Jane, IMO, as a romance writer and reader and also an MBA, I don’t have a huge problem (or surprise) with what Harlequin is doing. I think it’s current market reality and is happening in more places than just Harlequin. By putting an (HH) on the vanity-pubbed books’ spines, I don’t think they’re diluting the brand perception amongst readers (that argument actually makes me laugh, for reasons I don’t want to go into here). The argument of “duping” writers, too, gets my hackles up–really, do you think RWA members are so uneducated and naive? No. We are savvy and tough, and we need to act like it, now more than ever.

IMO, we need to step away from our anger and our fear and instead think rationally about our future business interests. The publishing industry isn’t going to go back to “the way it was” (ie not experimenting with methods to increase profits and/or cut costs in all aspects of their operations–including the slush piles) any more than my outsourced corporate day job is going to come back to me, either. More and more, in increasing increments, we’re in a new, global, internet reality with our work and living economies. We need to deal with it constructively, not like a labor union screaming “no deal!” while management simply picks up the plant and moves it to China.

My suggestion? Revisit the rules for “recognition.” Think long and hard about the lines in the sand we want to draw, especially against any publishers we decide to dis-invite to the conference (ie do the cost/benefit analyses). Consider who we really are advocating for as an organization (ie Are we for anyone outside the top tier of best-selling New York authors? Maybe not so much. Remember that HQ is by far the biggest romance publisher, mainly for new and midlist authors, and the only remaining major romance publisher who still encourages and routinely purchases debut books from non-agented slush piles). Continue education efforts re: vanity-publishing, self-publishing, e-publishing and small press options, and the direction of the industry at large.

Interesting topic, Jane, for interesting times.

While I enjoy reading Harlequin books and have nothing against self published or vanity books per se, I find the Harlequin Horizons model just downright sleazy. On the surface Harlequin appear to support women but the Harlequin Horizons packaging is more about preying upon a captive audience.
I feel sorry for Harlequin authors caught in the middle. They are not responsible for the sleazy actions of their publisher or its parent company. The decision does not mean they are bad people or bad authors, but I am happy to see RWA have some independence instead of kowtowing and compromising itself just because Harlequin has a name. It would be nice if Harlequin authors were inspired by ethics and pushed back at this move towards Harlequin Horizons. That is in their best interest -’ after all, those authors themselves may be shoved into Harlequin Horizons too.

While I enjoy reading Harlequin books and have nothing against self published or vanity books per se, I find the Harlequin Horizons model just downright sleazy. On the surface Harlequin appear to support women but the Harlequin Horizons packaging is more about preying upon a captive audience.

I feel sorry for Harlequin authors caught in the middle. They are not responsible for the sleazy actions of their publisher or its parent company. The decision does not mean they are bad people or bad authors, but I am happy to see RWA have some independence instead of kowtowing and compromising itself just because Harlequin has a name. It would be nice if Harlequin authors were inspired by ethics and pushed back at this move towards Harlequin Horizons. That is in their best interest — after all, those authors themselves may be shoved into Harlequin Horizons too.

I also took issue with their main agenda–over the years, many romance authors have been laughed at because they write romances. So they spend a lot of effort and money trying to force the general public to “respect” the romance genre. This is a complete waste of time, in my opinion. Romance novels are formulaic and plot-driven. Readers either enjoy reading them, or they don’t. No amount of posturing about the genre being great literature is going to change anybody’s mind. But RWA persists, and this Harlequin brouhaha is just more of the same.

RWA takes a condescending attitude toward authors. They’re not being duped! Of course, they know they have to pay up front! Duh! At least, these rejected authors will have a chance to get editing, self-publishing, and a new venue for their books. It’s the author’s choice, and many will be more than willing to pay.

RWA has also not taken into account the thousands of Harlequin authors who pay to belong to RWA. Now they will be marginalized, too. A friend of mine thinks this will cause a schism in RWA, where the Harlequin authors defect and form a new group. If that happens, RWA will be dead in the water, because Harlequin IS romance to most of the reading world.

Well, it will be interesting to see what happens, huh?

If Harlequin wants an interest in a vanity press, that’s fine.

However, the press does not use its brand, it does not solicit customers to this press from its pile of rejected mss. It CALLS it what it is, and does not pretend it’s self-publishing if it intends to take 50% of net from the customer.

If–let’s just stick with Horizons–is a separate arm of Torstar I’ve got no problem. But if it remains a part of Harlequin, using that brand, reputation, client and writer base to feed the till, I do–personally. And I have a very big problem if it’s called self-publishing when it’s absolutely not.

The message I heard, often, after it was announced that Harlequin would take its name off Horizons was not that it fixed everything at all, but that it was a good start. Now do the rest.

My feeling is that if the vanity press business as styled on Harlequin’s site is deceptive, there are laws for that.

HarperCollin’s setup is different but it still is under it’s own name, there are links to it from it’s main website and members are solicited regularly to publish through CreateSpace.

My point is that there are many other publishers that are trying to monetize the slush pile. I’ve been asking what the real crux of the complaint is and not really getting anywhere. In other words, does Harlequin have to divest itself of Horizons to make it “okay” as suggested by SFWA. Does merely removing the branding fix the problem which seemed to be the message I heard last night as everyone heralded the announcement by Donna Hayes that the Harlequin name would be removed from Horizons.

Is it the partnership with Author Solutions? Is it keeping a royalty? Etc.

Because to be consistent, someone has to identify what is the guideline that is being violated and then look at all the other publishers to see if their business model is somehow in violation of that guideline. (or guidelines).

A publishing conglomerate holding an interest in a vanity press is one thing. Harlequin’s pretty blatant use of its brand, its website, its base, its slush pile–and its intention to suggest this as an alternative to publication for rejected mss is so much another. To phrase it as a way to make your dreams come true, and so on.

It wasn’t up front, number one. It called this self-publishing, and a way to publication. It’s not, and that’s deceptive.

I wasn’t aware HC had anything like this set up. It may be that Harlequin’s very public launch of Horizons, and the fallout, the reactions, will cause writers and their organizations to take a harder, closer look at this practice if indeed it’s going on in the same manner at other publishers.

If it was more like Thomas Nelson's West Bow, would that be sufficient or if it was styled more like Authonomy by HarperCollins, would that be sufficient?

RWA is looking at Thomas Nelson’s WestBow, I know, cause I talked to several board members about it. IMO HQ and TN have the same problem and TN should be treated the same way as HQ and removed from the list of eligible publishers.

I think the full outcome of all this remains to be seen, but I'm happy that all the writers' orgs appear to be taking the same strong line.

I’m trying to distinguish how this is different from say Authonomy by Harper Collins which has clearly advertised its service as a way to traditional publishing (Beat the Slush is the slogan) and who sends weekly emails to members soliciting them on behalf of CreateSpace, through which HC earns affiliate fees.

I look forward to RWA and MWA taking a stance against Thomas Nelson as well.

Random House is not dangling the carrot of “we’ll be monitoring our self-published books, looking to offer a contract to the worthy ones.”

It will be interesting to see if Harlequin’s rejection letters refer the rejected writers to Horizons.

I applaud RWA and MWA for taking the stance they did.

I am directly involved in the discussions between MWA and Harlequin so it would be inappropriate for me to get into the details here. I just wanted to share the statement we released today with you and your readers…and to let RWA members know that we share their organization’s concerns about these developments.

Lee