Amazon discontinued the ability to create images using their SiteStripe feature and in their infinite wisdom broke all previously created images on 12/31/23. Many blogs used this feature, including this one. Expect my archives to be a hot mess of broken book cover images until I can slowly comb through 20 years of archives to make corrections.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Heroes & Heartbreakers

So there's a new online romance community on the Internet block!  Launching today is Heroes & Heartbreakers, a publisher-neutral online community that will discuss (and squee!) about all things romance.  The official launch was today - and holy cow! - there's just about something for everyone.  Whether it be blog posts, excerpts, short online reads, or contests.  There is oodles of content already - well worth heading on over and poking around a bit.

In other exciting news, I was invited to be one of their semi-regular contributors!  So you can expect to see the occasional SuperWendy post over there from time to time.  And since it's a publisher-neutral community, you can bet that I'll be beating a lot of the same dead horses I have in the last 10+ years discussing a lot of my personal favorite pet causes when it comes to the romance genre.  I'm not sure when my first post is scheduled to go live over there - but hey, it ain't all about me!  Head on over and see who else is hanging out.

Sidenote: I understand they're still working out the kinks of the RSS feed.  But in the meantime?  You can follow H&H on Twitter and FacebookWeeeeeeee!

4 comments:

sybil said...

How can it be truly publisher neutral when there is money involved from one publisher, St Martins? Or are other publishers gonna pony up cash as well?

The fact they are posting up crap loads of Lisa Kleypas and Lora Leigh backlist excerpts (St. Martins authors and very will searche authors) points to manipulating SEO otherwise y do the backlist? Of course that is smart from a marketing standpoint.

My view it same as I did when Romance Novel TV launched... I am cynical like that ;)

Wendy said...

Sybil: Trust me, it's publisher neutral in every sense of the word. My posts have not gone live yet - but I can tell you I have one in the queue on historical westerns and plans for a category romance post.

Name me the last historical western St. Martin's published.

Yeah, I can't think of one either.

And they've never been in the category romance business.

I have NEVER been given a directive to say happy sunshiney things about Macmillan titles. I have NEVER been told I can't blog about this or that. I've pretty much been given free rein. A very similar arrangment to the one I've had in the past with Romancing The Blog and now Access Romance.....although yes, in this instance, I am getting paid. And trust me, it ain't enough to buy my opinion or loyalty by any stretch of the imagination.

I've always been pretty transparent online. If people who read my blog have an issue with me making a little bit of coin for doing some freelance writing - that's their right to be offended. I'm not holding anyone's head under water and telling them to breathe. I actually read very few romances published by St. Martin's - but if I do? You can bet I'll be as open and honest as I've always been in the past. Hell, Harlequin has been nice to me over the years, and I've written plenty of less than stellar reviews for some of there titles, as well as me disagreeing quite vehemently on the Harlequin Horizons debacle......

Kwana said...

Sybil, I have to agree with Wendy here. I have been doing The Loft on FB and @loftromance on twitter for a few months now and they have not given me any guidelines on staying with Macmillian titles or posts at all. I was told to talk romance contemporary and women's fiction. Whatever I wanted and that was it.

It's nice to be able to search for content wherever you want and give your opinion or promote whatever you want to keep the romance talk flowing freely. If you look at The Loft on twitter @loftromace or on FB you'll see that I talk about whatever strikes me and will ReTweet whatever I find interesting by any blogge or or publisher. It's all good.

I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Loft-Contemporary-Romance/111001582299788

Kate said...

Speaking of that new site, I tried to post on your column today--it wouldn't let me use my whole name, claiming "Kate Rothwell" was taken already.

Uh oh.