Contest extended! Because Thursday was a day of Blogger pain, we’ve decided to continue our chat with Raelene on Friday, February 2. I hope Blogger is feeling better and actually allows people to visit.

Today we’re joined by Raelene Gorlinsky, who’s here to tell us about her goals of breathing new life into Trad Regencies. Raelene has generously offered an e-book to a visitor who posts a question or comment today only–as usual, the Riskies will pick the winner!

Welcome to the Riskies, Raelene. Tell us about the new line.
Cerridwen Cotillion is our new line of classic, traditional Regency romances. These are Heyer-style Regencies: strong and appealing heroines, focus on the manners and customs of the era, historical accuracy, period language, lots of emotion and love but no obvious sex.These stories are appropriate for both our adult readers and their youngdaughters!

The website is www.cerridwenpress.com. Click on the Cotillion sidebar banner to see the released books. Submission guidelines are on theSubmissions page of the site, along with the Call for Submissions that lists the specific Cotillion requirements.

What do you feel is the essence of a traditional Regency?
An entertaining and accurate reflection of the life and manners of the era.

How did you get into publishing?
I spent twenty-five years in the computer information communication profession, as technical writer, editor and manager. I started editing part time for Ellora’s Cave because it was an interesting variation from my day job in a computer department. It’s a lot more fun to work on “He caressed her body with his gaze” than “Key in the serial number and press Enter.” In January 2004 I moved to Ohio to take on the job of Managing Editor at Ellora’s Cave, allowing me to use my organizational, managerial, and editorial skills on a wide variety of projects. My position is now Publisher, and I supervise nineteen editors, deal with over 350 authors, manage our digital releases, still edit several authors of my own, and am enjoying this job more than any other in my life.

Your name’s synonymous with that of Ellora’s Cave and to some of us, that transition from steamy erotic romance to the polite world of Traditional Regencies seems a bit incongruous. How did the creation of the Cotillion line come about?
Well, Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc (ECPI) is two imprints: Ellora’s Cave erotic romances (Romantica) and Cerridwen Press mainstream fiction. We are best known for being the leader and most successful publisher of erotic romance. But we’ve had our Cerridwen imprint for a year and a half now, putting out all types of genre fiction, especially romances.

I’ve always loved Regency-set stories. My very first romances as a young girl were Georgette Heyer. When the big NY publishers abandoned the traditional Regencies because of low sales, I proposed to top management at ECPI that we could make a success of this genre as a line within our Cerridwen imprint. My theory and hope is that there are enough devoted tradReg readers out there who are now so hungry for new stories that we can lure them to try ebooks. And we will be bringing the books out in print following the digital release.

How do you think Cotillion will succeed where Signet and Zebra failed?
We have a couple of advantages.

~ Ebooks versus print books: The dynamics and monetary parameters for e-publishers are very different from large print publishers. We don’t need to sell nearly as many copies of a digital title in order to cover our costs – and hopefully will sell enough to make a profit! So we can capitalize on smaller niche markets.

~ New concept in cover art: I concur with people who feel that the standard covers helped kill the genre. The old tradReg cover art style hadn’t changed in decades. It wasn’t very interesting, and it certainly did not appeal to younger readers or draw new fans into the genre. And the covers were practically interchangeable from book to book, making them annoyingly repetitive and meaningless.

However, the core tradReg readers have some firm expectations for “their” book covers, and you can’t just ignore them. When Kensington tried a new cover style, their Regencies looked like contemporary women’s fiction — not appropriate or effective, and it did not succeed with readers.

So we have tried to create an image that is different and new, but is clearly reflective of the historic period. Our covers are all based on actual Regency artwork (portraits in the public domain). They are therefore both historically accurate and lovely, and we and our authors think they are extremely attractive and appealing.

~ Author participation: For small presses and e-publishers, authors must be heavily involved in self-promotion of their books, far more so that what is common for category lines from large print publishers. Our Cotillion authors are a great group, enthusiastic and active. We toss around a lot of ideas for promoting the books and the line. They are out there actively telling people about Cotillion. >>

Is Cotillion looking for traditional Regency plots or plots that break the mold of what is expected in a traditional Regency?
Cotillion stories may include not just the “drawing room” Regency stories, but other elements such as adventure, mystery or suspense. However, fantasy creatures and paranormal elements (except possibly an occasional period ghost) are not appropriate for this line.

We don’t want cookie-cutter stories, we would like new plot ideas. But they must remain firmly embedded in the social behavior and customs of the era. For example, heroines can be bold and unconventional – but in comparison to what was acceptable in 1820, not what would be considered “unconventional” nowadays. And there must be appropriate responses and consequences to their behavior.

We also accept Regency-set historicals as regular Cerridwen romances, not part of the Cotillion line. Those stories could be of longer length or greater sensuality than is appropriate for Cotillion. And we have erotic Regency romances at Ellora’s Cave!

What do you read for fun (assuming you do read for fun, that is!)?
I wish I had a lot more time to read for pleasure! My To-Be-Read shelves contain over 800 books – I guess I’m a bit behind on my reading. 😉 I try to read in a lot of genres, even Young Adult. Within my favorite genres, I select by author. My current preferred genre is paranormal and vampire romances with a lot of sensuality. Right now I’m dying for the next books from J.R. Ward, Alexandra Ivy, Rosemary Laurey, and Jory Strong. I enjoy contemporary romantic suspense (but not too dark) — Linda Howard, Jayne Ann Krentz, Lisa Marie Rice. My embarrassing secret addiction is several Harlequin Presents authors — those over-alpha Australian and European millionaire businessman heroes. I also read a goodly number of anthologies — fantasy, mystery, and romance. It’s easier for me to steal time for a shorter story in my schedule, plus that way I get to taste a lot of authors.

A month or so ago I blogged about the agony and ecstasy of finding a title.

Little did I know then, but the title search was to go on… and on. Because the marketing department changed its mind about the one they’d chosen, and took it upon themselves to find one. I was all titled out and happy to turn it over to them. And today, we finally settled on one–Pride and Prejudice. No, just kidding. It’s The Rules of Gentility. Long ago I suggested Gentility Rules, which might be the sort of thing you’d find spray-painted on a wall in Highbury. (Another favorite was The Lady Vanquishes, apparently lost on a generation who didn’t grow up watching Hitchcock.)

In all of this long, long process, I discovered I knew virtually nothing about how books are titled and the relationship of cover to contents, and now I think I know even less. I thought, for instance, that the cover had to reflect what was inside. Well, yes, sort of. I pulled some Jane Austen covers off the web to illustrate what may or may not be my point. Above left, Penguin Classics. The portrait is a detail of Double Portraits of the Fullerton Sisters by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and very nice too. The period is correct, but…wait. Aren’t there six sisters? And if the one on the left is holding a drawing board, I thought the Bennett sisters were remarkably unaccomplished by Miss Bingley’s or Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s high standards.

Our next entry is the movie tie in edition. Or, the book of the film. You mean, there was a book first? You could read the whole thing before getting to the scene where Mr. Darcy appears with, gasp, coat unbuttoned and cravat discarded. In fact, that scene is missing from every edition I’ve ever owned.
The next two I found are even more puzzling. At left, I believe the original is a painting by Degas. Only about a century too late, and which one is supposed to be Elizabeth? Is the other one Miss Bingley? Is there a scene where they sat at a balcony together?

And the final one is of an interior with two characters in Victorian dress. Inexplicably, the gentleman is sitting while the woman is standing. My first thought, when looking at this, was that they were servants. It certainly doesn’t look like any sort of courtship scene. It rather looks as though the woman is receiving a scolding. “Rats in the soup again, Cook, and not nearly enough of them…”

One thing I did learn from my experience was that the cover does not necessarily relate to the contents. The other realization was that we, as book buyers, are fooled and deceived when buying a book. The marketing strategy seems to be that if a sort of book cover has worked well, it will continue to do so until…look at all the trends we’ve seen in romance–clinches, Fabio, mantitty, cartoons, more mantitty, pink and shiny, bumpy bits (those last two are not related to mantitty), photos. Why does the public fall out of love with a particular style? I’ve no idea. My book is a funny book but its cover will not suggest that because readers of historicals don’t like funny. The back cover copy will suggest it’s funny, but probably will not declare A laugh on every page! The first Regency-set with a fart joke! So the buyer, fooled into thinking they’re on familiar territory, will buy it.

None of the Jane Austen covers suggest that P&P is one of the wittiest books in the English language either. So it’s a mystery of the publishing business.

What makes you buy a book? And have you ever chosen one based entirely on the cover and been bitterly disappointed? Or found a gem with a totally unsuitable cover?

Janet

One of the advantages–I guess it’s an advantage–of having a twenty-something move back into the house (upon graduating from college, hooray! This is not a picture of her–the cakes wouldn’t last a minute in our house) is that you get to see a lot of tv you wouldn’t generally. And, yes, I’m talking about the American Idol auditions, which we have been following with horrified fascination. What makes those people think they can sing? What makes them so eager to expose themselves to humiliation and ridicule?

And what on earth does this have to do with the Regency? (And, incidentally, why is Marie Antoinette’s maid wearing a late Victorian uniform?)

Well, I started to think about the Regency period as one of ostentatious display and a certain lack of shyness in self-revelation–Harriet Smith’s Memoirs, for instance; Lady Caroline Lamb–yes, I could see her auditioning and berating Simon Cowell for being sarcastic, and leaving in floods of tears. What, he didn’t like me? Me?

It was a period represented both by the vulgar exuberance of Prinny (seen at right being laced in for the day) and the uh, jewel in his crown, the Brighton Pavilion, as well as all that elegance and self-restraint and gorgeous classical design.

Beneath his severe, beautifully tailored coat, your hero might well be sporting a lavishly embroidered waistcoat–and he’d make sure everyone would catch a tantalizing glimpse.

That’s what I love about the period, the contradictions and the sense of change–it might all be about the tailoring and the classical line, but it was equally about decoration for decoration’s sake. My theory is that this all ties into the developing sense of domestic privacy that began in the eighteenth century.

Houses were now designed so that family members could sequester themselves into private rooms–no longer was the typical house plan one where you had to go through everyone else’s room to get to the lord’s chamber, the seat of power in the house, where his bed was displayed as the best piece of furniture. Bedcurtains had always been to provide warmth and now they also provided that new luxury, privacy; chances are your servant would have his own sleeping quarters, and not a trundle bed in your bedchamber (a fairly new word in the English language).

I’d be interested to hear your take on the growth of privacy and ostentation vs. restraint, and also how you think your favorite Regency character, fictional or real, would do in his or her American Idol audition!

Janet

There’s big excitement about this entry on
Kristin Nelson’s blog where she claims editors are gagging for historicals.

She’s too discreet to say which editors, though, which is a pity.

Apart from the argument that historicals have never been dead/dying, this raises another point:

Who determines the market?

Is it the editors, who make the decisions about what they want to buy? The marketing department, who decide how the books should be packaged? Is there a special bucket, way up in the penthouse suite of every publisher, where an executive dips his hand in, pulls out a slip of paper, and solemnly announces (for instance) that eighteenth-century men in kilts are in?

Or is it the readers? Or the writers?

How can anyone write to the market when the high concept of 2007 may be the stale bagel of 2009 (which is probably when a book submitted now would be published)?

We’ve been talking here recently about cliched plots vs. tried and true story lines, and I think the truth is that a good writer can subvert and polish something that’s been done to death. But what are we missing?

What would you like to read and/or write? It’s time to roleplay the character of Ms. or Mr. Big NY Publishing House Executive. Is there a time period you feel is neglected? A type of character you don’t often see? A setting? You’re going to choose what we’ll be reading next…and it’s….

Janet

Writing as Jane Lockwood, Forbidden Shores, September 2007, Heat/NAL
One Last Scandalous Exchange, October 2007 HarperCollins Historical
www.janetmullany.com

“Great discoveries, whether of silk or of gravity, are always windfalls. They happen to people loafing under trees.”
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex.

I’ve read a lot of good books this year, tried bravely with a lot of books that I tried to like and couldn’t (but I’m not telling you what they are) and wanted to share with you the following results of my own loafing under trees.

Top of the heap, Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories. Its back cover blurb describes it as a literary detective novel, which I suppose it is. The book is about a group of people who you think at first have nothing in common, but as the book progresses, you see how their lives are linked together. Two murders are common threads, but there’s a lot more going on; at the end, you know more than the characters do, and it’s a pleasure to put the pieces together. Wonderfully written, wry, and funny. A sequel has just been released and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

I was a bit nervous of Emma Donoghue’s collection of short stories, Touchy Subjects. I loved her first book, Slammerkin, and found myself wondering with her next full-length historical, Life Mask, how such a good writer could make such an interesting setting and group of characters so, well, boring. But I loved these short stories, ranging from the touching and mysterious to the ribaldly funny (hint: gentlemen, do not choose a hotel in Dublin where everyone knows you for an attempt at artifical insemination with your wife’s best friend).

Somehow I missed Jeffrey Eugenides’s brilliant, erotic, funny Middlesex when it first came out in 2003. We’ve been passing Middlesex around at work, and we’ve all been enchanted and thrilled by it. It’s hard to describe what this book is about, a huge, rich, rambling chronicle of a Greek-American family, a cross between Greek myth and Tristram Shandy, spanning decades and generations.

Another book I loved this year, because it had the power to take you into another time, was Kate Dolan’s Restitution. Set in eighteenth-century Maryland, it tells the story of ordinary people caught up in the tumultuous years before American independence; they’re not called upon to perform heroic acts, but they do have to make choices and sacrifices. Restitution blends both fictional and historic characters and paints a wonderfully vivid picture of colonial life.

And, guess what, I actually read some romances this year! And enjoyed them. First, Pam Rosenthal’s wonderful The Slightest Provocation–another book that blends fiction and history. This is a complex, challenging, adventurous read; Rosenthal blends the past and present of her characters, and her hero and heroine are annoying, frustrating, human people who don’t always behave well, but are completely convincing in their frailty. They have a strong sense of the ordinary about them, of people caught up in extraordinary events and times, and trying to make the best decisions. Read the Riskies interview with Pam here.

That’s what I also enjoyed about Eloisa James’s The Taming of the Duke–ordinary people (although more caught up in the trappings of the aristocracy than Rosenthal’s) dealing with ordinary, stupid, human tragedy. I loved the way James dealt with her Duke’s alcoholism–not a hint of modern theory of disease, but a thoroughly believable and moving account of his attempt to remake his life and confront his past. And chock full of literary and theatrical references, a real treat. A perfect romance–why can’t they all be this good?

And a couple of contemporaries, both written by smart Englishwomen (well, Julie’s from Maine, but she sounds English to me, and lives in my home town). Portia da Costa’s Entertaining Mr. Stone is a very funny erotic novel. It’s set, mainly, in a labyrinthine local government office where everyone, er, misbehaves. Imagine Kafka in a good mood letting his hair (or pants) down. A great naughty read. Again, ordinary people faced with the extraordinary. Is this a theme, class?

And Julie Cohen’s Delicious is, in a word, delicious. He’s a superstar chef, she’s a teacher–ordinary people again, more or less. It’s all about taking risks and allowing yourself to trust–nothing new, but beautifully written, and written from the heart, and with deep sympathy for the adolescent kids, who, in a lesser writer, would have been only wallpaper.

My best re-read of 2006 was Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend, which I blogged about a few months ago here.

Happy new year, everyone!
Janet
www.janetmullany.com