Harlequin Horizons versus RWA

[jackiekessler]

Originally published at Insert Witty Title Here. You can comment here or there.

So you may have heard about this thing called Harlequin Horizons, and RWA’s response. But if you’re not in the publishing industry, you may not see why this is a big deal - and why RWA did the best possible thing any author organization could do.

Basically, Harlequin

Comments

[katatomic]

What they've come up with is what used to be called "subsidy publishing"--a scam by which writers pay for "editorial" and "marketing" services, as well as the printing and cover art design you might expect, as well as catalog listings that never get seen by anyone serious. In my opinion Subsidy is one of the worst of all possible options for a writer hoping to get into the big time. I'm appalled at HQN for doing this. They should be ashamed of such transparent attempts to separate desperate writers from their cash. I know the industry is hurting, but this is a bit much. For shame Harlequin!

Oh and the other thing that makes me boil is the quote from the Bowker report about self-pub and POD titles outnumbering trad-pub titles. So F-ing what? What kinds of SALES did those titles have? That's the really important thing when a writer wants to make the leap to "professional author": sales. At the moment while copyright is being eroded and falling on its ass, making an apparent benefit out of sheer title numbers is disingenuous. Sales per title matter, not total titles.