If I don't answer all your questions here, send me an email.
For the next few months I probably won't make any major changes to the site and will just add reviews now and again. In December I will probably not only move the site but give it a complete overhaul. I will keep you posted on the progress.
One difference that will be noticeable in the next few weeks actually is that, unlike Kristina, I am not going to write all the reviews. I enlisted my friend Eve to write the reviews for all the historical and multi-cultural novels. The main reason for this is that I don't really read these kind of books and if I was only writing about books that I liked the site would be very one-sided! Also, Eve is amazingly funny and I am sure you all will love what she has to say.
Anyway, please drop me a note if you read this! I would love to know if people are out there and what they think of this site. Tell me what you love, what you hate or anything else you have to say. Well, if all you have to say is that you loved Kristina and that you hate me for taking over the site, maybe you can skip the note. :)
Enjoy the new reviews (when I get them up that is) and don't forget to write!
I began this website as a challenge to myself. My husband is an electrical engineer, and knows all kinds of programming languages. He also thinks of himself as more creative than me. But he knows not a damn thing about the web. I decided to take my two week vacation from work to learn HTML. Now I'm hooked and I can say "hey! I am too creative. And I know something you don't!" But now I've created a monster, because he's decided to outdo me. Ugh.
2. Barnes and Noble has very little to do with this site. I don't consider my site to be an online book store. I created my site on my own. There are links to purchase titles from Barnes and Noble for my visitors convenience. Yes, if you click on one of my links to them, and then choose to buy a book, I will get a very small commission. But, what I put on my site is by no means influenced by Barnes and Noble, and I'm not expecting to make much money from them.
3. There are two ways you can encourage me to read your book:
A - email me and tell me about it. Call my attention to it. I'll add it to my list of books to buy and read if it sounds good. But, please keep in mind, I make little to no money off of this site. I love to read and buy a lot of books. But I can only afford so many.
B - Send me your books, or have your publisher send me galleys. I may sound naive, but it didn't really occur to me that you all might consider doing this until I had several authors ask me if I accepted books for review. At this point, I can guarantee I will read everything sent to me. However. I must emphasize that I will only feature books on my site that I truly love. If you would like to send me material, please send me an email, and I will tell you how.
4. I am currently working hard to broaden my horizons. You will gradually be seeing more "smaller names" appear on my site. Understand that I am a single person. When I sat down to write this site, I began with a list in my head of the most memorable romance novels I had read. It was fairly narrow I know. But like everyone else, I hated to waste my money, so I bought mainly authors I had heard of, those on the NYT bestseller lists, etc. One of the ways you can help me expand my site is to reccommend books by authors you don't see here.
5. Soon those annoying ads will be gone. The space I am using for my site right now is free. Soon I will be upgrading to a site that will charge me a monthly fee. To offset the cost, I will try and sell ad space on my site, but it will be minimal, and not in pop up format. In the meantime, please try to understand that this service I am trying to provide is not gaining me anything financially - at least not at the moment - and therefore I need those ads.
6. If you are a published romance author, and have a site, I will link to you if you email me your URL. Please no adult book sites. If you have a romance related site that is exceptional in some way - not just lists of links - invite me to check it out and I may link to it. If you have a site for writers, I may link to you. If you have written an article on writing, I may link to it. If you want to write an article, I may place it on my site. Let's see, have I forgotten anything? send me an email stating how you would like me to consider linking to you and I will consider it.
7. Use it any way you like. You can link to my review on your web site. You can quote my review on your web site. You can quote my review in your next book. I really don't care. I would appreciate it if you would let me know, just because it's nice to know those things. Then I can say "look honey, she quoted my review", just like you can say "look honey, she liked my book." :)