It's an anthology of "erotic" novellas.

If anything in this line were truly erotic, I would eat a ream of typing paper. What passes for erotica here is a female take on Penthouse Letters, with lots of "ooh, dirty!" words and very little understanding of real sexuality.

The nice thing is, half the time the editors know how ridiculous the books are. We did a lot of laughing in editorial meetings when I worked there.

Which is not a real recommendation for the state of publishing today, but there you go.

Yeah, well, considering my own snarly little rant in livejournal this morning, this is some damned good timing.

Publishing can blow me.

Yeah, well, considering my own snarly little rant in livejournal this morning, this is some damned good timing.

Publishing can blow me.

We laughed more about the books we *didn't* publish, though. But when you're trying to describe one more romance about a noble Scotsman with perfect hair and teeth, and his virginal but truly spunky bride, it's hard not to.

Well, yeah. I read that one. A few times!

I'm beginning to fall seriously in like with the idea of saving myself some grief, and just self-pubbing future books.

I wonder if I could pull that off?

I said this in LJ, too, Deb, but self-publishing is a long, hard road with very few rest stops or road maps. Getting the book into stores, making readers aware that the books exist in the first place -- from what I've heard it takes a lot of writer-hours, and usually a bit of money to do it right.

No, not that kind of self-publishing; more like POD. After all, I'm not a newbie; eight novels over, what, 18 years?

At least that way, I'd have some control over it. These days, I feel I'm at the mercy of an industry I've lost almost all my respect for.

Is POD the same as e-books? I've seen several folks mention they're being published by online publishers.

POD is print on demand.

Print on Demand I know, but I was wondering about the distribution mechanism. How do people know it's there to be printed?