This week one of the bigs broke ranks and insiders have gone postal.
Harlequin, one of the biggest category romance publishers on the planet, announced a new publishing arm. For a fee that varies by package, a writer can publish a book that Harlequin will distribute. The pay-to-play arm of the company was originally named "Harlequin Horizons." All over the blogosphere, writer's associations went ballistic. RWA, Romance Writers of America, issued a special announcement which basically tossed Harlequin out of the club, decreeing that Harlequin had become a non-eligible publisher and was no longer eligible for RWA-provided conference resources.
Harlequin responded by noting the extent to which its company has supported the RWA and has provided resources to the RWA. However, because of the furor over the whole business, Harlequin took the unfortunate (and rather cowardly) step of saying it would change the name of its pay-to-play arm and that "Harlequin" would not appear in the name of the new division.
Harlequin didn't cancel the new venture and so far as I have been able to determine, RWA hasn't responded to the name change or welcomed Harlequin back into the fold.
The whole debacle shows how terrified traditional bastions of publishing are over the future. Many websites criticized Harlequin by calling it a "vanity press." Vanity press is a prejudicial and demeaning term that carries a boatload of implied criticism. The term basically means - or it used to mean - a place an author pays to be published. It was different from a subsidy press, which is one where the author participates in the costs of publication in any manner. The terms were created or endorsed by associations like RWA to differentiate "real authors" from "fake authors." You're only a real author if you've played their game their way - you queried until you found a "worthy citizen" or agent to sell your work to the Royals in the big publishing castles. Fake authors are allowed to be members of RWA, and fake publishers can associate with the real authors, but they don't get all the benefits. RWA hopes that because it deigns to allow them to belong to the group, the fake authors and fake publishers will see the error of their ways.
RWA endorses or advocates only one path to publication - the sacred path.
A writer who gets her work to readers by any other method is not a real writer. A publisher who sponsors any other route is not a real publisher. Those who don't walk the sacred path shall be shunned and ostracized. I'm waiting for the next demand from RWA - that those who walk the other paths must be branded with Scarlet Letter(s) - perhaps SP for self-published.
The RWA and its member minions say they are taking this position to protect authors from being preyed upon and to protect readers from spending money for a book of inferior quality. It's an insulting and patronizing attitude. The association is patting folks like me on the head and saying "We know best, dear." The RWA is not just wrong - it's dangerously wrong.
RWA - don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining. You're not trying to protect me or my readers. You're trying to protect and preserve something that doesn't exist anymore. In doing that, you mislead and harm your members. The sacred path has gone the way of antenna television reception. It may exist in some form for some very few writers, but for most of us who have books and ebooks we want to publish, it is not a realistic option. We will publish and readers will look at our books, side by side with those blessed by the Royals, and the readers will decide which to buy. More and more, readers are becoming as independent as writers. So don't patronize my readers, either. By and large, they're a stubborn group of individuals who would never have bought the company line offered by the Royals or the RWA's blessed few "real" authors.
As to Harlequin's new venture, I agree with the fine folks over at the Pittsburgh Books Examiner who find the term vanity press to be dated. I also agree with the Examiner that times are "a-changing." The shortcut to publishing disdained by the RWA which apparently feels that the upstart Indie Authors haven't paid their dues isn't a shortcut at all. It's a new path. As the Examiner notes:
Blazed by a few, ventured by many and proven succesful, new technologies can change the publishing playing field entirely. If one were to consider the eReader as an iPod for books, this change seems not only possible, but entirely inevitable.
Harlequin saw the future. It created a path that authors with the financial resources who choose to walk that road can take. It may not be the path that I would choose, but at the moment, with my family's currently greatly reduced finances, that path would not be open for me. However, I applaud Harlequin for creating another path, another choice, another road. It is always, in my opinion, better to widen the number of doors than to ignore them, close them or threaten members who take them, which seems to be the RWA's stance. I am disappointed that Harlequin backed down to some extent, but I am encouraged that Harlequin didn't back off. A name change doesn't close the door, and I don't know if it will satisfy the RWA.
What should Harlequin do now? It should continue to look at the new horizon and found a new romance writer's association. The new association should consider any author who has been brave enough to put her work out there in paper or digital format to be a published author. It should create new awards that will replace the Rita and the Golden Heart (there are names a-plenty: the Juliet, the Romeo, the Cupid, the Aphrodite) and it should base those awards on the quality of the work. It should encourage readers and writers to join and it should encourage and highlight the new companies and the new technologies. Perhaps it can work in partnership with a host of companies like Amazon, Lightning Source, LuLu, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and Sony (to name a few) to give out awards to authors who publish on those platforms. The companies can receive some free publicity and be guaranteed access to the new association's members and can communicate and work with the new association's officers to improve digital publishing for everyone. In exchange, the members might receive discounts and notices when new material will be published.
BRAVO to authors who took the sacred path and built platforms and careers. I've read and will continue to read many of their books. But most of those authors should look deep inside their independent, creative spirits and see that the RWA way is not their way. We should all applaud and encourage any path that leads to more choices for writers and readers. Each of those paths may be different, but cookie cutters won't turn out authors who can produce daring, new or exciting ideas. Cookie cutters produce an endless procession of more of the same. We have enough of that already. Authors must applaud new technology, new choices and celebrate any new paths that allow our sisters and brothers to publish.
The sacred path will return as the best road to publication when the antenna television returns as the best method of television reception.
Harlequin and all romance writers who are tired of celebrating the past instead of embracing the future should let RWA have its way. RWA has picked the hill it wants to die on. We should respect that choice too.