Jackie Barbosa

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.

Tweet This Post

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?

Tweet This Post

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?

---

*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.

Tweet This Post

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 .

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post

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.

Tweet This Post

Yesterday, Dear Author posted an anonymous guest post on the subject of cultural appropriation. In it, the writer lamented the dearth of non-white protagonists in romance, and the tendency for those stories which do feature unusual locations (India, the Middle East, etc.) to have white protagonists, too. A long, interesting thread of comments has ensued (last time I looked, there were 250+ comments), including one from author Jade Lee, whose Blaze historical, The Concubine, was set in ancient China and featured Chinese protagonists but which, despite positive reviews, failed to sell as well as Harlequin would have liked. Jade will continue to write for Harlequin, but going forward, her books will feature white protagonists and her historicals will be set in Regency England.

So, given everything that’s already been said in the thread at Dear Author, what could I possibly have to add? Only this: the lack of diversity in romance/publishing¹ isn’t limited to the race/ethnicity of the main characters. It’s also evident in other facets of the sorts of books that get picked up for publication.

I’m going to give a concrete example here. I have a proposal out with an editor for a book that’s set in Prohibition Era Chicago. I like to say it’s Dashiell Hammett meets Lora Leigh. I think it’s a great premise for a book and the writing is solid. But I’m also a realist. There isn’t much of a market for Prohibition Era romantic suspense. In fact, there probably isn’t a market for it at all. This means that, for the publisher to pick up my book for publication is a big risk. Bigger than, say, buying a wonderfully well-written Regency era romance by another author. And believe me, there are plenty of wonderfully well-written Regencies out there for publishers to choose from. My proposal isn’t competing for publishing space with OTHER Prohibition Era romances, but with other historical romances set in periods and places that are tried and true, that publishers KNOW have an opportunity to sell well.

Now, many people, when I mention this book, say, “Oh, I’d LOVE to read that. It sounds great. It’s so different.” But, that’s the rub. No matter how great it might be, different isn’t good when it means the publisher isn’t sure the book can sell. Jade mentioned that Harlequin put a significant marketing effort behind The Concubine, but it just wasn’t enough to propel readers to step outside their comfort zone and buy it. (I’m sorry I didn’t buy it, although the reason wasn’t because of the setting or race of the characters, but because I don’t buy/read category romances. In retrospect, I wish I’d stepped outside my comfort zone for that book.)

My agent and I discussed this book and another project I’m working on yesterday and agreed that we probably won’t pursue taking it out elsewhere because the new project is simply more marketable. It has a time and place setting that publishers like (Victorian England), a paranormal element that’s hot and popular, and an interesting high concept. That’s what publishers are looking for right now, so that’s what I’m trying to write–books that will sell.

Quite honestly, that means being “different” and pushing the boundaries just isn’t on my agenda. As a writer, I want to write books people will read. That means writing books publishers will buy, publish, and promote. And in this day and age, that means books that fit within the defined categories that already exist. Sure, there’s always going to be that ONE writer who sells the “really different” book and kicks off a whole new subgenre. But the reality is, that writer probably won’t be me. It probably won’t even be you if you’re a debut or midlist author looking for a slot in this environment. Probably, the breakout, different book is going to come from a well established author who’s already hit the lists a time or two and has a bankable name for the publisher to hang its marketing hat on.

The rest of us have to be different in very small, very careful ways if we want to sell. We have to come up with a “big” premise that publishers believe they can “lead” with (publishers don’t want to buy midlist books anymore; they want incipient bestsellers).

So, bottom line, if anything, the homogenization of romance is going to become more pronounced over time rather than less so. Established authors who have made a stab at increasing diversity are being asked to write “safer” books for their new contrats. (Jade Lee isn’t the only published author I’ve heard of who’s been asked to do this. It’s perfectly understandable, too. If a publisher has an author they believe has great talent, they will want her to write a book that has the best opportunity to sell to a lot of readers. Why “waste” her abilitites on books with a “niche” market?) New authors are going to be bought because their books “fit” into the already defined categories with broad sales potential. And the midlist authors, whose books might be the most likely to be “different” because the sales expectations aren’t huge, will be slowly winnowed away.

But the thing is, it’s not the job of publishers to fix the culture or educate the populace. Their job is to publish books that entertain enough readers to produce a profit for the publishing house. If readers really WANTED these different books in large numbers, I believe we’d be getting them. The fact that publishers have taken risks on books that don’t fit the defined categories and they generally don’t do well is evidence to me that most readers want historicals featuring white Regency era England lords and ladies and paranormals featuring vampires/werewolves/demons, and so on.

If that ISN’T what you want as a reader…stop buying them. You can’t buy the books that aren’t there, but if you stop buying the ones that are (perhaps taking your dollars to epublishers or small presses that do offer the kinds of stories you want), perhaps that will induce the same scramble in the NY publishing industry that happened a few years back when they realized erotic romance was a market they could make money on. Maybe the same efforts will be made to sign authors from epublishing who write outside the box again.

In the meantime, we’re going to keep getting what we’re buying. And yes, I’m guilty, because I’m buying (and writing) those homogenized romances.

---

¹When I say publishing in this post, please think “mainstream, print, NY publishing.” There is room for a great deal more diversity in epublishing, but let’s face it, the majority of book readers are still print readers, and saying there’s diversity in ebooks if you’ll only go find them is like saying there’s diversity in TV if only you’ll get expanded cable. Not everyone wants to go there.

Tweet This Post

Or maybe that should read “Piracy is for dummies.”

If you haven’t been around the Twitterverse or Dear Author lately, you may have missed the flare-up over an article in the New York Times yesterday, wherein a reader told a reported that she shares her Kindle account with several friends, does not always pay for the ebooks she reads, and was pretty sure what they were doing by sharing this Kindle account was exploiting a “loophole” in Kindle’s Terms of Service. Turns out, upon review, that there was nothing shady or dubious, let alone piractical, about what she and her friends were doing, but that didn’t stop some folks from castigating her and calling her a thief. It also let to a pretty lively discussion on Twitter about whether there was a difference between sharing ebooks within a household/among family members versus among friends who don’t live together.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time regurgitating my thoughts about this particular case of booksharing (which I have no issues with whatever and which others have already more than adequately explained¹), but instead try to coalesce my thoughts about the issue underlying the outrage: ebook piracy.

There’s no doubt that true ebook piracy is rampant and poses a significant threat to authors. It’s simply far to easy (even with DRM) for a person to buy one copy of an ebook, then upload the file to a torrent site for thousands of passersby to download on a whim. Not only that, there are folks out there who take pride in never paying for books (or music) because they know how to suss out the free copies. They know they are stealing, and not only do they not care, they’re actually willing to brag about it.

A little harder to quantify is how many innocent folks stumble on a book or song they want on a torrent site and don’t realize it’s not legal to download it for free. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking. No one could be that stupid/Internet illiterate. Alas, I think they can be. And it doesn’t help, IMO, that Amazon has started offering some of its Kindle books for the whopping sum of $0.00. That may be a win for classic literature, but it does instill the notion that books can be downloaded for free and still be legal. (A lot of authors also offer free reads from their websites, and I think it’s a great strategy for attracting new readers. Buuuuut, it does have a downside, which is again to reinforce the idea that readers shouldn’t/don’t have to pay for content.)

All in all, I don’t think there is a topic out there that can touch off more moral outrage in the author community than piracy. Authors see pirates taking money out of their pockets, and they don’t like it.

I’m not about to say authors should like it, but I do think it wouldn’t hurt to get less exercised about it. Because in all honesty, I don’t think piracy by itself is near as big a threat to authors as (are you ready?) the fact that most publishers seem to have little or no interest in stopping it.

As angry as authors are about piracy, you would think publishers would be absolutely foaming at the mouth over it. You’d think they’d be threatening lawsuits against every illegal downloader the way the music industry publishers back in the days of Napster. You’d think they’d be hiring attorney to bring suit against ISPs for allowing torrent sites that regularly violate copyright. (Most of these sites are hosted in countries with questionable legal systems or enforcement of copyright laws, so going after the SITES is pretty tough.) And you’d think they’d be working way harder to get strong, consistent, coherent definitions of fair use and ownership of digital media so that people would be absolutely clear on what constitutes legal sharing and what constitutes thievery.

Instead, publishers seem to me to be doing little more than sticking their fingers in the dyke by putting DRM on their ebook files and/or otherwise dragging their feet to join the digital age. And frankly, DRMing or holding up ebook production is a little like sticking your fingers in your ears and going “neener, neener, neener” at piraters, because all it takes for someone to pirate your print is a scanner and a few too many hours of spare time. Bottom line: If someone wants to pirate your book, they will, because a) they can and b) there are no real consequences for doing so.

Why aren’t publishers as worked up about this as authors are? I have no idea. Maybe they are and I’m just not seeing the evidence of it. But will say this–authors can’t do much about stopping/reducing piracy without the help of the deep pockets in the game.

So, the next time you, the author, find your book on a torrent site for download, in addition to railing about the injustice of it all and emailing the site to get them to take it down, send the information to your editor or the sales department at your publishing house, along with the number of downloads. Maybe if publishers saw each and every instance of piracy in literally hundreds of emails from their authors, they’d take the threat a little more seriously.

---

¹For great discussions of the situation, see:

• Dear Author
• Courtney Milan
• Access Romance

Tweet This Post

Yes, yes, I know it’s only Monday. But sometimes, WTF Wednesday comes early. Think of it as like Christmas in July .

This week’s early WTF Wednesday is brought to you by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). By now, you’ve probably heard about this strange new set of guidelines, which basically requires bloggers who review books they have received for free (or, apparently, even books they paid for but to which they provide an Amazon link for purchase) to disclose their “financial” relationship with the publisher/author/seller of said book. Well, at least if they say nice things about the book.

I won’t go into a lengthy explanation of the rule here, because others have already done so. Instead, I simply point you to the post that made me drop my jaw in disbelief–an overview of a discussion with Richard Cleland of the FTC, explaining why bloggers who don’t actually get paid to review books should be subject to a different standard than those who are paid to do reviews by newspapers, magazines, etc. I’ll wait for you to get back if you haven’t already read it, because it is seriously WTF-inducing.

Back? Picked your jaw up off the floor yet?

Okay, so here was the first thing that got my undies in a twist (I’m not sure what gets yours; there’s plenty of grist for the mill): Cleland believes that when a blogger receives a free copy of a book to read, there is an “expectation” on the part of the party providing the book that the review will be positive in nature. Apparently, then, the free book is “payment” for a service being rendered by the blogger–to wit, an endorsement of the product.

Except I don’t know ANY authors who believe this. Every author I’ve ever known who has sent out review copies of her book to bloggers has worried whether the resulting review would be positive or negative (or whether there would be a review at all). And in fact, in many cases, there IS no review. Sites like Dear Author and Smart Bitches can’t possibly read and review all the books they receive–the people doing the reviews can’t read that fast or live that long. And I’ve sent out plenty of copies of Behind the Red Door to reviewers who NEVER reviewed them, one way or the other. Guess what? I don’t expect them back. They aren’t payment for a service–they’re a gift, plain and simple. There’s nothing I can do TO get them back, even if I wanted to, so the notion that the book is a payment strikes me as ludicrous. It’s only payment if you don’t get it until you do the work…but that’s pretty hard to manage in the case of book reviews.

But what troubles me even more about this rule isn’t that the FTC is asking book bloggers to disclose their “sponsorship” by authors/publishers who send them free books for review. It’s that they’re exempting the folks who really DO get sponsorship (and lots of it) from publishers and authors from the rule. You see, apparently, readers of magazines like Romantic Times or other “traditional” book review media (including the booksellers themselves) are somehow aware that those publications’ endorsements of the products reviewed in them are, by definition, NOT THE REVIEWER’S HONEST OPINION.

Um, wow. Thanks for saying what I knew all along–we can’t trust the reviews of paid media because, hey, they’re being paid for it! (And yes, I believe that WHICH books are reviewed/recommended in traditional media is strongly influenced by money. I don’t mean that publishers are paying for good reviews/recommendations per se, but I do believe that publishers DRIVE which books get attention with their advertising dollars, and that translates into greater attention to those books by reviewers.)

Okay, so now the book bloggers who don’t actually make a living at reviewing books are being asked to disclose the fact that they received a book for free (with a WHOPPING value of, what, $8 for an mmpb, $15 for a trade, and $25 for a hardcover) because I MIGHT believe their review is an honest expression of their opinion of the book. Well, heaven forfend!

To me, the irony is that I think when people read a review in the New York Times or on Publisher’s Weekly, I’m betting that for the most part, they actually think they’re reading the revewier’s honest opinion, even though the reviewer is getting paid to do the review. If we DIDN’T believe that when reading a review, regardless of the medium, why would we bother at all?

And of course, this doesn’t even get into the whole free speech thing. If I love a book and want to recommend it to my friends, how I came by it is irrelevant. I should be able to say what I want about it.

Frankly, I’m stunned by this. Even more so that this is the FTC under my president. What gives?

Tweet This Post