A Last Bit About The RWA Flap
Jul
12
2007

After this I’m done with it, but Angie James, my editor who kicks butt, takes names and makes me a better writer each time she edits me posted this on the author loop and also at her blog and as she’s given her permission to forward, I’m going to post it here.

Yes, Samhain will lose recognition after conference. It doesn’t change anything for our business or with the deal with Kensington, nor our IPS print program. We’ll still pay royalties on time and do business as usual 😉 For us, it means we can’t do publisher type things at nationals next year. Perhaps someday things will change and we’ll be back at RWA, doing editor appointments and so forth, but until that time, we continue on as always. RWA is an organization for authors to network and learn from one another. As the guidelines have been set up, removing our recognition doesn’t take away your ability to utilize it as such and the benefits of RWA remain for those authors who wish to enjoy them.

Of course it’s disappointing to us that RWA is unable to accomodate small presses at this time, but it’s understandable that they must do what they believe is best for the authors and the organization.

However, it’s my belief that the allure of epublishing is our ability to sign a wide variety of books and genres without a huge monetary risk. Offering even 1000 dollars advance would remove our ability to do that. Our gain from being approved is not as significant as our gain from being free to take on books because we love them, not because they’ll earn out their advance. Once we enter into the world of larger dollar amount advances, we become a publisher who can’t take the publishing risks that we do now, never knowing what will hit and what will…not so much.

I know it’s important to some authors that their publisher be recognized and that there will be some who are disappointed by the
way things have gone and choose to seek publication elsewhere, and that saddens me because at the heart of things, I think we’re a pretty damn good publisher. We’ll move forward from here just as we would have had we been able to eep “recognition”. Nothing changes. Samhain will remain the same publisher next week, when the policy goes into effect and we’re no longer “recognized” as we are this week.

Permission to forward granted

Angela James, Executive Editor
www.samhainpublishing.com

I think this response is another example of what class truly is. I think some others could learn a lot from this.

Bottom line, I feel no less validated in my writing for Ellora’s Cave and Samhain than I do Harlequin. I got my start in epublishing and I have an amazing amount of freedom. I am a romance author and my publishers are romance publishers. In the end, it’s what I think that counts.

5 comments to “A Last Bit About The RWA Flap”

  1. Bev
    July 12th, 2007 at 8:00 pm · Link

    I’m just so sad that RWA took that stand. It really doesn’t make any sense unless they feel there are a few e-publishers out there that don’t merit recognition but can’t single them out. Who knows. I will still continue to buy from Samhain as I have read several very good books since they have been extant.



  2. Seeley deBorn
    July 12th, 2007 at 8:40 pm · Link

    ePublishers sell books. Consumers only have so much money to spend. If they are buying ebooks, they aren’t buying print.

    The old broads club’s bottom line being threatened.



  3. heather
    July 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am · Link

    That is really really stupid. I was wondering what was going on….

    hugs
    ~~heather



  4. Jo
    July 13th, 2007 at 9:28 am · Link

    As a reader (and a Brit) I couldn’t care less about RWA, and whether or not a publisher is a member of RWA never crosses my mind. I started buying e-books from Elloras Cave and when my favourite authors started being published by Samhain I followed them and found other authors I liked. As long as e-publishers publish books I want to read I’ll carry on buying and the RWA can carry on doing whatever it is it does.



  5. rhian
    July 14th, 2007 at 8:12 am · Link

    This is probably a dumb question – but do you think the top e-publishers will now band together to form their own writers’ support organization and conferences?