At the recent New Jersey Romance Writers’ conference, moderator Terri Brisbin asked a panel of editors about the state of romance in these challenging economic times.

According to Kensington Assistant Editor Megan Records, romance is the only genre that’s growing right now.

Leah Hultenschmidt, who recently joined Sourcebooks, says she was hired specifically for the romance line because the company wants more of the genre.

As Holly Blanck of St Martin’s Press sees it, romance is holding steady while young adult is expanding.

The editors say ebooks sales are growing but the industry is still grappling with how to quantify those sales, which are difficult to pinpoint. However, most seem to agree that romance sells extremely well in ebook form.

They also pointed out that ebook sales don’t count towards The New York Times bestseller list.  
 

If my good friend and conference roomie, Angela (right) is any indication, romance is doing just fine.

Here she is in our hotel room surrounded by her loot: freebies and a good number of books she purchased at the conference’s Literacy Book Fair.

Doesn’t she look like a cover model?

She definitely looks happy!

What do the following editors have in common?

Amanda Bergeron — Avon/Harper Collins
Holly Blanck — St Martin’s Press
Stacy Boyd — Silhouette Desire
Lia Brown — Avalon
Leah Hultenschmidt — Sourcebooks
Alex Logan — Grand Central Publishing
Evette Porter — Kimani, Kimani Tru/Harlequin
Megan Records — Kensington Books
Patience Smith — Harlequin/Silhouette

They all have pet peeves about what they do and don’t want to see in a query or manuscript submission. This impressive group of publishing industry professionals was on an Editors Panel at the recent New Jersey Romance Writers conference.

Kensington’s Megan Records hates poor research. She wants people who submit to her to know her name and how to spell it as well as what line they are targeting. Alex Logan at Grand Central does not want to see anything longer than 80,000 to 85,000 words.

Leah Hultenschmidt of Sourcebooks gets annoyed when people send a manuscript in chapter pieces. She wants to see the entire manuscript in one document.  Avon’s Amanda Bergeron says writers should remember to make their query letters professional, because they represent your writing.

They all want to know about contests wins, other manuscripts or books, and anything else that tells them that you are looking at writing as a career and not a lark. The editors prefer that you use your name as your email address and not a family email address, which makes it more difficult for them to find your submission should they go back and look for it.

Oh, and as to whether you need an agent. The editors say they always look at things sent to them by agents first. A good reason to try to land an agent, wouldn’t you say?

Yours truly with the one and only Madeline Hunter!

What an amazing weekend!

Not only did my manuscript, Seducing Charlotte, take first place in the New Jersey Romance Writers’ Put Your Heart in a Book contest, but my other Regency romance, Compromising Willa, came in second.

It was my first writer’s conference and I don’t think I could have picked a better one.

Of course, winning helped!

Truthfully though, the workshops were run by big names in romance and each one I attended had real value. I’ll blog about what I learned in the individual workshops in the coming days.

Me with the lovely Jessica Dickstein, who ran the NJ RWA’s 2010 PYHIAB contest.

A major highlight of the weekend was meeting one of my favorite authors, Madeline Hunter, who served as a final judge in the competition.

 After attending her workshop, I ran into Madeline in the hotel lobby the following morning. She was incredibly generous, spending a good amount of time chatting with me about my work – especially the use of conflict and the value of strong, original openings in my manuscripts.

It was also a treat to speak to her about her books.

How often does a reader get to talk directly to the author about a book? I also had a chance to do so with Meredith Duran and Sherry Thomas, both of whom gave workshops at the conference.

With my DC chapter mate Marta Bliese, who won in  the paranormal category.

There were plenty of editors and agents there. They were not so fearsome in the flesh! The industry professionals shared their pet peeves which I’ll write more about soon.

The only downside to the weekend was learning far too late that my husband had set the GPS to avoid toll roads (from a previous trip). No problem – at first – since the directions I had googled were simple enough.

That is, until we overshot the exit on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Let’s just say we took a scenic drive of New Jersey back roads while trying to find our way back to the conference!