Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

“Requires baklava.”

Now that’s the best suggestion I’ve heard yet.

Bring on the backlava.

Or the Vodkava.

The perceived value of something is often associated with how much it costs.  In some mindsets, if it’s inexpensive, it may also be shoddy. I’m a conference planner who once had a client severely curtail what they had originally asked me to do for them in favor of paying $30,000 for an unimpressive and unimaginative power-point presentation to introduce a “parade of VIPs” at their banquet. I bid the same presentation at a tenth of that and would have done probably a better job, but they went with the “perceived value” of the big ticket.  By pricing their services higher than some other vanity/subsidy presses, Harlequin may be implying that their services are indeed “worth more” to their customers.

However, if I wake up some morning with a burning need to read unedited stories, I will stick with on-line fan fiction.  My chances of finding a good author there are at least as good as finding one in a vanity press format and it would be free.  With fan fiction, I can click off a story I don’t care for with no hit to my pocketbook.

My understanding is that the prices are related more to Author Solutions, which is a more expensive service, than to Harlequin. And aren’t the prices for HH lower than those ASI has for its partnership with Thomas Nelson?

Actually, if you want your book printed and it passes the submission process with a small Indie press, you can do so without cost to you at all. If I was going to go that route, god forbid, I’d pick one of the small, but respectable and well established, indie presses with e-book capabilities.

With Harlequin, it’s diversifying, I’d say. Plus it can keep track of those authors that show promise but not quite there yet. When they are, they can cull those that they want for their main imprints. But odds of a self pubbed writer getting that coveted imprint contract is really a long shot.

There are lots of eager, desperate to be pubbed, writers out there that will pay the price asked with hopes of getting a contract later. Personally, I think there are better ways to establish a sales/audience record then paying anyone big money to print your MS. At the quoted prices, you certainly won’t recoup on the first book, if even on the next few books. E-books are better for that, in my opinion. I can certainly think of better ways for me to spend my money. Like writing classes, writers groups, like RWA and sit in some of the workshps, before I had to resort to paying someone to pub my MS.

Harlequin has had editing services for years that writers have pay to have their MS professionally edited. Perhaps in their eyes this is the next step. Who knows? *Shrugging

A question came to mind as I was reading Malle’s response.

Malle wrote: 2.    The books will be branded HH (see nice logo on website) attached

If the books are not meant to be branded as Harlequin Horizon, why the HH logo? What does the second H stand for if the logo does not include Harlequin?

Baklava, good idea!

I think the board has made a courageous decision that does say they meant what they said with Policy. Good for them.

One thing I’ve noticed—there have always been several Harlequin writers on the board, and they sometimes have to make the hard choices, and from what I can see, they haven’t been “punished,” but I would like to know if that’s so. 

Brave decision. I have to say, really, I don’t get Harlequin’s rationale here—I mean, really, how much money do they expect to make here?  “Goodwill” and “brand name” are actual quantifiable assets, and have they sacrificed those for what can’t be that much $?  I know this sounds like “I wouldn’t prostitute myself for $20, but if you offer me a million, suddenly I have no moral objections,” but as a business angle, this seems like a big sacrifice for a minimal reward, but maybe I’m wrong? What are the revenues H expects? And for that matter, where will the revenues come from? Is H going to get a kickback for referring rejectees?  Or will the profits from the authors who pay to publish in the “imprint that is named Harlequin Horizons but is NOT a Harlequin imprint” be split?  This is something Malle might know, or someone else? Maybe I’m nuts, and there are enough millions here to offset Torstar’s newspaper losses. :)

My understanding is that the prices are related more to Author Solutions, which is a more expensive service, than to Harlequin. And aren’t the prices for HH lower than those ASI has for its partnership with Thomas Nelson?

As mentioned upthread, HQN discontinued its much cheaper critique service for this partnership. Could be that ASI set the prices.  I’m sure there had to be some negotiation.  Either way, the prices are ridiculous.  It’s simply not a good investment for an new author who ultimately wants to make a living writing.  Or even a little money on the side.  In fact, it’s a loss situation. 

To break it down:  Let’s pretend that I have a 55K novel that was rejected by HQ Intrique.  I send it to Horizons for editing.  At .077 a word, that costs me more than $4K.  Then I have to pay for the all the other stuff.  I will forgo the trailer, but yes, there’s more I have to pay them.

I know I’m not going to recoup those costs.  If some HQN editor notices my brilliant writing that they perhaps already rejected, then I guess I might have a chance at a new novel with them. And the chances of that are slim to nil.  Let’s say they do buy a book from me… I’m guessing even after that sale I’d still be in the red.  I wonder how much I would have made at McDonald’s for all the time, sweat and tears I spent writing my heart out to pay someone else to make a profit off me.

I’m all for self-publishing.  I’m not for giving it away. 

It’ll be interesting to see if they do pick up a few of the Horizon authors at first to set the tone.  *nudge nudge wink wink*

Not really here. Lurking in the shadows and tired of refreshing.

I’ve been following the discussions here and at Dear Author and I have a few questions that I’m struggling with:

1. SB Sarah, in your original post you indicated that you thought this was a great step for Harlequin to be taking.  Can you explain to me why you thought this was a good thing from the perspective of romance readers?  It seems to me that most of these Horizons books will go exactly the same way as most other vanity-published books - into obscurity.  Readers won’t know about them, they won’t have ways of distinguishing the few good ones from the huge morass of dreck, and so it won’t give us readers any more actual choice at all.  What is it that you think we stand to gain?

2. Malle, you seem to be saying that the Horizons line will be marketed to potential authors as a Harlequin line, but not to readers.  Doesn’t this strike you as deceptive and underhand?

3. When I get my rejection letter for the submission I sent in a few weeks ago, and it includes the link to Horizons, who am I allowed to kill?  Or should I just shoot myself?

One of the possible good outcomes of having self published books accessible is more variety in the marketplace.

I hear a lot of bemoaning about how the only thing on the shelves anymore is blah blah blah, vampires, blah blah.

(For the record, I’m just kidding, mostly.  I’m terrified of vampires, so I’m not the biggest fan of vampy romance, and I get a little frustrated that it is hard to find some other options in the paranormal market sometimes.)

For niche genres like mine, (Science Fiction Romance) many really talented authors find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  People want something different, but don’t want to take a risk on something different… People are looking for the next big hot subgenre (ahem SFR, woot!) but are waiting to see what it is before they’re willing to publish or represent it.

Or then you run into the problem of, it’s too SF for Romance, but too Romance for SF.

For authors stuck in this sort of boat, self-publishing, with very aggressive and targeted marketing toward the growing reader fan groups and blogs devoted to the subgenre they’re after, can work to get your name out there.  But the book you publish won’t be one you can sell again.  You’ve got to write a new book and then see if your name you begin to build is worth anything to publishers.

But for people in this situation, hopefully they can find a better deal than this, or get picked up with Carina who seems to be looking for this sort of situation.  I was very excited to see Carina come on the market.  I hate that their thunder has been stolen by this.  Or perhaps they can find a home with another small but viable press and do the same thing for a lot less money.

There will be unique ideas out there.  I don’t think HQ was bad to think they might find something promising out of this venture.  I just think certain aspects of it aren’t right.

You can’t use your brand to lure in authors thinking that they’ll have part of the value of that brand by being associated with you, only to turn around and deny the author the brand once they’ve given you money.  Everything I see about the website is a lure for authors using the brand Harlequin.  I’d feel much differently about it if everything on the website said, “Horizons.”  I’d feel differently about it if there were more information about what to realistically expect out of the process on the website, and I’d also probably feel differently if I knew new authors weren’t being directed to this service from the Harlequin websites or their rejection letters.

One of the possible good outcomes of having self published books accessible is more variety in the marketplace.

Except that self-published books don’t generally make it into ‘the marketplace’ - they aren’t on the shelves of bookstores, they aren’t easy to find on Amazon, they are priced at a level that instantly turns most readers off…

The reply I was about to post, 7 hrs ago, before I lost power…

Robin said:

So if all of this anger comes from the feeling that authors are being disrespected that the prestige of “professional” publishing is being diminished

,
And

If the concern is, as it’s been articulated here numerous times, for fellow/aspiring authors,

I have many initial thoughts on this, some rising to the level of concern.  Yes, there is a piece to the ‘diminishment,’ but only insofar as it affects perception, and therefore respect for the romance genre.  But just now, that’s low on my radar.

To a much greater degree is my concern for aspiring authors.  Yes, I know it’s a tough world out there, and people have to beware.  But what we see here is a reputable publisher CREATING that ‘beware’ reality.

I have concerns about the vague, easy-to-misunderstand language and opaque presentation about the business itself.  Is it Harlequin?  Yes. Or, well, no. 

There’s its name, of course.  And

“for aspiring romance authors, an association with the Harlequin brand makes sense”

.  But then again,

“Harlequin will not be branded on the books or in any of the metadata or sales information accompanying the book”

  So, no, it’s not HQ.  But Harlequin is the one taking your money, so yes, it

is

HQ . . . and they’ll mention Horizons to you in their rejection letters, so yes, it’s them.  But wait, it’s not, b/c the books and documents won’t have the actual word ‘Harlequin’ on them.  But . . .their website and company name does . . .

It’s not them, except they want it to be.

If they don’t use the Harlequin name, they are just another POD vanity press, with no advantage over the others. 

I also have a HUGE problem with the fact that the writers will be paying Harlequin for the privilege of getting their book into print, ISBN-ed and all, and then they pay Harlequin AGAIN in royalties??  50% on net?? 

What?  You either pay at the start, or you pay in royalties, but both??? 

Com’on—that’s kinda mean.

(It’s also not a self-pub model. It’s vanity.)

And who gets this money when a book is purchased—does it flow directly to HQ, who then disperses it, after ‘expenses’?  What expenses?  Didn’t the writers just pay all the upfront costs?

They’re having their cake and eating it too.  Good bottom-line business, maybe.

Good ethical, corporate citizen practices?  Not to my mind.

Well, there’s the problem.

But, while self published books might have a hard time finding the BIG marketplace, if it is a niche book, that niche is defined, and the niche community is tight, you don’t have to get it into the big marketplace, you have to get it in front of the niche. Provided the niche is more than 75 people, you could start to build a presence in that niche.

But how many people who are going to do this are working with a tight niche of readers?  Not many.

I’m just saying that’s how it can work for the select few, and if you are one of those niche readers, and you are literally starving for books in your niche, you’re probably more likely to check it out, especially if it gets any word of mouth going in the niche.

But then it actually has to be worth its salt.

And there’s the next rub.

If you think this isn’t hurting romance:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/11/harlequin-hacks.html

It’s a fine point, but what RWA is saying with their standards is this:

If you go with a vanity/self-publishing outfit, you’re taking a bigger risk with your time and dollars than if you went with a recognized publisher.

it doesn’t make you any less of an author or your book any less published if you published with a non-recognized publisher.  It means that RWA can’t and won’t get behind recommending a publisher with that high a risk to their membership.  It means that going with an established standard publishing venue with advances and royalties is a bit more stable (e.g., the publisher isn’t as likely to go out of business if it has enough money to pay advances on a regular basis than if it doesn’t).

Publishing is a risky business to begin with.  RWA knows that.  As a result, it’s not going to recommend publishing outfits—even if it’s part of Harlequin—that demands a high risk for a writer.

I’m not a RWA board member, but I have been a past president of a published authors’ RWA chapter way back in the olden days when e-publishing was just beginning.  At that time—about the mid to late 1990’s, before Kindle and other readers—I could see that e-publishing would become big, and yes, a stable business in time.  But not for another 5 to 10 years, and in the meantime formats had to decided on by the industry and a more convenient venue had to be created than staring at the screen of your 486 PC that featured this brand new thing called the World Wide Web.  Back then, with epublishers just beginning, it was indeed a risky business.  A way to determine whether a publisher—of any kind—was viable was to set some standards.  If a publisher met those standards, then chances were better that the publisher would probably last a good while, and the author who published with them would have a better chance than not of earning some kind of income and not be left holding the bag (empty of money).

That’s all the RWA standards are.  The outfall of that is that some authors think they are somehow not considered “real” authors by RWA.  Nope.  It means the result of taking a really big risk that RWA can’t recommend is that you’re on your own on this.  They can’t stand behind or recommend that risk, and even giving PAN status to an author published with an unrecognized publisher would signal a recommendation of the risk.  Self-publishing and vanity presses are considered high risk ventures by RWA, higher than being published by Random House, Signet, or the like.  Most people would agree.

Certainly, with today’s technology, self-publishing is a viable way to go.  Heck, I’ve thought of doing that myself with older titles that are out of print—self publish in e-book form.  The time may soon come where RWA may revisit that standard and look at number of books sold, royalty rate, and earnings per year. Technology changes, and RWA is going to have to adapt to that.

But vanity publishing?  The way it’s being proposed by Harl. Horizons?  That’s going to go the way of the dinosaur in not too long a time, not to mention it being a risky venture and a money sink. As others have said, you can do it less expensively elsewhere.

Now, if they were to have a POD system where the books were in e-book form and printed out at a bookstore kiosk after the customer paid his or her dollars, well, I can see that happening.  Fairly easy to track, easy to confirm, and not a risk to the author—no need to pay money for that.  A bookstore may even be the one who decides what books get to be stored in their kiosk.  But this vanity publishing model is so….old school.

That said, I’m sure RWA was well aware this decision was going to hurt them and their HQ authors.  But I don’t see they had any other choice.

I also expect current HQ authors will retain their recognized status, as they were published when HQ was still recognized.  But future ones…not so much.

If you think this isn’t hurting romance:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/11/harlequin-hacks.html

Ummm….Aren’t they illustrating that article with an ACTUAL HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL???!!! 

Okay, brand dilution in action, right there.

by Susan Saville:

If you think this isn’t hurting romance:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/11/harlequin-hacks.html

Ummm….Aren’t they illustrating that article with an ACTUAL HARLEQUIN HISTORICAL???!!! 

Okay, brand dilution in action, right there.

spamword:  Summer ‘94 (that’s when I graduate high school)
And you know they chose that one because of the big gold HH on the cover.  Poor Carole Mortimer.

I’m entering this late, and only picking one small corner of this argument, but…

“Professional” authors are already paying for packaging, editorial, promotion and admin (copyright and such) through the rather huge chunk the publishers take from the revenue pile. FACT: The author gets what… 6 - 8% of the take? That means the traditional publisher gets 92 -94%.

Yes, traditionally published books will have superior distribution, etc, but the fact remains: authors pay for ANY publisher’s services, one way or another. The largely contested difference here seems to be the timing, I guess.

HQ knows the internet has and will change everything. They have to remain a viable middleman somehow; authors have far more choices than ever before, and if HQ or any other publisher wants to keep swimming in the revenue stream, moves like this are necessary. Unless they have money coming in the back door, how will they continue to front the cost for A and even B list authors?

This move may, in fact, improve things for those who choose to publish traditionally. More publisher income overall = more money to throw at A & B-listers. That’s not to say they actually will, but right now, that money’s just not there, and hasn’t been for quite some time.

And okay, I understand why people are angry, scared, worried, disappointed a/o disillusioned. There’s a lot of emotion tied up in the “published” label, and I don’t think anyone can discount the fact that all the drive and desire to win that label result in good (or better) books.

Fact remains, though, that publishing has always been a business and always will. A publishing house that isn’t concerned about profit is a publishing house that won’t be around long to satisfy all that drive and desire in the form of publication contracts.

“Professional” authors are already paying for packaging, editorial, promotion and admin (copyright and such) through the rather huge chunk the publishers take from the revenue pile. FACT: The author gets what… 6 - 8% of the take? That means the traditional publisher gets 92 -94%.

Thank you! This has been my thought the entire time. Even traditionally published authors pay—through the greater portion of their royalties—for the privilege of being published. All they truly receive through a traditional route is validation.

I intend to self-publish as well as utilize epublishers for various (separate) works, and I do this because I don’t need a conglomerate in New York to validate me as an author. I would also rather keep the larger portion of my profits than pay them to the traditional publishing house. I know, with self-publishing, I get out what I put in, and that motivates me highly to do the dirty work necessary to have the sales I desire.

In this capitalist society, you pay. It’s just a matter of how, when, and to what extent you pay.

As for the topic itself, I think Harlequin has made a very bad choice in their marketing from an ethical standpoint, but I agree with others that it’s a very good business choice. The more money lining their pockets, I’m sure, the better they feel.

~Professional” authors are already paying for packaging, editorial, promotion and admin (copyright and such) through the rather huge chunk the publishers take from the revenue pile. FACT: The author gets what… 6 - 8% of the take? That means the traditional publisher gets 92 -94%.
~

Just no.

When a publisher BUYS the rights to your book, they PAY you an advance on royalties. You do not PAY them. You get a check for the SALE of your rights. You have sold your book, you have not paid to have your book published.

The publisher then shells out the money for all the areas of publication, invests considerable time and money into that publication as it has bought the book and paid the author an advance on royalties. When the book is published, the author will receive more money when that advance earns off. The author does not pay, but is paid.

In addition to getting a check rather than giving one, the author receives the support, experience, muscle, editorial input, etc, etc, from the publisher.

Vanity press is called vanity for a reason. You’re paying for your ego. That’s fine, dealer’s choice.

But it’s a different matter when a big brand publisher uses its name and its resources to sell this as dream fulfillment, advertises it as such while trying to claim it’s not really their brand being used to make money on mss they’ve rejected as not worthy of that brand in the first place.

And that branding is the crux of the whole thing. I’ve searched and searched the Harlequin Horizons site and no where does it make mention of Author Solutions being involved.

So say I’m a newbie writer and six months from now I’m searching out options for getting my recently finished ms published. Lo and behold, I stumble across the Harlequin Horizons website through a google search. Wow, look! I’ve heard others say publishing is a long process, but here my favorite publisher has provided me with a way to do that without sitting in their slush piles.

I mean, I know my book is killer, so it will sell like hotcakes if I can just get it out there. And when it does, my favorite pub will notice and sign me on. Win-win situation.

But, if I’d done that same google search and found only Author Solutions or some other vague name, would I have been as willing to part with my money?

I guess what I was trying to say in my previous post is:

If all references to Harlequin were completely wiped from that site, would you find this option to be a good deal? Would you suggest it to your other aspiring author friends.

Because this is a self-publisher these are not books acquired, edited and marketed by Harlequin. Hence, no Harlequin brand on the end result.

Malle, this is absolute bull.  If Harlequin wants to not have anything to do with these books, then REMOVE THE HARLEQUIN NAME.  Because I doubt a big *this book was not edited by Harlequin* stamp is going to be slapped on the cover.  So how in the hell is the reader supposed to know this?  They won’t. 

As I’ve said before, there is no way Harlequin can control their name NOT being attached to these vanity authors.  HELLO!?!  These authors ARE PAYING AN OUTRAGEOUS AMOUNT OF MONEY TO USE THE HARLEQUIN NAME.  Why can’t you see that?

I know YOU, of all people at HQ, know how viral something can be once online.  You have to realize this Hor author will have “Jane Doe, Harlequin author” typed big, bold and proud on her website, blog, facebook, twitter, myspace, etc not to mention links and banner ads to the actual Hor website and online store. Do that enough and Google takes notice.  Eventually when someone types “Jane Doe” into the search engine, “Harlequin author” pops up. I don’t see how HQ can control that unless you have them sign something up front that says they will only use the hH logo and not the Harlequin name. But then yeah, we are back to why would anyone pay you guys these exorbitant fees if they can’t use your brand? 

Harlequin is whoring themselves out and then pretending “they didn’t inhale.”  It makes me sick.  I worked my ass off to sell a book there and now it’s a big joke.  You are giving these people who were rejected and deemed unworthy of Harlequin’s time, publication and money everything, and taking it all away from your authors.  You’re quickly ruining all the headway the romance industry in general had made in the public’s eye, (as evident by the New Yorker article) ruining your name and promise of quality control with readers, and losing respect of those in your house and those who once aspired to be there.  How does this make you feel?  I hope you’re as friggin’ sick to the stomach as your authors are.  I know I’m disgusted.

Also, what Nora said ^

@Malle

> Sure! There will be a line about Harlequin Horizons as a
> self-publishing option on standard rejection letters with an
> option to opt-in via website. In other words, the aspiring
> author contacts Harlequin Horizons, not the other way around.

I’m

I have no inherent problem with self-publishing—or even vanity publishing—if people walk in with eyes open. I have a huge problem when the press involved is in the business of lying to and misrepresenting the product involved.

And it is now 100% clear to me that Harlequin Horizons involves lying to potential authors.

Malle says (here & on dear author):

The books published through Harlequin Horizons will not carry traditional Harlequin branding.

The Harlequin Horizons website says (on the first page you get when you click over from eHarlequin.com):

We know you love Harlequin novels…
...why not write your own?

http://www.harlequinhorizons.com/harlequin.aspx

Those two things are in direct, excruciating conflict. You specifically tell potential writers who click over from the Harlequin site that they can become Harlequin authors through Harlequin Horizons, when you know that is not the case. I searched the Harlequin Horizons website for a spot where it discloses to the potential author that the books will not carry traditional Harlequin branding. It’s not there.

I am sorry. This is deceptive, plain and simple. And I’m not saying that because I want to “protect” people who I think are young and stupid. I am saying it because you’ve been caught in a lie. The lack of Harlequin branding needs to be disclosed to the author up front—not just in fine print that the author will not see until after a phone call and a hard sell.

I don’t expect Malle to respond to this, but Malle, if you see this, please tell the people in charge that this double-sided talk devalues Harlequin’s credibility among authors, even if it doesn’t among readers. And—trust me—your credibility among authors is an incredibly important part of your brand, too. If we start telling younger authors not to publish with you, you will hurt.

Just no.

When a publisher BUYS the rights to your book, they PAY you an advance on royalties. You do not PAY them. You get a check for the SALE of your rights. You have sold your book, you have not paid to have your book published.

The publisher then shells out the money for all the areas of publication, invests considerable time and money into that publication as it has bought the book and paid the author an advance on royalties. When the book is published, the author will receive more money when that advance earns off. The author does not pay, but is paid.

In addition to getting a check rather than giving one, the author receives the support, experience, muscle, editorial input, etc, etc, from the publisher.

I do hear and understand what you’re saying, and from an author’s point of view, the concern about the Harlequin brand does have merit. Big merit, actually, and I think there are few who would argue attaching the HQ brand to anything “vanity” based could be a mistake.

On the other hand, the fact remains that there are more author-equitable options emerging every day. HQ has to either beat them, or join them. It looks as if they’re putting themselves in the position to do both.

And really, you’re the perfect example of an author who COULD benefit financially from self-publishing, because faithful readers would buy your books no matter where they came from. Thing is, you’re loyal, you know your strengths and weaknesses, and it’s best for you personally to continue with business as usual. It just makes good business sense.

That may not be the case for everybody, and I don’t see this embrace of POD as a means to sell wish fulfillment, necessarily. When you think of the outsourcing costs for warehousing plus returns/reserve against returns and all that, continuation of the present system will increase cost over time. Joining forces with POD could reduce or at least control them over time.

What’s their goal, really? To play on an author’s emotions or to reduce costs?

(Argh! somehow accidentally submitted that early)

@Malle

> Sure! There will be a line about Harlequin Horizons as a
> self-publishing option on standard rejection letters with an
> option to opt-in via website. In other words, the aspiring
> author contacts Harlequin Horizons, not the other way around.

I’m glad you rejected the option to automatically sign people up and bill their credit card the moment you rejected their submission.  Seriously?  That’s supposed to be okay?  I’m trying to figure out a way to funnel people to your vanity press other than opt-in by rejected authors. I mean, other than spamming a 10 million address ‘opt in’ mailing list, I guess.

On the other hand, the fact remains that there are more author-equitable options emerging every day. HQ has to either beat them, or join them.

!!!

You think that Harlequin Horizons is ... more author-equitable than the arrangement Nora Roberts has with her publisher?

Srsly?

Want to know what makes Nora’s contract so appealing? Look at the incentives. The contract Nora Roberts has with her publisher makes them want to sell the hell out of her. The person who has marketing/distribution rights has an incentive to use them to the max, because otherwise, they won’t make any money.

There is no such incentive in self-publishing. The incentive of the publisher in self-publishing is to get the maximum number of people involved.

This idea that taking away your publisher’s incentive to sell your books is somehow “author equitable” is mystifying. I can also goddamn-guarantee you that Nora Roberts’ agent is not leaving any money on the table.

I believe the future of publishing is changing, but I also firmly believe that whatever it changes to will not involve distribution channels where the primary distributor has no (or little) financial incentive to do a good job.

~That may not be the case for everybody, and I don’t see this embrace of POD as a means to sell wish fulfillment, necessarily.~

Harlequin is hyping it as just that—or rather dream fulfillment. That’s how they’re billing it, so to me, that’s how they’re selling it. 

My post wasn’t a statement on my opinion of POD—which isn’t what Harlequin’s selling here anyway.

Ros Said:

Except that self-published books don’t generally make it into ‘the marketplace’ - they aren’t on the shelves of bookstores, they aren’t easy to find on Amazon, they are priced at a level that instantly turns most readers off…

On the last two points, Amazon and price level.  I have an ebook in the Amazon Kindle store right now, it’s getting found and selling about 300 copies consistently per month.  Now granted, it’s at a low price point, but it isn’t free ($1.00).

By having a book out low cost in the kindle store and in print on Amazon, people who find me in any way, can find me in other ways. i.e. if you stumble upon my kindle book, you can see the other options and print will be there (starting in march with the release of my first print release.)

Also there are ways to drive traffic to your amazon page. (I’m not going to bore anyone with book marketing 101 here), but the bottom line is…the more you sell on Amazon… the more you sell on Amazon.  So yes, a lot of self pubbed books don’t get found on Amazon, but it’s just like creating a website, a lot of websites don’t get found on the internet either.  But the more visibility you get, the more you get, it’s a self-feeding system.  So it’s certainly not hopeless.

Further, many traditionally published authors aren’t getting much space on bookstore shelves either anymore, and unless they already have a large fan base, they have the same odds of getting lost in the Amazon shuffle.  Since publishers don’t like to market to the end reader, but instead to booksellers, there isn’t a whole lot of marketing going on all the way around in regular publishing or in self publishing.

And finally on the price point, that’s only true if someone uses something like Lulu or Authorhouse where you have an extra middleman in the process cutting into your profit margin.  Authors who use CreateSpace or Lightning Source can easily price their trade paperback books as the same price as others in that same category.  My print book coming out in March, I’ve priced it exactly the same as other trade paperbacks being put out by the larger publishers.

Nora, you’re the reason I’m in this business.  You’re one hell of a lady.

Anon in Florida said:

Thank you! This has been my thought the entire time. Even traditionally published authors pay—through the greater portion of their royalties—for the privilege of being published. All they truly receive through a traditional route is validation.

Exactly.  The sooner authors realize that ALL publishing routes in some way feed their own vanity, the sooner they can stop wanking over the issue and figure out the best BUSINESS decision for them.  For SOME the best business decision is going to be traditional publishing because they either don’t have the time, interest, or skills to start their own business like this.

For some, it’s going to be self-publishing.

It’s not going to be vanity publishing for anyone.  Though “maybe” if they want to hobby publish instead of publishing with a bottom line in mind, they could go with a vanity press, but why not just use CreateSpace if it’s just for you and your friends own personal consumption anyway?  You can even keep your book unlisted and not sell it in the Amazon or CreateSpace stores.  I think Lulu still has a free publishing option, but you have to do as much of your own work with that as you do with CreateSpace and CS’s books are cheaper to buy for the author.

I hope that Harlequin did a cost analysis, but I doubt if they considered it in this manner. Let’s say that HH manages to secure 1,000 writers who were rejected by one of the commercial imprints of Harlequin. Let’s further state that each spends $5,000 to $10,000 on getting published which means that Harlequin can expect to earn no more than five million from the authors. Now it’s known from tracking other published vanity books that the average sold per book is 75 copies. If the vanity book is sold for $10 each then it can be calculated that in the first year there will be 1000x75x$10 in sales or $750,000 which represents 75,000 customers. With the author payments, Harlequin stands to earn just under six million on this vanity endeavor.

As is also known, many readers of romances purchase as many as five books a month. Also, many of those readers are on the Internet and frequent romance sites where they can express their opinions with other romance readers. If the vanity published romances are at or near the same low level of professionalism as other vanity books produced by other vanity companies, then Harlequin stands to lose those 75,000 readers. Remember, ASI is actually producing the books. Harlequin is only lending its name and it will be noticed because those writers will be sure to mention they’re Harlequin Horizons authors when they make those sales in their locales or get their books placed in local bookstores as hometown authors. But it’s not just the 75,000 readers that Harlequin stands to lose. It’s the five books per month that they used to purchase that Harlequin stands to lose from each of them because readers will reach the conclusion that the drop in quality is sure to spread to every line that Harlequin puts out so Harlequin stands to lose 75,000x5x12x$10 in sales or $45,000,000. It doesn’t take an accounting genius to recognize that Harlequin stands to lose $39,000,000 per thousand HH authors each year because of this vanity endeavor. Can Harlequin Enterprises stand to lose this much? Carina wasn’t a bad idea, but Harlequin Horizons is.

And one last thing Harlequin should keep in mind. Vanity sales are down now. Even the infamous PA listed only five new books this week and they claim to publish free. Think ASI is any different with their prices? That’s why they’re luring in publishers with good reputations. ASI will make out fine, but the commercial publishers who join them won’t because they stand to lose too much in both sales and reputation.

Just fyi, I’ve received a great deal more than validation from traditional publishing. A three-decade career, a considerable readership, an opportunity to write books for a living—and more.

I don’t believe I could say that if I’d gone the vanity press route.

Writing books, for most of us who do, is not about vanity. It’s about career.

Okay, I’ve got to say this because again, I can’t seem to keep my big mouth shut.

This is purely speculation, but this is the reason I FEEL so personally involved in this story even though as of right now, it doesn’t impact me personally.

I’m a storyteller, and here’s the story I’m hearing in my head when I look at the big picture.

ASI has a product to sell to aspiring authors.  They want to sell it at really high prices so feel they need to find a large group of authors “motivated” enough to buy their product.

Where do you find a large number of highly motivated to be published authors with completed books?  The Harlequin slush pile.

So you approach Harlequin and sell them a line about how this can be an opportunity for more writers and they’ll make a ton of money…  Harlequin Horizons is born.

ASI found a group of people they thought they could sell their services too who wouldn’t question their business practices.

And here’s the part that is entirely my emotional reaction and purely speculation… because poor women romance writers are too sappy to be savvy.

Guess what?  We’re women in a cut throat business, but here’s the surprise, we help one another and we talk to one another.  Hence we’re willing to raise the BS flag, and we don’t eat our young, we actually support them.

Surprise, Surprise ASI.  We’re not a bunch of suckers.

And $20k for a book trailer is pricing for suckers.

I’m sorry you stepped in this, Harlequin, but I think there’s plenty of valid criticism here of the program that could allow you to turn things around if you choose.

And I hope everything comes around to a solution that is satisfying to everyone.

POD will have its place and should be explored.  It is smart technology.  Self-publishing has its place for those with a book they believe can honestly benefit from that arrangement and go into it with eyes open.

Nothing about Horizon’s website opens the readers eyes to what the reality of their book is going to be.  Instead there’s a lot of talk about “fulfilling your pretty dreams, become and author!”

Here’s my advice to all aspiring authors out there.  Become a smart business person first.

@ Nora:

The individual who was talking about how trad or self-pubbed authors pay to be published meant it differently than you took it.  Writers have BIZARRE views about money when it comes to publishing.  I’ve watched both published and unpublished authors spend thousands of dollars for writing conferences, hundreds on books and magazines about getting published, and then further pay money to a book doctor or independent editor to clean up their manuscript enough for an agent to accept it and shop it to a publisher. (I’ve even seen all of these things suggested to writers by reputable sources.)

So yes, most authors are paying in some way.  Further many authors even traditionally published are doing a lot of their own marketing.  For the most part publishers market to booksellers and not the end reader, which leaves end reader marketing up to the author.  It’s great if your publisher puts you on the front table, and people just find you while browsing, or you’re so famous everyone has heard of you, BUT that’s not the experience of the vast majority of midlist authors on big publishers’ lists.

When an author is just starting out, they aren’t making great money and guaranteed they are spending out more money than they are raking in initially if they want their book to succeed and to continue getting contracts from their publisher.  It’s too competitive out there to just sit on your advance.  (well not for you, but for most everybody else.)

Many writers just aren’t very good money managers to begin with.  So it’s a rare author who hasn’t climbed the pinnacle to the very top of publishing who is making a true profit on this.  People constantly talk about how you can’t make money self-publishing.  I think it comes down to business sense and money management.

Authors who are going to writing conferences they can’t afford, buying hundreds of dollars in magazines and books that regurgitate the same rah rah crap to them over and over, and paying an outside editor or book doctor to help them be competitive enough to land a publisher…  As well as all the marketing dollars an author spends on their own marketing campaigns upon publication… they aren’t making a profit.

They are still paying for the privilege to publish.  No, they aren’t paying for their publisher to edit their book, they aren’t paying for distribution or interior layout or cover art, but they are still paying.  The insult to injury there is that for the newbie author they have NO control over their cover art, interior layout, or title and distribution of their own book.

No. Thank you.

It’s a plum deal for anyone lovingly referred to as “La Nora” and others who have established writing careers, but in this economy, with the technologies and such we have now… if we’re talking about how much money you will spend to get published, it’s about 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.  Meaning, an author needs to choose the path (trad or self) for publishing that is best for THEM, not the one that will cost them less.  Cause that’s going to be a convoluted mess of weird money logic.

Money spent is money spent. Whatever you spend it on.  Not every author has it to spend.  Those that don’t have money on the trad publishing path to spend to market their book or fancy it up with a book doctor are at a disadvantage to the ones that do.  That’s just common sense.

So while it’s true a trad published author “theoretically” doesn’t have to spend all that money to be published, I would bet that a vast majority of authors getting published now have over the years forked out a considerable amount of money learning their craft and beefing up their manuscripts for future public consumption.  There is no free ride. It all costs money.

I’m the author you’re talking about.  I’ve got an advance, and I’m using it to support my own fledgling writing.  Yes, I pay for things, but I have an avenue to grow in the future, and I’m dedicated to that.

Your argument assumes that I’m spending the same amount of money as a self-published author.  Here’s the problem.  I didn’t spend any significant money up front, instead I gained money to support my marketing, and now a self published author who wants to compete with me has to shell out at least as much as I have on marketing too.

So they are out upfront costs, then out marketing costs.  I’m in the black with upfront costs, and therefore have capital to spend on marketing costs.

If I spent the money to publish the book, the money wouldn’t be there to market it.

@ Nora:

It is perfectly valid for “you” to speak of a writing career. But most traditionally published writers, when they figure up their hours don’t have a career, they have a writing McJob. I understand that traditional publishing has been very good for you, but the odds are VERY long for authors to achieve what you’ve achieved.

Further, in my own personal opinion, and in the current economy and publishing climate we find ourselves in, it is my opinion that right now the best option a writer has who wants to make it big is NOT getting a publishing contract initially.  They’ll get stuck on the midlist and either be unlikely to break out, or they’ll get dropped by their publisher. 

The better option IMO, or at least an equally viable option for those with the aptitude to do it, is to build up an audience/fan base first.  Any self publishing author selling a good number of books will attract the interest of a publisher because they are a “sure thing.” (and no, my motive for self-publishing isn’t to “attract a publisher.” I like publishing. The deal would have to be very good for me to be willing to give up what I do.)

And you can take as long as you need to build that audience with no pressure about losing your contract and then being ‘damaged goods’ in the publishing world.

I’m happy that traditional publishing has worked out for you like it has, but this isn’t the story of most people.  You are like the hope that keeps everybody running on the same pointless (for most) treadmill.

We can’t all be astronauts. :P

I’m just putting out another perspective because publishing has changed and those who have had publishers for a long time and have established careers don’t seem to fully grasp the reality of the publishing climate for those just getting started now.

Self-publishing isn’t right for most people, but, by the same token, the few it IS right for probably have a better chance of rising above the noise by creating their own market/audience first, than by going the traditional route at first.  Each author really needs to weigh their own strengths and weaknesses and what they can bring to the table before deciding. It’s not just a simple: Trad publishing YAY, self publishing BOO anymore. (and I don’t really think it ever was honestly.)

It’s too competitive out there to just sit on your advance.  (well not for you, but for most everybody else.)

and

It’s a plum deal for anyone lovingly referred to as “La Nora”

Bitter much? Success disqualifies her professional knowledge? Too bad she didn’t start out as a struggling writer with a HQN title leading to a slowly building readership and… oh hey, wait. My bad.

Do authors spend money on self promotion? Ab-so-freaking-lutely. But are you spending your money wisely? Are you promoting widely available product? Are you backed by something the customer will perceive as quality? Ah, there’s the point.

HH is having it both ways by saying with one side of their mouth that you have that backing, and with the other side of their mouth that you do not. The first rule of author still applies - if they ask you for money, walk away.

It’s like modeling, don’t get naked on an empty set with a guy you just met at Piggly Wiggly, it’s not going to take you anywhere you want to go.

I am all for it. Diversify and stay healthy and alive. Hide in your hole, die a slow death. There’s plenty of authors who made it self publishing, there are plenty who have not but are into what they are doing anyway. Self publishing is a choice, no one twists an arm to make an author do it. Live and let live. It takes nothing away from me as a published author with Samhain. It doesn’t stop me from submitting to other houses. It’s kind of a non-issue. And as a former small business owner, I know that to stay alive and compete, you need to stay on your toes and find decent revenue streams.

Does this move challenge us all to rethink and review where publishing is headed in the future?  You bet. Digital media capacity and the cut in overhead it brings has brokered a revolution, and you’re starting to see some of the next steps coming from that revolution. Just think what Amazon did by opening up to anyone who wants to sell on their site.

I am also ecstatic for Carina being DRM free.

Zoe, I have to say that having been around awhile, I actually know all this stuff. And that much of it was exactly the same when I started. Note: I didn’t start out in this business as La Nora.

In pretty much all professional fields, people pay for education—as conferences are often educational for new or aspiring writers.

Marketing costs, and most of us have to do some—I agree writers should be smart about what they do and how they invest their money in that area. Again, there were certainly many, even back in the day, who spent far too much time and money in this area. That just hasn’t changed from my pov.

The economy also sucked in the ‘80’s, and there have been any number of publishing market dips and surges.

There is new technology now, certainly.

I simply don’t agree with the statement that those publishing traditionally are ‘paying for the privilege’.

Btw, I don’t know anyone, myself included, who had control over cover art as a new writer, or the title, or the distribution.

You earn it.

Whether traditionally published or self-published, I certainly hope a writer has spent time—and money—learning the craft.

Each author really needs to weigh their own strengths and weaknesses and what they can bring to the table before deciding. It’s not just a simple: Trad publishing YAY, self publishing BOO anymore.

and

it is my opinion that right now the best option a writer has who wants to make it big is NOT getting a publishing contract initially.  They’ll get stuck on the midlist and either be unlikely to break out, or they’ll get dropped by their publisher.

Setting it up as TP vs SP is a straw man. This is overpriced vanity publishing being billed as self pub.

To the second point, like Sherry Thomas? Or Johanna Bourne? Meredith Duran? A certain percent of authors will succeed, a certain percent of authors will fail - in any environment. Using your brand rep to lure in those rejected with the illusion of acceptance is still icky.

~It is perfectly valid for “you” to speak of a writing career~

Zoe, this just pisses me off as it supposes I didn’t come up through the ranks, sweating my way, going through what every other new writer goes through.

It supposes I really don’t know what I’m talking about in today’s publishing arena because I’m somehow removed from it by success.

So I have to stop all this and go back to my privileged career—which for me, is continuing to sweat over the keyboard to write a book.

~Setting it up as TP vs SP is a straw man. This is overpriced vanity publishing being billed as self pub. ~

Liz, you’re absolutely right.

@ Liz:

No, I’m not bitter at all.  Yes, I understand Nora once struggled, but she struggled in a different publishing climate in which her odds for success going the “traditional route” (read: the same way we’ve always done it) were significantly higher than they are for an author now.

It’s like going back in time to when automobiles started becoming popular and talking to an old horse and buggy seller and the horse and buggy seller teaching you how to make it in that business. Well, that business stopped really existing. 

The publishing industry is undergoing HUGE changes right now.  Those changes mean that all the things that Nora and others who have been in this business as long as she has did in the beginning to succeed are not necessarily the same things that will work for people in a drastically changed reading culture, publishing climate, and technological landscape.

It’s not a dump on Nora Roberts.

I’m not the least bit bitter so please don’t project things onto my words that aren’t there.  If you knew me you would know that I’m very passionate about publishing and self-publishing, not because I “couldn’t get published the traditional way” but because I didn’t WANT that.  (My attempts to get published the traditional way were exactly 2.  And that was just while I worked up the courage to do what *I* wanted to do, which was self-publish.)

I know this is going to come off as Greek to you but I am a publishing geek. I LIKE publishing.  I LIKE ISBN numbers and profit and loss statements and business and marketing plans and interior layout and cover art and distribution decisions.

I enjoy the freedom, the creative control, the challenge.  I also enjoy the ability to build something that completely belongs to me from the ground up and knowing that my entire backlist will be in print as long as I want it in print.  No one will ever be able to “unpublish” me.

I further don’t care about things like fortune and fame. Nor are my goals the same as many other authors.  Reading my words as “bitter” shows you don’t know me. Please don’t read things that aren’t there.

I don’t begrudge or envy Nora a bit of her success, or anyone else who has really made it in traditional publishing, but… I also know that that kind of success is a pipe dream for many even talented authors who are being told “no, don’t self-publish, that’s bad.” 

Well it’s bad for many, not bad for everyone.  I’m glad I made the decision I made, but I had many published authors who tried to talk me out of it so I could have a “real writing career.”

What I have instead is a business, that I fully intend to turn a profit at.  Fiction isn’t the only thing I’m doing, but it’s one of the things.  I’m an entrepreneur. Plain and simple. This was the best decision for me.  I speak passionately like I do about this because I know that while few and far between there are others like me who may be being talked out of their dream to publish their own work.

I believe people need to look at all the factors around them and then make the decision that is best for them.  Not just automatically give in to the social pressure to do it “like everybody else does it.”

Nora:

I understand your feelings about the phrase “paying for the privilege.”  I don’t really think that was meant in the way it continues to be taken.  I know that the nuance is important to you. It’s just not important to me, which may be why I didn’t choose my words more carefully.

See my other post to Liz with regards to your experience in this business. Again, I’m not in any way saying you don’t know what’s what.  But the truth is we all live inside our OWN life experiences and perspectives.  And you have a significantly different life experience than most published authors.

Jess:

The money everybody spends whether to self-publish or traditionally publish (please don’t make me rehash what I mean here everybody has to pay money in some way) varies from person to person.

People can self publish on createspace for VERY little money, and then do very low-cost/free grassroots marketing.  Acting like self publishing costs a LOT of money, while trad published authors spend very little just isn’t true.

It varies from person to person.  There is a huge spending range for either path.

Any self publishing author selling a good number of books will attract the interest of a publisher because they are a “sure thing.”

Except that as has been stated many times, most vanity-published writers (and make no mistake, HH is vanity, not self-publishing) sell 75 copies of their books on average. You don’t become the next big name with those kinds of numbers.

The vast majority of vanity-published books are at best meh. They simply aren’t ready for publication, and paying customers (and by this I mean readers) don’t deserve to have such poor quality products foisted on them as if they’d undergone quality control. Harlequin authors—who spent the time learning and perfecting their craft—also don’t deserve to have their works lumped in with these products.

Someone upthread said it best: self-publishing shouldn’t be the easier route to publication. It should be at least as hard, if not harder, because you’re doing the work of an entire publishing house. And as a result, you should get to keep most of the profits. This deal with HH takes most of the money out of the author’s hands and puts it in Harlequin’s and ASI’s, but the author still has to do the majority of the work.

Liz:

If you’d read any of my other posts you would know that even as a self publishing author I am completely AGAINST what Harlequin is doing here.  I am also against vanity publishing. Self publishing and vanity publishing are two totally different things.  Self-publishing when done right is actually a viable small business model.  Vanity publishing isn’t.

I know there are several hundred posts in this thread and most of us aren’t reading or internalizing every single one, but please don’t assume things about me I haven’t specifically stated.

Do a google search on “harlequin hacks” and see what comes up. 

Writing romance has enough credibility problems as it is.  Having a columnist in The New Yorker weigh in on this debacle using words and phrases like “masturbatory” and “downright dirty” certainly doesn’t help.

Harlequin, is this really worth it?  Are you that hard up for cash?

Nora:

I’ve noticed a lot on writing forums and blogs that you tend to get very put out and hurt about just about anything anyone can say.  People can mean something non-offensively (which I did. I wasn’t making any statement about how hard you’ve worked only that right now YOU have a career and many others have a McJob with no HOPE of a career statistically speaking.)

Please stop taking everything everyone says that isn’t glowing praise to you as a personal affront. 

The fact remains that many authors have worked just as hard as you have and they won’t ever have anything more than a writing McJob.  So calling everybody’s writing a “career” is a little strange.

Again, no offense was intended. I don’t really appreciate trying to have a normal conversation and having all my words twisted and laced with malice that was never there or intended.  It makes me look to others like some bitter evil little hag, when I have absolutely no feelings or intentions that way.

Deadly Accurate:

I totally agree with everything you just said.  Self publishing and vanity publishing are not the same thing.  I’m not sure if I believe self publishing is “harder” or not.  Maybe it is.  I guess I’d rather work harder for something than hope luck smiles down on me. (And please for the love of god and everything that is holy don’t anyone say: “OMG you think I don’t work hard at my craft, you evil bitch!”  Let’s just stick with what I’m actually talking about here. there IS a lot of luck involved in getting published these days.)

I have a low tolerance for luck.  I’d rather do my own thing and work for every single reader I get, and know that what I’m building is really mine, than hope and pray that some big publisher doesn’t say: “We love it, but we just don’t know how to market it.”

Well hell, let me do it then.

Zoe, come on

You make the statement:

“It’s like going back in time to when automobiles started becoming popular and talking to an old horse and buggy seller and the horse and buggy seller teaching you how to make it in that business. Well, that business stopped really existing.”

And you think some of the long time authors, including Nora, wouldn’t take offense?

Zoe Winters, I don’t know you but accusing Nora Roberts of being easily hurt and offended is one of the most laughable things I have heard.  I think you are either projecting or you are just divorced from reality. Or have others have pointed out protesting too loudly how you don’t care about fame and fortune.  But keep sharing your vast experience, and keep correcting others, it is very entertaining.

~Please stop taking everything everyone says that isn’t glowing praise to you as a personal affront.  ~

Oh now, that’s just silly.

I never indicated malice in your words. But you did indeed give me a rather long lecture on publishing—which is also pretty silly considering. And you did indicate I really didn’t know what I was talking about because of my position.

I was not hurt by this, just annoyed.

I do tend to get put out when comments make something personal, which you did, and dismiss my opinions and experiences because of who I am. But I don’t believe I twisted anything you said.

I did not call everybody’s writing a career. But I do believe most who go into this profession in a serious manner have career as the goal. Personally, I wouldn’t insult someone working to make a living from their writing as holding a McJob.

But that’s just a difference in style.

You’re annoyed with me, that’s clear. So we’re even.

Now, stop telling me what to do, and we’ll be just fine.

Meanwhile, you seem to have found something you love, and are passionate about doing it in a way that suits you. Good for you, seriously. But I think, perhaps, you don’t know as much about the ins and outs of traditional publishing that those who are actively working in that area.

I’ve been in public relations too long. This is why I was concerned:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/11/harlequin-hacks.html

No confusion regarding the Harlequin brand? Really.

They’ve even used a Harlequin Historical cover (with the HH logo vs. the Horizons hH logo) on the cover to illustrate their short article. Despite what Harlequin might think, the general public isn’t going to see a difference. The perception is once something says Harlequin it’s Harlequin. There is no author-side only branding. Branding is branding.

I understand that traditional publishing has been very good for you, but the odds are VERY long for authors to achieve what you’ve achieved.

And for vanity publishing like Harlequin Horizons/ASI, the odds are practically non-existent. There’s no incentive for HH/ASI to sell books to readers. They’ve already made their money by selling their services to authors. Why bother with distribution when they can get another author to give them between $600 and $1600 to publish their book?

The publishing climate has always been difficult.  When La Nora was getting started, publishers still didn’t realize how much money there was to be made in romances and were reluctant to invest in them.  Please don’t say it was easier back in the day.  It wasn’t.

I’d venture to say it’s just as difficult now, though for different reasons. There are more authors, but there is also more technology available to get the written word before the public and hence, more LEGITIMATE opportunities such as POD and e-pubs. 

Vanity publishing has been around forever.

re: The New Yorker article

and that, Harlequin, is why you should have thought about this much more before jumping into this cesspool.

the average reader doesn’t care about the difference between vanity publishing or “traditional” publishing or whatever, they just see THAT book cover and think that a Harlequin Horizon book will be THE same as the books on the shelves of their local bookstore. They’re not going to read the disclaimers. They just want their romance fix and when Jessie, the eager beaver next door, hands them a copy of the Harlequin Horizon book she just spent thousands to publish, they’ll read it, thinking it’s HARLEQUIN.

and… it’s more likely than not to be crap. And the name brand disintergrates into a pile of dust.

why no one at HQ seems to have the common sense of a gnat surprises me. This should have really been discussed before going forth with the HQHo line…

(heh, heh… yeh, ho. I said it. But I stole it from someone else. But it’s still good.)

Malle said:

In fact, I anonymously bought a self-packaging service that included an editorial critique as we were investigating Author Solutions. If you don’t know my background I am a former editor with Harlequin (10 years, sorry to those who thought I needed more print experience) and I have written and published seven romance novels (under Molly Liholm).

Dear Malle,

I have some questions for you.  Since you’re so pleased with ASI, where can we buy your book?  And how many copies have you sold?  Just curious.

I have some questions for you.  Since you’re so pleased with ASI, where can we buy your book?  And how many copies have you sold?  Just curious.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=Molly+Liholm

Malle didn’t publish through ASI. Perhaps there’s some confusion over what she meant.

Nice to see Nora pop in - it has been on my mind the last few days how the bigger names in this industry were going to react to all this hub bub.  You see this is an issue that will hit the heart of not just a new writer, but a well established one as well.  So many got started with Harlequin and with all the upheaval they have a stake in where this all ends to some degree.

I knew when this was first announced Publish America would come up in discussions.  But how is it relevant? Google search the name - check out AWC discussions on PA - and you will find that what HH is offering doesn’t vastly differ on appearances from the PA model that has been outed for what it truly is.  As someone that wasn’t so smart - I even took the time to lay bare my greatest embarassment here : http://kathryn-edgar.blogspot.com/2009/11/harlequin-horizons-my-ramblings-its.html

But if PA is a scam - as I said in the blog post - then eventually this new venture will be seen as the Scam God because it is so much worse than what PA does to people. 

PA didn’t take over 599.00 of anyone’s money for the service they offered.  PA didn’t say you can be called a PA author but you won’t be affliated with us - matter of fact they even keep your book on their website (not that it serves much purpose except as a shiny bauble to future authors that find them).  With HH however, you clearly pay in at least some manner to say I’m a Harlequin Horizon author - wait, Harlequin is going to disown me as soon as they get my money? Huh? I can’t advertise they published me? I can’t market with their company name? But isn’t that the name of my publisher?

Marketing may come out of an author’s individual expenses - however, when was the last time an author was not able to advertise the line that carried their book on a bookmark or postcard?

This issue isn’t even black or white but rather shades of gray.  And shades of gray aren’t good for anyone involved or concerned.  And I guess my personal feelings, having been swindled once because I was ignorant, is that this whole Harlequin Horizons will pave the way for future folks to see big shiny baubles and then pay for the regret later.  At least all I have to pay with is just that, regret - but what if it costs this money as well? 

And what does it say to readers? To the already published authors with this house?  To the public? 

And at this point one can only hope while this is all discussed through the wonderful world wide web, that someone reads something that makes sense in their head and puts an end to this or at least takes the appropriate steps to fully withdraw the Harlequin brand from the venture. 

Let them have their slice of greedy pie but without all the hurts and tarnishing this is causing at the moment.  Because something I also say in the blog in a round about way (as it was late and I was rambling about all the last two days discussion) is that Harlequin has stood on a line that is both in the white and the black here.  You can not sell one thing to Joe Bob but then tell Sue that you didn’t do any such thing because you did.  You can’t hide behind one statistic or figure sheet while keeping another hidden in the filing cabinet.  If nothing else - be honest with folks - that’s all I’m saying.

Anon76, it’s not a perfect analogy. I’m trying to explain something that I think without walking on eggshells.  I truly do NOT think that authors like Nora are lacking in knowledge BUT things really ARE changing.

To ignore this is silly.  For a famous author to get put out and hurt about is something I don’t understand. Again, not trying to diminish her feelings or say she shouldn’t feel how she feels, but really. Not everything is PERSONAL.

Why the hell should Nora care what I think? I have in no way diminished what she’s done to get where she is but times HAVE changed from when she started.  Everyone knows it’s harder to get published now than ever.  If Nora was starting right NOW would she still become “La Nora?” Well really we don’t know, but there is a chance that she wouldn’t.

That’s all I’m talking about. It REALLY is not meant as a personal affront to anyone. And it’s hard to have a productive conversation about anything if you have to cloak everything in so much PC bullshit that communication can’t happen.

I just thank the powers that be that I didn’t have the kind of money to even consider self publishing or vanity publishing when I first started out. The package is so persuasive that I might have considered it.
I’m one of the “new model” people. I write for epublishers. But again, I don’t pay anything for publication or anything concerned with it, and instead of an advance I get higher royalties. Nowhere near the Nora Roberts level, but I’m making a living. I love what I do, but when I’m asked about it, which happens quite a lot, I take care to outline the downs as well as the ups. I don’t try to sell it like a double-glazing salesperson.
I think HQN HO is the right kind of name for the line.

Nora:

Oh good lord.  Let’s end this pissing contest please.  I haven’t said I know more about trad publishing than you, not once, ever.  What I’ve said is that publishing has changed and it has, this is demonstrably proven everywhere.  How do I get this knowledge?

From all the publishers and agents who bitch about it all on their blogs.  It’s not like I pulled it out of my butt.  So the information I have, if it’s wrong, it came from agents currently working in the industry.  There are two main ways to gain knowledge, from experience, or learning things from experts.  I consider publishers and agents experts on what is going on right now in publishing. 

But whether my information regarding trad publishing is right or wrong I know it’s WAY too much emo drama for me to want to be involved with, so I’ll just stay on the sidelines and do my own thing.

Also, my last post referencing you being hurt, was before I read your recent posts.  If you’re just annoyed/irritated then I stand corrected.  Most of the time when someone lashes out about something like this the root emotion under the anger (and you did say you were pissed off) is hurt or feeling misunderstood.  If those weren’t your feelings I apologize for reading them as such. 

Michelle:

Glad to have amused you.  We all need entertainment in our lives. If I can’t do it for you with my fiction then at least I can do it with my clear inability to communicate about a topic in a blog comments thread without it turning into a contentious argument.

Ann K. 

Once again, I do not think vanity publishing is a good option for anyone wanting to make any money or have any level of success.  Self publishing and vanity publishing are different things.  Please do not assume things I’m not saying. 

Lucy:

I haven’t said publishing was “easier” I’ve said it was “different.”  This is why I still stand by my horse and buggy analogy. It’s not meant as insult to anyone.  All it means is when you have an industry change a lot, you cannot continue to apply all the same business and practical principles to it that you did before. You have to evolve and change with it.  That’s ALL I have ever said here.  And yet somehow this has turned into a discussion of how I think Nora didn’t work that hard and doesn’t know that much.

I have neither said nor implied anything like that.  Though others are intent on reading that into my text.

Hey I guess this is all good news for the Harlequin Horizon’s representative, as now we’re all concerned about whether or not I’ve offended Nora and what a no-nothing peon I am.  Good times. Yay! Pass the popcorn.

From the New Yorker article - I don’t mean to rabble-rouse here - really, I don’t. 

But it seems to me that Carole Mortimer, the author whose “The Rake’s Wicked Proposal” cover is unfortunately associated with this very negative story, should consider her legal options.  Through no fault of her own, her name has been dragged into this unholy mess.

~Everyone knows it’s harder to get published now than ever.~

This, right here, is the big fallacy. Who is everyone, and how do they know this?

Some of those everyones could argue that with the changes, with the technology it’s actually easier to publish now.

I don’t claim to know if that’s true or not.

Again, Zoe, let me say, I was not hurt. And I only care about what you said because this is a discussion board—and I was, like you, discussing. I stated my opinion, my reactions, my take—just like you’re meant to do in a discussion.

Again, you’re making it personal about me. What does someone like me care about what someone like you said? Because we were DISCUSSING.

The business is always changing. Sometimes, like now, the changes are big or potentially so. Sometimes they’re smaller, but still impact many.

It’s—as has been said before—always been hard to get published. Why should it be easy?

You can certainly have a productive conversation without PC bullshit—but not if you insist on making it personal, or by dismissing another person’s relevance to the discussion.

Vanity publishing sucks. You pay, they profit. No one buys your book.

Self-publishing can suck, too, but HH is vanity publishing. See above.

I’m tired of the ill-disguised envy that fosters these attacks on Nora Roberts every time she opens her mouth. Give it a rest, people. She’s got a valuable perspective as a person with long-time publishing experience.

Yes, publishing is changing, but ethics remain the same. This HH deal is unethical at the core and we all know it. If you want to do publishing in a new and different way, and you have the chops to make a success of it, fine for you.

Vanity publishing? Still sucks.

Emma,

No confusion.  Did you read the quoute?  Here, I’ll repaste the pertinent part.

In fact, I anonymously bought a self-packaging service that included an editorial critique as we were investigating Author Solutions.

I don’t want to know about her *other* books.  I want to know about this one.  You say she didn’t publish with ASI.  If she didn’t, why not?  She says she was pleased with them.  And if they’re good enough for HQ to reccommend to their rejected authors, why aren’t they good enough for Malle?

Well, Zoe, it’s striking me that you have a hard time discussing a disagreement on an issue or on tone, and you’re over-reacting. From your comments, I think at least part of this stems from the disagreement being with me.

I can’t help disagreeing with you when I simply do—and on a number of your statements.

I wasn’t offended, but pissed off (very different), and I don’t consider you a no-nothing peon. I didn’t say you’d claimed to know more than me about traditional publishing, but that I didn’t think you knew as much as those active in it. Again, very different.

I do wish when I participate in these discussions, I wouldn’t see a response along the lines of: Easy for you to say when you’re Nora.

It does negate my opinion and my participation.

And a word of advice? If you’re serious about ending ‘a pissing contest’ don’t continue to piss.

I do agree with you on the point that this thread should be about the topic, not about this.

Let me state upfront that I have no problem with self-publishing.  I have bought self-published books, both for myself and for my library.

I have no particular problem with vanity publishing, really, if it is sold honestly without the predatory doublespeak that HQHo seems to be indulging in.  There are perfectly legitimate uses for it.

But Zoe Winters?  You want it plain and frank, without the “PCBullshit”?
Okay then:

I’m glad you love the business of publishing and have made it work for you. I haven’t read any of your books, but I am sure that they are very entertaining and well written.

But *as a reader*, I am far more interested in having more writers invest their time, energy, and yes money in improving their WRITING, than I am in having more books published by writers who are passionate about cover design, marketing, distribution, spreadsheets, or anything but their craft. 

As someone said way upthread, the problem with the publishing industry is NOT that we don’t have enough books being published.

Nora,

You’re right. What I should have said, is: It’s harder to become a wild screaming famous success story now, mainly because in a world of so many niches you have more books that are selling fewer copies.  So yes, maybe it’s easier to get published now, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that probably for most authors their publishing dream didn’t consist of selling a thousand copies or less and not getting their contracts renewed.

Of course everything I say is my personal opinion.  I think I just naturally assume that people know it’s my opinion and not from on high.  Maybe they don’t.  Maybe it comes across as if I’m saying absolutely 100% facts with every utterance.  Yes publishing has changed and is changing, but my interpretation of what those things mean are my own.  It’s tedious to say: “this is my opinion” for everything (which maybe is why IMO was invented), but still.

I wasn’t trying to diminish your part in the discussion.  I thought by the way you were phrasing things that you were taking things personally that I didn’t mean that way. (in much the same way others have misread my phrasing for things.)  The root issue may have more to do with your style of discussion and my style of discussion clashing.  I can be a brash smartass and there is fallout for that.

I also can come across as a know it all.  But the truth is I DO know a lot about what I’m talking about.  This is not my first small business rodeo.  I have spent a good many years learning about business and even participating in and running a few.  I’m also currently in the act of self-publishing so I know something about that, and I keep an eye on what is going on according to the big dogs in the publishing industry. So while most people don’t know my name, and I haven’t been in this industry for decades, I’m not exactly a no-nothing peon either on the topics I speak about.

Now granted I do not have the same box seat to the trad publishing game that you do, but I do get an awful lot of information filtered to me from the other people who are there.  But everything I hear that I don’t directly witness, is a filtered viewpoint, even yours, because we filter everything through our own experiences.  So things may get lost in translation on their way to me.

If you weren’t taking things I said personally and I just assumed you were, then I apologize.  I think we’ve both been talking past each other and very likely our views regarding publishing are probably not in reality that different from one another.  The main difference is in the particular paths we personally favor.  And you have very valid reasons to personally favor the path that you’re on.

Poison Ivy:

A. I haven’t been “attacking” Nora Roberts.

B. I am not envious of her.  She’s worked hard for what she has and in a few decades we’ll see where I am. It may or may not be where Nora is, but… it’ll still be something I can be proud of.  I am uninterested in comparing my success with that of others.

My bad, Katherine. I did totally misunderstand, sorry.

And I have to admit I flew too quickly on the defensive where Malle’s concerned. I met her a few years back at RWA NYC, and of all the people I met, she’s among those who impressed me most: very thoughtful in her responses and indeed very knowledgeable in the business.

(I met Nora, too, and am still recovering from what could have become a tragically pathetic fangirl moment, had someone not pulled me away. /shamefaced. Sorta like meeting Bret Farve, only without the accent.)

I almost regret opening my mouth this morning. I’m truly sorry if I got under anyone’s skin—that definitely wasn’t my intent. I’m just always afraid we’re ALL OF US too quick to go on a witch hunt without dissecting things from every possible angle.

And now, I must go pick up sick munchkin #2. They’re dropping like flies around here.

Nora, I can’t help it.  You get a little more piss in and then I feel compelled to do the same. I can’t disengage because I think we both are constantly trying to clarify our positions.  Despite the rocky road we’ve taken to it, I think we’re working our way around to something like a discussion.

Again, I wasn’t trying to negate your view.  The funny irony is, that I actually try to just talk to you like a normal human being instead of “the famous Nora Roberts” because my feeling on it is that famous people likely get tired of being treated differently than other people.  But by bringing “Nora Roberts” into it as “Nora Roberts” I kind of missed that mark.

There were good intentions, but it can be difficult to have a discussion with you about publishing and your involvement and experience in it, without mentioning your involvement and experience in it.  It’s a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, you are allowed to use your experience and success to make a point, but on the other hand, if I mention your level of success in a discussion that somehow negates you.  To me this is a double-standard and it makes it nearly impossible to discuss anything with you regarding publishing if your experience is going to be brought into it at all.

Then when you get pissed off about it, yes, I do feel like you’re taking things personally.  Maybe you didn’t see it that way, but that was how it came off to me.  I’ve also noticed that as long as the point is favorable to you, others are allowed to mention your Nora-Robertness as much as they want.

But if it isn’t, it’s either negating your view (according to you) or some kind of pathological jealousy (according to the view of others.)

I’m confused as to why the only time we can’t mention you’re Nora is when it works against you? But we can any other time.

~It’s harder to become a wild screaming famous success story now, mainly because in a world of so many niches you have more books that are selling fewer copies.~

One word: Twilight.

Let me add to this, it took considerable time, and a hell of a lot of books, an awful lot of sweat for me to become a success.

And a difference here, if you look back, is that I never criticized the path you’ve chosen. I didn’t claim any knowledge of its workings as I have no personal experience on that path.

hapax:

I know most people don’t “get” this, but I’m equally passionate about publishing AND writing and improving my craft.  I know that’s not a common combination but it is the situation I have.  (It’s not that weird since most people tend to have more than one thing they like in life.)

If I didn’t think I had the writing aptitude to put out a great book that a reader would enjoy, then I would just publish other people.  But since I believe I have enough ability to do both things well, then I do.

This is not a commentary on what is right for “most” people but what is right for me. I’m not picking one.

~It’s harder to become a wild screaming famous success story now, mainly because in a world of so many niches you have more books that are selling fewer copies.~

One word: Twilight.

Don’t forget to add DAVINCI CODE and HARRY POTTER.

BTW Zoe—people have been saying that publishing is going to implode and all midlist authors are going to be dropped and nobody’s ever going to buy new writers for DECADES.  Get old how-to-get-pubbed advice books.  Nobody ever said, “It’s very very easy to get pubbed.”

Nora:

I’m really not trying to criticize trad publishing.  I don’t think it’s a bad path or a wrong path or a stupid path.  Not even as hard as it is.  But, I think what happens is there is so much negativity toward self publishing that most people are getting just one side of things.  And there “are” problems with trad publishing.  There are things about it that may not be attractive options to many writers.

I don’t think it’s a case of Trad publishing vs. self publishing. I think it’s a case of what is the right fit for each author.  Trad publishing is clearly the right fit for you as self publishing is for me.  You’ve gotten a LOT of success with trad publishing.  Many other authors on your path aren’t so lucky.

Some have gotten a LOT of success with self publishing, many others haven’t been so lucky.

I appreciate that you haven’t personally disparaged the path I’m on, but just like there are problems and pitfalls for trad publishing, there are for self publishing as well.  And I’d never deny that.

As for Twilight, yes, it’s a screaming success. So was Harry Potter, but we still have a LOT more books being published and MOST of them sell a lot fewer copies.

When publishing was mostly commercial publishing and self publishing was too expensive for most people to do, and ebook publishing didn’t exist, most everything got funneled through the bookstores.  There was less variety and options and therefore each book had a larger chance of “hitting it big.”

The odds now of having a Twilight or Harry Potter success are smaller just by virtue of all the other books fighting for a reader’s attention now. 

There is no “easy” or “easier” path.  It depends on each person’s skills, aptitudes, time, talent, interests and which way they think luck will fall better for them.

Zoe, you weren’t using my experience as a point in the discussion, which would have been valid. You used my position it in now to dismiss what I had to say.

That isn’t valid.

I don’t know if you seriously can’t see the point or are deliberately ignoring it.

Easy for you to say when you’re Nora Roberts is a dismissal of my opinion—it’s not bringing up my experience.

~I’m confused as to why the only time we can’t mention you’re Nora is when it works against you? But we can any other time. ~

This, again, is simply silly. You’re way, way generalizing rather than seeing the point of what you specifically said, and why—as I’ve explained—it annoyed me.

What you said doesn’t ‘work against me’, it dismisses my view.

Zoe, you’re digging a hole here. You say let’s end this pissing contest, then go on to take a very long piss—but then come back and say you couldn’t help it because I got more in. I hadn’t, obviously, because you called for the end, then continued to piss all in the same post.

Now you’re claiming I only get annoyed when people use my name or position when it works against me—when that wasn’t at all the point, and is so far from true.

As, in reading some of the comments, I’m not the only one who took your statement(s) as a dismissal, maybe you could consider the way you phrased your posts.

LOL Nadia!  I never said “all” midlist authors. :P But I do think the midlist is a particularly precarious place to be for many authors.  And I know I don’t want to be there.

I know there has been many a tale of apocalypse that didn’t come to fruition and I’m not saying I think the publishing industry as we know it is going to completely collapse, but by the same token I believe many publishers are seriously struggling and as a result they are a LOT more careful about the risks they take on, which makes getting published by a name publisher in this climate even harder.

I think if publishers weren’t struggling there wouldn’t be so many of them getting into bed financially with self publishing.  It says something if Harlequin is willing to risk their entire reputation and dilute their brand and suffer this kind of backlash in order to start up a vanity operation.  That says they aren’t making enough money from their other ventures.  And if Harlequin is hurting that is a BAD sign.

IMO.

Nora. I’m here shaking my head. Your restraint is admirable. As the old folks used to say - you can have a discussion at the kitchen table, but not with the kitchen table.  My spamword is above. This is above and beyond what has been both a serious and reasonably discussed thread.

~I’m really not trying to criticize trad publishing.~

Okay, then stop doing it.

What Harlequin Horizons is launching isn’t SP anyhow. It’s vanity, and a different kettle entirely. More, it’s deceptive vanity.

No one’s criticizing your choices—your choices weren’t what was under discussion. Harlequin’s choices were, and are.

Nora:

I don’t believe I ever used the phrase “easy for you to say when you’re Nora Roberts.” 

What I said was that YOU could say you have a writing career but many other authors have writing McJobs. (which you also thought was offensive that I would deign to judge a certain amount of money as McJob wages instead of career wages as if I was somehow insulting the author and the work they put in.)

That’s not an “easy for you to say because you’re Nora Roberts” situation.

That’s a basic issue of economics.  YOU make a career level wage.  Not every published author does.  It’s not exactly all “career-level” money. How on earth this dismisses or negates anything I have no idea.

So no, I"m not dismissing your opinion or negating you or whatever. I was making a simple economic observation.  And it was also something that was a VERY small part of your original point which we’ve pulled out and nitpicked to death.

You could have just acknowledged that many authors will never make career level wages doing this, and leave it at that. I’m not sure why it got dragged out into this.

Okay, from me to you… Nora, you can piss as long as you want to.  I wouldn’t want to try to stop you from it because if I’m going to keep doing it then obviously I want to afford you the same right.

Also, when we both finish digging this gigantic hole (because frankly I think we’re both making ourselves look like ninnies by continuing on and on with this), can we plant rose bushes?  I like the yellow tea kind with the red tips.

Wow.

When I first heard about RWA’s action regarding Harlequin, I was really surprised. And I thought RWA had made a huge error in doing what they did. I must admit I don’t know much about vanity publishing, and I was basing my assumption on an erroneous definition of that phrase.

I’m someone who decided to enter the publishing world from a non-traditional place - ebooks. I did so deliberately, believing it would be a good way for me to get my feet wet as an author, and I feel I made the right choice. So I have a soft spot for the non-traditional, and I thought at first glance that HQ was just being clever by branching out of their usual business model. But after reading various discussion boards over the last 24 hours, and realizing exactly what Harlequin is doing with this “new line”, I have to say I’m appalled at their actions.

Shame on them. Shame on them for sullying the reputation of a publishing giant, and shame on them for diminishing the dreams of vulnerable authors who will believe, erroneously, that this might be their ticket.

Zoe

If the harlequin name was removed from the Horizons line, would you purchase the services? Or even without the brand removal?

Meaning as a savvy self-publishing author, do you think it’s all smoke and mirrors or a good business option with this one company?

Zoe Winters:

I know most people don’t “get” this, but I’m equally passionate about publishing AND writing and improving my craft.  I know that’s not a common combination but it is the situation I have.

I’m not questioning this, and I’m sincerely glad for you.

My comment was mostly in response to your earlier (6:30 ish - 7:00 ish? Before coffee?) posts, which certainly seemed to suggest that traditional publishing has failed authors and readers, and that the better model was for more writers to get on the SP bandwagon, and devote their energies to improving their business savvy rather than throwing away money on writing classes, critiques, etc.

Honestly (and I say this with my rejected would-be published author hat on) I really dread the thought of trad publishing losing its gatekeeper function, without a readily available substitute.  Because the mss I submitted (I can say this now) really weren’t quite ready for prime-time, and it would have served nobody—not the book biz, not readers, and especially not me—if I had self-published them, used my (not huge, but not negligible) contacts to get them in front of reading eyeballs, and then wasted their time and diluted my own (future, I hope) brand.

Maybe in the future I will go the SP route.  But right now I am relying on the tough but knowledgable critique and filter system available to me at the cost of postage.

Oh good lord.

Okay Nora, so according to you no one is allowed to say ANYTHING negative about traditional publishing? We can’t offer alternatives? We can’t mention problems in it? Because it’s “criticizing and that’s bad?”

Heaven forfend that someone actually critically think through a possible “career” path before trying to take it, and consider all pros and cons of the decision first.

I’m not really sure how much more hippie-dippie I can be than: “Trad publishing is right for some people and self publishing is right for others.”

That’s hardly the position of a zealot or hater of trad publishing.

I also don’t feel anyone in this thread has in any way attacked me for self publishing. This isn’t and has never been about ME.  But they HAVE misrepresented my position by replying to me thinking I’m in support of what Harlequin has done because I self publish and I’m not in support of it.

I have clarified my view.  Somehow we’ve gotten off on many different topics completely unrelated to the original blog post.  And that’s not just me or you, that’s most of us on this thread now.

It says something if Harlequin is willing to risk their entire reputation and dilute their brand and suffer this kind of backlash in order to start up a vanity operation.  That says they aren’t making enough money from their other ventures.  And if Harlequin is hurting that is a BAD sign.

If you’d read the financial statements or even the very general financial analysis / report on Harlequin, you would’ve known that Harlequin is NOT hurting.

It is Torstar, Harlequin’s parent company, that is hurting for cash.  Harlequin is Torstar’s cash cow.  Recession or no, Harlequin made profit.

So there’s no Harlequin hurting or a “Bad sign” because of it.

Also publishers aren’t getting into and/or partnering with vanity / self pubs because they’re hurting.  That reasoning is patently flawed.  One of the primary goals of any big corporation is to maximize shareholder value.  In order to do this, the corporation must maximize ROI.  Going after a new source of revenue is not necessarily a sign that companies are hurting.  It’s just a good business decision on their part.  (Even if writers don’t like it.)

Ugh, what a busy morning I’ve been having!

A few points I’d like to make, if I may.

@Emma:

“Professional” authors are already paying for packaging, editorial, promotion and admin (copyright and such) through the rather huge chunk the publishers take from the revenue pile. FACT: The author gets what… 6 - 8% of the take? That means the traditional publisher gets 92 -94%.

Yes, traditionally published books will have superior distribution, etc, but the fact remains: authors pay for ANY publisher’s services, one way or another. The largely contested difference here seems to be the timing, I guess.

I’m sorry, but this isn’t the case at all. I understand and appreciate your comment a few above, but I feel the need to dispute this; not because Nora didn’t do an adequate job, but because some comments in the thread have felt to me like a “Nora’s been around so long and she’s so successful that it’s all different for her.” I’m not saying you made that claim, Emma, just that I’m using your comment as a springboard.

I didn’t pay my publishers out of my profits. I didn’t risk anything, financially.

I sold/leased/whatever certain rights to them. They in turn paid me an advance. Then, on top of that money, they paid for editing, cover design, sales, marketing, distribution, co-op, advertising, whatever else they’re doing. They pay for ALL of it.

Just as I do not make royalties until my advance earns out, my publisher, although it takes a larger cut of the money that comes in, does not make any money itself until all of those expenses have been covered. (Yes, it’s a tad more complex than that, but we’re talking basics here.)

If my book sells poorly, and I don’t earn out my advance (btw, 6% is quite a low royalty)? If it sells so poorly that the publisher doesn’t recoup its expenses?

I keep my advance. My publisher is out a considerable sum of money.

They take all of the financial risk. All of it. Businesses are in business to make money. Of course the publisher is going to recoup its expenses. But I am not responsible for any part of their expenses. I walk away with my advance money, whether they get their expenses back or not.

(I make this very clear because I know there is a fallacy out there which claims authors who don’t earn out have to pay back their advances. Not remotely true.)

@Zoe Winters:

When an author is just starting out, they aren’t making great money and guaranteed they are spending out more money than they are raking in initially if they want their book to succeed and to continue getting contracts from their publisher.  It’s too competitive out there to just sit on your advance.  (well not for you, but for most everybody else.)

You can’t guarantee that, because again, it is not remotely true.

I think I’m pretty close to the bottom rung of the midlist, at this point in my career. Very few people have heard of me, to be honest. So I think I can certainly address this point and speak as someone “just starting out.” Perhaps that will give my comments on this more authority? Certainly I believe it will be harder for me to be dismissed as someone who’s reach such an exalted level that the realities of the brand-new-author’s life is beyond their ken.

My advance for PERSONAL DEMONS was small, coming as it did from a small press. I spent maybe a tenth of it on promo—mainly postage for the free books I was given as part of my contract. The book had a small but respectably sized print run, and sold 85% or so of that run. Why? Not because of my promo, I assure you, but because readers found it in stores (or perhaps saw an ad my publisher paid for, or a review they sent out copies to get me) and responded positively. I consider myself extremely lucky for that, yes. Certainly I never expected the book to be so well-received or to do as well as it did. But the point is, I kept the vast majority of my small advance.

Moving on to UNHOLY GHOSTS. The house was bigger, and the advance was bigger. To date I have spent perhaps 1% of my advance on promo; I had some cover postcards printed up for Dragoncon (which I attended free, btw).

That’s 1% of my US advance. That’s not counting the advances I received or will soon receive for the UK/Aus rights, the audiobook rights, or the German rights deal I was recently informed of. Is it a huge pile of money? No. But I assure you—and I really hope I don’t sound snobbish here, since that’s not my intention at all—it’s well beyond “McJob” money, a phrase I admit I find hugely offensive when someone is trying to use it to define my career.

Zoe, I appreciate that you’re passionate about what you do, and a passionate advocate of self-publishing. But we have a fundamental disagreement about the value of self-publishing for a writer who hopes to eventually be commercially published. I do not believe self-publishing should be taken on with an eye toward that, as the success stories are extremely few and far between.

I believe a better way to attract the eye of a commercial publisher is to write a book they think they can sell. I believe a better way is to start submitting to commercial publishers of whatever size interests you (I started in small press, as I’ve said) and build an audience that way, with their weight and reputation and money behind you.

Yes, it’s hard to break out and become extremely successful, I guess. (I think it depends on how you define “successful.”) But I can’t agree with allowing pessimism to govern my career. I have tried and will continue to try to write the best books I can, and hope they catch on, and I won’t stop reaching as high and as far as I can just because someone tells me I have no chance at ever being as big as Nora or Stephen King or anyone else, so why bother to dream of it?

Just my perspective, as someone who is starting out now, in this climate.

BTW, none of my writer friends—I’m lucky enough to have quite a few—consider their money to be on a “McJob” level, either.

And even if they did, at least it’s money they’ve been paid, rather than money they’ve paid out.

Anon76, no I would never purchase the services no matter whose name was attached to it, because I think it’s an overpriced author services package.

IMO if someone wants to self-publish using POD they are better off learning everything they can about publishing (as in how to do it), especially things like cover art and interior layout formatting.

Then they can use either CreateSpace or Lightning Source for their POD printing.  CreateSpace is a little bit cheaper than LSI in the per book cost range, but both are WAY cheaper than something like Lulu or any of the other author services companies.), And there is no set up fee with CreateSpace. 

The drawback to CS is that you have distribution through amazon.com and createspace’s site (or your own site if you order books for direct shipment to your house) only.  If you go with LSI you do have to pay some setup fees $117 covers everything right now.  And your cost per book is “slightly” higher than CS.  But you can still price your book competitively with the major publishers and make a higher profit than you would with Lulu.

But the trade off is that with LSI you get a much wider array of distribution options in both the US and the UK. You have access not only to selling in amazon.com but amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk and barnes and noble.  You’ll be listed in baker and taylor and Ingram (major distributors for bookstores and libraries.  Granted you won’t be on bookstore shelves but if someone wanted to order your book through their local B&N then they could certainly do that.)

There are also a lot of ebook distribution options.  And I won’t bore you by listing every single one.

I’ve chosen to work with LSI, but if I was only wanting to sell through Amazon I would use CreateSpace.

If someone doesn’t go through the learning curve for file formatting, then they have to either go through an author services company or hire someone who knows how to work with the templates of those companies. 

For my own personal option I choose to do my interior layout myself and have my cover art designed.  (Anne Cain is my cover artist for the series I’m releasing and she’s fabulous!  I designed my own ebook cover for my novella release but recognize that though it doesn’t totally suck it’s not “professional level.”)

Sorry that was probably a WAY more long-winded answer than you wanted.

It is perfectly valid for “you” to speak of a writing career.

Note you in quotes. So it’s valid for me to talk about career—as applies to me, but not as it applies to somebody trying to break in or forge one today.

And I call bullshit.

I also strongly believe that most writers seriously pursuing publication are doing so with the goal of a career.

Plus, I did not start out making a career level wage, so I feel strongly as well I have something valid to say about what it is to work toward that level, particularly in traditional publishing.

And if I’ve nitpicked it, it’s because with that single statement, you suggested that I was not in a position to speak about the current market, the current stresses and obstacles and difficulties facing writers today.

But you are, even though you’re not pursuing a career in traditional publishing.

Yeah, because really there isn’t enough confusion about the Harlequin brand being linked to vanity publishing already. This out from the NY Times art beat section:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/the-authors-hearts-beat-faster-publishing-was-so-close-now/

Look at how many times they say Harlequin, and yet, they’ll say there will be no brand dilution or confusion. Wake up, please. We beg you.

P.S.
Zoe:
We’re not talking about self-publishing with regards to Horizons. We’re talking vanity publishing. Move on already.

Hapax:

I’m not sure I’d say that it’s a “waste of money” for writers to go to workshops and such,it’s just that it IS money spent.  So you’re spending money either way in most cases. It’s just a matter of figuring out whether trad or self publishing is better for your particular goals and needs. 

And there is also nothing that says a self-published author isn’t going to go to workshops and classes either.  Or gain knowledge in other ways. 

As for quality control, I understand what you’re saying, I think though that we’re already starting to see new gatekeeping methods pop up.  Such as: http://www.indiereader.com  The books on that site are all published by the author, but they are a higher quality than most think of when they think “self-published” because the books have been vetted for quality control.

~Okay Nora, so according to you no one is allowed to say ANYTHING negative about traditional publishing? We can’t offer alternatives? We can’t mention problems in it? Because it’s “criticizing and that’s bad?”~

Jesus, okay had enough. Where did I say that? Please cite.

I, in fact, congratulated you on finding something you loved, and pursuing it in your own way, so how is that saying don’t offer alternatives Please cite.

Where did I say “criticizing and that’s bad?” Please cite.

I’m happy to report that Carole Mortimer’s bookcover has been removed from the negative New Yorker story on this issue.

Nadia,

Thank you for clarifying the financial situation of Harlequin.  I understand ROI and the shareholder issue but I guess my perspective is that it’s a little seedy for these big name publishers to get into bed financially with author services companies like this, especially when they are marketing such companies so blatantly like Harlequin plans to.

I personally couldn’t grasp why a company like Harlequin would do such a thing if they weren’t “hurting financially.”  But if they aren’t, they aren’t.  I don’t have their profit and loss statements on file. :P

The ROI argument IMO falls a little flat when a company’s new revenue stream is so offensive that it dilutes the rest of their brand and reputation.  So this to me seemed like an act of the desperate.  Maybe it was just a stupid choice instead.

@ Zoe http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/want-to-self-publish-how-about-harlequin/#103717

So while it’s true a trad published author “theoretically” doesn’t have to spend all that money to be published, I would bet that a vast majority of authors getting published now have over the years forked out a considerable amount of money learning their craft and beefing up their manuscripts for future public consumption.  There is no free ride. It all costs money.

I’ve been published since 2004.  At that point, I’d sent out probably 5-7 queries.  I’d say, all in all, I spent less than a hundred, probably less than $50, including postage and paper.

In 2004, my first ebook came out from Ellora’s Cave and it didn’t cost me a penny.  I paid for no editing.  I paid for no cover art.  I didn’t even pay for promo.  I hadn’t paid for research books. 

I’ve never paid for critical evals.  Never paid or bought anything in hopes of beefing up my MS.

My biggest expense at the time was the membership to RWA, $75 a year, I didn’t join RWA until after the book came out.

I was an unknown and I sold to an epublisher.  I built a readership and caught the attention of an editor at Berkley.  I did it through learning the craft. 

Luck played into it-hard work played into it.

Spending $$ did not.

I know self pub can work for some. 

But if a person has their heart set on earning a living as a writer, self pub isn’t the way to do it.  It’s like swimming upstream, weighted down with lead weights and missing a limb to boot.

Whew! Relieved and happy for Carole. She certainly didn’t deserve to have her cover abused in such a fashion by the press.

I personally couldn’t grasp why a company like Harlequin would do such a thing if they weren’t “hurting financially.”  But if they aren’t, they aren’t.  I don’t have their profit and loss statements on file. :P

If you took a minute to google, you would’ve found out that Harlequin is not hurting financially, it’s Torstar, the parent co of Harlequin.

http://www.quillandquire.com/google/article.cfm?article_id=10985

Since Harlequin is owned by Torstar, you cannot authoritatively say that Harlequin Horizons was a Harlequin’s brainchild.  It may have been something forced upon them by Torstar.

Hey Stacia,

Thanks for sharing your perspective!  I realize the self-publishing success stories are few and far between but at the same time IF a self-published author can sell a certain number of copies on their own they will attract the attention of a larger publisher.  Now the odds of this are not great.  And I will be the first to admit that self publishing isn’t right for most people.

After working with several self-publishing authors I’ve learned that it’s just not for everyone. 

I think though someone with a good business head and marketing savvy can use many various ways on the internet such as podcasting and free ebooks,and etc. to start to build up a platform.  And they can self publish as a part of that process.

Folks like Scott Sigler, JC Hutchins and Seth Harwood all got attractive publishing deals from podcasting and building up audiences.

I think SP or any of it’s variants only really works if you’ve really got “it” and you can’t find out if you’ve got “it” until you get out there and start trying. (and no, I’m not saying I think I’ve got “it.”)  I think if Scott, JC, or Seth had just sent in and got their book accepted, the advance they received would have been much smaller with no real guarantee of their contract continuing past a book or two.

But because they built up their audience/platform first, not only did they get picked up by a larger publisher, but they got picked up with a solid advance and therefore a much stronger marketing push because it was less of a risk to the publisher.

But I can’t advise anyone on what the best way for them is.  I think for some people SP is absolutely the best business decision “for them.” For most I think trad is the way they should go.  This doesn’t mean I think I’m “better,” just that I know that I’m suited to what I’m doing and whatever success or failure I have I’m willing to own it.

I know what I’m doing is “high risk.”  Though by the same token, I’d be happy to self publish indefinitely and never have a publisher show any interest because I like what I’m doing.  So that’s where it’s a different situation for me.  I think someone who definitely WANTS a NY publisher, you’re right, they may be better off going the trad way.

Of course there is no law stating that an author can’t experiment with both methods for different projects and see what works best for them or even what they enjoy more.

Ugh. Typos!

Time for bed I guess.

I think the problem here is that if you go with HQHo, you’re NOT self-publishing. Not in any sense of the word, since you’re not self-sufficient and have to rely on Author Solutions to do all the work for you (and which you pay a hefty fee for).

Honesty is the best policy. If you want to run a vanity press, go ahead and do so - you’ll GET customers who want to publish their family history, their poetry, their cookbooks, their local history stories. But be HONEST about it.

DON’T go around saying Harlequin isn’t going to be part of it and then call the line “Harlequin Horizons”. Because the majority of the public don’t know and don’t CARE about the intricacies of the publishing world. All they know is that Great-Aunt Harriet just paid HQHo ten thousand dollars and now is running around claiming to be in the same league as those authors on the shelves at their local bookstore. And the writing isn’t as good.

jmo.

Nora:

It was a single statement and you went to terror level orange over it.  Let’s drop it.  I’ve explained my position to you but I’m not sure what you want short of groveling.

My viewpoint isn’t going to change, and me restating it 700 times only serves to annoy everyone following this thread.  I would have been a bit more sympathetic if I’d said something that actually hurt your feelings because I don’t want to hurt anyone.  But if you’re just “annoyed,” it’s not worth the continued investment in the discussion.

I don’t think you want to have a discussion with me, you’d rather just keep poking and poking until I capitulate to what you want.  Sorry, not happening.  My view is my view. If that annoys you, be annoyed.

I wanna say…

Nora, thank you.

Hi again, Zoe!

I realize the self-publishing success stories are few and far between but at the same time IF a self-published author can sell a certain number of copies on their own they will attract the attention of a larger publisher.

And that is true, or at least it can be true, as there’s also a chance the major house will decide the self-pubbed book in question has reached its maximum audience already, and decline to take it on.

But wouldn’t you agree that if they can sell enough copies to attract a major publisher, there’s a good chance they could have attracted that publisher through the normal, much less expensive submissions process?

I’m really glad you’re so happy self-publishing, and I genuinely congratulate you for it and everything you’ve achieved. But as you said, it’s not for everyone, and I don’t agree with the idea that it’s a necessary or even beneficial first step for most.

Shiloh,

I’m glad that you didn’t spend out a lot of money. I understand that’s the situation for some authors.  My point was only that MANY authors spend a lot of money whether they self publish or trad publish, but I understand there are exceptions.  (there are also people who self publish for little or no money, start out with ebooks and grassroots marketing, as they bring in some money they invest higher.  So it’s just a case of individual mileage varying IMO.)

As for self-pub and making money, I’m not sure that I agree with you there.  Within 5-10 years I fully intend to be “making a living” from self publishing.  But then I’ll be publishing both fiction and non-fiction, both print and E and I have a very detailed marketing and distribution plan.  Now I may fail (just like any small business can), but my plan itself is sound, and I think in the long run I’ll make as much or more money this way as I would if I went the trad way. Nevertheless I do recognize that most people will make more money trad publishing.

At a certain point of success should I get there, I’ll be in the position to sell subsidiary rights as well.

Most people don’t make good money self publishing, but those who treat it as a business and succeed at it do, otherwise most of them wouldn’t do it.

Nadia:

I wasn’t contradicting you I was saying that I personally could not understand why Harlequin would do that if they weren’t hurting financially since it’s such a braindead business move.

I didn’t say that meant they must be hurting financially.  Not once you supplied the information you did.

I did not go to terror level orange, and you are consistently insulting and over-stating. You want to drop it, but only after you toss out another insult.

I don’t want you to grovel—again who asked you? But I would appreciate you resisting misquoting me or attributing statements to me, and attitudes to me, that I didn’t make and don’t have.

You can’t answer my last post because you can’t cite where I said anything you claimed there. So you change tacts and accuse me of overreacting to something you said.

For the record, this is my response to that single statement. If you consider this my terror level orange, you must be a
very thin-skinned individual.

~It is perfectly valid for “you” to speak of a writing career~

“Zoe, this just pisses me off as it supposes I didn’t come up through the ranks, sweating my way, going through what every other new writer goes through.

It supposes I really don’t know what I’m talking about in today’s publishing arena because I’m somehow removed from it by success.

So I have to stop all this and go back to my privileged career—which for me, is continuing to sweat over the keyboard to write a book. “

Any chance Ms. Roberts and Ms. Winters could take their argument elsewhere? Pretty please? So this can return to a discussion about Harlequin Horizon?

Hey Stacia,

Oh I’m with you on it not being a necessary or beneficial first step for most, so that’s not actually a point of disagreement for us lol.

On the issue of a publisher declining it because of max audience, in most cases this is only going to happen if the book is very niche (in which case the SP author can find their audience easier than a big pub could anyway), or regional (same situation.)  But if it’s got a broad appeal, it’s unlikely an SP author is going to hit that “cap” where a publisher thinks it’s played out.  If an SP author SHOULD be that successful, then they’ve made plenty of money on their own.

And it could be argued at that point that they don’t really “need” a publisher.

As for: couldn’t the author who can sell a lot of books SPing on their own attract a publisher toward normal means?

I really don’t know the answer to that.  Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There are plenty of books publishers pass on because they “don’t know how to market it” or else don’t think there is a market for it, that the author takes out on their own and proves otherwise.  Of course there are also many cases where the publisher is right and it doesn’t sell. 

And then there is the issue of the amount of the advance.  An author with an established audience is getting a higher advance and more marketing push in general.  This MAY give them a stronger cushion as they build their career instead of them getting stuck in the cycle of good book, little advance, little marketing means fewer of it’s audience finds the book.

It’s all a gamble anyway you go really. For most authors the better gamble is trad publishing.  For a very few the better gamble is SP.

I’m trying to read all the comments, but my eyes are tired already.

The biggest problem I see is that the name “Harlequin” itself is a brand.  By attaching the name to this venture makes people think of the Harlequin brand.

Romance already has enough bad press, I’m afraid with Harlequin attaching it’s name to this vanity press venture its only going to give romance a worse name.

I can see the headlines now “You can become a Harlquin Horizons author and publish your trash, boddice ripper romance,” and you get pay for it.

Anon, if you scroll up a little, I’ve said my last thing on the issue. I’m tired and content now to just let Nora be annoyed. Because at this point we are ALL annoyed.

I found this discussion extremely illuminating and civil, up to the point that…well, I need not go there, I’m sure it’s obvious.

I respect all opinions expressed, even ones with which I disagree. 

The following remarks are of kindly and constructive intent.  I hope they’ll be received that way.  It’s not a plea against open discussion, but against giving the appearance of flaming here.

Because…

a whole universe of readers, authors, industry professionals, and media are now visiting this site for information and enlightenment.  I can’t help but question the business savvy and PR aptitude of one whose livelihood depends upon self-publishing yet who returns here and repeatedly…again, I need not go there, I’m sure it’s obvious to the followers of a certain recent thread in this discussion.

I also can’t help pointing out that needlessly slagging off (or pissing off) Nora Roberts in full view of this watchful universe is probably not helpful in furthering a career in any publishing arena.

Wow.

Zoe, I’m really not trying to be offensive to you, but reading your posts that keep harping on the same thing, though we’ve said self-publishing is a valid option for some…well, I’m starting to wonder if you didn’t latch on to a few of those self-help books that don’t always have the best info and adopted them as your mantra. “If I just keep doing things this way, my world will light up because I am in charge.”

Again, I’m not trying to be offensive, but you said you were tired of PC type dancing.

I can see the headlines now “You can become a Harlquin Horizons author and publish your trash, boddice ripper romance,” and you get pay for it.

It’s already happened. This link has been posted further up, but:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/11/harlequin-hacks.html

LOL.  I don’t come here that often. It’s pretty rare actually.  The thing is, I’ve gotten personal emails from people just from this thread who like what I’ve had to say.  Any time you express yourself you run the risk of pissing people off but you also attract others of like mind to you.

I never set off to intentionally piss off Nora Roberts, but you know what? We ALL get pissed off and annoyed sometimes.  It happens. 

I also NEVER meant the kind of offense/pissed offness/whatever that was taken from one or two simple statements.  I cannot control how every person who reads my words chooses to interpret them.  Nor am I going to feel compelled to grovel endlessly to someone who is intent on reading things I’m neither saying nor meaning.

I also have never stated I wanted a future career in any kind of publishing outside of self-publishing. If I did want such a thing I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume a publisher is going to care about their bottom line more than they will about some random bitchfest on the internet. Especially given that I don’t spend all my time on the internet arguing with people (I’ve wasted a whole day on this nonsense.)

As they say, it takes two to tango.

Anon76, could you be more specific?

First, I have to have a fangirl squee that Beverly Jenkins is on this thread. Now, having got that out of my system I can only say that this situation does not bode well for authors, AT ALL. With HQHO they have now monetized the slush pile, do you really think that other publishers won’t follow suit? Sure Random House doesn’t reference XLibris in it’s rejections NOW, but I doubt that will continue. Eventually publishing will become a pay to play proposition for all except the celebrity writers. A process that was already fraught with difficulty may well soon become darned near impossible. I hope I’m wrong. I really, really hope I’m wrong, but with all the economic uncertainty in the medium these days I can’t imagine that I am.

Anon76, could you be more specific? 

If it’ll hijack the thread further you can email me. (I’ve got a contact form on my website)

I’m confused since you asked me specifically if I would use the Harlequin services if they weren’t branded as such and I explained what I felt was a cogent dollars and sense argument about why not and what I would use instead.  So I’m not really sure what you’re referring to or what you’re asking/saying.

Over at the GraysonAgency.com blog, agent Ashley Grayson gives this grim reality check that pretty much says it all:

While the number of self-published titles may have exceeded the number of “real” book titles in 2008, the number of actual sales of all those titles to readers is virtually zero. Before they all got swept under the Author Solutions rug, Author House and Xlibris reps told me at a Book Expo that “actual sales of titles average fewer than 100 copies, all of which are bought by the author.” The self-publishing industry ranks as a “bestseller” any book that sells over 500 copies. Self-publishing is an expanding sector because those whose sole mission is to suck money have concluded that it is easier to get money from authors wanting to be published than from readers wanting to buy books.

Shame, Harlequin. And bless you, Nora, for standing up for the truth in this situation despite your long-standing relationship with Harlequin/Silhouette. Brava.

sorry I got an error message and thought my first post didn’t go through.

~also NEVER meant the kind of offense/pissed offness/whatever that was taken from one or two simple statements.  I cannot control how every person who reads my words chooses to interpret them.  Nor am I going to feel compelled to grovel endlessly to someone who is intent on reading things I’m neither saying nor meaning.
~

But she’s said all she’s going to say on it.

Moving on.

Speaking of PR, I think the sort of press this move Harlequin is making will continue to be hard on their decision, but also on the genre. And I do think it’s going to be seen for what it is, vanity press—not self-publication.

I can see the headlines now “You can become a Harlquin Horizons author and publish your trash, boddice ripper romance,” and you get pay for it.

In addition to the New Yorker piece, there’s also already a NYTimes piece that leads off with this:  “Got a romance novel in your desk drawer? Polish it up and get ready to become a Harlequin author.”

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/the-authors-hearts-beat-faster-publishing-was-so-close-now/?scp=1&sq=harlequin &st=cse

Write better books, rather than pay to get published. Put the money into workshops and learning the craft.  99% of vanity books sell less than 100 copies, and those are mostly bought by the author, thinking they can hand sell them.  I don’t believe it was ‘easier’ to get published 20 years when my first book came out.  I earned over 100 rejections for first three manuscripts.  I still earn rejections.  So I continue to study the craft of writing in order to improve my skill as an artist.  And because this is my career and I love it.

It is wearisome to read comments about traditional publishing from people who have not experienced the trials and tribulations of being part of the business. It was not easy, is not easy, and won’t be easy.  And the business will change and adjust. By trial and error.  We’ve just seen the latter.

*Wonders in a quiet and somewhat paranoid way if others aren’t posting things to drag her back into a discussion merely to defend herself so original person can harp on her not dropping the discussion she said she was dropping.

Wonders further why original person can’t just be the bigger person and has to commentate on someone else’s desire to defend themselves.  Then wonders even further why the original person is being called the person that is being “attacked.”  Paranoia is fun.

Laughs as she waits to see if original person will commentate yet again on her thoughts, which really they shouldn’t since no one can really hear another person’s thoughts.  Counts down to the commencing of replies to thoughts.*

Don’t pee on my leg, then tell me it’s raining.

Just saying.

The people I feel sorry for are the Harlequin authors. I think they might get tarred with the same brush. And as far as not being eligible for a RITA that is harsh. I read on a thread that it is just a prize but that prize means a lot to the winner.

Who peed on your leg?  There are laws against that.

Wow, Zoe, you can write books, run a business, and find time to write such long posts. I’m in awe. But stop already, I think we all get you’re doing what you love and that it works for you. Fabulous. Carry on.

In a few years (months) who knows how publishing will play out. It may well be if there is a Tsunami of badly-written, badly-produced vanity, self-published whatever kinds of books, a good story—of the kind Nora writes on a regular basis—will be so exhausting to locate, we’ll all quit reading anyway.

Edna who believes in the gatekeeper system, flawed though it might be.

Speaking of PR, I think the sort of press this move Harlequin is making will continue to be hard on their decision, but also on the genre. And I do think it’s going to be seen for what it is, vanity press—not self-publication.

Considering the post in the New Yorker about this… Harlequin Hacks… it’s already ugly PR.

Bob, I agree with everything you said, and think sometimes we lose track of all that.

What Harelquin’s doing is setting up a situation that will encourage some—perhaps many—to believe there’s a short-cut, an easy way. And expensive way, but quick and easy.

I agree Katie.  But I *think* that Harlequin authors whose books were published before a certain date will still be eligible for the next RITAs but after that, no.  Not unless Harlequin drops this idea and becomes eligible again.

Bob and Nora, I want to thank you and other authors like you who encouraged me to perfect my craft and work hard on my writing. I read every post on the Crusie-Mayer blog (even though I think I only commented once) and I would never have gotten my first publishing deal were it not for the generosity of writers who had come before, who were willing to help me out—and who talked about the business enough so that when it came time for me to shop my manuscript, I knew what to expect and require.

You made me believe that there was no magic bullet for publication except my own hard work and dedication, and convinced me to put my whole heart in the endeavor.

Bob Mayer said:

I still earn rejections.

that’s one thing that bothers me. 

Writers learn to improve THROUGH their rejections.  We learn through every book we write.

If people start thinking they can just skip that rejection step-do they also skip the part where they learn to perfect and improve their craft?

EC please explain to me where I’ve in any way made ANY show of defensiveness for my chosen publishing path.  I’m really not sure where you’re reading it.

I’ve responded and discussed self publishing and responded to direct questions and comments to me.  I haven’t gone on and on about self publishing outside of the context of the normal discussion.

Nor have I in any way asked for anyone to validate my choice.  NOR have I in any way said people shouldn’t trad publish. In fact I’ve said just the opposite, that most people are better off with trad publishing.

So I’m really not sure where some people are reading this and basically telling me to shut up about the topic.  I’m responding to the course of the conversation. If people don’t want to discuss self publishing, then why are they even in this thread?  In a thread like this, the topic is going to come up.  It’s not like I just walk into random discussions and start talking about SP.

As for writing such long posts, I am almost never online in internet discussions like this.  All it does is piss me off and waste my entire day.  I generally avoid these types of environments now because it always gets catty.  Especially on SB and DA.  And once this thread dies down, I’m going to remember why I avoid this place in the first place.

I think the comments following the New Yorker post have pretty well taken care of that little bit of nastiness.  The book cover shot has already been removed.

It’s to be hoped that a free market and the First Amendment will address the greed that seems to be the heart of this whole issue with equal dispatch.

Zoe, I realize you’re a big advocate of the self-publish, self-promotion web and e-book presence route.  Many of your comments make sense.  But the truth is, you’re not making money hand over fist doing it that way.  Maybe you enjoy it, maybe you have the skills.  But right now, in the world we live in, getting an agent and a commercial publisher is far more likely to get you to the level of, oh, say, Nora Roberts, than the way you’re doing it.

Truthfully, the web does not change everything.  The web makes many things better and easier, but if self-promotion worked, it would have worked almost as well with television, radio, magazines, the lecture circuit, the old pre-graphic BB services, and telephone calls.  The web has shaved a few things down, and padded up a few other things, but truthfully, the same structures and basic forms are around and will probably continue to be.  And that means big commercial publishers with the money and clout to put a book, be it handwritten, offset printed, POD, or e-book in front of readers.

Shiloh,

Not if they want to sell books they don’t.  For me if I get rejection, I get it from the reader.  And so I better make sure I’m not putting out crap or else the entire exercise is pointless.

There is no shortcut to success no matter how someone publishes, it’s all hard work.

Christine,

I would be unlikely to make as much money as a bestselling author on my own through self-publishing, but honestly within 5-10 years, and I’m thinking more like 5, from my various self publishing efforts combined (i.e more than one book out and not just fiction), then yes I can make a “living wage.” Now I live in an area of the country that is pretty cheap to live in, so maybe that makes a difference.

But I can really only commentate on this authoritatively in 5-10 years, so catch me then. Saying what I’m “going to do” will really only illicit eyerolls and naysaying from people who are thinking inside a TOTALLY different box than I am.  The time it would take for me to explain HOW my plan is logical, and sound would cause about five other people to harp on me for even taking the time to explain it.  So I won’t.

But in 5-10 years, should anyone still be around that wants to discuss it, we can.

@Zoe Winter

“EC please explain to me where I’ve in any way made ANY show of defensiveness for my chosen publishing path.  I’m really not sure where you’re reading it.”

Well, then damn, I misread you, Zoe. So let us just say, that I—personally—am not enjoying the *sound* of your posts. I will piss but once and be gone. Or should I say, I have put down your book and will not pick it up again.

Maybe it needs to be said again:

Harlequin Horizons is not about self-pubbing. It’s about vanity press. It’s about paying fat fees to have your book—that’s very unlikely ready for publication, may have been rejected by Harlequin—printed and bound, and then getting only half of the net on sales.

Most of us know the different between SP and Vanity—or certainly should by now.

This is about Harlequin Horizons, not about the pros and cons of SP or TP which is neither.

Due to this decision, RWA has changed Harleqin’s status, and this impacts scores of writers. The media is already scooping the genre in to the snide remarks—and the stories already generated certainly equate the Harlequin brand with the vanity arm it’s starting.

This is an important issue.

@roslyn

With HQHO they have now monetized the slush pile, do you really think that other publishers won’t follow suit? Sure Random House doesn’t reference XLibris in it’s rejections NOW, but I doubt that will continue. Eventually publishing will become a pay to play proposition for all except the celebrity writers.

I’m taking the positive on this - perhaps it will change a lot of behavior among the two primary parties in the reading transaction - the writer and the reader. Writers already have low cost options to get their books out without going the traditional route or paying egregiously high amounts for the “privilege.” There are offsets to the current do-it-all-yourself route, of course, well hashed on this list already (low volume sales are the norm now, self-pubbing is equated with vanity pubbing, etc.). But these are TODAY’s offsets. Readers, if they want something good to read, will have to evolve, just as authors are having to evolve - they will have to lose the “traditional house” bias they hold, they will have to think harder about their purchases, moving beyond the slick cover and blurbs to the content. Gone will be the day of walking into the grocery store, grabbing all 8 of this week’s Harls and checking out.

That, in my opinion, is a good thing - it could very well be this is another, very loud, tolling of the death knell for traditional publishing but, this time, it’s Harl’s hand ringing the bell.

EC that’s the risk we all take when we choose to express ourselves.  just know it goes both ways.

Curious… has anybody called the toll-free number on the HHz site?

“Cognative Dissonance”

Y’know, those words apply not only to aspects of this discussion but also to this venture. I really feel for Malle being put in the position of defending this move when the problems with it are so obvious. I didn’t comment on it earlier because I was evaluating why Sarah thought it had awesome potential while I thought it was a train wreck.

And it comes down to the brand. The Harlequin brand obscured the problems with the business model. SBTB are a savvy group - if they wanted to self publish, they’d investigate the pros and cons and price shop. Having spent umpteen years reviewing self and trad pubbed books (back in another life) I can tell you many authors lack that savvy (and a perspective on their own work.) 

It’s kinda sad to see HQN turn into the “Can you draw this duck?? You might be an artist!” people instead of the training and discovery ground they’ve been.

Bob and Nora, I want to thank you and other authors like you who encouraged me to perfect my craft and work hard on my writing. I read every post on the Crusie-Mayer blog (even though I think I only commented once) and I would never have gotten my first publishing deal were it not for the generosity of writers who had come before, who were willing to help me out—and who talked about the business enough so that when it came time for me to shop my manuscript, I knew what to expect and require.

You made me believe that there was no magic bullet for publication except my own hard work and dedication, and convinced me to put my whole heart in the endeavor.

I had said I would remain quiet while reading all of the posts until I got to Courtney Milan’s comment and it reminded me why I continue to write, submit, get rejected and submit again.

I have heard Nora speak at conferences, I have taken Bob’s workshops and the one thing that has always amazed me about them, and other authors like them, is their willingness to share their experiences, their mistakes, their successes, their publishing ups and downs, what it took them to get where they are, and how hard it is to stay where they are in the ever changing publishing world.  They never told me this would be easy.  Writing is hard work.  Publishing is a hard business.  They didn’t sprinkle fairy dust and tell me I would be published.  No.  They said if I wanted to be published, to get paid for my work, I had to work harder.  Write a better book.  Learn craft.  Learn the business. 

To Nora and Bob, and every other author out there who has taken the time to help aspiring writers like me, thank you.

“Authors will receive royalties equivalent to 50 percent of net proceeds on each e-book sale. Harlequin and Author Solutions will split the other 50 percent.”

What do they mean by equivalent?

Liz M said:

It’s like modeling, don’t get naked on an empty set with a guy you just met at Piggly Wiggly, it’s not going to take you anywhere you want to go.

Just because you know the pervert (HQ) doesn’t mean the perv isn’t pandering and procuring for the friend (ASI) and apparently aren’t even bringing their own lubricant.

It is clear to the rest of the world from the responses in main stream media that Malle and her crew have whored themselves. And yes, in a capitalistic society we all do to some extent, but when you whore yourself to profit from the pain, dreams and/or gullibility of others, then you are not within acceptable social standards.

It seems that the diminishing of the HQ brand and the further trashing of romance has already begun. Gee, thanks Malle and HQ.

Finally, can we stop referring to this travesty as self-publishing? Self-publishing does not involve me paying for the publishing costs and giving up 50% of my rights to net royalties. Has Malle or anyone else from HQ or ASI explained what costs they bear in this? Net? The author PAID for everything what costs do ASI or hH have? Or do they mean, they get 50% of net royalties AFTER the author earns back all of their costs?

You know, I really felt for Malle when all this started.  Figured she was being forced to sing the company song in order to keep her job.  Then she made the comment about personally submitting to ASI and how pleased she was with them.  That’s not just singing the company song, that’s helping write the words and music. 

I so sympathize with the *real* HQN authors.  This has to be a horrible time for them, and I appreciate the fact that so many of them are with RWA on the issue.  What’s that old saying?  If we don’t stand together, we fall seperately.

From the IndyStar:

Don Seitz, Author Solutions senior vice president, said aspiring authors—especially women who write romance novels—will embrace the arrangement.

Awesome. Here’s the url for the whole story.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20091117/BUSINESS/91117013/1003/BUSINESS/Indiana-self-publisher-to-partner-with-Harlequin

I don’t think it’s as cut and dry—self-publishing bad, traditional publishing good—as Malle and some others want to believe.

I can only speak for myself, but my main concern isn’t with self-publishing, vanity publishing, or even Author Solutions.  It’s with the way Harlequin has chosen to market this service.  I strongly believe people will do what they want to do.  However, between the Harlequin Horizons website, and what Malle has said here and on Dear Author, there is a lot that isn’t being told to the writer consumer.

The service has Harlequin’s name, is advertised on Harlequin’s website, and will be offered on Harlequin’s rejection letters.  Therefore, it is a Harlequin product, and any talk from a Harlequin representative of it being a separate entity goes out the window.  Either it’s Harlequin, or it’s not.  Right now, it is.  Harlequin either needs to own that, and deal with the fallout, or rethink it’s branding and marketing endeavors.  Which brings me to . . .

Nowhere on the Harlequin Horizons site is Author Solutions mentioned.  In fact, nowhere on the Harlequin Horizons site is it made clear that the writer consumer is buying an Author Solutions service endorsed by Harlequin, and not a Harlequin product.  If Harlequin Horizons will not be listed as the publisher, if Harlequin does not want to dilute its brand with self-published or vanity-published works, it needs to make the clear to its target customers.  This goes for the “additional features” that can be added on, as well.  From Malle’s earlier post, in which she talks about her pleasant editing experience with Author Solutions, she implied the editing would be done by Author Solutions, and not Harlequin editors.  This information needs to be stated upfront on the Harlequin Horizons site, and not implied on a Smart Bitches/Dear Author comment forum.  Customers have a right to know just who, exactly, they will be in business with.

50% of the net earnings sound good, if you don’t know what net earnings are.  While I will never agree that 50% of net is good for deal for any self-published author, I would be more at ease with it if an explanation of what deductions would be coming out of the retail price before the author got her cut.

And last, but not least, Harlequin’s dream-selling tactics disgust me.  No company can fulfill dreams, people.  That’s left up to you and your work ethic.  Malle’s iUniverse success story is a fine one, indeed.  But what does it have to do with Harlequin Horizons?  Was that book picked up by Harlequin?  Was it printed by Harlequin Horizons?  There are a lot of self-publishing success stories out there, and they’re all legitimate and inspirational. But none of them are Harlequin Horizons success stories, are they?  No.  Because the company has no success stories as of yet.  So when I see comments on the Harlequin Horizons website about how they’ll monitor sales for “potential” gems, or when Kevin Weiss spouts off about cultivating an “author farm”, I can’t help but call it bullshit.  It would be different if Harlequin had actually found a cash cow in their author farm, brought it to a traditional imprint, and used that story as a testimonial.  At least then they’d have some validation behind them.  But this “could” and “maybe” bullshit is just that:  bullshit.  Having a bound copy to send to an agent is bullshit.  Selling the hopes of being picked up by a traditional publisher, when most traditional publishers won’t accept previously published work, or if they do, will buy it at a lesser price, is also bullshit.  If this new venture is as great as Harlequin insists it is, why be so evasive about it? 

Now, I will never endorse vanity publishing (self-publishing is a different matter).  It’s not for me.  I would strongly dissuade any of my friends who came to me wanting my opinion on the matter from doing it.  But just as I believe it’s too risky to take a chance on, there will be those who think the risk is worth taking.  If this information were made available to Harlequin Horizons’ potential customers, I would sit back and not say a word in regards to writers choosing this option over a less risky one, because at least they had the information needed to do their research and make an informed decision.

For those of you who are worried that Harlequin is too big to care about RWA’s announcement, let me remind you of something.

Like all vanity presses, Harlequin Horizons has just one customer base: aspiring WRITERS.

To illustrate:

1. When the marketing department at a Vanity Press has a meeting, they don’t sit around trying to figure out how to attract more READERS.  They want to attract more WRITERS.

2. The Vanity Press business model does not even include book sales in the bottom line.  Their revenue stream starts and ends with the WRITERS.  Any money made from actual book sales is so negligible that it likely is not even included in ROI figures.

Now, with that in mind, because Harlequins has chosen to make Horizon a business arm, and thus under the big, romancey, Harlequin umbrella, AND to openly market it to authors who have been rejected, most of their target market are, not only WRITERS, they are ASPIRING ROMANCE WRITERS.

And, a very high percentage of ASPIRING ROMANCE WRITERS are members of RWA.

Therefore, RWA might have a bit more influence that some of you think.

Toni (Yup. I’m a Harlequin author)

P.S.  Plus, Nora says RWA is important, and I always listen to Nora.  I can’t help myself.  At my first Romantic Times convention, I went to the Ellora’s Cave “come as your fantasy” party wearing a Tee-Shirt that says “Hello, My Name is Nora Roberts.”

I agree, the self publishing card has been played and is on the table for all to see in this discussion. Though I do think the McJob comment was out of line.

It implies the work is brainless and has no worth, that someone doing it is only doing it to make some easy money until something better comes along.

I don’t see how you can say that and not intend it as an insult.  I hardly think anyone sitting around writing, pubbed, pre-pubbed, unpubbed, selfpubbed, or epubbed would consider what they do without worth.

Now if you would like to defend that comment by saying “most” traditionally published authors in the midlist don’t make much money, then you should have said that instead of throwing a term out there that is so demeaning.

We have to deal with enough snide terms in this industry.  There were enough to fill a bucket in the first paragraph of the New Yorker article alone.  I don’t think we should add McJob to the list.

As I said before, self publishing can be a valid business model for some people.  But self publishing isn’t the problem here, nor the solution.  We’re talking about Harlequin Horizons.

Let’s get back to the task at hand and talk about the implications of Harlequin making this venture in the current publishing industry.

Just had to say this needs to be put on a shirt:

“Note: I didn’t start out in this business as La Nora.”

Jumping in. I agree with Nora. I have been writing for 16 years with the intention of making this a CAREER. Not to pay to have my book published so I can see my name on a cover, sell a few copies to family and friends and not to spend days/weeks/months working my fingers into claws to make no money. My focus from day ONE was to be NY published, and I busted my butt, buried in rejection letters, to earn my FIRST SALE this past summer. And for anyone to say NORA didn’t earn everything she’s busted her butt for is WRONG. Anyone who works hard and finally breaks in, and stays in, deserves their success. And though I have not intention of ever working as hard as Nora does *G* I hope to spend the next 20, 30 years of my life writing the best books I can and hopefully finding my own manner of success like she has!

Well stated, Toni “Nora” Andrews. That is exactly the bottomline that vanity publishers work upon. If the Horizons experiment was truly self-publishing then all the profit would go to the author. Just the admission that the author will receive only 50% of net is enough to prove that it’s vanity.

As an aside, RWA is the kind of organization I’d be proud to belong to. Except for the minimum sales of my one romance/fantasy/SF book Protectors of Seaswams put out by Double Dragon Publishing (gasp, P&E’s editor wrote one?) not being enough, I’d be very tempted to join.

Self publishing as a concept is a viable option in the market ahead, and I do think it was wise for Harlequin to consider it now because of the changes operating in the publishing world right now.

But Sarah?  This doesn’t seem like true self pub.  Seems like vanity.  That’s a huge difference.

Seriously HIGH costs that the author has to front, but instead of keeping all the profits, minus book costs, etc, she has to share the net.  But she’s already paid, and paid thru the nose, she shouldn’t have to pay more.

Sarah, while the idea that connecting writers more directly with readers sounds good on the surface, how many versions of Atlanta Nights* do readers have to buy before they start to wonder why someone won’t vet the books that get put out? The simple fact is that most of the stuff in the slushpile is closer in quality to that than to even the worst commercially published book out there.

*I don’t want to name any truly awful vanity books that were written sincerely, but—though written by professionals to be deliberately bad—Atlanta Nights is indicative of the quality of many vanity books.

Yes, it can be difficult to find quality among published books, but believe me, they’re the top 1% of what’s being submitted. Once you’ve read through a slush pile, you’ll thank Goddess that there are filters and gatekeepers via traditional publishing.

Shiloh: Agreed. I meant the concept, not the actual execution of this one.

Ah….gotcha.  Sorry.  My brain is on overload from all of this.

And if you really wanna know more about Atlanta Nights, go do a google for Mrs. Giggle’s review.  It sounds like each author wrote a chapter, without knowing what the other was doing and then mashed them together into a doc file, and viola.

‘published’ book.

Harlequin Horizons is not about self-pubbing. It’s about vanity press. It’s about paying fat fees to have your book—that’s very unlikely ready for publication, may have been rejected by Harlequin—printed and bound, and then getting only half of the net on sales.

If Harlequin Horizons retains some of the other rights regarding setup and creation, as most vanity presses do, this is definitely not self-publishing. Everything the author will PAY (ridiculous amounts) to have done through Harlequin Horizons – The ISBN, the native file for printing, and the cover—might be unusable once they take their book elsewhere.

If HQHo gets the author an ISBN under their publisher distinction, the ISBN belongs to them and is usable as long as the book remains with them.  If the author chooses to take this “self-published” book elsewhere, they will have to get a new ISBN, even though they paid to have that ISBN secured.

Same thing applies to the native file formatted to print that book. With 99% of vanity presses, the vanity press retains rights to that file—NOT the author. I don’t know what HQHo’s agreement states, but iUniverse—another Author Solutions partner—clearly states that the file will not be given to the author and may not be used elsewhere. 

And the cover.  If Harlequin creates the cover for the book, who owns the rights to that?  The cover the author paid to have created might be useless if they leave.  They will have nothing but the word document they started with.

I have a self-published non-fiction workbook. I did the work - I set up the native file, I designed the cover, prepped the book for printing and paid to have it printed and set up as an e-book. Yes, I put out money to do this, but all the money that comes back from sales is mine.  And I’ve sold over 1000 copies, so it’s done reasonably well by the standards listed here.  Self-publishing is a viable option in certain situations, but if you are going that route, it’s important to retain the rights on every aspect of the book’s production, not just printing rights. 

If an author goes to HQHo or any other vanity press, they need to be very aware of what rights they are NOT keeping.  If HQHo is working the same way other ASI partners are, the rules that apply are clearly vanity—as long as your book remains with HQHo, you get the benefits that you paid ridiculous fees for.  But the minute you leave, some of the rights any self-published author would make certain they retain are gone.

In my opinion, that is one big distinction between a self-publishing option and a vanity press.  What you take with you when you leave.

Hey Dave K—you can still join RWA if you think it would benefit your career. You just wouldn’t be able to join the subgroup in RWA known as PAN. That’s one of the things that makes RWA different from many other professional writer’s organizations; unpublished or not-published-by-“eligible”-publishers authors can still take advantage of it. Some think that’s great and some think that’s not so great, but it is what it is.

Ah, Atlanta Nights! Don’t drink a beverage while reading this book. Some parts made me laugh so hard I got hiccups.

Is anyone in any other pro writer’s organizations to give us any updates on how they might be responding to the HO situation? Or was HQN never part of their eligibles list anyway due to the smex cooties?

Jess,

I apologize for those connotations of “McJob.”  Be assured I was in NO way judging the worth of the actual writing or the work that went into it, but was merely complaining about the paycheck often attached to that work.

Is anyone in any other pro writer’s organizations to give us any updates on how they might be responding to the HO situation? Or was HQN never part of their eligibles list anyway due to the smex cooties?

Lol, Harlequin wasn’t on the list of qualifying markets for SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America), but I think that’s just a genre thing more than smex cooties, since I writes the sex and am a happy SFWA member. :-)

SFWA’s Writer Beware (which is also part-sponsored by MWA now) has blogged about this (http://accrispin.blogspot.com/) but no “official” statement has been made, I assume because SFWA didn’t have any association with HQN to begin with. As a member, though, I’d like to see them make a statement, and will contact them.

Jody W.

Mystery Writers of America weights in:

http://www.ereads.com/richard_curtis/2009/11/mystery-writers-of-america-steps-into.html

Lurking.

Lol, Harlequin wasn’t on the list of qualifying markets for SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America)

Actually, I believe MIRA and Luna books qualify as markets for SFWA under this:

# Other large independent publishers and US imprints of large conglomerates such as Bertelsmann, Penguin Putnam, von Holtzbrinck, Time Warner, etc. (thus, Harcourt, Vintage, Farrar Strous & Giroux, Random House, Scholastic, Viking, Doubleday/Nan Talese, Houghton Mifflin/Clarion, Luna, etc.)

From http://www.sfwa.org/join-us/sfwa-membership-requirements/#novel

Commenting to get updates via email.

You’re right, Ann K., I saw “Luna” at the bottom of the list but it simply didn’t register.

Either way, my guess is they’re not really focused on genre romance as a whole or Harlequin in particular (and that’s why they haven’t yet addressed this), but I have emailed them to ask them to make a statement.

I say the same thing about romance from any print pub, and often. There are some god awful books out there with fully edited manuscripts and lovely covers. The romance genre, even with the reductions recently, publishes a TON of books every month, and it’s difficult to navigate to find quality.

Sarah, I agree, and I know you believe you’ve seen how bad it get when not enough attention is paid to editing for content, clarity and readability. But I beg you to believe me when I say that until you’ve judged a contest or been allowed to sift through a slushpile, you don’t know how bad it can get. The vast majority of unedited manuscripts by amateur authors make the worst of the epubbed and trad-pubbed dreck look like nuggets of shiny, shiny gold.

Consider this: Even the epublisher/small press currently most reviled for its badly-written books rejects a high percentage of submissions. Now imagine those books offered for sale with the “HH” logo on the cover.

For the past year or so, there’s been a distinct rise in the number of reader complaints regarding the quality of romance. I put most of it down to these readers finally having a forum to vent their perfectly reasonable criticisms. They despise paying money for a book only to discover it sucks. Fair enough.

Therefore, as much as I support the idea of self-publishing for certain kinds of projects, I’m not sure the self-publishing of romance fiction on a large scale is going help readers. I’m afraid it’s only going to flood the market with substandard product, and make it harder for less-savvy readers to figure out where to find the good stuff. And I’m absolutely certain that the large scale vanity publishing of romance can only lead to higher levels of reader dissatisfaction.

I’m a reader, too. A reader first and foremost, in fact, and because I’ve seen scores of unedited manuscripts through the contests I’ve judged, the idea scares the livin’ lollipops outta me.

Oh, well. Looks like it’s inevitable. On the bright side, it will certainly provide more fodder for #romfail.

Selah March said what I tried to say, only better.

Sarah, I agree, and I know you believe you’ve seen how bad it get when not enough attention is paid to editing for content, clarity and readability. But I beg you to believe me when I say that until you’ve judged a contest or been allowed to sift through a slushpile, you don’t know how bad it can get. The vast majority of unedited manuscripts by amateur authors make the worst of the epubbed and trad-pubbed dreck look like nuggets of shiny, shiny gold.

Is anyone in any other pro writer’s organizations to give us any updates on how they might be responding to the HO situation?

I’m a member of the RNA (Romantic Novelists’ Association), and we’re based in the UK.
http://www.rna-uk.org/
Only writers are allowed to become Full Members and have voting rights, and it’s done on a per author basis.
“Full Membership of the Association is open to all published writers of romantic novels and full length serials, with either contemporary or historical backgrounds (minimum length 30,000 words). [Vanity and self-publishing do not qualify.]” (to quote from the site).
For that reason it’s unlikely that the RNA will weigh in, though I’m not on the committee, and so I’m not sure about that.
But because we’re based in the UK, we have many authors as members who are writing for the Modern/Presents and Historical lines, as well as many of the other Harlequin/Mills and Boon category lines. Many of them are deeply distressed at this move. Some of them feel insulted. I really can’t say too much but I haven’t yet come across one Harlequin author who is overjoyed by this move, or even a slightly chuffed.
As I understand it, the Harlequin email loops are awash today with distressed and angry authors.

@Stacia K

Either way, my guess is they’re not really focused on genre romance as a whole or Harlequin in particular (and that’s why they haven’t yet addressed this), but I have emailed them to ask them to make a statement.

Agreed. And I don’t think fantasy/science-fiction readers and aspiring authors necessarily think Harlequin when they pick up a Luna or a Mira book, since the branding isn’t as obvious.

Thanks for asking SFWA. I’ve been curious, since I *am* one of those aspiring F/SF authors… and had been looking at Luna/Mira since I know authors published under those imprints.

If you really, really want to punish yourself with Atlanta Nights, you can buy it from lulu.com.

It’s all in a good cause! As the lulu page says: all proceeds from this book go to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Emergency Medical Fund.

Harlequin claims it is not an issue of paying for the Harlequin brand, but isn’t it?

Harlequin claims:

....Readers will not be confused. Harlequin is the gold standard for romance. (really?) Readers purchase Harlequin because they trust Harlequin to provide a great story. There will be no ‘dilution’ of quality. Horizons is a separate imprint with no Harlequin branding.

But then they say…

....is a partnership with Author Solutions (they provide self-publishing services)...we provide our brand name and we make authors we
have rejected aware of this service.”

Uh? about as clear as mud. Seems like branding to me. This service that Harlequin admits to being in partnership with smacks to me as a vanity press and not a really self-publishing, they do the work you pay for it. An author certainly has less expensive avenues to pursue if self publishing is their desire, such as Amazon’s CreateSpace, a self publishing service which offers both ebook and print on demand services with far less fees than the starting $500 you will pay at Harlequin/Author Solutions and you are assured of selling on Amazon.

That RWA beleives Harlequin has stepped over the line to align itself with this type of venture that has the potential to harm its members is in my mind commendable. Had Harlequin not gone into partnership with this Author’s Solutions but meerly told those it rejected of the service this wouldn’t be an issue with most RWA members. The fact that through this partnership Harlequin recieves monetary gain on works they authors pay them thru Author’s Solution to edit and polish is really suspect and they deserve to be removed from RWA’s approved publishers. Taking these fees make them a subsidy press if only under the table through their partnership.  They are naive if they think that naming the imprint ” Harlequin Horizon- isn’t branding them they are naive. Sadly it is the Harlequin authors who stand to suffer.

Thank you, Zoe.

Yes, it can be difficult to find quality among published books, but believe me, they’re the top 1% of what’s being submitted. Once you’ve read through a slush pile, you’ll thank Goddess that there are filters and gatekeepers via traditional publishing.

QFT. Anyone who’s read slush pile knows just how bad these books can really be. HQN isn’t necessarily doing anyone any favors by making them commercially available.

The other question that’s not being asked here is, how qualified are ASI’s editors, and what all is included in these “editing packages”? Because a properly spelled, properly punctuated, grammatically pristine piece of crap book is still a piece of crap, and I doubt the ASI editors will get compensated—or, frankly, be encouraged—to suggest any substantive changes.

Therefore, as much as I support the idea of self-publishing for certain kinds of projects, I’m not sure the self-publishing of romance fiction on a large scale is going help readers. I’m afraid it’s only going to flood the market with substandard product, and make it harder for less-savvy readers to figure out where to find the good stuff. And I’m absolutely certain that the large scale vanity publishing of romance can only lead to higher levels of reader dissatisfaction.

Can I just say how much I agree with this?!  We’re not talking about general self-publishing, we’re talking about vanity publishing targeting romance writers. 

And if we’re talking romance writers, I can’t see any reason to go with this super-expensive model (especially considering it won’t even get you into bookstores) unless the book has been thoroughly rejected by both NY print houses and small press/e-publishers and there’s simply no other way to see your work in print.  So, HH is basically going to publish manuscripts that even the least selective, most inclusive small houses have rejected. 

And like Selah, I’ve been judging unpublished contests for years now, and can attest to the fact that there’s a lot of aspiring romance writers out there who haven’t learned the craft well enough to make a manuscript readable, much less anything approaching enjoyable. 

How in the world is the publishing of such manuscripts (and under the misleading HH logo, at that!) going to benefit readers??

Hoo boy, so many comments!
Some people will always choose the vanity press route to holding their own book in their hands over the slower and harder route of choosing to learn the craft of writing.
That’s really the “dream” Hh is selling.
It’s a very different thing to the genuine self-publishing of the writer with a niche but non-commercial market.
My main concern, and when I will definitely feel angry about this, is if rejection letters from Harlequin in future bear some message about considering using Horizons. That’s plain unethical. Until then, as a writer who has researched the publishing industry and is working on getting published by Harlequin via traditional methods (aka slush pile), I’m not getting upset about this.
Verification word: Hell29- what anyone expecting to get rich through vanity publishing will find themselves in?

mulberry, their representative has already stated that they plan to steer rejected writers toward their vanity printing service.

Spouse brings in today’s mail.  On top is current issue of Publishers Weekly.  The 3-page fold-out front cover (paid corporate advertising) was placed by Harlequin.  (They have the back cover, too, for the Harlequin Teen imprint.)

Cover image: row of shoes, half of woman in dress with bare legs and feet.

Caption: You can never have enough.  HARLEQUIN.

The rest of the copy is all about CHOICE.  (And includes Courtney Milan’s cover image, btw—nice—among other fiction and nonfic titles.)

My response: Harlequin, believe me, I’ve definitely had enough of you this week.

My main concern, and when I will definitely feel angry about this, is if rejection letters from Harlequin in future bear some message about considering using Horizons. That’s plain unethical. Until then, as a writer who has researched the publishing industry and is working on getting published by Harlequin via traditional methods (aka slush pile), I’m not getting upset about this.

From Malle’s reply over on DA

Malle: A writer receiving a standard reject letter will find a line included about self publishing. The writer, if she wants, can then contact HH. The writer will never be cold-called or contacted unless she has opted in.

http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/11/18/malle-vallik-harlequins-digital-director-answers-questions-on-harlequin-horizons/#comment-223050

Also if you go over to the eharlequin website there is a big link on the writing guidelines page (where aspiring authors will go)
http://www.eharlequin.com/store.html?cid=535
And on every single page of the writing guidelines there is a image link to the HQHo site (here’s an example)
http://www.eharlequin.com/articlepage.html?articleId=1403&chapter=0

@mulberry:

The FAQs Harlequin sent to its authors says this:

ØAll standard/form/template rejection letters will include a short note about Harlequin Horizons as a self-publishing option for the aspiring author.

So yes, rejection letters will suggest HQHo as an option.

I’ve just spent the last couple of hours reading all the posts here.  Lots of great insights and information, most logically and calmly laid out.

To say I’m appalled by Harlequin’s new business venture is an understatement.  Though I’m not published through Harlequin over the years I’ve considered them the “gold” standard of romance publishers.  Now, not so much.

There’s not much I can add to the discussion, but I did want to speak up to agree with those who’ve spoken out about how sleazy they find this whole situation.  Though I agree, in part, with RWA’s stance on Harlequin, my heart goes out those authors now impacted by RWA’s decision.

To the other Elysa who posted earlier - though we seem to disagree about the benefit of Harlequin Horizons to aspiring authors and the publishing scene, it’s neat to find someone who shares my unusual name.

Another Elysa

Well, I agree completely with Sarah, and I agree with Selah in that yeah, it is bad out there in contest land, sometimes.

But I think this is where I think HH will come and say, “Gee, we’ve read throught this and would you like to purchase our editorial services?  This is really much worse than you think it is and you want the best for your customers.” Cha-ching.

I don’t think that HQ has gone though all this trouble to impale itself with horrific self pubs. They have a plan. An upselling, devious plan.

I think I’m out and then they draaag me back in!

I don’t read slush pile, though I did once. Now I do a fair number of critiques and try to help authors who are nearly there. I’ve made some good friends that way.
What worries me are the authors who are nearly there, who have tried so hard to improve their work. Will they get to a certain level and then no further? Will they never fulfill the potential of what they could be, what they could do, because they went the self-publishing route?
That to me would be sad. Especially as a reader. I want to read the work of an author at her best, not as a nearly-there.

I don’t think that HQ has gone though all this trouble to impale itself with horrific self pubs.

Time will tell. But if the author refuses the editorial services, why should ASI—the ones really “publishing” the book—care? They’ve already made the bulk of their profit on the author’s fees. Anything else is just gravy. They’ll publish that book anyway, lack of quality be damned, because otherwise they’d have to give back the money.

Here’s a quote from Ashley Grayson’s blog on this very topic:

“While the number of self-published titles may have exceeded the number of ‘real’ book titles in 2008, the number of actual sales of all those titles to readers is virtually zero. Before they all got swept under the Author Solutions rug, Author House and Xlibris reps told me at a Book Expo that ‘actual sales of titles average fewer than 100 copies, all of which are bought by the author.’ The self-publishing industry ranks as a ‘bestseller’ any book that sells over 500 copies. Self-publishing is an expanding sector because those whose sole mission is to suck money have concluded that it is easier to get money from authors wanting to be published than from readers wanting to buy books.”

Link to Ms. Grayson’s blog post:
http://graysonagency.com/blog/publishing/harlequin-horizons-a-mugs-game/

They aren’t going to care about quality. They care about selling packages to authors. That’s where their profit lies.

SB Sarah,

Thanks so much for responding on the question of how you viewed this as a reader. And also, for being open enough to not stick your fingers in your ears and go blah-blah-blah as the author community expressed their concerns.

Serves me right for not reading all the comments before posting.
Harlequin do plan to directly market Horizons in rejection letters.
That makes me very very sad.

Psst.. Selah.  My darling.  Ashley Grayson is a man.  Which is an understandable mistake, but still, a man.

@MarciaCollette

Most local chapter boards do not have board eligibilty requirements beyond being a general member in good standing.  It’s only the national board that requires publication.  At its heart, RWA is still a volunteer organization.

I applaud RWA for taking this stance.  They didn’t really have a choice to do otherwise, and yes, the ramifications will be huge.  But the sooner we remove this particular camel’s nose from under the tent flap, the better the industry will be.

MarciaCollette writes:

Perhaps it’s too early to tell, but what I wonder what will happen to Harlequin’s authors who aren’t making the sales numbers.  Does this mean that they’ll get their contracts cancelled and “suggested” that they take their next book to Horizons to see how it does there before they decide to invest in them again?  Scary thought.

This right here.  I’d be interested to understand what kind of sales, among the traditional lines, are considered “too low” and how they match up with sales from this vanity venture of theirs that would be considered “noticeable.”

And I also stand with others like @ZoeWinters in calling this Harlequin Horizons stuff vanity publishing.  Trying to muddy the waters with self- and vanity- publishing (and in some cases, tying it up with e-publishing, too) will most emphatically not help Harlequin’s case.

They’re changing the name.

I feel a little better now.

Thanks everyone, for all the discussion. I’m getting back to work now.
an HQ author