In an early morning post to the Smart Bitches Trashy Books website today, November 19, 2009, Nora Roberts offered her response to the controversy surrounding a decision made yesterday by the Romance Writers of America (RWA) to deny Harlequin Enterprises access to RWA-provided resources at their annual conference. In an RWA Alert to its members on November 18, the organization's president, Michelle Monkou, explained that with its recent creation of Harlequin Horizons, a self-publishing division, Harlequin Enterprises no longer qualifies as one of the "non-subsidy/non-vanity presses" to which the RWA allocates its resources.
Screenshot of Harlequin Horizons website taken 11-19-2009
by Carol Thomas
The RWA Alert was the latest in a series of reactions to Harlequin's decision to branch out into self-publishing. Sarah Wendell, the Smart Bitches Trashy Books website's co-founder, encountered an unexpected furor with the reactions to her November 17 post, "Harlequin Horizons: Want to Self Publish? How about Harlequin?" Most of the comments on Wendell's post pointed out the potential for Harlequin's imprint to lose prestige as a result of its incorporation of a self-publishing division.
Nora Roberts provided the 322nd resulting comment. Roberts' focus was not on the prestige issue, but rather on the false expectations writers who may use the new service might have acquired from the publishing company. Roberts points out that self-publishing can be a viable option for writers. "But it’s a different matter," she adds, "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."
Roberts comment referred to two practices that Harlequin has stated that it will follow in its Harlequin Horizons endeavor. It will recruit clients from among "authors whose manuscripts have been rejected by Harlequin" according to a November 17 Publishers Weekly article, and it has informed potential authors that works they publish through Harlequin Horizons will be considered "for possible pick-up by its traditional imprints," as announced on its Harlequin Horizons website.
Harlequin published its decision to partner with Author Solutions Inc. in the formation of Harlequin Horizons in a November 17, 2009 press release available on its eHarlequin.com website. Only a week earlier, in another press release dated November 9, 2009, Harlequin had announced the launch of Carina Press, its new digital-only publishing outlet. However, in a statement published today on the E-Reads website, Angela James, Executive Editor of Carina Press, denies any linkage between the two divisions. "Carina and Horizons are two separate entities and Carina is not affiliated in any way with self-publishing," she clarifies.
What happened and when: A chronological overview of Harlequin Enterprises' DellArte Press affair
Mystery Writers of America implements proposed sanctions against Harlequin Enterprises
Mystery Writers of America joins with RWA and SFWA in complaints regarding Harlequin Horizons
Comments
"Carina will apparently also become a player itself in the self-publishing area."
How so? Could you provide some clarification for this? Carina Press will be a digital-first publisher. The business model will differ only from the traditional model in that it is digital-first, and that in lieu of an advance, higher royalties are paid.
Thank you,
Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
The basis for my remark follows my statement that "Carina will apparently also become a player itself in the self-publishing area." That is the fact that your CEO describes your function as including "to discover new authors and unique voices that may not be able to find homes in traditional publishing house."
I admit that I may have been influenced in that interpretation by the November 18 E-Reads article, "New Harlequin Venture Doesn't Pass Romance Writers of America Smell Test," which has today published the correction you requested of them. Since you state clearly there that "Carina is not a self-publishing enterprise," I have removed that statement from my article as well. I do think, however, that Hayes statement, from your press release, is ambiguous.
@Angela James
While we're talking, I'd like to express my appreciation for Harlequin's Digital Director, Malle Vallik's, efforts on behalf of Harlequin Horizon yesterday on both the Dear Author website and on Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Regardless of my opinion on Harlequin's self-publishing venture, I though Vallik did a remarkable job of defending the company's position simultaneously on two different fronts.
Oy! I have been fighting this misconception for days. e-Publishing is traditional royalty-paying press. They do the things all traditional presses do: vett submissions and accept a small number of them, edit, format, provide cover art, provide distribution, pay royalties, have contracts, provide ISBNs, have marketing teams...and on and on and on.
What that line about Carina probably should have said was that Carina was looking "to discover new authors and unique voices that may not be able to find homes in NY conglomerate publishing houses." Since the truly breakout voices rarely have a chance in those conglomerate lines, this is simply in line with what indie/e does...finds those fresh, new voices and (pardon the pun) novel approaches to plotlines and characters that scare the NY marketing guys to death! Grinning...
Brenna
@BrennaLyons
Your statement as to what Donna Hayes meant in the words attributed to her in Harlequin Enterprises November 9 press release on Carina Press, "We expect to discover new authors and unique voices that may not be able to find homes in traditional publishing houses," caused me to flash back to days long past when I taught English composition to college freshmen. They often tried to convince me to raise their grades based on what they intended to say rather than what they actually said. It didn't work then. It doesn't now.
All a reader has in any written expression is the words on the page, not the intent behind them. That said, my experience with press releases is that the words attributed in them to company officials can be the creation of a publicity department rather than actual utterances by the named official. But that official does approve the release of the document. Therefore Hayes still has responsibility for any ambiguity in her quoted statement.
The major problems writers have with the Harlequin Horizon supposed self publishing: the manuscripts are rejected by Harlequin and the writers are then directed to Harlequin Horizons, IF they want to PAY over 300 dollars they can have their first chapter reviewed, not edited mind you reviewed, you can pay by the word upto .77 per word for editing. THEN no Harlequin name on the book, no marketing (unless you pay for that too) no distribution to book stores, and if you do sell any books you only get to keep 50% of the royalties. That is not self publishing, that is a rip-off to make money off someone else's dream. There are legitimate self publishers out there, Horizons just isn't one of them. The RWA, MWA & SFWA are protecting the integrity of their authors, and their conferences by excluding Harlequin Enterprises as an approved publisher. Harlequin Horizon is nothing but a money making venture that has little to do with publishing and helping new writers.
How many times was even the great Nora Roberts turned down by Harlequin? This seems like a viable alternative for authors that don't want to wade through the muck for years and be told by the elitists they are no good. Remember how that felt Nora? When Harlequin wouldn't have you?
"This seems like a viable alternative for authors that don't want to wade through the muck for years and be told by the elitists they are no good."
Sure, Tina, it's a viable alternative for writers who don't want to take the time to work very hard, study the craft, and polish their work, but just want to have a book with their name on it. Or those who think that the act of writing a book automatically entitles them to have it published.
It's a viable opportunity for them to pay thousands of dollars to be printed, and then not have their books appear on store shelves, or have people read it or buy it or ever hear about it. To have no professional review site and very, very few review blogs (most will not accept vanity press books) refuse to review it. To tell publishing professionals about their book and have those professionals tell you it's not a publishing credit in any way, and to have all the major writing organizations tell you you're not eligible for membership. Sound good
Sorry, that should read "to have all the review sites refuse to review it."
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