Vixenwriter

Professionalism. Okay, let’s talk about being a professional for a moment since it’s the topic of the moment (super fabulous discussion over at Smart Bitches, by the way - as per usual because they are smart cookies as well as smart bitches)

Professionalism - I get my manuscripts in on time and I do my level best to be sure they’re clean and will be easy to edit. I reply to communication from my editor, agent, publisher and readers in a timely manner. In my communication with them, I remain professional - I don’t use text speak (although I do say “dude” to my agent and Angie but not at first until they knew me). I work my ass off to promote my books in a professional manner. I don’t drive by promo spam on loops. I don’t make every comment about me and my books. I work hard to sell well and to be responsive to my market and my readers. In public I don’t slag off other authors, I don’t slag off reviewers or reviews, I don’t slag off publishers, editors, etc. I may express dismay over something like the recent RWA ruling or when a letter shows up in RWR or RT slamming gays or erotic romance or what have you, but I’m going to try very hard to do so without getting raw and crossing lines even while being professional. I NEVER drag readers into my professional issues.

I show up for promotional events early. I do my part in promoting the event. I bring treats. I work well with others at events. I am polite and orderly and I act according to the situation. For example - at Babeland I did a reading with several other wonderful erotic romance authors. This is an adult toystore, I read sex scenes. At Borders I wouldn’t generally do a reading but if I did, I’d choose an action scene or an emotional scene without sex. At a conference I’d also read non-sex scenes unless the reading was specifically geared toward sex writing.

I always dress up for promotional events because well, it’s about image and to a certain extent, Lauren Dane is a character. Some people won’t like that or don’t agree but to me, it’s true. When I am Lauren Dane at a promotional event, I am not the person I am at home. I’m not going to yell at my kids or wear sweats and show up with my hair shoved in a messy pony tail and wear flip flops. I am there in a context. I put on makeup, make sure my nails look good, etc. I have a few outfits I love, most of them are vintage looking because I love the way 40s and 50s inspired clothing looks on me. Feminine and sexy but not overblown. I feel pretty and comfortable in it. If it’s a signing and I’ll be there a while, I try to go for comfortable, a pretty sweater, nice pants, etc. I thought in the future I’d probably dress up more for signings though (although I’ll still bring treats, I promise).

There’ve been some rumblings in romancelandia about how “unprofessional” it is to dress up in costumes for promotional events and I disagree. Firstly, as I said, I believe we’re all in costume anyway and secondly, because dressing up is fun and if an author can do it and feel comfortable with it, why not? I resent the idea that Liz Maverick and Marianne Mancusi dressing up like their characters to promote their books and the fabulous new Shomi line at Dorchester was “unprofessional” and I really, really resent both women being referred to as prostitutes or “pedophile lure” because they took on the anime/manga look of the covers from the line.

Here’s a picture of their outfits at the signing. I hope they don’t mind that I’m putting it up here. They’re both clearly of age, neither of them looks slutty or “pedophile” bait. They’re clearly promoting their books and the characters (BTW, the covers of the Shomi books are fabulous).

Mainly at a signing, you sit at a table. People come to you with your book and you sign it, chat and really, it’s a very cool thing that anyone actually wants your book much less takes the time to come and get your signature. If Maverick and Mancusi felt comfortable in their costumes and didn’t get so drunk they couldn’t stand or puked in a trash can, I can’t see why anyone else would care what two authors out of 400 did.

When you’re in public, don’t get so drunk you pop someone in the nose. Don’t flash your girls at the waiter. Don’t tell Nora she’s wrong when she says she likes Heather Locklear. Don’t treat the staff with disrespect. Don’t snub people at the book signing. Be gracious, be who you are but with filters, laugh, enjoy and worry about your own behavior. Worrying about whether or not reviewers are allowed at RWA Nationals, worrrying about whether or not Sherrilyn Kenyon wears a swan on her head, worrying about Liz Maverick’s skirt length - it’s all just, well, none of your business and frankly, a waste of your time. For the record, I’ve been with Sherilyn Kenyon at a few cons with signings and you know what, her line is always long. People, READERS LOVE her. I’ve never seen her be anything less than gracious to her fans either and let me go on a limb and say a swan on her head isn’t really turning readers away from her or romance.

Romance is a HUGE genre. That’s our strength, not our detriment. There is room for the feather boas, the pink hats, the chiffon dresses as well as the costumes like Mancusi and Maverick wore - and everything in between. We all approach our writing differently. I don’t expect everyone to think the way I do about their careers. But I certainly don’t expect to be called a streetwalker because my view is different either. Professional does not mean bland, it doesn’t mean hateful attacks on the morals of the people who do things differently either. We can all do our thing without the sky falling.

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.

No Thursday Thirteen for me today. I wrote until midnight last night and our internet was out from 2 pm until this morning so I’ll do it next week.

Anyway, I’m done being pissed at the RWA. I’m waiting to hear back from my publishers who are there and then I’ll write a letter. I can’t see renewing next year but it’s all water under the bridge and truly, aside from the ability to advertise in Romance Sells, it’s not like I’ve gotten a lot of benefits from the RWA anyway. Although I did love that article on writing from Nora in the RWR and I do read at least one thing in it every month. I’m always impressed with something another author says - Cathy Maxwell’s interview a few issues back for instance, I’ve never read her before but after that interview I went out and picked up a few of her books because wow, the woman is wicked smart.

I wish we could all just focus on the important stuff and not act like a bunch of sixth grade girls creating private clubs to keep people out. But I can’t control other people, I can only control what I do and so whatever. I was a romance author before I joined the RWA and I’ll be one after I let my membership lapse as well.

I’m over at The Bradford Bunch today talking about characters. Contest goodness as well…

The abominable heat of yesterday and the day before has broken, yay! It’s like 75 now instead of 100.

43,816 / 70,000 (62.6%)

Wolf Unbound - up 2720

And then after I got that far, I gave in and wrote this opening scene that’s been poking me in the brain. This one is post apocalyptic with a romance sub-plot.

1,300 / 90,000 (1.4%)

Sisters of Mercy - up 1300

41,096 / 70,000 (58.7%)

Wolf Unbound - start of Day 4 - up 3063 from yesterday! Wheee!

Smidgen of the day:

His father nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. I don’t know what to say, son. I’ve just never imagined this situation. I like it very much that this Tegan makes you happy but I’ve never met a werewolf before much less had one in my family. I’d be shocked if you married a Protestant girl, this is way out of my league.”

Now - so I go back and forth on the whole issue of RWA membership because of some of the attitudes from the National Organization regarding epublishing, small presses and erotic romance in general. But I do like what the chapters offer and I’m of the opinion, or I have been, that the voices within the ranks should speak up. So when my dues came last month I paid them and now I’m sorry.

I am because on the eve of the national conference (one I am SO glad I didn’t spend a dime to attend) they’ve unveiled two of the most exclusionary new rules I’ve seen from them in a while. The first one is how publishers become RWA recognized. In the last few years several epublishers have received recognition: Ellora’s Cave was the first, then Trisk (a very controversial decision) and then Loose Id and Samhain. This agitated many people who seem to think the RWA should be about excluding people to make those members feel better about just how special they are because others aren’t.

To wit - the new board ruling on publisher recognition unveiled today:

Commencing with RWA’s 2008 National Conference, for official publisher participation, a romance publisher must verify to RWA that it: (1) is not a Subsidy Publisher or Vanity Publisher; (2) has been releasing romance novels via national distribution for no fewer than three years, with no fewer than two full-length romance novels or novel-length romance anthologies published in each of three consecutive years; (3) provides per book advances of at least $1,000 for all books; and (4) pays all authors participating in an anthology an advance of at least $500.

and they give us this little “note”
Note:

The Board wishes to note that a $1,000 advance for a novel is an extremely small sum. It is, however, a minimal indicator that a publisher is invested in an author’s career to the degree that RWA can reasonably allocate its conference resources to that publisher, as some consideration has been paid for use of an author’s rights.

What they’ve done is effectively pushed all epublishers out the door. Firstly, ones like Samhain who do give nominal advances and go to print but who’ve not been open for three years yet and then for everyone else with the 1K advance requirement.

I don’t talk about money in public. It’s crass and it’s like talking about how great your books are or how special your writing is or whatever, it’s tacky. BUT, I will say because it’s germane here, I make good money with epublishing. I can’t compare it to NY because my NY book isn’t out yet. But I am a romance writer for two very good romance publishers other than Harlequin (and hey, Harlequin is the grand damme so hee!). Moreover, is that all that makes a romance author? Money? Because what about those authors who struggle and don’t sell through but do so with a big publisher? Are they suddenly not romance writers because something they wrote didn’t resonate with enough readers to make them count?

And the advance stuff is another total blind spot. Look I’m not saying I hate advances, I love them, LOL. But it’s not the only indicator that a publisher is invested in an author. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the size of the advance is such a small part of it. Look at publishers who do pay small advances but who do a lot of promotion for their authors and give their authors many avenues to write different things and explore. Dorchester does this. Look at Shomi! It’s a great line but totally experimental. They’ve done a lot of advertising for it though. My biggest point is, let the authors make the decisions based on what they feel is most important. Aside from fraudulent places charging authors to print books, etc, this stuff is all smoke and mirrors.

How is this reorganization to close the “club” doors on epublishers good for authors in any way? This is an organization made for romance authors. If they only mean those people the board thinks are worthy, they should say so and stop using my sales numbers to make romance look better. Stop taking my fucking dues then, damn it.

The continual moving of the goal posts to keep out the “undesirables” from RWA is so obvious and so ridiculous, I must admit I’m flabbergasted (and I love the word flabbergasted!) at the absolute, in your face bias I see. And yep, it’s bias. It’s bigotry from people who have no idea what it takes to be a working writer so they assume everyone faces the same struggles and has the same goals with their writing. I want to know how those board members voted on this stuff. Does anyone know? Does it have to be unanimous?

And the PAN stuff, not surprised. More of the same. As if by shutting people out it protects them. Like segregation protected people. It’s backwards logic but sadly, it’s pretty common.

So the five author anthology that has my quickie from last year, Sudden Desire is now out in print!

Sexy Summer Fun features stories from me, Katherine Kingston, Hannah Murray, Nikki Soarde and Ravyn Wilde! To celebrate, I’m going to run a contest (because they are fun and I can). Tell me what your favorite romantic summer activity is! Easy yes? Just leave them in the comments to this post and I’ll choose a winner for the paper anthology at 3 pm pacific on Saturday.

And a quick comment on the RWA PAN/PRO thing: Okay so it’s not quick so I’m going to put it behind a text cut. If you want to read it, click the read more text…

Read the rest of this entry ?

So I learned of this last week but had to keep it quiet until today - Samhain has announced it will have a named line with Kensington! Essentially, it’ll be like Brava or Aphrodisia - a unique line of trade paperbacks (for now, they may do MM in the future) and are looking to see the first releases later next year. Congratulations to Samhain for making such a huge step for small publishers everywhere. I can’t wait to see how it goes.