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The Stalker’s Notebook wrote about genre labels and how restrictive they can be, particularly in the store. On the internet, however, with “tags”, readers can use as many labels as they like to help group books together. The more meta the data, the more helpful to the reader, and the better able authors are able to sell their books to the right audience.

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According to the Bookseller, a UK publication, many industry insiders say that ebooks will harm brick and mortar retail bookselling and while people are reading digitally, only a small percentage are actually buying them.

The results showed that though 44% of respondents had read a book digitally, only 19% had bought one. The majority of respondents said that e-books should be priced at the same cost as a paperback book (30.1%), or cheaper (53.6%).

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“The high price of e-books is the main obstacle to their takeup,” said one respondent. “Readers can’t understand why the online versions of bricks and mortar shops sell ebooks at higher than paperback prices.”

The entire article is worth a read.

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Digital Manga Publishing announced that it hard partnered with Harlequin to bring Harlequin’s romance manga available online.   What I found interesting wasn’t the deal but the rent to own business model of DMP.   Apparently you can “rent” a book for approximately 72 hours and if you rerent it, you are also granted ownership.   I find this pricing model very interesting.    Another reader, Blue Tyson, pointed me to this article about subscription pricing for music.   Apparently an entry fee and small per song charge yields higher revenue than individual uniform pricing.

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Lori James of All Romance EBooks shared some of her insights as a retailer of romance digital books.   DRM clearly inhibits sales as only 3% of sales at her site are for DRM’ed ebooks.   It’s another article that I thought was really fascinating although I do wonder whether anyone though Microsoft was a player in ebooks.   Hasn’t it always been Adobe?

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MWA has delisted Harlequin as a recognized publisher.   The two were in talks since the announcement of Harlequin Horizons now Dell Arte Press but could not come to a resolution.   Lee Goldberg has an explanation of MWA’s position and Harlequin’s lengthy response. In Harlequin’s response, it notes that ITW and NINC have taken a different approach than the one taken by MWA.    Goldberg excerpts from the MWA rules this passage:

…nor may the publisher, or any of the executives or editors under its employ, have offered authors self-publishing services, literary representation, paid editorial services, or paid promotional services.

If the publisher is affiliated with an entity that provides self-publishing, for-pay editorial services, or for-pay promotional services, the entities must be wholly separate and isolated from the publishing entity. They must not share employees, manuscripts, or authors or interact in any way. For example, the publishing entity must not refer authors to any of the for-pay entities nor give preferential treatment to manuscripts submitted that were edited, published, or promoted by the for-pay entity.

I’m still curious how HarperCollins/Authonomy/CreateSpace fits into this because while Authomony is free, HarperCollins solicits for CreateSpace through it.   Authonomy’s blog post today is how participants can get published with HarperCollins.    RWA is having a special board meeting in January.   Will it follow MWA’s lead and end up with a very, very abbreviated RITA ceremony or will it adopt the hands off approach of ITW and NINC?

Related posts:

1. Saturday Midday Links Roundup: Writers Organizations Mad at Harlequin
2. Tuesday Midday Links: Harlequin Horizon’s, A self publishing venture
3. Friday Midday Links: Is the Advance Model Going the Way of the DoDo Bird?

I can’t see any mention of Horizons or DellArte Press over at the Harlequin boards (but I also confess to not being very familiar with these boards and could have totally missed it).   There is no word whether this will pacify the writing organizations.   To use Chicklet’s terminology, it appears that Harlequin will be participating in some form of publisher cash for service program in fact, but no longer in name.

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Choire writing for the Awl describes the new publishing venture that Talking Points Memo has undertaken.   TPM, one of the largest, oldest, and most visible liberal blogs, has been responsible for breaking quite a few stories in the last couple of years.   It has hired a publisher.

This publisher will be responsible for making the publication hum and grow. The first duty in the listing is “audience growth.” This is what a publisher should do: ensure the ongoing financial success and growth of his or her publication. Instead, what we have now in the media industry are publishers who believe their duties include dictating the editorial mission on behalf of a business principle. This is when publishers go wrong and, generally, is when they should be taken out back and shot.

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Teleread has a piece on how to get a bargain ebook reader.   It recommends both the high end which is buying a subscription to the Globe & the Kindle Dx or heading off to eBay for a sub $50 PDA.   PDAs with a 3.5″ screen or larger can be   a good reading device.

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Nathan Bransford takes a look at the economics of publishing.   Lynn Viehl had shared that she was paid a $50,000 advance and earned an additional $24,517.36 in profit after taxes.   It was estimated that the gross revenue for the publishing was $450,000.00.   Bransford points out that the profit for the publisher takes into consideration all of the expenses and that bestsellers make up for the majority of books that don’t make any money (or may actually lose money for publishers).   Of course, for authors to get a greater chunk of the profit, they’ll have to move away from the traditional publishing model.

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Edan Lupicka writing for The Millions points out the hazards of giving out awards because of gender or ethnicity.   It’s demeaning to those groups of writers whose talent and skill should speak and be judged for themselves.   (Via @glecharles).   But Lupicka isn’t certain on how to erase gender or race bias but lamenting the lack of diversity amongst winners of prestigious awards can lead to awards given on something other than merit or somehow diminishing the work of the author based on gender or ethnicity.

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Persona Non Data tackles the issue of publishing and pricing. It’s a pretty fascinating article and I definitely recommend interested parties take a look.   PND was in the airline industry and each seat had a different value.   Books are not priced differently but are subject to a band of pricing.   PND then goes on to talk about researchers of the music industry and students’ sensitivity to price:

The authors also experimented with a subscription type model that had a fixed price component with a per-use fee, and this model appeared to be more effective at maximizing revenue and value for both retailer and consumer.

Google Books is based on a subscription based model.   The key to an author’s increased revenue from subscription based models is volume. In other words, from a pool of subscribers, the author gets revenue by virtue of being in the pool from a large number of people who would have never bought her book in the first place.   Depending on the subscription price, this has real interest to me as a reader.

In self publishing setting, authors could set up coops to have effectively the same result.

Related posts:

1. Harlequin Horizons, What’s In It For You
2. Wednesday Midday Links: Quartet Press Closes
3. Wednesday Midday Links RoundUp: Big Changes at Simon & Schuster

Harlequin Horizons is a vanity press where aspiring authors pay to have their books published and put into stores, whether it is a physical retail location like your local Borders or it is online retailer like Amazon.

Authors using this service may or may not have their books professionally edited. Some authors who are self published have very high quality standards like self published author Moriah Jovan whose epic romance books aren’t well suited for traditional publishing. Other self published authors or authors who use a vanity press will not put as much care into their books as Ms. Jovan. Therefore, the quality that you read from books published through Harlequin Horizons can be very uneven.

Q: What do you mean by traditional publishing?

Harlequin is not the publisher, the author is the publisher and therefore solely responsible for the quality of the content. In traditional publishing, authors go through a rigorous vetting process. First, their works must make it past a person called an agent. The agent then has to sell this book to publishers. Only a very small percentage of writers become published authors through this route. The hope, of course, is that through the traditional publishing process someone is weeding out the poor quality books or improving on the quality before the story gets to you, the reader.

Through the vetting process, however, books that publishers don’t seem commercially viable can be excluded from publication.   Some writers become frustrated with this and turn away from traditional publishing.

Q: I am a writer who wants to be published. Is Harlequin Horizons right for me.

Traditional Publishing Route

Only you can answer this. If you want to make a career out of writing, the traditional path is through acquiring an agent and selling to a print publishing house such as Harlequin, Random House, Penguin, and the like. Some writers cannot sell to these publishers because their books do not conform to the guidelines of a traditional publishing house, whether it does not conform for quality reasons or some other concern. Not all publishing houses offer the same advantages in terms of ability to market and sell your book. This is true for agents as well. You will need to do hard research when shopping for an agent.

Digital Press Publishing Route

Another path to making a career out of writing is through digital publishing. Under the digital publishing model, you do not get an advance but in exchange you get a higher royalty. (If you don’t know what these terms mean, please educate yourself by reading up). As with anything you need to do your research to ascertain what are the most reputable digital publishers out there.

Self Publishing Route

A final path to making a career out of writing can be through self publishing. Self publishing is where you, the writer, controls all the aspects of your work and you sell directly to the public or through retailers. There are many self publishing programs out there.

Vanity presses are for the self publisher who wants to pay someone to do the work for them. Vanity presses can be a costly and non profitable form of publishing for a writer.

Please do your research before committing to a venture like this. It is possible that self publishing or vanity press publishing is the right solution for you, but you must do your research. Do cost comparisons. Sit down and figure out how many books you would need to sell to make your investment worthwhile and the likelihood you can sell that number of books.

You can read more about vanity presses at Writer Beware blog or visiting the forums at Absolute Write or Romance Divas.

Some of the commenters also have important information regarding self publishing and vanity press publishing and the dangers therein.

Related posts:

1. Malle Vallik, Harlequin’s Digital Director, Answers Questions on Harlequin Horizons
2. Harlequin Horizons: Shortsighted or Farseeing?
3. Tuesday Midday Links: Harlequin Horizon’s, A self publishing venture

• Will the books be sold through the eharlequin store?
• Will there be any HH branding on the book, either on the cover or in the copyright page?
• Are you (Harlequin) concerned about brand dilution?

This is Ms. Vallik’s response. She said she would be around to answer a few questions.

1.              The books will not be branded Harlequin.

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

3.              The copyright is not associated with Harlequin.

First, why is Harlequin launching a self-publishing business? Bowker reported in 2008 that more titles were published through self-publishing than traditional publishers. Self-publishing is a fast growing and vibrant part of the publishing industry today. Harlequin has decided to provide a romance focused self-publishing business for those that choose to go down the self-publishing road.

Brand – Harlequin put its name on the Harlequin Horizons site to clearly indicate this is a romance self-publishing site. The books published through Harlequin Horizons  will not carry traditional Harlequin branding. The self-published author will be the brand and the Horizon double H logo will appear on the spine of the book. Harlequin is the gold standard in romance and that will not be compromised. Readers will not confuse Horizons books with traditional Harlequin books.

Distribution – Self-publishing has a different distribution model than traditional publishing. Horizons books will not be carried nor appear in traditional Harlequin distribution. The self-published book will not appear next to a traditionally published Harlequin title.

The Harlequin Horizons site very clearly indicates it is a self-publishing business and that those who choose to publish with Horizons will not receive the traditional Harlequin distribution and marketing support.

Many authors are choosing to self-publish. There are a number of reasons to select self-publishing including as a way to see their work in print –   to give copies as gifts, to have a bound copy to help in finding an agent, or simply as a keepsake. Harlequin is providing a service to those choosing to self-publish with a leading organization in this field, Author Solutions.

To recap, self-publishing is an option for those who want to put their story into print. The Harlequin brand will not be on these titles. The Harlequin Horizons site is very transparent that it offers   self-publishing services.

Is Harlequin still publishing aspiring authors: Of course we are!   We remain committed to reading and acquiring manuscripts from aspiring authors.

Related posts:

1. Harlequin Horizons: Shortsighted or Farseeing?
2. Tuesday Midday Links: Harlequin Horizon’s, A self publishing venture
3. Sharon Shinn answers your questions