Found it? Easy to scroll down? Well, it’s been some time since my last blog hop – I did the Blog Jog twice (in May and November 2010), then a fantasy blog hop (link expired) once, and now it’s the M/M romance only blog hop. Fun! I got to meet other great writers at those blog hops, and sure hope to find more this time. Oh, and I’m not commenting on regular visitors comments on the blog hop (because they would count as comments or whatever) so you know it’s only because of the giveaway – but Jo, I appreciate your first comment and maybe you could join next year! 😉

Actually, the linky link is not closed. When I started the hop I printed a list of 257 participants. By the evening it was 275, so maybe this morning it’s over 300. Granted, some links don’t work or weren’t active when I tried (no hop-related post) – shame on them. I’m not redoing the rounds because some bloggers forgot to schedule on time. And so far not too many problems leaving comment, but I’d be grateful if Blogger users took of the stupid Catchpa from their comments forms. Some already have, but not all. As for WordPress, don’t forget to uncheck the little box OR change the settings from your dashboard as explained here – I got flooded by unwanted WP e-mails because I forgot to uncheck that little box (if you do the same mistake, simply follow the link on the email itself and delete all the blogs added to your “follow” list).

Technically, Six Sentence Sunday is also a blog hop, but I’ve given up on that one (although I saw a few Sixers specializing in M/M romance on the still running blog hop). At the beginning (January 2011) there were less authors and it was easy to do the rounds, and everybody visited everybody. But now there are too many people signed up and I don’t think anyone does the rounds, or I’d have 100+ visits on Sundays (when I sign up for SSS, of course) – which never happens. Maximum visits were around 40 with 100+ blogs registered. So I don’t think I’ll sign up again before the summer. In September we’ll see. I don’t think readers want only six sentences of any book, although it might sound like an excellent trailer/pitch. But again, no sales from SSS, so why bother.

Jumping to unrelated topics (it is Random Friday, after all!), Bad Housewife here managed to turn her white hoodie into a baby blue one, by washing it with a blue thing (and I didn’t throw in my jeans because I thought “No, they’ll make the hoodie blue!”). Yay me – I hated the fact that it was white, now it’s not anymore, LOL! Maybe I’ll wash it with more blue stuff next time, so it will become really blue (color unavailable on Zazzle)! 😉 It goes well with the blue embroidery! 😀 Or I could have washed it with red stuff to turn it pink… too late, if I do it now it will become purple and I hate purple! 😉

I was sent a link (no longer working) on Amazon’s study on the most well-read cities in the US. Someone said in that list there are all cities that have a university. What struck me is this, though: how come the Publishing Mecca is not on the list? Maybe publishers don’t read? Mmm? And they expect to know readers’ tastes?

And then Amazon strikes again by changing the rules of reviews. Baaaad Amazon! Bad for who? Publishers, of course. I’m very happy my reviews are from my readers. I don’t write for publishers, I write for myself and my readers. I don’t care what a literary critic thinks of my prose (it’s not literary, therefore it must suck), but I care what a reader has to say. Dear professors, lament the loss of real criticism all you want, but I’m not looking for your approval. Nor would I read any of your reviews (OK, I don’t read reviews, but I think readers shouldn’t care about Highly Acclaimed Literary Critic’s review either – especially genre readers like me, we know what HALCs think of our favorite books)…

Now I’ll keep this post short because I still have to do the rounds of the bloghop – 50 blogs a day and today I do have to go to DayJob in the morning, sigh. I hate wasting those 5 hours in an unappreciative environment, but it’s too early to give it up. It still pays the bills and the travels! 😉 I also hope to be able to review something new soon (yes, uneducated review by a writer who is not a native but loves to read English fiction books). But I keep adding titles to my Kindle or my Smashwords library and sometimes I feel I’ll never read them, sigh! 😦 I also have 2 DVDs left to watch that match the  theme of this weekend’s blog hop – a Bruce La Bruce title and Brotherhood (which I already saw in theaters when it came out)… so here’s to a gay weekend! 😉