RWA has announced that it will be holding a special board meeting to decide how to deal with Harlequin’s announcement that it will include a vanity press going forward. I’ve been thinking about this, up and down, right and left, on and off ever since the announcement was made, and I’ve come to a handful of conclusions, which I now share with you (and which I will eventually pass on to RWA’s Board just as soon as everybody’s done shooting holes in it).

Since this is long and boring, it is after the jump, so that those of you who don’t care about RWA and vanity publishing can breathe a sigh of relief and go on your merry ways.

Before I get into this, I have to tell you a few of my working assumptions walking into this.

1. RWA’s interests as an organization.

a. RWA has an interest in providing education to its authors. A publisher on RWA’s “Eligible Publisher” list belongs there if it provides a viable avenue for an author to have a serious career writing romance.

b. RWA has an interest in making sure that publishers who are compensated for coming to RWA conferences are there to help make money for authors (furthering RWA’s purposes), rather than off them (frustrating them).

c. On the flip side of that coin, RWA has an interest in facilitating interactions between all publishers that provide a reasonably-sized stepping stone in a career, and the career-minded romance writers who make up the membership of RWA.

Note what’s left off, and this may be controversial (at least until I explain what I mean): RWA, I do not think, has a legitimate interest in “punishing” Harlequin for its choice to run a vanity press (however outraged members of RWA might be). Nor does it have a legitimate interest in pressuring Harlequin to divest itself of the business. My point is not that no member of RWA has an interest in how Harlequin runs its business. We do; individually, if we want to “punish” Harlequin or pressure it to divest itself of its vanity press wing, we are free to do that.

What we are not free to do, as a group of authors, is to enter into a combination to tell Harlequin they may not make contracts at all with competitors. And the reason why we cannot do that is that it would be illegal under antitrust law. (Some people will point out that the DellArte folks aren’t really our “competitors”–but they do produce substitute goods, however imperfect that substitute might be–and they do it at substantially lower cost to Harlequin).

RWA should hesitate to take collective action that looks like our goal is designed to raise the price of our services, because we could easily run afoul of antitrust law. Protecting other authors? Fine. Making sure that conference comps are used wisely? Also fine. Collectively pressuring an organization to raise the price of the books that we produce? That’s a per se violation of antitrust law, and it’s punishable by criminal penalities, along side civil treble damages.

When I say I don’t think RWA has a legitimate interest in those things, I am not trying to say that the interest is not important to individual writers; I am trying to say that the interest must not be carried out through a collective organization of writers without risking massive legal penalties.

So, here’s the question I heard from a million (well, four) different people over the last handful of weeks: “Why are we punishing all the Harlequin lines for what is a breach by one part of Harlequin Enterprises?”

There’s an easy answer to that question: None of the Harlequin lines have applied for eligibility as a publisher. “Harlequin Enterprises” applied as a whole; “Harlequin Presents” did not. Therefore, Harlequin Enterprises as a whole is banned by any vanity/subsidy activity in any of its branches. I also note that even though Carina Press does not use the name “Harlequin” it still identifies itself as a division of Harlequin Enterprises, and so as a subset of Harlequin Enterprises, Carina’s existence should exclude the whole of Harlequin Enterprises, under the current bylaws and Harlequin’s current application.

Note that I place no moral consequences to this statement; this is just a neutral application of the bylaws, not yet a statement of what I think should happen.

Second Question: Could, say, Harlequin Presents be allowed to apply for publisher eligibility as an entity in its own right?

To answer this, we have to ask what constitutes a “publisher” under the RWA bylaws and its policies and procedures. And, interestingly enough, the bylaws are silent on the question. But, as a matter of course, it appears that RWA appears to give considerable deference to the entity applying for publisher status. Thus, for instance, both “HarperCollins” and “Avon Books” appear on RWA’s Eligible Publisher list, even though Avon is not, to the best of my knowledge, an actual separate corporate entity. Likewise, NAL and Berkley are both listed, even though they’re both under the mighty wings of Penguin. And so on.

RWA could try to define what constitutes a “publisher” in the bylaws, but that gets tricky. If they share editorial, do you consider them a separate publisher? What about cases where an editor may edit for several different imprints within a line (there are tons of those)? What about cases where editorial is separate, but marketing and art departments are merged? What happens if there is a reorganization? Does it really behoove RWA to enquire deeply into the business structure of publishers? What if a publisher outsources aspects of editorial elsewhere; do you ding them if they send copy-editing out to a freelance service that also freelances for Authonomy? Defining what constitutes a “publisher” sounds like a giant freaking mess. Currently, RWA appears to deal with that by letting publishers define who exactly they are when they apply for eligibility.

So here’s a simple solution: Carry on with the status quo and let the publisher define what constitutes a publisher. Under the bylaws, I see nothing that says that Harlequin Presents, Harlequin American, Harlequin Historicals, and so forth can’t apply as separate publishers in their own right.

Problem solved. Right?

Well…. no. Because while this alleviates the conflict with RWA’s first interest (it limits the “RWA Eligible” publisher list to include only those that could viably advance an author’s career, thus not giving RWA imprimatur to an imprint that doesn’t meet its criteria), it doesn’t do anything for the second interest, which is that it gives comped space at RWA’s conference to a publisher who has stated that it will include advertisements for DellArte press in rejections, and so anyone who pitches to an editor from, say Harlequin Presents at RWA Nationals may end up getting what is essentially an RWA-comped referral to vanity publishing. No good.

Quick fix: Amend the policies and procedures to say that no RWA Eligible publisher can refer rejections to a vanity or subsidy publisher (this is obvious); and amend the policies and procedures to say that a publisher must produce at least N books a year (where N is an amount that may be hypothetically set at 24).

This would allow publishers to manipulate what constitutes a “publisher,” to spin off parts of themselves. I don’t think this is a bad thing—publishing is changing, and I think it’s okay for traditional publishers to experiment. In fact, to the extent that I want to have a career in 20 years, I think it’s vital that traditional publishers experiment. RWA doesn’t have to grant recognition to all those experiments immediately, but at least it won’t be punishing publishers for the experimentation. Not all of the experiments will be good, but we shouldn’t be so hidebound that we disallow the whole for the part. (Let’s be clear: I dislike vanity publishing and am not a fan of DellArte; but I am a huge fan of Carina, and am pleased that Harlequin is trying to make digital publishing work for them. I also think both experiments disqualify the whole of Harlequin Enterprises, under the current bylaws. Right now I am stating what I see to be the Law of the Bylaws, not Courtney’s Moral View of the Universe, Seen through the Lens of Harlequin).

So, what would Courtney’s little plan mean, specifically?

First, it means that some divisions of Harlequin may actually be able to come to Nationals, so long as they certify that they won’t be sending rejections to slush.

Disclosure: people most likely to benefit includes me; since the single-title arms of Harlequin accept only agented solutions, it might be a simple matter for them to certify that they aren’t going to refer rejections to vanity publishing. But it might help other divisions, too—for instance, I don’t know if the London office will also refer to DellArte.

Second, it means that RWA can allow Harlequin to tailor its response to minimize the damage done to both Harlequin and Harlequin authors.

Third, while it doesn’t provide RWA with a tool to collectively pressure Harlequin into changing its business practices, it does provide Harlequin authors with a very specific request to bring to editors, thus making individual pressure more effective. My guess is that you might find that some lines will begin compliance before others; this allows Harlequin to come up with a piecemeal solution to the public outrage.

Fourth… no, first, wait and listen to the silence right now, because this is the part where what I’m thinking goes kaboom, this provides a way for solid e-publishers to become RWA Eligible, with only minor alterations to their practices.

What? You don’t see it? It becomes trivial at this point. Say you’re Samhain Publishing. You create two lines: Samhain Regular and Samhain Gold. Books accepted into the Samhain Gold category are guaranteed an advance on royalties of $1,000.

“But Courtney,” you say, “that is not a minor alteration. The e-publishing model doesn’t include an advance.”

Well, why not? Let’s face it—if an e-publisher isn’t publishing 24 sure-thing-you’ll earn more than $1,000 in royalty-books in a year, it doesn’t deserve the resources we’d devote to it at Conference. I have no problem restricting RWA conference resources (which members provide through conference fees and membership dues) to publishers that guarantee a certain level of income for writers.

One of the reasons I believe e-publishers should be included in RWA eligibility is that I really do believe that the best of them provide substantial career opportunities for their authors. (I mention Samhain as one of them because I think Samhain is one of the best e-publishers—they get most of my e-publishing dollars. Thanks, Samhain!). This change allows Samhain to continue to take risks on new stories, but to get credit for the guarantee they can make.

“But Courtney,” you say, “you’re still missing the point. Advances would require leveraging, and e-publishing is a lean, mean business that doesn’t leverage.” Ha! Nowhere in the bylaws does it say an advance needs to be paid on signing. Tons of print published authors have portions of their advance due on publication; some of them even have portions paid after publication.

So create something like Samhain Gold, which guarantees an advance of at least $1000, to be paid when earned, or one year after publication, whichever comes first. I’m guessing that this is going to make not one iota of difference in the way Samhain pays the authors that it promotes to Samhain Gold; Samhain then gets to send editors to conference (comped) (provided that they take pitches only for the Samhain Gold line), and we have a very simple test for allowing e-publishers: If you believe you can guarantee decent royalties for a good number of authors (although not for all of them), you’re in.

If you can’t provide that, work at building an audience and come back later.

All righty. Courtney has now solved all of RWA’s problems; now it’s time for her to go solve her own. You tell me how crazy I am.

I don’t want to get into a discussion of whether this glass is half-full (yay, e-published authors can not enter!) or half-empty (boo, they’re being treated like second-class citizens).  Let’s just be pragmatic: These are the rules for the RITA for books with a 2009 copyright.  These were not the rules for the RITA for 2008, and they are not going to be the rules for the RITA for 2010.  The board is experimenting with contest rules that are both fair and workable.  Some will undoubtedly think the 2009 rules are unfair; others will suspect that they will be unworkable.  2009 is an experiment, and I doubt that the precise rules in place in 2009 will be adopted for 2010.  The Board wants to see how many entries will show up, and how many judges there will be.  It goes to show that if you want the rules for 2010 to be changed in your favor, it should be your goal to make the 2009 contest as successful as possible for e-published authors.

Without a doubt, some of the people voicing fears that the contest will be unworkable if the e-published are allowed to enter are operating from a point of prejudice.  They don’t think judges will want to judge e-published entries in part because they believe e-published entries are lower quality than print-published entries (false.)  But some of the fears are not prejudiced:  They don’t think they have enough judges to judge all the entries they would get if print published and e-published entries were allowed to submit simultaneously, and in the quantities desired, and the choice to favor print published over e-published results because most PAN members–the ones who judge the contest–are print published, and they want to make sure that the judges also have a chance to enter.

I can’t do anything about the unfairness, which does make me a little sad.  But I can do something about the workability.  As I see it, there are two ways to move on from here.

1. I can decry the unfairness.
2. I can help show the rest of the membership that accepting e-published entries is possible.

Personally, I think RWA has taken a step in the right direction by opening up the contest.  They did so despite fears and prejudice, and I’m glad that they’ve taken that step.  I want to prove that they did not make a mistake, and that they can rely on me–and hopefully other members–to take up the slack.  RWA is worried that they won’t have enough judges.  And let’s be frank–I know people who judged the RITAs last year (I was not PAN-eligible when the deadline to sign up had passed).  Some of them were given as many as 9 books to judge over a course of a few months.  I’m sure some of those people are thinking, oh man, what now?  Will I get 10?  11?  12?  It’s that fear of workability that we need to combat.  We can’t do anything about the prejudice.  We can do something about the workability.

That is why I urge all PAN-eligible members of RWA, especially the e-published ones, to apply for PAN (if you have not done so already), and to volunteer to judge the RITA–even if you don’t like the way the board has set up the contest.  Especially if you don’t like the way the board has set up the contest.  The fewer people judge, the less workable the contest seems–and the more likely that e-published entries will be scrapped in the future.  The more people that judge, the more positive a response that is given, the more likely it is that 2010 will see greater inclusion.

Personally, I plan to contact the Board of Directors and the RWA staff in charge of the contest, thank them for this step, tell them that I will judge the RITAs and that I will also offer to judge any extra materials that may crop up in the course of the contest.  If you choose NOT to judge the RITA, you send a clear message to those who worry about workability: You’re not willing to help out to make this work.

Could the contest rules have been more inclusive?  Yes, without a doubt.  But can we make sure that we allay the fears that prevented a complete victory, and demonstrate that we’re willing to help to make sure that next year, when the Board of Directors meets, they say, “We had more than enough judges to allow e-published authors to be treated on par with print published authors.”

That’s the goal.  Think positive!

When I first started thinking about RWAChange, my initial impression was that RWA’s list of Eligible publishers was nothing more than paternalism.  Why require an advance to be paid?  Who is RWA to determine what makes an author “career-focused”?  After reading through the Bylaws and the Policies & Procedure Manual, and listening to what people have to say, I think I’ve concluded that the question of what publishers lands on the list of RWA Eligibility is very important to its membership for one very simple reason:  Money.  Not RWA’s money.  Not the RWA Board’s money.  But my money, and your money, and the money of anyone who attends the RWA National Conference.

Here’s what I’ve gleaned about RWA Eligibility from the Policies & Procedures Manual:

Only RWA Eligible publishers can accept pitch appointments at Nationals.  Only RWA Eligible publishers can hold spotlights at Nationals.  (According to Diane Pershing, but not according to the P&PM, [Edited to add: my apologies to President Pershing; this is covered in the Policies & Procedure Manual at 8.14; I missed it the first time.] only RWA Eligible publishers can offer workshops at Nationals, too).  RWA Eligible publishers are comped at Nationals–that is, they don’t have to pay the hefty registration fee.  (In exchange for this, they must take pitch appointments and/or speak in workshops.)

What does that mean to you as  a member?

RWA Eligibility adds value to your conference if you are unpublished:

• It allows you to schedule pitch appointments with industry professionals who purchase, publish, and represent manuscripts.
• It gives you access to workshops run by industry professionals who will give you an inside view as to craft and market outlook.
• It provides publisher spotlights, book signings, and other events that help you see what’s selling, and what publishers are excited about.
• It creates an event where editors and agents come together, and networking opportunities abound (last year at Nationals, I was still unpublished, but my book was on submission–and my agent dragged me around to meet the editors who had it on their desk.  This was invaluable to me in my decision-making, because I could see who I “clicked” with.)

RWA Eligible Publishers also provide value to published authors (and I suspect it provides more value to them than to the unpublished):

• It broadens your audience: At the publisher-sponsored signings, and at the literacy signing, hundreds of readers may obtain free books from you and try you out.
• It provides natural marketing: If your book is highlighted at a publisher spotlight, many people may put it on their list of books “to buy” to see what’s so hot about it.
• It provides a forum for you to meet with your editor and agent.
• If your publisher throws a party (as many publishers do), you will meet with other authors who work for your publisher and be able to network.
• If you’re looking for a new agent (or a new publisher), or looking to write in a new genre, you get all the benefits that the unpublished authors do. (For many authors, the difference between “published” and “unpublished” are just not that large, believe it or not!)

None of this is a surprise.  RWA Eligibility for publishers does a great deal of work for you as an author, most particularly at the National Conference.  So why not recognize more publishers as RWA Eligible?  More publishers = more value, right?

The flip side of this is that it does it at at cost.  If you look at the list of industry professionals listed on RWA’s conference site, please keep in mind that many of those professionals are not paying a conference fee.  That means that, in determining how much you are paying for conference, part of the cost that you are bearing is the price of the meeting space, the price of comping lunch for those editors and agents, and so forth.  If those editors and agents were not comped, the price of Nationals to the individual might fall from (say) $475 to $400 (I don’t know what the amount is–I just made it up for illustration purposes, so don’t complain it is too large or too small.)

Of course, the fall-off in quality would be pretty clear, too.  You wouldn’t have pitch appointments.  You might not have editors giving workshops on what they look for in a submission, or agents answering questions about how to write a query.  Editors might not come at all, and then many authors might choose not to attend because they couldn’t meet with their editor, and so you’d miss out on those workshops on craft from published authors and those networking opportunities.  RWA comps these editors (and their activities) because they believe that the added $75 (or whatever it is) to the ticket price of conference is worth the value that editor attendance adds.

(I’ve heard that RWA did try to get rid of comping altogether–with the end result that industry professionals did not show up, and the conference was not a major success for those who attended.)

The more RWA-Eligible publishers there are, the greater the cost to the paying attendees.  I’ve seen people claim that RWA doesn’t open up eligibility to e-publishers for monetary reasons.  This was presented as something hugely sinister, like RWA was selling out publishers for filthy lucre, and I don’t think that is a fair representation at all.

It’s not RWA’s organizational money that is at stake here.  It’s ours, the authors who attend conference.  I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t want to pay $800 to go to conference just so that the Mesopotamian Press of Bluebirds, a group that publishes three authors and sells 60 copies of books each year, can hold a publisher spotlight and pitch appointments, and their editors can attend for free.  Neither do I want to pay $300 to attend a conference where my editor and agent don’t show up, and neither do three quarters of my good friends on the author circuit.

RWA Eligibility is like a spigot that must be finely tuned: Set the bar for eligibility too high, and you exclude too many publishers; as a result, the authors affiliated with those publishers, and writers who wish to be affiliated with them, stop attending Conference and Conference loses value.  Set the bar too low, and you include too many publishers, and the price of Conference becomes too high.  Somewhere in between is a happy medium: the place where the value of Conference is high, but the price of Conference is not exorbitant.

It’s not paternalism to set standards for RWA Eligibility (which was my initial thought); RWA Eligible publishers are publishers that conference attendees subsidize, at their own very personal dollar cost.  I apologize for calling it paternalism; now that I’ve thought it through, I’ve changed my mind.

The only thing I disagree with in the current Policies and Procedures Manual (on this point) is where the spigot has been set.  I think the advance model is not the only way to build a career, and I think there are significant advantages to the e-business model that RWA should recognize.  As such, I would like to see a standard for determining RWA eligibility that includes intelligent e-publishers, who offer the means for their writers to make a career of writing.

Should this standard let in all e-publishers, or all small press publishers?  No–that would be too costly for the membership of RWA, and would provide too little benefit to justify the added cost.  But just as we don’t want to exclude all print publishers from RWA Eligibility, or the cost of conference suffers, we also don’t want to exclude all e-publishers.  If e-publishers must pay for their conference fee, if they cannot hold pitch appointments or spotlight their top authors, they might not show up, and then their e-authors won’t show up either.  If e-authors see no benefit to going to RWA, they won’t hold workshops, won’t network with others. . . .

When Diane Pershing said there were only two digital workshops suggested to RWA’s workshop committee this year, that should have been a warning sign, not an indication that nobody cared about e-publishing.  That signaled that the National conference is not providing sufficient value to the people who are skilled in e-publishing–even though there is tremendous interest among the membership to learn more about e-publishing.  RWA’s current stance is driving e-authors and e-publishers from Conference, and that means that we are all losing value.

You’ll note I haven’t talked about where the spigot should be set, except to say that the current model is too restrictive.  I’ll try to cover what I think there in later posts.