This week one of the bigs broke ranks and\u00a0insiders have gone postal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Harlequin<\/a>, one of the biggest category romance publishers on the planet, announced a new\u00a0publishing arm<\/a>.\u00a0 For a fee that varies by package, a writer can publish a book that Harlequin will distribute. The\u00a0pay-to-play arm of the company was originally named \"Harlequin Horizons.\"\u00a0 All over the blogosphere, writer's associations went ballistic.\u00a0 RWA,\u00a0Romance Writers of America<\/a>, issued a special announcement<\/a> which basically tossed Harlequin out\u00a0of the club, decreeing that Harlequin had become a non-eligible publisher and was no longer eligible for RWA-provided conference resources.<\/p>\n Harlequin responded<\/a> by noting the extent to which its company has supported the RWA and has provided resources to the RWA.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n The whole debacle shows how terrified traditional bastions of publishing are over the future.\u00a0 Many websites criticized Harlequin by calling it a \"vanity press.\"\u00a0\u00a0Vanity press is a prejudicial and demeaning term that carries a boatload of implied criticism.\u00a0 The term\u00a0basically means - or it used to mean - a\u00a0place an author\u00a0pays 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\u00a0or endorsed by associations like RWA<\/a> to differentiate \"real authors\" from \"fake authors.\" \u00a0 You're only a real author if you've played their game their way - you\u00a0queried until you found a \"worthy citizen\" or agent to sell your work to the Royals in the big publishing castles.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n RWA endorses or advocates only one path to publication - the sacred path.<\/p>\n \u00a0A writer who gets her work to readers by any other method is not a real writer.\u00a0 A publisher who sponsors any other route is not a real publisher.\u00a0 Those who don't walk the sacred path shall be shunned and ostracized.\u00a0 I'm waiting for the next\u00a0demand from RWA - that those who walk the other paths must be branded with Scarlet Letter(s) - perhaps SP for self-published.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u00a0of inferior quality.\u00a0 It's an insulting and patronizing attitude.\u00a0 The association is patting\u00a0folks like me on the head and saying \"We know best, dear.\"\u00a0 The RWA is not just wrong - it's dangerously wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n RWA - don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining.\u00a0 You're not trying to protect me\u00a0or my readers.\u00a0 You're trying to protect and preserve something that doesn't exist anymore.\u00a0 In doing that, you mislead and harm your members.\u00a0 The sacred path has gone the way of\u00a0antenna television reception.\u00a0 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\u00a0realistic option.\u00a0 \u00a0We 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.\u00a0 More and more, readers are becoming as independent as writers.\u00a0 So don't patronize my readers, either.\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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<\/a>. I also agree with the Examiner that times are \"a-changing.\"\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It's a new path.\u00a0 As the Examiner notes:<\/p>\n 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.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Harlequin saw the future.\u00a0 It\u00a0created a path that authors with the\u00a0financial resources who choose to walk that road can take.\u00a0 It may not be the path that I would choose, but at the moment, with my family's\u00a0currently greatly reduced finances, that path would not be open for me.\u00a0 However, I applaud Harlequin for creating another path, another choice, another road.\u00a0 It is always, in my opinion, better\u00a0to 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.\u00a0 I am disappointed that Harlequin backed down to some extent, but I am encouraged that Harlequin didn't back off.\u00a0 A name change doesn't close the door, and I don't know if it will satisfy the RWA.<\/p>\n What should Harlequin do now?\u00a0 It should continue to look at the new horizon and found a new romance writer's association.\u00a0 The new association should consider any author who has been brave enough to put her work out there in paper\u00a0or digital format to be a published author.\u00a0 It should create new awards that will replace the Rita and the Golden Heart (there are names a-plenty: the\u00a0Juliet, the Romeo, the Cupid, the Aphrodite) and it should base those awards on the quality of the work.\u00a0 It should encourage readers and writers to join and it should encourage and highlight the new companies and the new technologies.\u00a0 Perhaps it can work in partnership with a host of companies like Amazon<\/a>, Lightning Source<\/a>, LuLu<\/a>, Smashwords<\/a>, Barnes and Noble<\/a> and Sony<\/a> (to name a few) to give out awards to authors who publish on those platforms. \u00a0\u00a0The 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.\u00a0 In exchange, the members might receive discounts and notices when new material will be published.<\/p>\n BRAVO to authors who\u00a0took the sacred path and built platforms and careers. I've read and will continue to read many of their books.\u00a0 But most of those authors should look deep inside their independent, creative spirits and see that the RWA way is not their way.\u00a0 We should all applaud and encourage any path that leads to more choices for writers and readers.\u00a0 Each of those paths may be different, but cookie cutters won't turn out authors who can produce daring, new or exciting ideas.\u00a0 Cookie cutters produce an endless\u00a0procession of more of the same.\u00a0 We have enough of that already.\u00a0 Authors must applaud new technology, new choices and celebrate any new paths that allow our sisters and brothers to publish.<\/p>\n The sacred path will return as the best road to publication when the antenna television\u00a0returns as the best method of television reception.<\/p>\n Harlequin and all\u00a0romance writers\u00a0who are tired of\u00a0celebrating the past instead of embracing the future should let RWA have its way.\u00a0 RWA has picked the hill it wants to die on.\u00a0\u00a0We should respect that choice too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week one of the bigs broke ranks and\u00a0insiders have gone postal.\u00a0 Harlequin, one of the biggest category romance publishers on the planet, announced a new\u00a0publishing arm.\u00a0 For a fee that varies by package, a writer can publish a book that Harlequin will distribute. The\u00a0pay-to-play arm of the company was originally named \"Harlequin Horizons.\"\u00a0 All ...continue reading \"Harlequin’s New Horizon\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}