Dear Jane

Well, if you're a romancelandia devotee, then you know the announcement that sent the world on its ear: Jane Litte of Dear Author is a successful author named Jen Frederick. If you don't know then read AztecLady's summary here:  Grandmother of All Plot Twists

I'm not going to talk about disclosure of professionalism because DA has always supported pen names and has a strong anti-doxxing policy and there's no reason that Jane should have disclosed. I wanted to talk about how I feel about it. Just me. Lori. How I feel about Jane, my online girl crush, being a successful author.

I feel hurt.

A big part of it is jealousy, pure and simple. Jane is the master of time management and I have no doubt that she can be a mom, lawyer, blogger, defendant and best selling author with time to cook gourmet meals for her family as well as make all their clothes and solve world hunger. Hell, if anyone can, it would be Jane.

And I'm jealous because she only started writing a couple of years ago and has written more books and been more successful. Oh yeah, green eyed over that one.

Of course, Jane understand marketing because books and the publishing business are her passion. She used her knowledge to promote herself while keeping it separate from DA. And I noticed that Jane didn't use her connections as Jane for her career. If she had, she might have been published by Carina. Or well, anyone.

I think part of the hurt is the feeling that bloggers I enjoy become someone other than the blog and things change. The truth is that I stopped going to Smart Bitches because I felt the blog was a promotional tool for Sarah and I didn't want to be a part of that. It's like how Ree Drummond used The Pioneer Woman to get a Food Network career... the blog becomes the blogger and the big picture and no longer is about the community.

Do I think that Dear Author will follow the same path? Not necessarily. I think Jane is better at keeping her lives separate and will be diligent at not crossing the line. But it changes things and we'll see how as time goes by.

Again, I want to say these are my opinions alone and not shared by Carolyn. We had an argument about SB Sarah and she disagrees with me vehemently.

Anyway, I don't plan to read Jane's/Jen's books for quite awhile. If she's a good writer then my green eyes will flash and if she's not as good then I'd probably be disappointed for other reasons. And if I feel she's better than I am then I'll probably take to bed for a week sobbing my jealous, little fan girl heart out.

And I think something that's going to happen is we're about to see Goodreads and Amazon explode with some nasty one-star reviews with people gleefully declaring they're giving the mean girl a dose of her own medicine... which would be the funniest thing of all because if there's anyone who wouldn't be bothered by that, it's Jane.

Deep down, I know that lovers of romance novels are the writers of romance novels. And if Jane didn't love them so, then Dear Author wouldn't be so important to so many of us. And I'm proud of her and happy for her and truth is, I'd rather have a nap than be her. But it's going to take a few days before I calm my jealous heart down.

She's worth it though. There's a reason she's my online girl crush, you know.