Jules Jones

I'd held off posting about this morning's other romance uproar, because it wasn't clear whether the letter that sparked this was a hoax. But it has now been confirmed that it was indeed the RT publisher who sent a long letter to a reader's blog, taking her to task for being mean, and saying that women must support each other, in a letter that was itself very rude -- and manipulative.

There's a good summary at another reader's blog, Dear Author:

It was first discussed here:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/05/01/why-romantic-times-reviews-are-not-credible/

In the comments thread, a number of people commented on the hypocrisy displayed in the letter. I mentioned the disconnect between the "support women, male-run businesses are evil" and the treatment of the mostly female Manlove group, supposedly because businessmen (who should not have been in Promo Alley in the first place) had complained about the gay content of their promo material.

There was a second post on Dear Author explicitly addressing the issue of Manlove's promo being removed for being "too risque" while much more risque het material, including explicit threesomes, was left untouched:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/05/02/romantic-times-update-internet/
[ETA: l_prieto has posted the poster deemed too risque, and examples of some of the het material that *wasn't* removed -- compare and contrast...]

Further post about a possible conflict of interest issue in RT attacking reader-reviewers for their blunt review of a particular book (which is what set this off):
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/05/02/romantic-times-update-kathryn-falks-vested-interest-in-elloras-cave/

And here it is confirmed that the post was indeed by Kathryn Falk:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2007/05/02/romantic-times-update-rt-confirms-comment-by-kathryn-falk/

Note the spin being put on what happened to the Manlove promo material at RT. Please compare the RT staff member's insinuation that the poster involved a sex act between men with the actual material on display here:
http://sensualwriter.blogspot.com/2007/05/rthyatt-author-targeted.html
Also compare the suggestion that the other promo material was left untouched with Laura Baumbach's description of how most of the promo items were removed and placed somewhere else almost out of sight.

And if you're wondering about my views on tough reviews -- I blogged about reviewing last year:
http://julesjones.livejournal.com/61433.html
and posted from the author's perspective in the comments thread here:
http://www.erecsite.com/2007/03/thing-about-book-review-websites.html