Weekly Wrap-up and Holiday Madness

This has been a slow week for almost everyone in the U.S. except sports teams -- and their fans - and shoppers. Most businesses closed down for the week on Wednesday and their employees looked forward to a long weekend of food, drink, family, more food and sports. For some, shopping was included. First you had Black Friday. For those of you not familiar with Black Friday, think about the biggest mosh pit you can, add in deals on toys every child wants or electronics the man in your life desires or that particular pair of shoes you've been lusting after. It's usually the most active and profitable retail day in the US. All that's left is Cyber Monday, the day most employers know their employees will be using company time and computers to shop the internet for the best buys around.

So, what does this have to do with publishing? Well, it means there wasn't much going on in the publishing world this week. While Harlequin has followed through with its announcement to change the name of Harlequin Horizons, there hasn't been response from those organizations that had been quick to re-cast Harlequin as a vanity press. According to Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware, instead of HH, we have DellArte Press. There are a few sites referencing this, including SFWA, Dear Author (noting that the new site has the same feel as the HH site but that the Harlequin name is no longer present, something Harlequin had promised), and the Ripoff Report where a call was placed to DellArte and the representative they spoke with claimed that J. K. Rowling started off as a self-published author after having Harry Potter rejected by so many publishers. On Nov. 25th, Publisher's Weekly posted a short article noting the name change and ending with, "Harlequin did not respond to a request for comment this morning on the name change or if it was back in the good graces of the RWA. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers have called for Harlequin to completely cut ties to the self-pub program."

The beginning of the holiday season can also signal a slow down in publishing. Some agents close to submissions until after the first of the year. This is to give them time to catch up with their query stack and try to tie up the last of the details for client sales (e.g. Jenny Rappaport). Some magazines close their reading periods as well. So, if you have something ready to send out, be sure to check on-line to confirm whether the agent or publisher is still open for subs. A great place to check for sf/f is Ralan.com.

But the holiday season brings something totally different to writers. We're observers. We try, or at least I do, to take in the world around us. Think about it. When else do we see people willing to do just about anything to get that one toy their kid is begging for for Christmas. You know the one. The one the manufacturer made only three of. But little Junior just has to have it or he'll die. Don't deny it. We've all been there, either as frazzled parents becoming ever more panicked as store after store tells us they're sold out or as the demanding kid who knows Christmas won't come because that an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle! won't be under the tree (if you don't get the reference, check out the movie A Christmas Story).

So, what is the most crazy or touching or just "OMG what were they thinking?" moment you've had during holiday shopping and how would you work that into a story? It can be an incident, a person, even a family tradition.

Your Next Stop: The Twilight Zone

This past week in publishing has reminded me of the Twilight Zone. I kept expecting to see Rod Serling standing there, telling me I've just entered that new dimension "not of sight and sound but of mind." The only problem is I don't think a mind was involved in this sudden detour we've taken, at least not a sound mind. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm talking about the latest debacle to rock publishing -- Harlequin Horizons.

A little background first. Earlier this month, Harlequin announced the formation of Carina Press, a digital only publisher that will not offer advances but will pay royalties. This surprised me -- and I wasn't the only one. Just check some of the other blogs -- in that RWA doesn't recognize publishers that don't offer advances of at least $1,000 as "eligible publishers". Because this disqualifies almost all ebook publishers, it has raised the question of whether or not RWA needs to re-examines their criteria. The fact Harlequin was starting an e-book imprint raised more than a few eyebrows and had a number of people wondering if this might force RWA to revisit the issue of whether or not ebook publishers should be considered "eligible" or not.

Then the shoe dropped and boy did it land with a thud. A very big and a very loud thud. Harlequin announced it would be teaming up with Author Solutions to form Harlequin Horizons, their self-publication imprint. According to Publishers Weekly, [t]he imprint will recruit writers in two ways: authors whose manuscripts have been rejected by Harlequin will be made aware of the Harlequin Horizons option and authors who sign with Author Solutions will be given the opportunity to be published under the Harlequin Horizons imprint. According to an Author Solutions spokesperson, the imprint will offer special services aimed at the romance market, including unique marketing and distribution services. All services are on a pay-for-service basis.

The response has been fast and definitive. RWA has, at least for the moment, revoked Harlequin's "eligible" status. SFWA, calling Harlequin Horizons (now known by the initials of HH which will be on the spine of any book printed by them. Gee, that won't be confusing will it, since Harlequin Historicals have been nicknamed HHs for quite a while.) a vanity press, said the following: "Under normal circumstances, the addition of a new imprint by a major house would be cause for celebration in the professional writing community. Unfortunately, these are not normal circumstances. . . Until such time as Harlequin changes course, and returns to a model of legitimately working with authors instead of charging authors for publishing services, SFWA has no choice but to be absolutely clear that NO titles from ANY Harlequin imprint will be counted as qualifying for membership in SFWA."

Publishers Weekly reports that Mystery Writers of America (MWA) also responded to the news with a threat of sanctions. "An e-bulletin prepared by Margery Flax on behalf of Mystery Writers of America’s National Board of Directors said MWA was “deeply concerned about the troubling conflict-of-interest issues created by these ventures, particularly the potentially misleading way they are marketed to aspiring writers.” The MWA was refering to both Harlequin Horizons and the eHarlequin Manuscript Critique service, also aimed at aspiring writers. MWA said it would consider removing Harlequin from its list of approved publishers, declining membership applications from Harlequin authors, and barring Harlequin books from entering the Edgar Awards unless Harlequin agreed to discuss changing these ventures by December 15."

There are a number of other blogs commenting on HH. I recommend you check out the following for more information:

• Janet Reid, Literary Agent -- Also check out her blogs on Tuesday and Wednesday prior to this link for further info on the topic.
• Kristen Nelson's Pub Rants -- Ms. Nelson also has earlier entries on the topic as well.
• Jackie Kessler -- This is one of the most detailed descriptions of what is going on and why it is something we should be concerned about.
• Victoria Strauss at the Writer Beware Blog has several posts on the topic as well.
• Smart bitches, Trashy Books has generated as of Saturday night 719 comments to their post about HH, including comments from Nora Roberts, who is scratching her head over the latest developments just like the rest of us.
  

Read them. Think about them. Then decide for yourself if this latest move by Harlequin is in the best interest of writers and readers or is just another ill-conceived method of raising revenue for the publisher.

Why, you ask, does the creation of HH bother me so much? It comes down to trust. Trust between Harlequin and the authors submitting to it and trust between Harlequin and its readers. The books "published" by HH won't be edited or proofed the way a mainline Harlequin book will be. Nor will they be distributed the same or marketed. There is no guarantee they will find their way to any bookstore. All that is there is a carrot for any author willing to pay the money -- and it isn't cheap -- to be published by HH that their book might be picked up by Harlequin if it sells enough...the same promise they make about the ebooks published by Carina Press. Sorry, but I can put my book up on my website and Amazon and sell it myself, without having to pay the money to Harlequin.

But there's another breach of trust between Harlequin and its current authors and this, too, has been mentioned in some of the other blogs. It is my understanding that Harlequin requires its authors to do nothing that might dilute the brand. Isn't that exactly what Harlequin has done with HH? And doesn't that, in turn, constitute a breach in their agreement with the authors?

As for the readers, they've come to expect a certain product from Harlequin. Using the HH logo instead of the Harlequin name isn't going to keep them from identifying books published by Harlequin Horizons with the Harlequin brand. The same quality isn't going to be there. I guarantee it. If it were, the book wouldn't be rejected by Harlequin and referred to HH in the first time. Unless, of course, the whole purpose of this is to make money and screw the authors and reading public.

It is going to be interesting to see where this goes over the next few weeks and months. For those of you out there considering submitting to Harlequin, I recommend you keep you eyes open and your ear to the ground. There is no telling where this might end. I leave you with the introduction to the fourth season of The Twilight Zone: "You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas; you've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone."