Remember when I said Monday that changes to the RITA contest this year might also affect the Golden Heart? Here’s how.
Last year, changes to RWA publisher recognition occurred so that an author’s ability to enter PAN (the Published Author Network of RWA) was no longer tied to whether or not an author’s publisher met RWA-set standards. Instead, now, an author can join PAN independently of her publisher’s ability to host official editor appointments and publisher Spotlights at National, yada, yada, and her requirements for joining PAN are instead based on achieving a set minimum dollar amount of advance/royalties combination on one novel or novella. This change enabled me, myself and Moi (all three, I assure you) to join PAN last spring. Yipsee-doodle.
Suddenly, I found myself unable to enter the Golden Heart (which didn’t bother me in the least). I was thrilled not to enter the Golden Heart. After all, the year I finaled, I had two books contracted, and one of those books, BORROWING ALEX, was published just a month before the National RWA conference in Dallas. I confess, it always felt a bit strange to me to enter my unpublished manuscripts in the Golden Heart when I had books available for sale, but that was the avenue open to me, so that was the avenue I took. Fine and dandy. I entered the GH with an unpublished manuscript in 2007, and I finaled (yay, me). Did I feel guilty about taking away the chance for a truly unpublished author to final? Um, not really. Because I think every RWA member should have a chance to enter either the Golden Heart or RITA contest if she so chooses. However, the RITA changes this year now prevent that.
Now, if you sell a work of over 20,000 words to a non-Subsidy, non-Vanity Publisher, you can no longer enter your unpublished works (ie. not the work you sold) in the Golden Heart. However, once that book you sold/contracted is in print, unless it’s mass-produced (ie. not POD, which are books printed as they are ordered) you can’t enter it in the RITA contest either.
You can’t enter your published work in the RITA.
You can’t enter your unpublished work in the Golden Heart.
I’m a bit bamboozled. This is the first year since I joined RWA that I can recall a member not having the ability to enter either contest. That bugs me. Even though it doesn’t apply to my situation.
I also find it ironic that an author can join PAN on the basis of her earnings, then find herself unable to enter the same book that qualified her to join PAN in the RITAs—because her publisher uses print on demand technology instead of Print Runs of a Mysterious Number Yet to be Announced.
What am I missing?
By the way, there’s an excellent discussion about the topics of today’s and Monday’s blog post occurring over on Absolute Write, if anyone wants to check it out. Last I checked, no one in that thread had received confirmation of what constitutes “mass-produced.”