Tales From the Contact Form

As many of you have already noticed, we added a contact form to AAR a couple of years ago. I’ve been handling the contact form, along with Cheryl Sneed, ever since it began, and it’s been an enjoyable way for us to stay in touch with readers as well as something of a help desk whenever people have questions about the site, need forum passwords reactivated, and so on. I’ve enjoyed “meeting” some of you via the internet and while I did not have much involvement with the technical side of the site when I started doing this, you all have made me learn a lot – so thanks!

While I do get the occasional exotic query (hmm…I’d never thought about romances involving ferrets as a plot device and I’m really not sure I could even name any for you….), many of you have somewhat similar types of questions. I’ve gotten a couple of queries from people who were just curious to see what questions I got and since the site has gone under new ownership, we’ve gotten some great feedback and helpful suggestions. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say that you might want to keep an eye on the forums after the holidays – we just may be mentioning some of these new ideas! ;-)

And in case you wonder what the most common queries are, here are the top three types that I’ve been seeing lately:
1. Why do we have to register for the forums? Blame the evil spambots for this one. We wanted open forums, too, but spending the day deleting hundreds of spam messages just didn’t work.

2. Can you help me find a book? Well, I’ll try, but my own efforts are rather puny. The collective memory of everyone who reads our forums stands a much better shot, so if you ever find yourself at a loss for a long-lost favorite, you best bet is to post about it on the Let’s Talk Romance Novels forum.

3. Do you know if Elizabeth Elliott/Lisa Valdez/Judith Ivory/insert long-lost author here will ever have a new book coming out? Oh, if only I were psychic…. Seriously, though, if I ever hear any news, you better believe it will be shouted off the rooftops here! The only even remotely recent info I have is that Elizabeth Elliott had writers block but has been working on a manuscript, and then as of June 2008 was going to have the manuscript finished up and to her editor “within the next few weeks”.

So, if you have any questions or comments, keep them coming. As you can tell, we’ve been listening and we love to hear from you! Hope everyone has been having happy holidays, whatever you may celebrate!

-Lynn Spencer