Bodice Ripper Readers Anonymous discussion

Hey girls,

Thank you again for doing the poll this month Karla! You did a great job and I really appreciate all the work you put in, I know it's kind of a big job :)

And thank you Jeanine for putting up the genre read! I know it wasn't super active, but there was a little participation and I think it was a good pick :)

I was thinking going forward that the three of us could take turns with the different activities in the group. This month I (kinda) did the swap it with me and pick it for me threads and Karla did the poll and Jeanine did the genre read. So maybe for April Jeanine could do the poll, I'll do the genre read and Karla can organize the swap and pick threads? And then we just keep cycling through every month? What do you think?

I don't want either of you to feel obligated, so if it's more work than you want to put in that's cool, but I want you both to have the opportunity to contribute and help make the group a little bit more 'yours' too :)

Any other ideas? Do you think there is any activities we should drop from the group? Anything we should add? Do something different?
Any ideas for our next quarterly challenge? Gotta come up with something good this time so SmittenKiteen isn't the only one to participate, haha.

I am very happy with our little group here, but I am more than happy to try something new and different.

Let me know what you think
xoxo
Jennefer

Sounds fine to me! And I'll put my thinking cap on for some ideas.

How could I be offended when it's so accurate? LOL

♥ Cheshire Catt ♠ wrote: "aHa! I figured out how to do something - I gave us moderator titles! :D I made up the first thing that came to mind which will most likely be offensive to both of you (because that is how I role..."

Haha! I love it! Thanks Jeanine :) I think I will stick with it for awhile :)

♥ Cheshire Catt ♠ wrote: "Okay I was a thinking about the challenges - here are a few I came up with:


**Around the world - I know its lame but it would be interesting to see if you could read one that takes place on each ..."


Those are all great ideas! I like the series one... I try to make the quarterly challenges super flexible so that someone can complete it by doing as few as just one book a month or way more if they want to make it more challenging for themselves.

Maybe for our next quarterly challenge we do a series challenge, complete any series you choose, from a trilogy to something longer???

And then maybe we should also start some longer challenges, maybe put up and annual challenge (maybe the around the world challenge) and see what happens. We could always add more later.

What do you guys think?

Oh, and BTW you two might want to check out the Moderator Support Group, it's not super active, but I have gotten some good ideas there and it's a place to ask questions of other mods so check it out if you want :)

I like the series idea and the around the world one. Most stories are set in the US or western Europe. It'd be a good way to work in some of those that take place in the farflung corners.

And I like the cover model one too. :P

I like the cover model one too.. when I get home tonight I'll start a quarterly and year long challenge and we will see how it goes :)

Read Stuart on your own time. :P j/k LOL Hey, you finally found a regency you like. How about that? And you thought it was impossible.

We could do bodice ripper ancestors, like HR from the 50s-60s. The Jan Cox Speas books (well, 2 of them anyway) are coming out in May & June, so maybe that can be put off until later.

Or "Read a romance your mom/maiden aunt/any female relative loved."

I'm fine with "Harem" theme if you want to go ahead with that.

I was thinking I would do a read by author (hadnt decided who exactly yet) but may e we should do harem... hmmmm... ill decide when I gwt homd

Jennefer wrote: "...e when I gwt homd"

haha textos, can you tell I wrote that on my smart phone under my desk at work ;) LOL

FYI girls, I updated the group guidelines to include a little something about self promotion.

So going forward if we see a self promotion thread started anywhere in the group we can just leave a comment in the thread saying "thanks for letting us know, FYI this is being moved" or whatever and move it to the promotion folder (click on the little edit link next to the thread and chose the correct folder in the drop down).

If someone leaves a comment in any of the group discussion threads let's just delete but also send the person a short PM saying "your comment has been deleted, feel free to start a thread in the promotion folder, thank you for understanding... bla bla bla" ... you know, kill them with kindness. :)

What do you two think? Sound good?

Hey, I just thought of this... are you girls still doing your BR blog??? If so we should add the URL to the 'affiliated website' in the group settings.

Yes we are!

http://cadsandwhores.blogspot.com

So many little things squirreled away on a group's settings! I'm finding new stuff every time I look. :P

I added it! And I added it to my google reader as well :)

The Pick It was a no-show for 2 straight months, so I think we're not going to do that anymore. I'd like to do the Genre Read for May if it's ok!

The Swap It we might have to re-think because of international postage costs and things getting lost in the mail. I haven't gotten my March book from India yet.

I'll think up some ideas. I'm sort of dazed at the moment because I think I'm set for free food and coffee at the cafe outside my office for life, and just because I got the counter girls' internet working so they can see the Royal Wedding tomorrow. LOL

I have no idea. I've tuned it all out. The whole royal family could explode in a freak polo accident and I wouldn't care. :P

Hey girls, just catching up here...

Do you think we should make the Swap US only? Or just drop it all together? I agree we need to rethink the swap... I will work on coming up with some ideas too and we will figure out something awesome :)

I'm all for dropping the swap and thinking up of something else.

Sounds fine to me. We can just take the month of May off for Swap/Pick and put on our thinking caps for something new for June.

Sharon replied to the group announcement with an idea for the group but I'm not sure if that goes to all the mods or just me because I'm the one that sent it so here is what she said...

"Ok, I have an idea for a game. How about....

A Bodice Ripper reading game. First, we have a list of all the PC Incorrect ingredients, like...Rape (naturally), Hero hitting heroine, hero getting caught boinking another female by/in the presence of heroine...all those topics are probably on everyone's shelves.

Anyway, you 3 brilliant moderators come up with a list, those of us who want to play...swear in, figure a time frame to complete the topics (new reading only beginning at start of game), everyone leaves a comment when a book is finished...

That's as far as my thinking goes on this.

Whatcha think ladies?"

Kinda like a BR scavenger hunt! :) We could make it a monthly game, or maybe a long term challenge?

Definitely a long-term thing. And it does sound like a scavenger hunt. :) A prize would be a good idea - either gift card or some bodice rippers from my collection. :P

We should just go through some of your reviews Jeanine to come up with our list :)

Another one:
- self-drugging/addiction (I've read two old school BRs already that qualify, so it's more common than you'd think)

One book per item would be fine, I'd think. And a year-long timeframe. I'd like to take part, but with short timeframes, I find myself reading nothing but "required" stuff (all the Group Reads/Genre Reads/etc.) and little impulse reading. I miss it!

The "can't use the same book as someone else has" is a bit restrictive, though. You'd need to friend and keep an eye on what they're reading, and who has time for that. :P

Not sure about prizes. Been having second thoughts about that.

I think one book per item as well. Then it becomes a strategic sort of thing, you don't want to waist a book that has something hard to come by for one of the easier categories.

It would be more work for us to moderate everyone and make sure no one breaks any rule, but I like the 'can't use the same book as anyone else' rule, at least not for the same category. Otherwise one person would find a book with a difficult thing to find and then everyone else in the challenge would just read the same one, whats the challenge in that? Then it's also kind of a race too, the first one to read it and post that they did with 'proof' gets to use that book for the challenge.

As far as time frame maybe we should just leave it open. Make it a race. Have a set start date for everyone that wants to play and then the first person to complete all categories gets 1st place and so on.

I would be more than willing to offer books off my shelf for prizes and pay a bit for shipping if you two want to go that way, but honestly I'm not sure I'm willing to put up much more than that (money wise).

Another prize idea... I could make some cute bookmarks that look like little state fair ribbons, you know a blue, red and yellow ribbon for first second and third. Or maybe we could just create an image (Photoshop or whatever) of a certificate or trophy to email the person to use as their avatar if they like for bragging rights.

I think prizes could be fun but we can keep it super simple and even free.

Sure. I'll do what I can for a prize box!

Sounds good to me! Maybe start the thread now for sign ups and have an official start date for June 1st?

What do you think Karla? Should we do 4 books for second and 2 for third (2 each and then 1 each)? More/less? Or a few books for 2nd and a collection of bookmarks for 3rd?

I have no ability/equipment to make bookmarks. I'd need to buy some. Maybe both 2nd and 3rd should have books and bookmarks. 4 books (2nd) and 2 (3rd) sounds good.

I'll take care of 2nd place, if it's ok!

Sounds good! I'll take care of 3rd!

On another note, just so you two don't think I completely forgot... the weekend got away from me but I am going to put up the group poll for June tonight when I get home from work! It just came to me this morning in the shower that it's time to take care of that! haha :)

People will sign up if they want to. I know that I've gotten a bit burned out with all the committed reads since this group started, so this summer I'm going to relax and read whatever I feel like picking up at the moment. I think I've only passed on 1 group/genre read since I joined. Eeek!

I think it is pretty easy to get burned out by all the different group reads and challenges (from a bunch of different groups too, not just this one). They can be fun, but very quickly start to feel more like an obligation and limiting instead of fun.

I have been thinking the last couple of days; maybe we should try and simplify things around here. I'm almost thinking maybe even cut out the second group read and just do our main monthly one, a quarterly challenge and the annual one we have (the around the world) and maybe just leave it at that? -I like the scavenger hunt too, but no one seems to be jumping on board with that one yet, maybe we can try and rework it a bit, I don't know...

Maybe we should focus our awesome mod powers on starting conversation threads and games instead of more challenges/events????

For example we could try and come up with a "question of the week" type of feature (could be anything from "what's your favorite BR cliche?" to "Do you feel like others judge your for your choice of reading material" etc.) to start at least one new conversation thread a week minimum. And maybe we could try and start one new game every month (they seem to fizzle after about that long) instead of challenges and picks and swaps.

I love this little group and I want to make it the best group we can! I'm starting to think that maybe focusing more energy on trying to engage members in conversations and games instead of events might be a better way to do that.



I've also been thinking maybe we should get rid of some folders. I'm thinking maybe we could combine group reads and challenges and make that one folder- kind of the main "to read" folder (also any buddy reads anyone would like to start could go here). Then combine book chit chat/Help looking for/off topic and make that all one main discussion folder for questions of the week as well (mabye we could move this thread there as well and make sure group members feel welcome to add ideas as well and get rid of the admin folder). Maybe we could combine member reivews and member reading lists into "member stuff"? Leave promotion and archive (I just can't bring myself to delete a single thread1) and maybe have one folder for just games?

I'm thinking something like this:

welcome/news
group reads and challenges
group discussions and questions
games
member stuff
promotion
archive

That takes us from our current 13 folder down to 7. I think that would make more sense and be a little less overwhelming to look at... what do you two think? I'll do all the work to move things around but I want your input/ideas so let me know.

I think that's perfect, Jennefer! So sorry that I've been so braindead about all of this! I agree wholeheartedly on the conversations vs. game/events kind of thing. And condensing the folders does make good sense.

Oh good, I'm glad you girls agree :)

I will get all the folders worked out this weekend and try and come up with some conversation starters. Maybe when I send out the June group announcements I will mention we are trying to cut back on reading obligations but add more conversation starters and hopefully that will get people to stop by and comment a bit... we will see :)

I think I mostly have the folders all organized, I think... feel free to move things around if you see something that seems out of place girls :)

I just "de-importantized" the May reads. I'll start a thread for the June read now, since it's June 1.

Reading this erotic historical - The Harlot - made me wonder if that might be a good thread, since they are more extreme than the regular HRs and approach BRs in some respects. So I'll start a thread about that.

What about a chat room of some sort, or too personal? Heck, we could collaborate and even write one of our own! :)

Since So many beautiful covers are flying about,how bout a new "group" photo? Last one was in 2010..didnt the group do a poll at one time for this Karla? I know you have so many nice ones:)

I'll see what I have. Gotta zip out of work now.

I don't mean to sound rude at all but I can't figure out why there's a promotion folder. Books that don't have a damn thing to do with bodice rippers are being promoted in it.

I vote to get rid of it.

I don't think HR authors are writing what we would consider bodice rippers.

Respectfully, it was a sound way to keep that stuff from getting into other threads by giving a specific, definite place for it to go. As with Listopias, it doesn't matter what the list qualifications are, people will add totally unrelated titles.