Author name: SusanGable

The recent antics of politicians from both sides of the aisle in regards to using their opponents’ novels (FICTION!) as a way to smear them, or point accusatory fingers at a huge “moral flaw” in them, has prompted me to write this. For those who’ve missed the fun-and-games as we hit the home-stretch to the latest election, check out Fred Head vs. Susan Combs (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061024/ap_on_el_st_lo/candidate_s_romance_novel ), George Allen vs. Jim Webb (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200610/POL20061027f.html ), and now the hoopla being made (again) over Lynne Cheney’s book. (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/29/cheney.lynne.novel/index.html ) An Open Letter to Politicians of All Parties: It has recently come to my […]

The recent demise of yet another Harlequin line, this time the kick-butt heroine line Bombshell, got me to thinking, which, as anyone who knows me will tell you is always a dangerous thing. I heard from a number of readers who were surprised by the closing, because they had friends who just “loved that line!” I’ve also heard things like this: “I can’t believe they closed that line. I loved that line. I read those books every month at my library.” Before I go any farther with this discussion, I have to offer up a disclaimer. I love libraries. Especially

Okay, if the title of this piece sounds more like it should be for a nursery school class, I apologize. But it seems that this might be of interest to the industry. A follow-up on my last post about Harlequin cutting words from their longer lines — I received information from the Senior Editor of my line (Superromance) that basically what’s going on is a change in HOW we count words. Instead of using the old standard of ms formating for the 250 words per page method, we are now moving to the new computer word count method. That means