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Small Publishers: Webcast on Ebook Distribution Available

I don’t have a lot of time to go into it, but Publisher’s Weekly just came out with an article about a recent webcast on ebook distribution for small publishers.  Here at MonsterLibrarian.com, we see a lot of requests to review ebooks, requests from small presses, and requests from small presses issuing titles as ebooks. Distribution is a major problem for them, since many don’t have the funds to get their titles listed in wholesalers’ databases. So, if you are a small press dealing with ebooks, or think you might go that direction soon, you might want to check this webcast out. It is available free for one week. Hope that helps you all out!

Posted on June 22, 2011 by , Reply

Summer Scares: What Melissa de la Cruz Is Reading

Melissa de la Cruz, author of the YA vampire series Blue Bloods, had her first novel for adults, The Witches of East End,  come out today, from Hyperion. As part of Summer Scares, Melissa offered to share her own recommendations for summer reading. Check out our review of The Witches of East End… you might want to add that to your list as well!

Melissa de la Cruz recommends:

Swamplandia by Karen Russell – more moody and funny than scary, but there is a dark theme to the book. very readable and fun.

Everlasting by Alyson Noel – again not scary but an awesome ending to a great series, very romantic!

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl – a hot Carolina summer, scary, dark and swoony.

For summer reads I also always enjoy anything by Laura Lippman, who is the queen of suspense.

I haven’t read any of these books, and I’m always looking for something new to try, so I’ll be checking her recommendations out. I hope you will, too! Thanks, Melissa!

Posted on June 21, 2011 by , Reply

Horror @ Your Library

The American Library Association has a marketing initiative called “@ your library”. Their conference is rolling around (it’s in New Orleans this year) and ALTAFF (Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations) is holding a session called “Mystery and Horror @ Your Library”. When I saw that I thought “How cool! My professional association is actually shining a light on horror fiction and highlighting horror authors”!

Library Journal’s description of the event gives you an idea of how a lot of the profession thinks of the genre.

Mystery and Horror @ Your Library. Mystery, of course. But horror? Horrors! Best-selling authors in both genres will make your spines tingle.

So, very cool of ALTAFF to buck the trend, right? Except that not a single one of the authors writes horror. Cammie McGovern is on the panel. She’s written a fantastic literary mystery called Eye Contact. Erica Spindler writes romantic suspense. C.S. Harris writes the Sebastian St. Cyr books- historical mysteries. Bill Loehfelm is a crime novelist. S.J. Watson is the only one who might qualify, as a writer of psychological thrillers, but he appears to be a first time author whose first book, Before I Go To Sleep, came out on June 14 of this year.

It sounds like a great book, and I am sure someone on our staff would love to review it (hint, hint), but I don’t think he’s necessarily the best candidate to represent an entire genre. There are so many horror writers out there who would be articulate and passionate, and happy to promote the genre and talk about their books and their “writing life”. How about Brian Keene, Scott Nicholson, Alexandra Sokoloff, Lisa Morton, or, for a librarian’s perspective, Becky Siegel Spratford?

I think this is why we have such a problem with recognition of the genre. Librarians can’t even identify what belongs in it, or who writes it (except for Stephen King). This week I sent out a list of potential review titles- probably 20 books were on the list, at least. One reviewer wrote me back to tell me that she had searched her library system to find if there were any copies of the books available there. Her library system has 58 libraries. Yep, that’s right. How many of the books was she able to find? One. One horror novel off a list of 20, in a library system with 58 libraries.

I appreciate that ALTAFF is trying to promote the genre, even if they can’t exactly identify what it is or who writes it. But what’s the reality? For all the librarians out there, let me ask… where’s the horror @ your library?

Posted on June 21, 2011 by , 2 comments
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