Samhain Responds.

From Angie James’ blog, and from multiple forwards to me, the official statement from Samhain:

Yes, Samhain will lose recognition after conference. It doesn’t change
anything for our business or with the deal with Kensington, nor our IPS
print program. We’ll still pay royalties on time and do business as usual 😉
For us, it means we can’t do publisher type things at nationals next year.
Perhaps someday things will change and we’ll be back at RWA, doing editor
appointments and so forth, but until that time, we continue on as always.
RWA is an organization for authors to network and learn from one another. As
the guidelines have been set up, removing our recognition doesn’t take away
your ability to utilize it as such and the benefits of RWA remain for those
authors who wish to enjoy them.

Of course it’s disappointing to us that RWA is unable to accommodate small
presses at this time, but it’s understandable that they must do what they
believe is best for the authors and the organization.

However, it’s my belief that the allure of epublishing is our ability to
sign a wide variety of books and genres without a huge monetary risk.
Offering even 1000 dollars advance would remove our ability to do that. Our
gain from being approved is not as significant as our gain from being free
to take on books because we love them, not because they’ll earn out their
advance. Once we enter into the world of larger dollar amount advances, we
become a publisher who can’t take the publishing risks that we do now, never
knowing what will hit and what will not so much.

I know it’s important to some authors that their publisher be recognized and
that there will be some who are disappointed by the way things have gone and
choose to seek publication elsewhere, and that saddens me because at the
heart of things, I think we’re a pretty damn good publisher. We’ll move
forward from here just as we would have had we been able to keep
“recognition”. Nothing changes. Samhain will remain the same publisher next
week, when the policy goes into effect and we’re no longer “recognized” as
we are this week.

Permission to forward granted

Angela James, Executive Editor
http://www.samhainpublishing.com

I went to the RWA Online chapter hoe-down (thanks for the invitation Mel!) tonight and heard all about this decision from several very upset and hurt e-published authors who feel like their legitimacy as authors in this organization has been stripped away. They are of the opinion that the real reason was to shut out erotica, because the RWA doesn’t like it. I don’t think that’s the actual reason, but they were feeling the slap from both a business and a genre perspective.

However, other folks could see what RWA was trying to do – if your advance is less than 1k, are you a “professional author” or are you a hobbyist? If the RWA is positioning itself to be a professional writer’s organization, is excluding based on a minimum balance of advance necessarily the right step? Or has RWA done itself some damage with the ‘you were in but now you’re not’ policy change?

More importantly, as a writer, does this policy affect your decision of who you’d like to publish with? And if you’re an ePub, does this policy change stand in your way? Or, like Samhain, is it business as usual?

Comments are Closed

  1. Krysia says:

    Every so often, I think to myself about becoming an RWA member. Then they thow a curve like this and remind me why I haven’t. Actually, I should thank them for saving me the money. Is there even such a thing as a “local chapter” in Montana? *Anywhere* in Montana?

    Pfft.

    What they really should be doing is *encouraging* the legitimate ePublishers, because let’s face it: As with letters, music, and now even TV shows and movies, digital is the path of the future. Save a freaking tree. Save some money. Buy an eBook.

    You have to be a damn good writer before I’ll shell out $12 on a freaking paperback.

  2. Lynne says:

    One of the big questions I’ve had all along is what, exactly, the Board is trying to accomplish with these particular PAN restrictions. Say you’re an author who got an advance of $995, not $1,000, from a print publisher. Or maybe you write for an e-publisher that primarily (or exclusively or whatever they change the word to be) sells via its web site.

    Are the big gals in PAN going to catch some awful disease from you when you sit next to them at the PAN retreat? Is something being taken away from them because you also have PAN status?

    Just askin’. 🙂

  3. Wry Hag says:

    Ann Bruce, it isn’t just you.  I even blogged about this because I DON’T GET IT and I needed to vent before I blew myself some extra nostrils. 

    Readers, as you pointed out, don’t give a rip-roaring fuck about RWA membership, recognition, or even awards.  Many writers don’t, either.  All this hoohah makes me think of some sorority riddled with personality conflicts, infighting, hidden agendas, miscommunication, dumb-blondness, and individual as well as group egotism.

    Shit.  I just want to write.  And I want to write to be read.  I don’t care about having a half-dozen acronyms hanging off my ass.  And I can assure you, advances or no advances, I AIN’T NO GODDAMNED “HOBBYIST”.  That particular implication infuriates me nearly to the point of palsy!

    ~ The Hag,
    proud purveyor of quality smut
    for the discriminatingly oversexed…
    and of largely unread really good books

  4. Lucy-S says:

    Brenna—really?  SFWA denied you entry?  I got in on credits that weren’t on The List—did you appeal to their Membership Committee?  Or did they refuse you on print run grounds?

  5. Brenna Lyons says:

    The setup is called a “magazine,” but it’s really not one. It’s an series of anthologies that pays a flat rate and includes graphic art for each story (one B&W piece, hand-drawn, per story…usually about 8 stories per book, plus the hand-painted cover to match one of the stories…comparable to a smaller, newer version of Grant Publishing). I would assume the problem is the fact that it’s called a magazine. We don’t make the print run for a magazine yet, but we aren’t distributed as a magazine is either. And any publication that’s paying 5-10 cents per word every issue isn’t a joke. But, when I tried to question the portions of the rules that MIGHT contradict each other, in this case, they refused to answer my questions…twice. That is a clear dismissal.

    Brenna

  6. Lucy-S says:

    Brenna—that really sucks.  I’m sorry to hear they blew you off like that.  I actually haven’t reupped at SFWA in several years; it sounds like they’re not running things the same as they were when I joined.

  7. Brenna Lyons says:

    Oh, that explains it…maybe. These were the changes they made just a few years back. But, no… They aren’t very forthcoming with information for prospective members.

    B

  8. Lia says:

    One thing nobody’s mentioned as yet:  competition.

    The New York publishers are getting into the e-book business.

    RWA is kind of an unpaid publicity organ for the big romance publishers—that’s where all the freebie books come from, and I’m willing to bet those giveaways are a big reason people pay the high price of admission.

    Big businesses don’t like competition.  As long as they weren’t doing e-books, it was no skin off their snouts if small e-presses got RWA recognition.

    Now?  Heaven forbid some upstart small press should sign a writer or three whose books outshine the big girls.

    I don’t know if somebody from a big press dropped a gentle hint, or if RWA’s ladies decided to take the initiative, but I’d be astonished if the NY e-books don’t have something to do with this raising of the bar.

    It amazes me how many people talk about their wonderful local chapters… okay, if you’ve got contact with great local people, why stay in the national RWA at all?  The organization sounds much like a church that’s become so entrenched in its dogma that innovation is stifled… seems to me it’s time for a new, more inclusive organization for people who write romance.  It still wouldn’t be pefect, but the notion of competition might be a very good thing… it’s never good when one organization is the only game in town.

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