Those stats are so odd. Certainly not reflective of what’s on the shelves. perhaps it’s time for a change.

No matter what, I expect competent writing and an engaging storyline. I’ve had it work for me reading literary fiction and romance (or any other genre) and also fail spectacularly.

So the throwaway “real book” stuff, I just don’t get. I do understand the frustration she seems to be talking about, not necessarily in the HEA or even the formula (lovers meet and fall in love) but the repetition of elements within the formula (baby epilogue).

The, ahem, disrespect label was tacked on me years ago, when writing was just a misfiring neuron in my gray matter. Being the ill-informed slob that I was, I decided to take a writing class. Didn’t know I’d stumbled into a, ahem, literary group. My first offering to the class–admittedly very, very bad–was passed from hand to hand, and finally deemed “too commercial.” I thought that was a good thing until I noticed the pitying gazes of my classmates. Thank God, it was an 8 week class . . .

“Overall: A solid score for a romance novel. Not so solid if you wanted to put it up against literature. But overall a satisfying entry. (not like Dream Hunter) 6.9″

This translates to….

A solid score for a book that was written with the intent to NOT bore everybody to tears or have them ready to start popping prozac by chapter 3. Not so solid if you were aiming for the literary genre, which either depresses people, annoys people or that nobody understands but people stand around talking about how PROFOUND it was~because it’s the “IN” thing to do.

Lit bores me. Just like it bores a lot of people. If it doesn’t bore me, it depresses, so for my book to ‘fail’ as a lit book, would be huge praise for me.

There is no definition of a REAL book. Half the stories I’ve read…or started… don’t really qualify.

But to insult a book because it’s a genre book instead of a book that landed on Oprah’s list?

The people with this mindset are the people I try not to worry about. They won’t ever ‘get’ it, so why frustrate myself trying to change that?

And considering that ‘romance’ and those ‘not real books’ outsell literature and those thought provoking, insightful books that look into the human soul (gack) , they can think what they want. I’ll just continue to sell my not real books and cash my not real checks and smile a not real smile.

For a real book it would have scored a 5.4

A real book, huh? As opposed to what, exactly? Last time I checked romances were written by authors and published on paper, just the same as every other genre.