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Is there anything new under the sun?

© Joanne Reid

It's a billion dollar business, these romance novels. Since she first burst onto the scene in 1976, Janet Dailey has been the Queen of American novelists. She made the Guinness Book of Records for being the first writer to set a novel in each of the fifty states.

A few weeks ago, a romance reader noticed similarities between Dailey's recent novel, Notorious, and a the book, Sweet Revenge, written by another top romance writer, Nora Roberts. The reader mentioned this on an AOL chat line and the buzz began. It seems that Dailey was having difficulty writing the more emotionally charged scenes and borrowed extensively from some of Roberts' earlier books. An article, Queen of Hearts Gives Up Her Throne, in the August 11, 1997, issue of Newsweek gave the situation excellent coverage. Lawsuits are underway and Roberts is busy reading other Dailey books to see how many of them share scenes with her own novels. At last count, Roberts says she found six. Dailey admits to three.

The battle continues.

In an entirely different field, but one that is nearly as popular, books on computers, computer use and computer programs continue to fill the bookstores. It must be enough to make a grown writer weep. By the time a new program is launched and the writer works his or her way through the intricacies of the program and turns the explanations into street language and the book wends its way through the publishing maze and get to the bookstore, the program is into its next release.

However, unlike romance novels, in these cases similarities among the books are to be expected. How many ways are there to explain the use of macros anyway? The best, or at least the most user friendly, are the Dummies books at http://dummies.com.

For those curious about who's reading what out there, the New York Times Bestseller List is at http://bookstore.wustl.edu/pages/books/nyt.asp. King, Koontz, Cornwell and Steele have been around for a long time. It's comforting to see they're still on the bestselling list. (Dean Koontz began his career as a romance writer for Harlequin, the undisputed leader in the industry.)

Publishers Weekly is asking readers for feedback on the up and coming titles for the fall (see http://www.bookwire.com/pw/features/fallbooks/). According to PW, "follow-up to known formulas is what publishers are betting on, given the many sequels and recurring series on our roster. The lure of timely topics and celebrities is also prevalent, with many publishers staking big bucks on books that may garner extra publicity attention."

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