Re: Re: RWA's latest

  From: Emily 


  --- In [email protected], Chris Smith <smith@...> wrote:

  > == Subsidy => requiring the author to pay costs associated with  > editing, production or publishing of the work.
  > 
  > == Not subsidy => requiring the author to pay costs associated  > with the creation (the actual writing) of the work.

  And this is a key issue. As it happens I am strongly in support of self- and co-operative publishing. I run a blog called 'POD People'  the reviewed self-published work and am working on a post on my  romance blog about the advantages for authors of working in a co-op 
  like Alinar Publishing.

  However it is a widely used and not unreasonable efintion that if  the author pays money for anything beyond the stamp or internet connect that sends the manuscript to the press, that crosses the line  from third party to subsidy. And if RWA does not accept subsidy and they define it along those lines--well maybe that is their prerogative. There's a whole lot of other stuff they don;t accept either and there's a pointed to stop banging on the door and accept it isn' the club for you, I think?

  I should probably clarify that by saying I wasn' sure whether Tsaba was vanity of not I didn' mean I didn' know wether they were 'crap' or not. I don' see vanity/subsidy/self as a derogatory term and I 
  think vanity is the term RWA uses. I *do* think presses should be as clear as possibel about exactly what they are and I am frustrated that this doesn't seem to be happening. I also do think that self and co-op published works should be allegable for prizes and judged on their merits but RWA is hardly the only game in town to exclude them.

  That's my 2c anyway. It seems to me that ommunications on both sides have been muddled and even appear emotional and obfuscatory at times. If Tsaba charge the author, they charge the author. RWA (a group with which I happen to have huge issues) get to use any overt and not clearly insane definition that they want to, surely?


  Emily,

  I don't deny you your right to an opinion, but I feel you have taken a very black and white view of the issue.    

  No organisation is free to take any decision it wants.   It must be constrained by law first, and then by its place in its own marketplace.   It must also recognise its powers and the risks where those powers are misused.

  The RWA is an organisation that aims to represent authors in particular in the Romance genre.   If it freely represents all such authors there can be no argument;  if it does not their case for exclusion must be above reproach.

  Because as part of its remit it runs a number of awards which appear to have an influence within the publishing and book marketing industry the need for demonstrable fairness is high.

  The issue now being raised is clearly not new, but by labelling a publisher - Tsaba House - as a subsidy publisher when that is patently absurd is a serious matter that obviously has serious legal implications in that it is risks damaging Tsaba House's reputation in the business world of books.

  The RWA looks, from the UK, to have acted pettily, without understanding of the issues of how payment divides the commerncial publisher from the vanity press, and to have a hidden agenda.

  There are differences, of course, also between co-op publishing - which is a worthy and successful approach for many authors - and both commercial and vanity presses.   

  Part of the problem is that modern technology has blurred a lot of lines, but largely in the direction of commercial publishers in general expecting more preparation work to be done by the author than ever.   For RWA to imagine it can work on outdated definitions and inconsistent decisions is sure to bring it into disrepute itself and lead to a hemorraging of support and membership.

  The problem is that until that reduces its status it can create a lot of problems.

  Joseph Harris
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