. Why would I pay you four times as much?

Talk about penny-wise and pound foolish. Sheesh. No wonder government is always broke!

Personality Types and the Internet

Today at our department meeting, we were talking about various personality typing indexes. The most well-known of these is the Myers-Briggs index, which determines your personality type or style based on four "opposing" sets of characteristics:

• Introverted vs Extroverted
• Sensing vs iNtuition
• Thinking vs Feeling
• Judging vs Perceiving

These four characteristics can then be mixed and matched in up to 16 different combinations. I've taken Myers-Briggs tests numerous times, and while the first letter (I or E) seems to change depending on the mood I'm in, I almost always wind up with NTJ as my last four letters.

Which is why I was utterly astonished to discover, when I tried out this tool for analyzing a website's content based on the Myers-Briggs index, that both my main site and this blog have exactly the opposite final three letters. My sites, it seems, are all Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving! (My website is an introvert and my blog is an extrovert, which I guess makes sense, lol.)

Anyway, I thought this was very interesting. When I tried the tool out on some of my friends sites, I was impressed by the degree to which their sites seemed to match what I think of as their personalities. Of course, some of them I only KNOW through their websites and blogs, so perhaps that doesn't mean much. Still, it was intriguing...

Anyway, if you're interested in finding out the Myers-Briggs type of your website and those of your friends, favorite authors, what have you, it's here: http://typealyzer.com.

My New Obsession: Lost in Austen

Okay, I will make what may be a somewhat shocking confession: I'm really not that big of an Austen fan. Oh, I've read the biggies--Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma--but they don't draw me back for repeat reads over and over again. I've enjoyed the movie adaptations I've seen, but I haven't gone out of my way to see them. I'm more of a "if it happens to be on Masterpiece Theater and I happen to have the time" kind of girl when it comes to watching Austen movies. And I haven't had any particular desire to seek out any of the modern Austen sequels that have become so popular of late.

So, when I checked the TV menu last night and found an hour-long show called Lost in Austen was on my PBS station, I was only mildly intrigued. But there was nothing else I wanted to watch, so I decided to give it a whirl.

And, oh my goodness, am I glad I did! Lost in Austen is about a modern-day Londoner, Amanda Price, whose favorite book is Pride and Predudice. She reads it over and over again as an escape from the coarse rudeness and lack of romanticism in modern life. And then, one night, after her boyfriend proposes to her and then passes out on the couch, drunk, she hears a noise in her bathroom. When she goes to investigate, she discovers Elizabeth Bennett in her bathtub. Shortly thereafter, she and Elizabeth switch places.

I won't reveal more than that because, well, it would be a spoiler, but I think what made this so much fun for me is that it really is seeing the historical romance through the eyes of a modern woman, which is the way we read Austen and all modern romance novels with historical settings. Not to mention, it is very funny.

The entire show is made up of four one-hour episodes, and I'm already eagerly anticipating episode 2. In the meantime, I reckon I'll fire up the DVR and watch episode 1 a few times more!

I Know It's Been Quiet...

But that's because I've been quietly plotting world domination...muahaha!

Well, that's not entirely true. I did spend a few weeks under a rock after my option book proposal was...well, not exactly rejected, but postponed by my editor at Kensington. I knew there was a very good possibility of that happening, but when it actually did happen, I was a bit more discouraged than I thought I'd be. Even so, the door's not locked, just temporarily closed. Prospects may be better in the fall.

In the meantime, my agent (the lovely Kevan Lyon of the newly-minted Marsal Lyon Literary Agency) and I decided the best course of action would be for me to dust off my Victorian-set single-title historical romance and finish it with the idea of shopping it during the summer. This is a book I started quite a while ago, and I really do love the characters and plot, so it's no hardship to be working on it again after the hiatus. I'm about a third of the way into the manuscript now, and hope to finish the first draft by late May or early June.

I'm also trying to slip a few smaller projects in between the cracks. Those who read and enjoyed my first contemporary novella, The Gospel of Love: According to Luke, may be pleased to know that finished the sequel, According to Matthew, last month. It's currently biding its time in the submission queue, but I hope to hear within a few more weeks whether it will be accepted for publication. I have a few other small irons on the fire, as well, including (are you ready?) a book I'm writing that's aimed at the middle grade/YA market. (Hey, I have to write something my kids can read, right?)

And in addition to all that, I'm working on promotion for Behind the Red Door, which will be out in a mere two months! (I'm still sort of breathless over that). As part of that effort, I'll be rolling out a new, improved website and blog on or about May 1. That probably means this blog will go away as I convert from Blogger to Wordpress (hmmm, I wonder if Blogger considers that admission to be filterable content?).

With everything that's going on, I'll only be posting here sporadically for the next few weeks (but hopefully a bit more than the last few!). I do promise, however, to post soon and ask you if you have any questions you'd like me to ask some of the blog guests I'm lining up for the month of May. Among those who've already accepted my invitation to guest are my agent and her partner, Jill Marsal. So, be thinking about what you'd like to ask an agent, because I'll be asking for questions soon!