Re: RWA's latest

I am going to get more rampantly opinionated ehre, feel free to 
ignore me :)  But I think I do have a fairly form grasp on the some 
of the facts, if not about Tsaba (never heard of the before) then the 
outsiders take on RWA.


>   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.

I specified "overt and not clearly insane".  Given the attitudes the 
are allowed to have about erotica and homosexuality I see this one as 
small change.  Some of those (mostly now retracted) positions would 
not have looked out of place in the DSM-IV (IMHO).


>   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.

I am a romance writer and they do not represnet me and never have--
nor have they wanted to.  I see them as an albeit large niche group 
representing writing of traditional romance categories aimed for 
large presses--hostile to the small press and epublishing and utterly 
disinterested in self-publishers (all of these groups together 
disdainfully).  I strongly object to the idea that they could 
represent me in any way or that what I write is not romance.  I am so 
outraged by the RWA I had to ban myself from blogging about them 
because the froth was ruining my keyboard.  So I simply can't work up 
much surprise here.


>   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.

I couldn't care toffee for the Ritas and have yet to meet a reader 
who is not also a writer who knew what they were.  I think they feign 
more influence than they have, writers just like to have these things 
on their resumes, a pat on the back from that group of their peers 
and a chance to wear a nice frock.  Besides this was not the Ritas, 
it was a small contest run by a semi-independent chapter, largely for 
the purpose of fund-rasing I should think.  

 
>   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 

So does Tsaba house charge any fees or not?  So far my reading of it 
is that they do but it is very much less than clear (being evaded?)  
That makes it not patently absurd to me.  Debatable, perhaps.  
Arguable not quite right even, but not actionably insane.  Some of us 
apply Yog's law rather stringently.  

 
>   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.

Business as usual for them, then?  You might ask the Romance Novelist 
Association their opinion--I am not sure it is actually counted 
differently in the UK.


>   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.   

Differences, yes--also similarities.  I would note their are some 
pretty successful self-publishing romance writers too.  I buy L K 
Campbell regularly.  Being called a vanity press isn't really a 
scarlet letter these days if it ever was?

 
>... 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.

Frankly if being homophobes won't do it, defining epublishers as 
vanity won't do it, forbidding ass-cheeks on cover art won't do it, I 
doubt Tsaba house will.  RWA's membership pretty much bullet proof 
because there will always be more hopeful romance authors to join up 
and pay up.

RWA has always acted this way, and I bet they always will.  For those 
who have been watching this is a less than usually ridiculous 
position.  I think it has to be understood how fundamnetally 
conservative the ruling body is, planted formly in a popular sub-
genre attached to some middle-American values.  I doubt there is much 
interest, let alone aoutrage, amongst the membership.

Oh, that and if Tsaba house does charge fees many people with call 
them vanity or subsidy or cooperative publishing--choosing their word 
based on their prevailing attitude to authors taking on the costs of 
publishing.  My attitude is that if an author is going to to that it 
should be transperant and it is going to affect access to 
snooty 'prestige' event like this.  I couldn't care less about being 
barred from RWA activities but those who aspire to be in that room 
need to bear in mind their requirements (i.e. their prejudices).




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