For Readers

Welcome to Dear Author. We review romance books, talk about ebooks and digital technology related to ebooks, and post about all the issues surrounding romance novels.

If you are a first time visitor or even a long time one, you might not know of all the content available at Dear Author. This page is designed to help highlight some of our features. To make it easier, we’ve designed this page in a question and answer format. If there is a question we haven’t answered, drop a comment and we’ll do our best to respond.

• About Dear Author
• Contents
• How to Navigate
• How to Contribute
• Contact

 

About Dear Author

Jane started the blog in April 2006 with her friend, Jayne. These two provide most of the content. We also have a staff of reviewers including the following who provide weekly or monthly content. Clicking on the links will lead you to an archive of their reviews.

• Robin (aka Janet) provides reviews and contributes to the weekly opinion section.
• Jia is our YA and fantasy/paranormal/science fiction and cross over reviewer.
• Janine provides reviews of a variety of romances but primarily historical and erotic romance fiction.
• Jennie reviews general fiction and historical romances along with the occasional paranormal.
• Sunita reviews historical romances and categories along with some m/m.
• Kaetrin reviews a variety from New Adult to contemporary along with some m/m.
• Kati D reviews primarily contemporary and erotic romance.
• Sirius who provides primarily m/m reviews.

And a few guest reviewers:

• Rose, Angie, and MaryKate

In the past, we’ve had contributions from Jan who provided Manga reviews and from time to time we’ll have guest reviewers such as author Jill Shalvis, Jill Sorenson   and others.

Q: How do you explain your review grades?

Our romance book review grades are our own opinions, obviously, and therefore fraught with subjectivity. You may or may not agree with our opinions, our grades, or anything else. We’d love for you to comment on the reviews and tell us where we went wrong or what we got right. If you are wondering if there is any objectivity in a review, we can only provide you with the information below:

• A: I loved it and would cry if someone took it from my library. I would need lots of chocolate to get over its loss.
• B: It’s good and I would buy it again, given the chance.
• C: Eh. Not bad but I probably would never read it again.
• D: I want my money back.
• F: I want my money back and repayment for the time wasted reading it.
• DNF: does this really need an explanation?

Q:   Why do you write your reviews in the form of a letter?

When Jayne and Jane first started the blog, they were going to write the letters to readers, like are in the front of many books.   Dearreader.com was taken however but when we checked dearauthor.com was not.   So that is how we came to write reviews in the form of letters to authors.   The reviews, though, are really for readers.   We don’t presume that an author would find our reviews helpful or useful because by the time the book gets to us, the book is done, published. The reviews, though, are meant to be conversation starters and are not intended to be read as literal letters written to the author.

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The contents of Dear Author

Q: What does Dear Author offer?

We are primarily a site that reviews and talks about romance books. We also post links to industry news that we find interesting. Other features of interest are:

• First Sale story of new authors, bestselling authors, and every author in between. They are inspirational and a way for readers to find new authors to read.
• A reader, Alison H, approached us about profiling new authors and presented us with a wonderful debut/new author interview series. There are a few other interviews interspersed throughout the blog too but all can be located using the “interview” category link.
• We are an opinionated group and every Tuesday we post our opinions about romance, the romance genre, publishing, and anything related to one of those subjects.
• We also love ebooks and, from the inception of this blog, have been avid ebook fans. We have a whole category devoted to all things ebooks. Further, at the end of every review post, we’ll note whether you can buy the book in digital format.

Q: How many reviews do you post and how often?

We post approximately 10 reviews per week and most reviews are of genre romance books. We try to post a review of a book every day.

Q: I need a recommendation for a book!

Every month, Dear Author recommends a list of books to read. “If You Like Series” series features readers recommending books to other readers that fit a particular theme. If you have a theme that you like and we haven’t opened a thread about it, contact us.

We also have a list of books that collectively we have considered to be some of the top in the romance genre.

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Find your way around Dear Author

Q: How do I navigate around the site?

We have a search box and an Advanced Search page. We also try to provide tags and categories to make navigation easier.

Don’t forget the navigation bar or the category links.

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Make contributions to Dear Author

Q: How can I contribute to Dear Author?

Please feel free to voice your opinion in the comments, vote in a poll, or contact us.  We also have the Recommended reads form where you can recommend a book and we contact the author to post an excerpt.

Q: I’ve got something I would like to see profiled on Dear Author. How can I make that happen?

You can either leave a comment or you can send us an email. You can make a suggestion, offer up interview ideas or even write your own guest opinion. Of course, we may not be able to post every idea you have, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to contact us.

Q: What’s a comment?

Comments are your, and other readers of the blog, contributions to a topic. We want to hear from you and have generally few rules about commenting. We ask you to be polite and considerate.

Q: Do I need to register or open an account?

No, you simply need to enter a name and an email account. The email account tells our website that you are a real person and not a spam bot.

Q: How do I subscribe to a comment thread?

At the bottom of the thread is a comment box and underneath is a checkbox to follow a particular comment thread. You do not need to leave a comment to subscribe.

Q: Will you delete a comment?

If requested, we will delete a comment so long as it does not impair or impede the flow of conversation. In other words, if you leave a comment you are not happy about but several others have incorporated it into their responses, we are not likely to delete it.

Q: Do you edit comments?

If the comment contains links to pirated work or if the comment would invade someone’s privacy (in our discretion), we will edit or delete the inappopriate information.

Q: Can I get banned from commenting?

From time to time, commenters will abuse the privilege of commenting and if we feel that it impairs others from enjoying the blog, we will place you in moderation. We may also ask that you refrain from commenting in the future.

Contact us

Q: How do I contact you?

Please feel free to use the contact form at the bottom of the page or you can email jane directly at jane @ dearauthor.com.

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