Jackie Barbosa

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post on Digital Rights for the New Millenium, in which I urged authors (especially the bestselling ones with clout) to push their New York publishers for a bigger cut of digital royalties. I said it was important to establish a higher threshhold on these royalty rates or we’d all live to regret it.

I hate to say I told you so*, but with today’s announcement that Dorchester Publishing is converting to an ebook first followed by trade POD structure beginning in next month, I have to say I think I’m looking kind of prescient. How many authors out there have contracts with Dorchester specifying very low digital royalty rates (<25%)? I'm betting a TON. Whether they are authors who have only backlists with Dorchester or new books coming out with them, these folks are in a lot of trouble financially unless they can get Dorchester to renegotiate their royalty rates.

The Dorchester situation should be a wake-up call to authors. We've known for a while that Dorchester was having financial problems--they sold a lot of their backlist authors to HarperCollins and were recently banned from holding editor appointments or a publisher spotlight at the RWA National Conference due to non-payment/late payment of royalties. But I don't think it's remotely safe to assume that Dorchester will be the last of the "traditional publishers" to go this route. In fact, I'd lay odds that other publishers will follow suit and that, within the next ten years (if not sooner), the vast majority of publishers will be using this model for all but their bestselling authors/books.

So, I'll say it again. Digital royalty rates matter. A lot. Even if the majority of your sales TODAY are in print, the same may not be the case tomorrow. And your publisher might, at the drop of a hat, decide to go the way of Dorchester and begin releasing your books in digital only followed by a POD months later. Do you really want to be in the position of taking 15% or 20% of net in this situation? I sure as heck don't.

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*Okay, actually, that’s a lie. I LOVE to say I told you so.

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In honor of all authors who’ve recently experienced a series of rejections, whether from agents or editors, I offer the following somewhat tongue-in-cheek (and somewhat NOT) overview of the process of moving on.

The Seven Stages of Grief

1. SHOCK & DENIAL

   You read the rejection letter for the third time. Then a fourth. And it really IS a rejection, not an offer disguised as one. You double-check the envelope. Maybe it was meant for Mrs. Hinklemeyer, who lives next door. Granted, it’s unlikely she also wrote a romance novel titled LOVE IN THE TIME OF DYSENTERY, but then, they do say there’s no such thing as an original idea. But no, the envelope is definitely addressed to you. But still, there must be some mistake. This just can’t be right.

2. PAIN & GUILT

   After the shock wears off, you feel like crap. Plus, you get five paper cuts from reading and rereading that damn rejection letter. You start the second guess yourself. Maybe you shouldn’t have killed your hero off on page 5 of the manuscript (but hey, you did resurrect him on page 15!). Maybe you shouldn’t have used the word “turgid” quite so many times. And trying to write a historical paranormal comedic thriller horror mystery romance might not have been the best idea, but damn it, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time!

3. ANGER & BARGAINING

   What do these publishing professionals know anyway? They wouldn’t know a good book if someone hit them upside the head with it. They’re all a bunch of risk-averse weenies who wouldn’t buy the Bible if God submitted it for publication. But hey, what if you sent chocolates with your submission? Or maybe if you promise you’ll give up chocolate…

4. “DEPRESSION”, REFLECTION, LONELINESS

   Aw hell, they’re right. Your book sucks used tea bags. You’re a complete loser who couldn’t even write the phone book. You lose all hope and motivation. Writing is a waste of time, effort, and emotion. You feel like a whiny crybaby and refuse to log into any of the social networking sites or your email for fear someone will ask you how you are. Or worse, announce they’ve just sold in a ten-book deal for seven figures.

5. THE UPWARD TURN

   Just when you think you’ll never write again, you get a glimmer of an idea. Something so good, you can’t NOT write it.

6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH

   You slowly put the pieces back together. You start writing because you have to. With some help from your friends and critique partners, you realize that there are a lot of reasons your previous manuscript was rejected, and none of them are that it was actually bad. Plus, the only way to be sure you’ll never sell a book is to quit. And that’s just not an option.

7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE

   You put your much-rejected manuscript in the Magical Mulch Pile* under the bed. The publishing world just isn’t ready for it yet. But wait until they get a load of your new project, a historical paranormal comedic thriller horror mystery young adult romance. Working title: LOVE IN THE TIME OF ACNE. Yeah, this time, you’ve got it nailed!

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*Magical Mulch Pile is an UNregistered trademark of Erica Ridley, my friend and author extraordinaire of Too Wicked to Kiss.

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You know the old saying: “Good things come to those who wait.” I think a writer must have dreamed that one up, because it often seems to me no one waits more than writers. Every writer I know is in a perpetual state of waiting, whether it’s waiting for an agent to make an offer of representation, waiting for editors to make offers for publications, waiting for the book to come out, waiting for the sales numbers to come in, and then doing all of it (hopefully less the agent step) all over again. Who knew waiting could be so exhausting?

It’s mildly ironic then that, after what felt like eons of waiting, my latest sale call came a mere ten days after submission. When I picked up the phone and my lovely agent, Kevan Lyon, announced herself, the last thing I was expecting to hear was that the short story we’d submitted to Harlequin Spice Briefs less than two weeks before had received an offer for publication. (Oddly, it also didn’t occur to me that she was calling to tell me we’d had an offer on a proposal we’ve had out for much longer from one of the two houses we hadn’t yet heard from.)

And so, I’m thrilled to announce that Grace Under Fire, will be released in April 2011. Another story, Taking Liberties. will follow.

Here’s the blurb for Grace Under Fire followed by a brief excerpt from the opening pages.

Lady Grace Hannington is the most inaptly named debutante in all of London. Cursed with two left feet, hands that are nothing but thumbs, and a stutter, she’s certain to spend the next five years on the wall and the rest of her life on the shelf. Or so she believes, until her clumsiness pitches her literally into the arms of Lord Colin Fitzgerald and his best friend, Atticus Stilwell.

Colin and Atticus have been inseparable since a shared boyhood tragedy brought them together more than twenty years ago. Though it raises eyebrows, they share everything…including women. This particular quirk has made it all but impossible for Colin, whose title and lands will revert to the crown if he doesn’t have a legitimate heir, to find a respectable lady who’s willing to be his wife.

When a stroke of good fortune—and little intervention from a well-placed foot—gives the two men a golden opportunity to show the lovely and lonely Lady Grace she’s not quite so gauche as she believes, they play it (and her) for all they’re worth. But once she’s discovered her true talents lie not on the dance floor but in the bedroom, Grace must decide whether a scandalous marriage that’s sure to ruin her reputation is what she really wants.

Excerpt:

It was a truth universally acknowledged that Lady Grace Hannington was the most inaptly named young lady in all of England, if not all Christendom. Within two months of her debut, she had ruined at least a dozen gowns—none her own—and half as many cravats by spilling tea, wine, or some sort of sauce upon them, trod heavily upon many a gentleman’s slippered toe, and broken the nose of one unfortunate chap with a misplaced elbow during a reel. That list of missteps did not encompass the full measure of the lady’s sheer gracelessness, however, for she was forever nursing some sort of self-inflicted injury, ranging from a sprained wrist and a stubbed toe to this evening’s glorious and ill-concealed black eye.

Atticus Stilwell wondered from his vantage on the opposite side of the crowded ballroom how she had come by that shiner. Not that it mattered. With or without the swollen, bluish-purple tinge beneath her eye, she was by far the loveliest woman in the room. Oh, perhaps not in the classic sense of a delicate English rose, but then, she stood a head taller than any other lady in the room—and fully half the men—and her hair was an entirely too flamboyant shade of red for traditional beauty.

In fact, everything about her was lush and flamboyant, from the blazing color of her unruly curls to the ripe red of her too-wide lips to the plump mounds of her generous tits. Though he could only guess at what lay beneath the loose folds of her high-waisted gown, he imagined a slender waist curving into broad but perfectly proportioned hips and from there into shapely legs that would go on forever. Though she was consigned by her ungainliness on the dance floor—and nearly everywhere else—to the role of a perpetual wallflower at Society events, Atticus saw the woman she could blossom into if only she were freed from the expectations of fashion and propriety.

A woman who was more than enough for not one man, but two.

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Before I launch into my post, just a quite note: I’ll be picking a winner from Monday’s contest for a copy of Erica Ridley’s Too Wicked To Kiss tomorrow, so if you haven’t already commented to enter, be sure to do so today .

Okay, onto the topic at hand.

My latest proposal went out on submission yesterday. This is the third proposal my agent and I have tried to sell since I received my contract with Kensington for Behind the Red Door back in April of 2008. Since you haven’t seen any sales announcements from me since then, I think you can safely assume that two of the three attempts were unsuccessful. We have yet to hear about the third, although I’m not holding my breath.

But this post isn’t to whine or curse the universe for failing to recognize my brilliance. Rather, it’s a reflection on what I’ve come to realize is most important to me. And perhaps it would surprise you to know that it isn’t landing another NY contract or getting the big bucks or racking up good reviews. Or maybe it wouldn’t, I don’t know, lol.

What I’ve realized, however, is that there’s really only ONE thing I want: to be read. I don’t write for any other reason than to share my stories with readers. Readers. Not my CPs (who are awesome, by the way, but have very different goals and motivations when reading my books than true readers). Not my agent (though, bless her, I think she’s my biggest fan). And not editors, whether they work for big traditional publishers or small epresses or any combination in between. Those folks I just listed are all in between you–the reader–and the story I want to share with you. Editors, in particular, can keep my story from ever making it into your hands

So, if that’s the way I feel, you might wonder why I don’t just self-publish my books. The answer is complicated, but I have to admit that I’m considering it more and more lately. When and if the time comes that I have a completed book that I really believe in and no publisher I want to work with makes me a reasonable offer for it, I’ll at least look into that possibility.

That said, I still want the help of a publisher to get my books into readers hands, and that’s simply because I don’t have a lot of faith that my books can find readers (and vice versa) without the help of a publisher. As much as I want you to be able to read my books and enjoy my stories, I want a publisher to believe in them and (most important) hel me get them into your hands. I’m only one person, and my reach is limited to what I can accomplish on the Internet, and let’s face it, the signal-to-noise ratio is high and getting higher.

But in the end, what I really, really want (and what I think most authors want) is to be read. Anything else is gravy.

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In case you missed the MacMillan/Amazon ebook price crisis over the weekend, you can catch up on the details (along with a very cogent analysis) at agent Nathan Bransford’s blog. There are several posts over at Dear Author as well.

Hidden in the midst of all this controversy, however, is the question that really interests me: how much are books worth? And by “books,” I mean not the paper and ink on which they’re printed or the computer bytes on which they’re stored, but the actual dollar value of STORY they contain, however packaged. In other words, when you buy a book, are you buying it for the storage medium or for what you perceive its entertainment/informational value to be?

I’ll be honest–I’m still a primarily paper book reader. This is a function of a combination of factors, including the fact that I don’t feel ready to invest in an ereader as I think the technology is still too fluid and the prices for the devices too high for what they do. I worry about amassing a library of ebooks in formats that will become obsolete and unreadable, something I know will never happen to my paper books (well, unless my house burns down). That’s not to say I can’t be converted–and in fact, the groaning of my bookshelves argues I should hope to be converted soon–but I’m just not there yet.

That said, I have bought ebooks, though usually these are books that aren’t available in print format. I don’t dislike ebooks by any means, nor do I feel they’re intrinsically less valuable than print books. Yet I know many, many people DO think ebooks are instrinsically less valuable (in the dollar sense) than print books for a number of reasons, including the fact that there is no physical object, the digital file cannot be legally shared or resold, and (in the case of Kindle) the file can be removed remotely by the vendor. And then there’s the whole DRM thing (something I’ve honestly never encountered because I don’t believe I’ve ever purchased an ebook that had it).

Okay, so I do agree that a physical book has slightly greater intrinsic value than a digital one because, once purchased, it cannot be repossessed and it can be legally shared or resold. Obviously, it also costs more per unit to produce paper books, which argues for a higher price than digital books. But how MUCH more?

A large part of the MacMillan/Amazon kerfuffle was driven by publishers’ fears that setting prices too low for digital books would act to “cannibalize” hardcopy sales, especially of hardcovers, and also set consumer expectations that a digital book is NEVER worth more than $9.99. MacMillan would prefer to have more flexibility in establishing the core value of the CONTENT of their books than Amazon’s pricing structure would have allowed, even though (according to Nathan Bransford’s analysis), the Amazon structure actually results in the publishers receiving about $2 more per copy sold.

The thing is, I sympathize with MacMillan’s position even though I don’t know that I’ll ever be willing to pay much more than $9.99 for a digital book. Certainly, the high end that’s being discussed for digital books in the “agency” model of $14.99 is WAY more than I’d ever pay. But that isn’t because we’re talking about DIGITAL books. It’s because, as a book-buyer in ANY format, my price range for a single title novel is no more than about $10, with an absolute ceiling of about $14, and I’ll pay that only in VERY special cases. (If I want to buy a book that’s only in trade paper, I’ll wait for a coupon or a special 3 for 2 deal to come along to make the unit price more tolerable.) I never buy hardbacks, not only because I think $20+ is outrageous for a book, but because I find them heavy and unwieldy.

So, basically, I don’t see my price tolerance for books changing all that much based on whether it’s digital or print. I don’t tend to pass on my paper books to other people very often (most of the folks I know IRL don’t share my taste in reading material), so the whole “I can share/resell it” thing doesn’t factor into how much I’m willing to pay.

In the final analysis, I’m willing to pay for a book what I think the story contained within its pages or bits and bytes is worth. For me, that’s around $10. But that doesn’t mean I begrudge publishers for wanting to establish higher prices for their books. Maybe I’ll adjust to those prices or maybe I won’t. Only time will tell. But I don’t think format should be a SIGNIFICANT factor in determining the dollar value of a book’s contents.

Okay, tell me why I’m all wet . And how much do YOU think books are worth?

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So, I really intended to get this posted last week, but the time-space continuum proved uncooperative. However, with MWA’s decision last week to officially “de-list” Harlequin as a non-vanity/non-subsidy publisher, the question of what RWA will do in the future becomes even more urgent for authors who are published though Harlequin’s traditional imprints.

First, before you read this, if you haven’t read my post explaining the difference between “eligible publishers” and “non-vanity/non-subsidy publishers,” click here. A lot of the terms in this post won’t make sense otherwise.

Okay, so, here’s the scoop on published author recognition in RWA:

Authors can join PAN (the Published Author Network) if they have earned a minimum of $1,000 on any single novel/novella* published by a non-vanity/non-subsidy publishing within 18 months of the date of release. The author does not–as many people seem to erroneously believe–need to earn that $1,000 in the form of an advance. Royalties count just as much as advances do, although it’s obviously easier for an author who receives an advance to join PAN because she can do so simply by submitting the appropriate contract pages indicating the advance to be received, instead of having to wait until she’s racked up enough in royalties to qualify.

So, what do you get for joining PAN? As far as I can tell, the perks consist primarily of getting a link on RWA’s website to yours and having the PAN designation on your name badge at conferences, which means other attendees will squint harder at your name and try to remember if they’ve ever heard of you, which in most cases, they probably haven’t. (In other words, if you are a BIG NAME AUTHOR, they’ll know who you are whether or not you have PAN on your badge. If you’re not, having the word PAN on your name badge won’t help them.)

One misconception I hear quite often regarding PAN eligibility is that you must be eligible for PAN to enter the RITA. This is simply not true. Eligibility for the RITA is book-based, not author-based. Authors don’t even have to be members of RWA to enter the RITA, let alone members of PAN. They do need to have a book that was published during the correct contest year (for the 2010 RITA, that means it had to have been published in 2009), it must be available in print (and this sticks in a lot of exclusively epubbed authors’ craws), and it must have been published by a non-vanity/non-subsidy press.

This year, I was eligible to enter the RITA, but due to some initial hemming and hawing on my part about whether I should even bother followed by two unsuccessful attempts to get RWA’s site to process my entry, I wound up not getting a chance because the contest was full by the time I got around to a third attempt. As they say, them’s the breaks.

But in any event, an author who is not eligible for PAN because she hasn’t earned a minimum of $1,000 from her book can enter the RITA if her book is available in print. An author who can enter PAN may not be able to enter the RITA because her book is not available in print, but also because she doesn’t have a book published in the current contest year. (I will not have the opportunity to enter the RITA next year because there isn’t a prayer at this point that I’ll sell anything that will be out in print with a 2010 copyright date. I’ll still be a member of PAN, though.)

But despite the (IMO) relatively modest benefits to being a member of PAN, there are a LOT of published authors who are very irked that they aren’t eligible to join. In the end, I think the complaints boil down to this: authors want RWA to validate them.

To which I can only ask, “Why?” Why do you care so much whether RWA deems you published or not? Why do you care so much about your eligibility (or ineligibility) to enter the RITA? Honestly, neither has much impact on your career. If you need an acronym on your name badge or a contest to make you feel like a real writer, maybe it’s time to rethink your priorities.

Because I’m here to tell you, being a member of PAN hasn’t made an iota of difference in my ability to sell another book in New York, and I know a number of RITA finalists who are also out there searching for a contract. PAN and the RITAs mean way more to people who are in RWA than they do to people who are outside of it (read editors and agents). To those folks, the things that matter are the writing and sales (all hail Bookscan). Nothing else amounts to a hill of beans.

Tomorrow: So what about all those Harlequin authors?

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*A “novella” is a story between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Anything under 20,000 words is a short story and, no matter how much you’ve earned from the publication of such a story, you’re not eligible for PAN based on it. You are also still eligible to enter the Golden Heart contest for unpublished authors. I’ve always found it a little ironic that, if Annie Proulx had never written anything longer than Brokeback Mountain, she’d still be treated as an unpublished author by RWA.

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In all the brouhaha surrounding the “delisting” by RWA of Harlequin Enterprises and Thomas Nelson as “eligible publishers” for associating themselves too closely with vanity presses, I’ve seen a lot of misinformation bandied about around the Internet, on blogs and on Twitter, about what, exactly, this means. In the interest of clearing up any confusion there may be about what publisher eligibility means and where the lines are, I’ll try to explain the difference between publisher eligibility and author eligibility for published status and/or the RITAs–they’re different things in the RWA universe–as well as why what RWA did in the case of HQE and Nelson affects both the publishers AND their authors.

In the interest of length, I’m going to tackle publisher terminology today, and talk about the author-related stuff tomorrow (unless a salient WTF Wednesday topic rears its head between now and then, lol).

A word of caution: I am only explaining definitions of terms and how they apply. I am not in any way claiming support for these definitions as currently written nor their outcomes.

1. “Eligible Publisher”

In the RWA world, the term “eligible publisher” means one that pays a minimum $1,000 advance for all the books it contracts from writers. Publishing houses that meet the eligibility criteria receive certain “perks” from RWA, including the opportunity to send staff to the national conference without paying the fee, conference space for book signings, the ability to hold a publisher Spotlight session, and the option to have editors take pitches from writers attending the conference.

There is nothing in the RWA guidelines for eligible publishers, however, that exclude authors who are published by houses NOT on the eligible list from being considered “published” under the guidelines of the PAN (Publisher Author Network) program nor does your book have to be published by an eligible publisher to be entered in the RITA contest. Despite this fact, I have seen the two equated time and time again this past week. It is just not true, and although writers who are not published by eligible houses may feel slighted for a variety of reasons, the complaint that only those with contracts with eligible publishers are treated as “real” authors doesn’t hold up to scrutiny because eligibility applies to what the PUBLISHING house gets from RWA, not what authors get.

2. Non-vanity/Non-subsidy Small Presses

In addition to the publishing houses that meet its criteria for eligibility, there are many, many publishing houses that RWA recognizes as non-vanity/non-subsidy presses. A sizable proportion of these are primarily digital publishing houses along with a few primarily print small presses. The key difference between these publishers and eligible publishers is that they either pay some advances that fail to clear the $1,000 threshhold or do not pay advances at all. In any case, however, these publisher DO pay authors for their work, either in the form of advances+royalties or royalties only. This distinguishes them from vanity/subsidy presses and authors who publish with such houses are neither automatically eligible nor automatically ineligible for either PAN membership or entry in the RITA.

What small presses can’t get from RWA is conference space or the opportunity to take pitches, and that’s simply because RWA feels the risk/return for authors from publishing with such houses isn’t sufficiently favorable to justify RWA lending its support to these houses acquiring works from its authors. Whether or not that’s an accurate assessment of the current state of digital and small press publishing is definitely open to debate, but given past debacles like Triskelion and vocal complaints that RWA didn’t do enough to warn its authors away from fly-by-night presses combined with the difficulty of discerning which presses ARE fly-by-night and which aren’t without using some concrete criteria (and the willingness of a publisher to stake a certain amount of money upfront to the author does represent a certain degree of stability), I think RWA’s position on this is, if not right, at least not ridiculous.

Note that there are probably many small presses that qualify as non-vanity/non-subsidy under RWA’s rules that are not on RWA’s list. That’s because RWA requests that publishers apply for inclusion on the list by submitting their boilerplate contract for review. RWA does this to ensure that the publisher doesn’t charge authors for any part of the production/distribution of their books. A few years ago, a number of epublishers actually changed their boilerplates to prevent themselves from being labeled as vanity/subsidy presses and therefore ensure their companies could appear on RWA’s small press list.

The difference between “eligible” and “small press” publishers, then, boils down to what perks the publishers can get from RWA, not the perks/recognition authors get from RWA. I truly feel this is an important distinction to make, and it can’t be made too often. The fact that your publisher is not eligible for conference freebies does not make you an invalid/illegitimate author. The fact that your publisher doesn’t appear on the RWA list of small presses doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate press, either–it only means it hasn’t bothered to submit the requisite information to RWA to be included (or perhaps doesn’t publish romance, in which case, why should it bother?).

I’m not saying that everything about this system of recognition is good or sensible. I am saying that authors taking/not taking validation from whether or not their publisher is “eligible” by RWA’s criteria is, to me, a little silly.

Now, as to HQE and Thomas Nelson:

These publishers were originally considered “eligible” because they paid the minimum $1k advance on every book they published. By choosing to begin referring rejected authors to Harlequin Horizons and Westbow respectively in their form letters, it became impossible to say that either publisher was offering a $1k advance on every book they published. If they had been referring these authors to presses that simply paid <$1k (such as Harlequin’s new epublishing division, Carina Press), it’s possible that they would have lost their “eligible” designation but would have still been considered small presses, with their authors still eligible for PAN status and their books still eligible for the RITA. However, they crossed the eligibility line farther than that by suggesting “pay-for-publication” models, which are never under any circumstances considered acceptable by RWA, and thus, neither publisher is on either the Eligible list or the Non-Vanity/Non-Subsidy Small Press.

It’s worth noting that at this point, RWA makes no distinction between vanity/subsidy publishing and true self-publishing (where the author acts a bit like a general contractor and subcontracts tasks like cover art, editing, etc. to third parties, but retains the right to all profits from the sale of the work). I don’t think the two models are in any way equivalent, and I’d like to see the self-publishing model gain more credibility in the industry, if only because self-published free or very low cost stories are a great marketing tool for authors. I don’t think publishing/RWA should frown on that to the degree they currently do.

That said, vanity/subsidy publishing is almost always a bad deal for the author. It’s hard to think of any justification for a publisher to steer rejected authors toward a publishing model that is so rarely in the author’s best interests (and they’d never steer an author to true self-publishing, because they wouldn’t make any money from it).

Okay, I’m off to write my soon-to-be-self-published New Year’s freebie. Please feel free to tell me in the interim all the ways I’m wrong .

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Or I would…if they weren’t all email correspondence these days .

It goes almost without saying that rejection is one of the most difficult things authors have to endure. (The only thing harder is writing the darned book, lol.) Even published, “successful” authors get rejections from publishers. It’s the rarefied author indeed who never has to contemplate the possibility that a manuscript won’t pick up an offer of publication somewhere, sometime.

The last round of rejections I received was pretty crushing, honestly. It’s taken me a long time to get my writerly mojo back. Not because they were awful rejections suggesting I didn’t know how to write my way out of a paper bag (although a couple came remarkably close, lol) or even that they were just form letters saying thanks but no thanks. No, it was hard because, let’s face it, as an author, I have to believe my characters and my story are wonderful and worthy or I wouldn’t bother writing them in the first place. No one likes to be told the characters and story they love aren’t up to snuff.

But you know…I’m starting to change my mind. While I don’t think I’ll ever be happy to get a rejection letter, I’ve decided I’d prefer for them to tell me forthrightly that my book/writing isn’t good enough for them to invest their hard-earned cash in than say that and then suggest I invest my hard-earned cash instead. I’d rather get an honest “You’re not there yet with this book, but keep working,” than “maybe you’ll rise to the top through self-publishing and then we’ll see the error of our ways.”

There’s been a lot of talk the last few days about agents and editors and the gatekeeper function and how that might be keeping readers from getting books they really want. That may be true in a handful of cases. I’m sure there are books out there that get rejected by publishers that would be blockbusters if they’d just gotten a contract and appropriate backing. But those books are few and far between. And more to the point, just because there are books like that our there doesn’t mean MINE is necessarily the diamond that editors just can’t see through the rough. As a reader, there are still plenty of books that are published that aren’t my cup of tea, but without that gatekeeper function to vet books for some level of quality, I think there’d be far more sub-par books published, not thousands of overlooked diamonds.

The publisher is right when it rejects a manuscript that the book isn’t “right” for the publisher. That doesn’t have to mean the writing sucks or that it’s a bad book, just that there are a lot of books being published and this book doesn’t really make the cut in terms of fighting for readers and shelf space. I’m honestly okay with that…as long as you don’t tell me to turn around and claw for the shelf space on my own dime, especially when you know the likelihood of my finding that shelf space is slim to none.

Anyway, I just want to let all the editors at all the publishing houses out there know that I will henceforth treasure every rejection letter. I will hate being rejected just as much as ever, but I appreciate your honesty in evaluating my manuscripts and deciding they’re just not there yet. Because that just means I know next time, I have to try to write a better book.

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By now, you’ve probably heard that RWA (Romance Writers of America) has pulled Harlequin Enterprises status as a recognized publisher as a result of its close ties to an entity known as Harlequin Horizons. I already explained in yesterday’s WTF Wednesday post what Harlequin Horizons is and how it’s tied to Harlequin proper, so I won’t belabor those points in this post. Instead, I want to talk about what pulling its recognition status means from the point of view of RWA and its members (and the future of both).

First, what does it mean that RWA no longer considers Harlequin a “recognized” publisher? Well, for Harlequin, it means they will no longer be able to sponsor events at the RWA National Conference. They cannot host a Publisher Spotlight session (which allows them to tell authors/agents at the conference what sorts of books they’re currently seeking, what programs they offer, etc.), and their editors cannot take pitches from conference attendees. Harlequin can still send its employees to the conference, but they will have to “pay their own freight” and they won’t get the visibility/cachet that holding a Spotlight and taking pitches provides.

It’s worth noting that this position is exactly the one that non-advance paying epubs and low-advance paying small presses are already in. Ellora’s Cave and Samhain and many other legitimate presses can’t do spotlights or take editor pitches because they don’t qualify, under RWA’s current rules, as “recognized” publishers. RWA’s rules specify that, to be recognized and permitted to do spotlights/editor pitches, the publisher must pay a minimum advance of $1,000 on every book they contract, and they must not ask the author to shoulder any of the costs of publication. By prominently featuring a vanity publishing option on their website and adding a line to their form rejection letters suggesting the Harlequin Horizons option as a route to publication, Harlequin effectively violated both of these criteria.

Now, it’s been argued by some folks that other publishers are engaged in similarly “rule-violating” practices and RWA hasn’t pulled their ticket, so this seems a bit like singling out Harlequin for special punishment. To some extent, that’s true. It is true that many other publishing houses own or are associated with vanity publishing arms. But if RWA has turned a blind to them, it’s likely because the publishing houses haven’t advertised those associations as blatantly or proudly as Harlequin seems to be doing. None of them, to my knowledge, suggest on their websites that authors seeking publication submit to their vanity publishing arm. And none of them, to my knowledge, recommend their vanity publishing company in their form rejection letters. That is how, IMO, Harlequin crossed the line and fell victim to RWA’s wrath while so far, other publishers have not.

This is not to say that other publishers are completely in the clear. Some of the practices are dubious at best, and it does seem to me that one publisher in particaly (I think it’s HarperCollins) has already violated the “minimum advance on every book” rule by establishing a line that specifically does not pay advances. Why/how did they get around RWA? I’m not sure, but I suspect that RWA took a wait and see approach because 1) it wasn’t sure whether the imprint would catch on at all and 2) there was no evidence that the regular HarperCollins imprints to which most of its members would be submitting would refer rejected manuscripts to the non-advance paying wing. It’s tricksy, I grant you, and more than a little questionable for RWA to continue considering them a recognized publisher, but I can see why they did it. The Harlequin case was a LOT more clear-cut, IMO.

Moreover, I think RWA was almost honor- and duty-bound to pull Harlequin’s recognition because it IS special. Harlequin is “the” romance publisher. It has been the RWA darling since the organization was formed. So when RWA has been saying for years things like “Money always flows to the author, not away,” and “Any agent/publisher that asks you to pay is a scam artist,” they cannot very well turn they other way when the premier publishers for their members (because it publishes more romances than anyone else) starts engaging in a practice which clearly violates the organization’s most dearly held precepts. Precepts which, frankly, I agree with.

I don’t necessarily agree with RWA’s stance on advances and I’d like to see that changed because I don’t think that’s the gold standard for good business practice in publishing anymore, but I cannot and will not argue that RWA should in any way endorse, support, or otherwise recommend a publisher that tries to get authors to pay for publication. Sure, authors can do that it they want to, and I would hope if they do, they understand exactly what they’re getting for their money, but RWA should not do anything which would have the effect of funneling its members in the direction of a publisher if that might lead to the publisher attempting to clean out the members’ pockets.

All of this is a very long way of saying I think RWA did the right thing here, and judging from what I’ve seen on Twitter and in the blogosphere, most of the RWA community agrees.

Buuuuut…and this is a big but, I don’t think, in the end, that Harlequin cares that it has lost its RWA recognition. I’m 99.9% sure that the honchos who made the decision to go into partnership with ASI and feature the Harlequin name and brand prominently in that effort KNEW they’d lose their recognition. And they did it anyway, because, in the final analysis, RWA’s stamp of approval was worth less to them than the potential revenue they can generate through Harlequin Horizons. (Incidentally, RWA isn’t the only writers’ organization that’s not happy about this. MWA is apparently threatening to pull Harlequin’s recognition status, too, although it’s giving them an opportutnity to comply before it boots them.)

Before I continue, I also want to explain that there’s a second level of publisher recognition, which has to do with whether RWA considers authors published by a house to be a) eligible to join PAN if they have earned a minimum from of $1,000 from a book, either in advance or royalty or a combination of both and b) whether their books are eligible to enter the RITA by virtue of being both in print and produced by a non-vanity/non-subsidy publisher. For this year, Harlequin authors will be allowed to enter because Harlequin’s status did not change until after the contest rules were established. But because RWA has classified Harlequin not only as “not recognized” in the way that Ellora’s Cave and Samhain or not, but has actually pulled their recognition because they are now a vanity/subsidy press, it’s quite possible that authors might NOT be able to enter Harlequin books in next year’s RITA, even if they aren’t published by the vanity/subsidy arm. (That would sure shake up the RITAs. All the categories for “category romances” would be eliminated.)

So, if Harlequin, the PREMIERE publisher of romance in the US (and probably the UK, what with Mills & Boon) doesn’t care about staying on the good side of the Romance Writers of America or about its authors’ eligibility to enter RWA’s premier published writing contest, what does it say about the future of RWA in general? Nothing good, obviously. As mentioned above, several other publishing houses have vanity arms, including Random House (Xlibris), HarperCollins (Authonomy), and Thomas Nelson (Westbow). Up to now, they haven’t been quite as overt in their efforts to sell aspiring authors on those options as Harlequin has been with this move, but if Harlequin can do it, lose their RWA recognition status, and NOTHING BAD HAPPENS TO THEM except that they don’t get to do things like Spotlights and editor pitches (which editors almost universally hate doing, anyway), believe me, they’ll ALL be doing it soon.

And that cannot bode well for RWA or its members, because if no publishers are eligible because they all engage in practices that look and smell unethical, how is the organization to help its members to discern the good guys from the bad guys? How is it to educate their members as to their best interests? How can it claim to lobby on behalf of its members’ interests if publishers don’t give a rat’s ass about complying?

The only way RWA or other writers organizations can affect publisher behavior is if their members start boycotting those publishers that don’t comply. In DROVES, to the point where the publisher can’t find enough good manuscripts to publish and keep their business going. But is it realistic to believe that romance authors, for whom Harlequin represents the single biggest chunk of the market for their books, will stop submitting to Harlequin because they’ve lost their recognition status and can’t enter the RITAs any more? My guess is that the answer to that is a big, fat no.

As disappointed as I am in this move by Harlequin, I’ll have to admit that I probably wouldn’t turn my nose up at a legitimate contract offer from them, because they are, all in all, a great publisher with excellent distribution, marketing, and reader loyalty. Yes, it might make me think twice, but in the end, what RWA thinks of my book or my publisher is less important to me than getting my book in the hands of readers. And Harlequin, with or without a tight link to a vanity publishing arm, is a force in that arena.

So, basically, I think RWA has won this battle, in the sense of doing the right thing under its longstanding policies and principles. Good for RWA. But in the end, it may well be that the war has already been lost.

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It’s a fact of life that vanity/subsidy presses exist. It’s also a fact of life that some authors, desperate to have their book in their hot little hands, will pay for publication. And in some cases, that’s the best decision the author could make, because the author’s goal isn’t to make a career out of writing.

Here are a couple of scenarios in which I think authors who self-published made a right decision:

1) The 80yo woman I met at an RWA chapter meeting who was hand-selling her vanity-published romance novel. Yeah, she could have gone through the traditional channels to try to get it published, but it was set in an odd time period/place for the traditional markets and, let’s face it, at her age, she’d probably be dead before it ever saw a bookshelf. She wanted to have her book published and she didn’t mind selling it herself. She knew what she was getting into, and she was pleased with the result because she had the right expectations.

2) My SIL wants to write a children’s book about her experiences growing up with a significant disability. This would be a hard sale in the traditional market AND the main reason she wants to do it is to gift the book to the hospital that did her surgeries pro bono. She’s not looking to make money from it, but looking to “give back” for something that was done for her. Given her desires and expectations, a vanity-publisher looks like the best/most likely option.

But now, along comes Harlequin with a new vanity publishing venture called Harlequin Horizons. If you haven’t already encountered the kerfuffle that’s ensued in Romancelandia over this, you haven’t been paying attention or your Internet has been down for a couple of days. The primary thread on the topic can be found over at Smart Bitches, so if you have a few hours to invest, feel free to hop on over there and read the 200+ comments.

I’m very troubled by this, but not because I think Harlequin might be diluting its brand or because there’s anything inherently wrong with a traditional publishing house holding an interest in a vanity publishing house. (Random House has a 49% share of Xlibris, and I see no issues with that.) It’s that Harlequin is playing a bait-and-switch on aspiring authors, and they are doing it in such a blatant fashion, as if they think it’s business as usual.

But it is NOT business as usual for reputable publishing houses to refer authors to their vanity publishing arm in their form rejection letters. Yet this is precisely what Harlequin is apparently planning to do.

Let’s be clear here…an agent who refers an author to a vanity house for publication and receives a cut of the profit if said author ends up publishing there is considered a sleaze. RWA will not recognize said agent as reputable and will not allow him/her to schedule pitches at conferences, etc.

And yet, this is EXACTLY what Harlequin is proposing to do–funnel rejected manuscripts to a vanity publisher from which it gets a cut of the profits. (It is worth noting here that Random House, while owning 49% of Xlibris, does NOT mention or recommend Xlibris in their rejection letters. Why not? Because it’s always been considered unethical to do so. And it should, in my never to be humble opinion, remain that way.)

/Boggle

And then, to add insult to injury, the Harlequin Horizons site makes a lot of vague promises about how publishing with it will help authors achieve their dreams of being picked up by Harlequin’s traditional publishing arm. It suggests Harlequin will be “mining” Horizons for bestsellers to bring them over into their traditional lines. This is akin to the NBA starting a “pay-to-play” league for basketball hopefuls and tell them they’ll be “scouting” this league for new stars and that said players will have a better shot at making the big time than those who go through the regular slush pile (i.e., colleges, where players who are actually good enough to go onto the NBA typically pick up scholarships AND an education). It’s flat-out deceptive, not because there’s NO chance that it will happen, but because the chances it will are as ridiculously tiny as that the next Michael Jordan would have to pay the NBA for an audition.

Now, I know there are plenty of people out there who subscribe to the “buyer beware” model and think that this is all just fine and dandy. Harlequin is in business to make money and this is just another avenue of revenue for them. It’s up to authors to know what they’re getting into and be savvy.

I agree with that to a large extent. I do think it’s up to authors to do their homework and understand what, exactly, they’re signing up for.

But by the same token, I am disappointed in Harlequin. I have always considered them to be one of the most reputable, honest, and author-focused houses out there. For years, their website has been a reliable source of information about the busines and the craft of writing, and they have helped so many authors achieve their dreams for real. To now see them now embrace a model that involves selling false ones (and at very high prices) makes me more than a little sick to my stomach.

So, please, Harlequin, invest in a vanity publisher if you must, but please, don’t weaken your reputation as one of the most ethical, author-friendly houses out there. I have loved you for so long for your commitment to doing the right thing by authors, both those you publish and those you reject. Please don’t change.

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