From Publisher’s Weekly: Tsaba House Press is considering legal action against the RWA after one of its authors was barred from entering the RITA because Tsaba House is not an RWA -approved publisher.
Tsaba House Press, a Christian publisher of fiction and nonfiction titles, is considering taking legal action against the Romance Writers of America for refusing to consider one of the small California press’s authors for a Rita Award, which honors inspirational romances. According to Pam Schwagerl, Tsaba House publisher, Molly Noble Bull was barred from submitting her latest release, Sanctuary, for a Rita Award, because Tsaba House is not an “RWA approved†publisher. RWA subsequently told Schwagerl that the organization considers Tsaba House to be a subsidy or vanity press, because its boilerplate contract contains such clauses as charging authors if manuscripts have to be retyped or if the press considers it necessary to add frontmatter and backmatter to the manuscript that the author didn’t provide.
Schwagerl was quoted in the article “‘I really feel that this is an affront to independent publishers to try and once again group us in the category of subsidy presses and try to take away the advances the small publishers have made in the industry,’ said Schwegerl. She founded Tsaba House in 2002 and uses a boilerplate contract she bought from self-publishing guru Dan Poynter’s Web site.”
According to the article, RWA president Allison Kelly responded that “if, in its boilerplate contract, a press can charge an author for anything, the organization considers that company to be a subsidy or vanity press, and will not consider its titles for RWA’s award program…. RWA ‘didn’t do anything but apply [our] standards. We limit what we do to non-subsidy, non-vanity’ publishers.”
The feedback to the article on the PW site is full of exclamation points, to say the least. Marion Gropen’s comment stated in part, “The RWA seems to be trying to thin out the field, so that they can handle the number of submissions. That makes sense. It looks like they are assuming that most submissions from vanity or subsidy presses will have very little chance of winning, and can safely be excluded. That makes sense. But what does NOT make sense is their failure to recognize standard language in boilerplate, and their failure to reverse themselves when the error was brought to their attention.”
So let me ask – because I actually don’t know – is it standard in a contract that fees are charged when a publisher faces retyping a manuscript or adding content? The RWA took a lot of heat for defining non-vanity/non-subsidy publishers, and in the wake of Triskelion’s folding – along with the folding of several other e-pubs, from Venus to Aphrodite’s Apples – it’s not difficult to see why those lines were drawn to begin with (especially after authors faced a long wait through legal and financial filings to find out if they could get their manuscripts back).
Graceful curtsey to Em for the link.
CORRECTIONS – UPDATES – ADDITIONAL INFORMATION – WHY IS MY WIRELESS ACTING UP NOW?!
Allison Kelley, RWA Executive Director, contacted me to set the record straight about a few pieces of misinformation in the PW article.
The article regarding Tsaba House and Romance Writers of America contained a factual error. The Tsaba House author referenced in the article was not trying to enter RWA’s RITA contest. She was interested in entering a contest sponsored by an RWA chapter. The rules governing RWA chapter contests are independently determined by each chapter. At no time did the author mention the RITA award when communicating with the RWA office. According to RWA records, the office was not contacted by the author or publisher until February 2008, several months after the RITA entry deadline, which was November 30, 2007.
Well, now that’s a whole other kettle of different! Holy misinformation, there, Batmonkey. What’s up with that?
My publisher (Orbit, formerly Warner) can charge me if, for example, I change too much at the page-proofs stage (since resetting the text is expensive). That’s not “retyping” the manuscript per se, but since I don’t know the exactly contract language Tsaba uses, I can’t say for sure if that’s what it refers to. I don’t have anything in my contracts about front and back matter.
Not a romance publisher, of course, but at least it’s a data point. I’ve never heard of those things being boilerplate, though.
Ditto the above, for two different RWA-approved romance publishers. I’ve never heard of it actually being enforced, but it’s in the contract that I’m liable for the $$ if the cost of my page proof changes exceed X% of the typesetting cost.
Also, I’m pretty sure the ‘approved’ label has now been changed, such that(I think, but could be wrong) an author who has received a certain $$ for a given book is considered ‘published,’ regardless of the publisher. I’m not sure how that relates to RITA eligibility, though, and I’m not sure whether the ‘published’ label applies to a book for which the author has fronted money (i.e. vanity/subsidy-type presses). I’m sure someone who knows better than I can correct me and fill in the deets.
When any publisher says anything about “charging the author $”, it sends up a red flag. (see Yog’s Law.)
While it is standard to charge authors for excessive changes to already typeset manuscripts (this is to discourage us from doing things like deciding at the last minute that the hit man named George really should have been an exotic dancer named Fifi), I haven’t heard of the author having to pay for front and back matter, or retyping.
May I ask a dumb question?
What does “boilerplate” mean in regards to this situation?
Security word: money33. Thank goodness I’ve got a bit more than that.
Do publishers call typesetting “typing” now? Because I’m not sure why any manuscript would require “retyping”, unless Tsaba House is a computer-free zone.
And exactly what frontmatter and backmatter are we talking about? Cover blurbs? Indexes?
“boilerplateâ€
It means you bought some canned forms you don’t really understand from this “self-publishing guru”‘s website (Sorta like Amway) who is selling fly-by-night get-rich-quick schemes and now you are dealing with the fallout of a really questionable business decision.
Quote from the guru…
“It’s virtually impossible to land a publisher unless you can bring an audience with you. They’re publishing only books that’ll sell based on name recognition, which is why they’re publishing great literature like Madonna’s children’s books and the book supposedly written by Paris Hilton’s dog.”
I have never been charged by my publisher for anything. There’s nothing in my contracts, ever, that allows them to except as stated by others here. If the writer makes over a certain number of changes to an already typeset ms.
Speaking with my knowledge as an employee of a university press (but not as an Official Spokesbeing of said press), I agree with Marie; I believe the only author charges that are in our boilerplate (i.e. the standard contract you get unless you/your agent request otherwise—that clear it up, phadem?) are for author’s alterations at page proofs. (The contract states that the author is also responsible for all permissions fees, but that money isn’t paid to us; it’s paid to the rightsholder, and if the author isn’t using material that would require permission, then of course it doesn’t apply.)
We do occasionally add clauses about certain aspects of the manuscript depending on the author’s getting a subsidy—for example, if the author wants a color section that the editor doesn’t think is necessary for the book. That’s something specific to dirt-poor scholarly publishing, though, and wouldn’t be something you’d expect in fiction publishing.
I know nothing about fiction manuscripts, but I do know a fair amount about non-fiction contracts and practice over the last 30 years or so from the author’s point of view. As several people have said, if the author wants to introduce substantial changes at page-proof stage, it has long been normal (both in letterpress days and today, with computer setting) that she will have to pay for them, because major alterations are costly. This applies to journal articles, too.
Copyright and reproduction fees for illustrations vary according to contract; in some cases, the author has to research her own pics, get the copyright permissions and pay the reproduction fees. In others, not.
Front- and endmatter: these days, even for academic works, most publishers expect the author to do her own index. If the author wants it done by a professional indexer, then she would have to pay. The author writes the title page and half-title, contents page and any introductions, forewords, and the like as part of her manuscript, but the editor (employed directly or indirectly by the publisher) usually writes the copyright page at the front and obtains the book’s ISBN number.
I once worked as an editor for an educational publisher who did charge authors for typing when, for example, they turned in a handwritten manuscript. I have no idea how common that is, nor do I have any idea how common it is for an author to be so unprofessional as to submit a handwritten manuscript.
I don’t know anything about standard/boilerplate contracts, but I do know that my epublisher had to remove a clause from their contracts that allowed them to charge an author for the “reasonable costs of editing” if that author pulled the rights for his/her book less than six months after its release. Honestly, I didn’t find this clause offensive because it seemed to me that they were only charging in the event of what could only be considered breach of contract, but RWA insisted that so long as that clause remained in their contracts, they would be considered a vanity/subsidy publisher. (And if I misrepresented this history in any way, I’m sure someone from CP will come along and smack me upside the head.)
That said, one of the major “problems” with RWA’s standard vis-a-vis the divide between published and unpublished authors is that there are two different sets of rules. There are author who can enter the RITA because their books are in print (authors whose books are available only in ebook can NOT enter) who are not recognized by RWA as published for PAN (Published Author Network) membership (because they have not met the $1,000 earnings threshold). By the same token, there are plenty of authors who can’t enter the RITA because they are only in ebook who are eligible for PAN membership because they’ve met the earnings threshold.
It’s a complicated and, in my opinion, inconsistent set of rules
It may seem unfair, or inconsistent, or a double standard, but as someone who judges the RITA nearly every year, I’m not going to sit at my computer and read a book, most especially as a volunteer. I’m just not.
This may be part of the problem—I don’t know—because I have no doubt I’m far from the only one who would refuse to judge if required to download and read on my comp.
The logistics of requiring only on e-book writers to print out, bind, send in the printed book seem onerous.
Nora wrote:
It may seem unfair, or inconsistent, or a double standard, but as someone who judges the RITA nearly every year, I’m not going to sit at my computer and read a book, most especially as a volunteer. I’m just not.
I understand that a lot of people don’t like to read books on the computer screen (or on a Kindle or other portable device), but…I strongly believe that’s less and less of an issue simply because we’re all growing more and more accustomed to doing more and more of our reading on the computer. By the time my kids grow up (oldest 10, youngest 6), I expect the vast majority of people’s reading will be done on some sort of screen, rather than on paper.
That doesn’t mean I think print books are going to disappear—I much prefer reading a paperback to an ebook, although I have to admit I prefer an ebook to a hardback!—but that I think that more and more written material will be delivered by electronic rather than print medium as time goes on. And I will also state unequivocally that I *infinitely* prefer to judge and critique unpublished manuscripts in electronic, rather than printed, form.
I do understand the problem with regard to RITA jusdges, however, if epublished authors were permitted to have their ebooks print and bound in some fashion, rather than requiring that the book have been issued by the PUBLISHER in print format, the issue of fairness would be significantly diminished. It would obviously increase an author’s costs for entering the RITA, since it would be done at his/her cost, but at least an author would have the OPTION.
I’m published by Mira, and there is a clause in my contract that I can be charged if I change too much in the proofs stage. That’s pretty standard.
HOWEVER… if one of the rules of this contest was that you had to be published by an RWA recognized publisher, then waaah. It might not be fair, but RWA is a private organization. No one is forced to belong to it. If she doesn’t like the policies, she needs to either form her own chapter and make her own contest, or just let her membership lapse and move on.
The rule used to be that an ebook was eligible for the RITA if it was A) published by an RWA approved publisher and B) said publisher had print copies (ARCs, basically) produced for the contest. Let’s just say that not very many ePubs were willing to do this . . .
I just heard that one of my local chaptermates had her publisher-produced ARCs and RITA fee returned. She was told that only ebooks which are also available for sale in print form are eligible now.
I do think there’s something wrong with taking people’s $, telling them they’re “PAN†and then refusing to allow them access to one of the major PAN programs (the RITA). The best solution I can think of is to have a new category just for eBooks (though I know that won’t please everyone either).
I also wish they’d create subsets of PAN: PAN PRINT and ePAN. The needs of these two groups of published authors simply do not align, at least not from what I’ve seen and heard.
What about the front and back matter? I thought it was standard, esp. for, say, fantasy authors. For example, what if the publisher wants to include a map of your world and you lag and lag and don’t produce one within the timeframe given. Then, according to this, the publisher can charge you for getting that map done by someone else.
I don’t think this is a vanity-press clause.
It looks more like a non-fiction clause to me (in non-fiction the author is usually responsible for creating indexes, etc.). I think the publisher is using a “boilerplate†contract that they don’t understand and that doesn’t suit their business model. Perhaps rather than waste their money suing RWA (who, as a private organization has every right to run their contest any damn way they please), they might spend it consulting someone like Elaine English (who could help them construct a contract that would work for them).
Never been charged by a publisher for anything. Never had a contract that asked me to cover illustrator, cover arts or editing expenses.
*Have been yelled at a few times by editors when I go back and make more changes other than what I’ve been asked to revise…but never charged a cent.
The only time I ever hand over money to a publisher is when I need books to sell for a convention – then I get a deep discount off the cover price.
~I understand that a lot of people don’t like to read books on the computer screen~
I’m not saying I don’t like to. I’m saying I won’t. Absolutely will not.
Whether or not, some time in the future this will be the only choice—or the preferred—is possible, debatable and yet to be seen.
But this is now. I want to read a book in bed, in my cozy chair, in the tub. I don’t want to read one where I work all day.
It’s just a personal preference—and there are a lot of us who have it. Just as there are lots of people who love reading on screen.
I’m delighted there are e-books, delighted people have a choice. Mine is paper.
Jane O: a handwritten manuscript? Surely you jest! I would be very surprised to hear that any serious writer had actually submitted a complete book to a publisher in handwritten form since the 1930s. People certainly used to write their books and theses in longhand, of course, but they would get them typed before submitting them. Professional typists made a living from that very process; if the author could not type the text himself, he would have to pay to get it typed – but it would need to be in typewritten form before the publisher would do anything with it.
My publisher paid for the map in Doppelganger and Warrior and Witch. I provided them with a scan of the one I’d made for my own use, but they took that to an artist to be turned into something pretty. I’ve never heard of a fantasy author being charged for maps, glossaries, or anything of that sort. You make it yourself or the publisher does, but either way you don’t pay for it.
This notion that RWA is a “private organization” and can do what it pleases is wrong. RWA is a non-profit, and as such, is required to apply its rules in a consistent fashion and make its benefits uniformly available.
Are they doing that? When one house is labeled “vanity” for a clause which many other houses also use, is this fair? Is it consistent?
Not really.
I’ve seen contracts from all the big three e-pubs and they all have ‘charge the author’ clauses. If you pull the book after edits, if you change too much after proofing, as well as buyout fees should the book draw the interest of a large press. I think that’s kind of standard. Moreover, doesn’t NY do the same thing? If they give you an advance, but you never deliver, can’t they take the advance back? If it’s money in your pocket, that you then have to pay back, how is that not considered a charge?
I do think there’s something wrong with taking people’s $, telling them they’re “PAN†and then refusing to allow them access to one of the major PAN programs (the RITA).
I have to agree. It’s also a little confusing when an author ISN’T PAN, but can participate. The disconnect between the contest programs and the networks bothers me more than anything else.
I can’t say I’m entirely in agreement with the notion of separating epublished from print authors when it comes to PAN membership, though. Maybe because I have a knee-jerk response to the notion of “separate but equal.” But I do see how the needs of the two groups diverge in places. Perhaps subsets of the overarching PAN group, which authors could CHOOSE to join? That would also accommodate those authors who straddle both media.
I’ve seen contracts from all the big three e-pubs and they all have ‘charge the author’ clauses. If you pull the book after edits, if you change too much after proofing, as well as buyout fees should the book draw the interest of a large press. I think that’s kind of standard. Moreover, doesn’t NY do the same thing? If they give you an advance, but you never deliver, can’t they take the advance back? If it’s money in your pocket, that you then have to pay back, how is that not considered a charge?
There’s a difference between charges to the author, and outright breach of contract on the author’s part. If I never give them my manuscript, I’m failing to uphold my end of what we signed, and am legally liable for the money they gave me. Agreeing to charges as part of the publication process is not the same thing.
AgTigress- I kid you not. Well, it was a revised edition, so it was only about 20% of the text, but it was all handwritten with arrows all over the place to show what went where. Then there was one new manuscript that was typed but so badly that the first comment from the evaluator I sent it to was:“I can’t believe anyone had the nerve to turn in a manuscript that looks like this.”
thus69? close, but not quite
Hard to say without seeing the actual contract. But like Carrie said up above, the general rule is that money flows from publisher to author, not the other way around. I’ve got three in print with a major fantasy house, and three more under contract. They day they send me a bill is the day I look for a new publisher.
I’ve seen contracts from all the big three e-pubs and they all have ‘charge the author’ clauses. If you pull the book after edits, if you change too much after proofing, as well as buyout fees should the book draw the interest of a large press. I think that’s kind of standard.
As I understand it, all of the epublishers who want RWA status as non-subsidy/non-vanity have removed those clauses from their contracts. So, it may have been standard in the past, but as of the change in the rules last year, I believe all the major players in the epub market have removed those clauses.
The fees that make for a vanity or subsidy press, as defined by RWA, are the fees where the author PAYS to have his or her book published. If the author pulls their book from publication, then they are not paying to have their book published. Ditto with being “bought out” by a big pub. (Not that I necessarily agree with either of those fees.)
I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal that PAN and Rita guidelines are different. There are many people who are members of PAN who are not eligible for the RITA—because they didn’t have books out that year. Now, I do wish that the RITA guidelines allowed for e-published-only books to be entered. If judges can “opt out” (or is it in?) of categories, they can opt out (or in) for e-books as well.
As far as separating out PAN between epubbed and print pub, I think it’s a slippery slope? The needs of a freshly published category writer with a one book deal and no agent (or a writer who had one category in print ten years ago, but has been out of contract ever since) are VERY different from the needs of a multipublished, agented writer of single titles for three different publishers. And an epublished author can be more similar to either of these print authors than they are to one another.
I agree with the poster who said take what you need from RWA and leave the rest. I am a member of RWA and three chapters, and a board member of one of my chapters. If they changed the rules tomorrow and said that I wasn’t considered “published” by them because of (insert arbitrary guidelines here—say, because *I don’t write romances for my two RWA recognized publishers, Random House and Harper Collins*) I would STILL be a member of RWA, because the support from my local chapters is fabulous, and I enjoy the meetings and the loops.
Then I guess it’s about what’s considered a charge. I’m pretty sure EC and Samhain both charge for frontmatter and backmatter, as well as extra materials like maps and the like. Furthermore, the pre and post items are to be determined by publisher – with no mention in the contract of allowing the author to provide them – but paid at the author’s cost.
I know there was a bruhaha over the whole vanity press thing, but to be honest, as an outsider looking in it all seemed to me that RWA was trying to keep the small, but reputable, e-published writers from getting into their oh-so-precious club. Which is funny, because like the previous poster said RWA is supposedly non-profit, so I kind of wondered about the legality of that, but again, I’m just an outsider.
I’m with Nora! I will not read an e-book at my computer. I much prefer a paperback that I can throw in my purse, read in the bathtub while taking a nice bubble bath, or read ANYWHERE! That’s the great thing about a paperback, you can take it anywhere and read it anytime or anywhere you want.
I am definitely against a paperless society.
I also refuse invitations that are sent by e-mail. Call me old-fashioned, but if you want me there you had better send that invitation in the snail mail to me.
And don’t even think about sending me a thank you note by e-mail. How rude!
And I’m not some old lady either. I’m 39 years old (just for the record).
“it all seemed to me that RWA was trying to keep the small, but reputable, e-published writers from getting into their oh-so-precious club.”
Nah, that really wasn’t it, at least, not from my perspective. Part of the problem was the number of fly-by-night piece-of-shit epubs who popped up, took manuscripts, sold them, and then folded quickly and took the money with them in some cases, and the manuscript rights in others. At the end of that day, the writers got screwed royally and RWA heard about it.
I had dinner with a few epub authors (Hi ladies!) in Dallas last year, and they were very heated about the entire designation of nv/ns publishers, but at the same time acknowledged that there were some epubs that ought to be excluded because they sucked donkey balls (my terminology, not theirs – they were ladies in every way). There are some out-fucking-standing epubs out there (Hi ladies!) and there are some that are shady like that tree in my yard. How do you define what’s a decent reputable epub and what’s not, or evaluate if you’re a new author? That’s part of the puzzle RWA is trying to decode, and certainly, as often as their board meets, they self-examine as much as possible.
That said, those shitful epubs who took the manuscripts and the money and ran? They screwed up a lot for those that do it well and do it right. It’s not just about pay clauses in contracts or RWA liking some but not others. It’s more the odd business practices one hears about – often prior to the sudden disappearance of an ePub store online. RWA’s policy, I think, is just part of the process in seeing what works in epubbing and what doesn’t, from the business end, the publishing end, and the writerly end.
There’s a joke in there about reader end or the size of my end after doing so much reading, but I’ll leave that alone.
Sure, Sarah. You’re right, there are some bad companies – really, really bad! And absolutely, all guilds have to have standards. No argument there. I guess I’m thinking more along the lines of the good presses that don’t offer an advance, I’m sure there are some. Or good presses that say they won’t edit a book for free – if you pull it after edits but before publication. I’m am looking in, but it seems fair enough.
Or how about the switch-a-roo with PAN qualifying? Really, it seems like a lot of RWA’s rules were changed exactly to exclude e-pubbed writers. Unrelated to e-pub, or rather related but OT, I’ve even heard that in RWA’s member only newsletter, they’ve taken to allowing folks to write letters in trashing erotica writers. Doesn’t exactly sound like a guild that’s trying to be fair and impartial and apply itself equally across the board to me, that’s all I was saying.
I’ve even heard that in RWA’s member only newsletter, they’ve taken to allowing folks to write letters in trashing erotica writers. Doesn’t exactly sound like a guild that’s trying to be fair and impartial and apply itself equally across the board to me, that’s all I was saying.
And yet, the first sales column in the Romance Writers Report, which is the member magazine is probably 80-90% e-pub sales reported.
Just sayin’…
Someday, I’d love to have a discussion about the merits and/or pitfalls of RWA’s policies when it comes to the issues of RITA eligibility, PAN eligibility, the criteria used to determine if a publisher is considered non-vanity/non-subsidy, and the policy about advances, which determines a publisher’s eligibility to be invited to the national conference.
But that never, ever happens. Why? Because by the time I’ve corrected completely wrong information, set the record straight, and we’re all on the same page – the actual, this is how it is page – I’m too tired to discuss anything.
It’s easy in the cheap seats. And it’s even easier when one can make up the rules as one sees fit, to support one’s current soapbox.
Hey, I’ve got no problem with people grousing and grinching and saying they feel something is unfair, or unjust. But it rankles when accusations and judgments are made based on misinformation.
If you are a member of RWA, the current Policy and Procedure manual is posted in the Members Only section of the website under Governance. I urge you to look over those sections you find relevant, and before you gripe about the delineation between e-pubs and print pubs as candidates for PAN, understand that there isn’t any. PAN is strictly based upon earnings from any publisher that is non-vanity/non-subsidy. Have you seen the list recently? It is holy shit long. In other words, most publishers who ask to be included, are. Earn a thousand bucks from any one of those publishers, and you’re in PAN. How, exactly, does this ‘keep e-pubs out of PAN’? Last I looked, there were a number of e-pubs posting on the PAN loops – so I have to believe this complaint isn’t based on fact – but perhaps old, tired history.
When we have a new President in the White House, and he/she makes changes to policy, would it be fair to bitch and moan about George W’s policies, and how unfair and heinous they are? No, it wouldn’t be fair at all – and kind of pointless, actually, because the policy no longer exists. It’s Different. Tilting at windmills is a waste of time.
Ah, and I see that I have blathered on and tilted at a few myself. Thanks for listening, and I hope all know that I mean no offense. I’m simply moved sometimes to speak up and say bullshit.
You guys do realize that every time one author signs a lousy contract, e-pub or print, it creates pressure on every other author to accept the same lousy contract, right? That each weak link contributes to the downward spiral?
If RWA is trying to protect its membership and encourage fair publishing contracts by taking a strong stand on what is vanity publishing (by not allowing contest entries, gasp!) then more power to ‘em. A small enough stand at that, and even this gets some publisher’s panties all in a twist.
If a small press wants its books to be in RWA contests, then let this small press offer its authors a contract that is acceptable to RWA—ie, to the AUTHORS who sponsor the contest, get it? If the publisher has the money to pay some lawyer to sue RWA, then they have the money to pay for editing the frikken manuscript they bought. Or at least a contract they didn’t download off the internet from a VANITY PUBLISHER for effin lordy’s sake.
And uhh….“‘I really feel that this is an affront to independent publishers to try and once again group us in the category of subsidy presses and try to take away the advances the small publishers have made in the industry,’ said Schwegerl.
Guess what, Schwegerl, RWA is not in the business of consolidating “the advances the small publishers have made in the industry.” We’re authors, jeez. We’re not a publisher support organization. If our interests in fair contracts conflict with their interest in cheapo legal documents, gee—who should we support?
Little Red Riding Author, you’re lost in the deep dark woods if you think RWA is the enemy here. You won’t even see the enemy until you’re all tied up and hefted into the man-eating trees to be fed on by lawyers who work for international media conglomerates and roast e-pub authors like marshmallows in their spare time.
Find out what a fair publishing contract is. (Guess who to ask. And it’s not your small press publisher.) Don’t sign things you don’t understand with any publisher, digital or print. Somebody waving a contract at you? Get an agent before you sign it. Can’t get an agent interested even if you’ve been offered a contract? Then wonder about the contract AND the publisher.
You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your fellow authors. This is the way authors make a living; if you want to make a living at it too, then take seriously the effort that RWA makes to get you a square deal.
Ms. Kinsale, will you marry me? I’ll have to get divorced, first, but wait for me.
I love you, true!
Aw, what the hell – I’m feisty tonight. Ms. Kinsale’s post had me nodding hard and saying “Word,” aloud.
It also brought to mind something that bugs the crap out of me. There are SO many areas we could be looking at, working on, researching – battles we could be fighting, author’s interests we could be supporting, and we do all of these things, but not nearly so much as I wish we could. Why? Because we spend an unholy amount of time responding to things like a PW reporter calling up, asking what’s up with this publisher’s accusations? We answer, and guess what? She writes what she wants – not what we said. Then we get to spend more time putting out the fires her inaccurate information caused – and oh, there’s RWA, looking like a schmuck again.
In all that time, we might have done something constructive for the members.
We have other issues before us at the moment, things that have come up because of new policy, and while it’s to be expected that ironing things out, getting everyone on board with how it works, will take some time, there are issues to be addressed that aren’t because of misunderstanding – they’re because someone doesn’t like the policy, or believes it shouldn’t apply to them, so we’re forced to argue about it. Man, the stories I could tell, except that I can’t.
I’d love to see blog posts about the good things RWA does, or even blog posts that suggest things RWA could do to advocate for authors. But it rarely happens.
I give mad props to Sarah for giving RWA the opportunity to respond to weird stuff that pops up. She always gives the organization the benefit of the doubt, and from my standpoint, that makes her like the Most Fabulous One.
I think I’m done.
~I’ve even heard that in RWA’s member only newsletter, they’ve taken to allowing folks to write letters in trashing erotica writers.~
I’m not sure what newsletter this is, but people can write letters about anything—there are letters to the editor published in the RWA Report I often disagree with. It’s called freedom of speech. Which is why I’m allowed to write in with my dissenting opinion.
Just why is something like this a flaw re RWA?
~If a small press wants its books to be in RWA contests, then let this small press offer its authors a contract that is acceptable to RWA—ie, to the AUTHORS who sponsor the contest, get it?~
And there it is. Simple.
I’m in agreement with Laura and Stef on this, right down the line.
RWA represents its members—its authors. It has published its standards. These standards may flex and evolve, but this is what they are now.
People join or don’t join RWA for a variety of reasons. The problem, imo, comes from those who get twisted when the organization can’t or won’t align with their specific and individualized needs or wants or views.
In a comment section on one of the blogs covering the New Concepts clusterfuck, someone complained that the publisher was on the RWA approved list. They should’ve warned us!!
Yet when RWA took a stand against Trisklion last year, (shortly before they imploded) there were cries of Unfair! And the usual claims that RWA is trying to exclude e-pubs.
Whatever decisions, whatever policies, somebody’s going to be unhappy, somebody’s going to claim that RWA’s unfair.