I know the Harlequin gets a lot of bad submissions the reason is that they are the last major publishing house in the industry to take unagented manscripts and this means that you get people that have no idea how much their own book stinks so it can painful to read these books. This does not mean that the solutiion is to allow these messes to be published if the author has enough money to do so. I have a big worry that this action is going to bring down the entire company and this sadden me very much. The reason is that it has been the only place that publishes books that are outside the norm of light happy Regencies, a trend that needs to die right now, so with this action reader may lose their only publisher that seems to care what their readers think and this may be the biggest loss of all.

Some lovely, well-meaning soul cobbles together a not-ready-for-publication manuscript and pays her $600 and gets her Harlequin Horizons books.

So far we’ve mostly been considering the book that’s been rejected because it … isn’t very good. That’s the great majority of them, true.

But consider the case of the book that’s rejected by Harlequin for some other reason than “stinks on ice.” There are other reasons that books get rejected, after all, ranging from “Doesn’t quite fit our line,” to “We’ve already bagged our limit.” Suppose there’s an author whose manuscript could have gone to Pocket for a nice advance, garnering sales, gaining fans, and launching a career? Suppose that author takes the bait, plunks down a few grand, and gets seventy-five sales out of it.

Where’s the upside for anyone in that scenario?

Also, and this is real-world, I see it every day: The authors who, instead of sitting home and working on their next books instead spend all their free time, energy, and loose cash on promotion and marketing that’s pre-doomed to failure (they still get the same seventy-five sales). Where’s their professional growth and career going to come from?

Readers won’t notice or care about the vanity-published books. They aren’t in the stream of commerce right now. They aren’t going to be, either. Unless and until the reading public develops a taste for raw slush. When that happens, within two weeks the bookstores will have their Unedited Slush sections right down front.

But I don’t see it happening. No one reads slush for fun. No one reads slush a second time unless they’re getting paid to do it. Not even if they’re told that one or two out of every hundred will be a gem.

What we need to concentrate on here are the authors. RWA and MWA, as author-advocate organizations, are on top of this. And we need to think about the corrosive effect on the publishers who follow this path. No good can come of it.

This reeks of top-down, of a “study” maybe done by a management consultancy.

I don’t know or much care about the source and system of the decision-making, and won’t speculate about that. I don’t think the truth will–or can–ever be known.

I care deeply about the outcome and impacts, to be more fully revealed in the fullness of time. The past 48 hours have been very interesting. And painful for so many.

One thing you said is certain: This reeks!

- Ann Somerville and her Darshian Tales (I’m getting into her Samhain series now as well) at lulu.com (brilliant epic fantasy, with m/m that is simply part of the story and not used for cheap thrills). Actually, I think you can read all of the Darshian Tales for free on her website (where I Highly recommend reading A Fluffy Tale), but they’re LONG! – and good.

- Book View Café: loads of previously published sf&f authors collectively offering backlist novels and newly written anthologies in ebook form (Sherwood Smith will join soon, yay!) – reads like a who’s who of (mostly) female sf writing (they even have Ursula LeGuin in there – although only as a comic author/artist) ^^ – they’ve just released a collective short story backlist anthology and in December there’ll be a steampunk anthology with all new short stories. You can also read many of the novels in serial instalments free on their site.

- Wave without a Shore, where C.J. Cherryh, Jane Fancher and Lynn Abbey are working on their own ebook press for their backlist. Haven’t opened yet though.

- Inkalicious where Michele Jerott Albert is selling five of her out-of-print romance suspense novels as ebooks and you get the first one completely free (which is why I discovered her).

All these ebooks are drm-free. All great value for the money spent.

I’d have loved to have been a fly-on-the-wall at the HQN meetings where HH was discussed. Here’s my guess, though.

I don’t think it was discussed at Harlequin at all. I think Torstar did a study – where can we squeeze more milk out of the cash cow, the only subsidiary we have that is doing well – and they came up with Carina and HQN Ho. (HH is Harlequin Historicals, not Horizon).
They got the marketing people and accountants and financiers onboard, then they told the editing staff. By then it was a done deal and no amount of “it won’t work that way” was going to work. You took it or you left. Period.
This reeks of top-down, of a “study” maybe done by a management consultancy. It sometimes stinks to be a management consultant. You’re suggestion is supposed to be a starting point, then the company you did the study for takes it and runs with it, instead of doing more specific studies and consulting the people who work in the area.
Just like HQN did with Ho.