More Worms

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 I confess, it always felt a bit strange to me to enter my unpublished manuscripts in the Golden Heart when I had books available for sale, but that was the avenue open to me, so that was the avenue I took.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 I entered the GH with an unpublished manuscript in 2007, and I finaled (yay, me). Did I feel guilty about taking away the chance for a truly unpublished author to final?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Now, if you sell a work of over 20,000 words to a non-Subsidy, non-Vanity Publisher, you can no longer enter your unpublished works (ie.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You can’t enter your unpublished work in the Golden Heart.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.”

RITA Changes

I’m mailing Penny’s entry to the RITA contest today. Wish Penny luck! Erotic romance novellas don’t usually final in the RITAs, but a Secrets novella has finaled before, so you never know. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Um, not always. Recently, I was rather disappointed to find out that entry qualifications for the RITAs have changed yet again. Last year, for the 2008 contest, for the first time ever that I can recall, micro-press books could be entered in the RITA if the entrant provided copies that were printed and bound by the publisher (IE. entrants could not print off and enter paper copies of their ebooks). Amber Quill Press prints trade paperbacks of all its novel-sized ebooks, so last year I was able to enter RITA for the first time with BORROWING ALEX. I was very excited, as the same opportunity wasn’t available to me with HEAD OVER HEELS. So I entered. That opened up another can of worms, because then I had to decide whether to enter a short novel in the Single Title category to compete against novels up to twice as long, or to enter BORROWING ALEX in the Series Contemporary category, the category descriptions for which included enough language loopholes enabling me to enter it regardless that BORROWING ALEX didn’t have a number (as in numeral) on the cover, like books published by Harlequin and Silhouette do.

I didn’t expect much. With judges not accustomed to reading micro-press books in the RITA, dared I hope I could compete? Well, BORROWING ALEX didn’t final, but it competed just fine, garnering one 9 (the top score in the contest for those not in the know) and an 8 out of the panel of five judges (IE. my peers). Yay, me. I’d hoped that by entering the RITA last year with a micro-press book I’d help pave the way for future entrants in similar circumstances. Alas, this year, anyway, it is not to be. Here is the information from the public pages of the RWA website:

Books entered in the 2009 RITA contest must:
  •  Have an original copyright date (printed on the copyright page) or a first printing date or a first North American printing date of 2008.
  • Not have been previously entered.
  • Be mass-produced by a non-Subsidy, non-Vanity Publisher in print book format.
  • Meet the requirements for the category in which it was entered.
  • Be a work of original fictional narrative prose.

It’s the “be mass-produced” phrase in the third bullet point that bothers me. Why? Because, either: (a) I’m so out of touch that I didn’t realize this pretty darn big change had occurred; or (b) it occurred without a big announcement or fanfare, like that which occurred last year.

Now I’m wondering, what qualifies as “mass-produced”? I know print on demand (POD) technology does not qualify as mass-produced, because publishers who use POD technology, like Amber Quill Press, print the books as they’re ordered. Mass market prints “print runs.” But the 2009 RITA rules do not specify a print run number.

Does this mean micro-press authors can order 10 copies of their book and then submit five copies of that book for entry to the RITA? Does 10 copies qualify as a print run (“mass-produced”)? I’m not trying to be ridiculous, I’m trying to figure it out. I’ve “heard” (IE. as in a rumor) that 500 is the minimum number required for mass-produced, but the 2009 RITA rules do not state the 500 minimum. They just state “mass-produced,” which, to a mind like mine, is open to interpretation.

I don’t know, how do you feel about these changes? Regardless of whether they affect you?

Oh, yeah, these changes also affect which authors can and can not enter the Golden Heart, but that’s another blog post.

New Industry Blog

Novelists, Inc. has started a new blog. As a member of NINC, I’m posting the new blog to my blogroll.

I haven’t yet decided if I’ll participate in the NINC blog. For one thing, I have this blog to maintain, and, for another, the 2007 Golden Heart finalists are in the planning stages of developing a group blog, and I’m not only a scheduler but have signed up for the management team. Yes, I’m crazy. Right now we’re batting around design ideas. If that’s not enough blogging around, a few months ago I was approached about doing a group author blog with 5 or 6 other authors. I’m not sure if this blog is still in the works, as the driving force behind its inception became very, very, very, very, very, very (did I mention very?) busy and blog development discussion understandably stopped. But if that multi-author blog does come to life, I’ll be writing a post there every week. So while I’ll read the NINC blog whenever I have a spare moment, for now I think I’ll hold off on joining the participating hordes of authors and industry professionals.

Drop by the NINC blog and tell me what you think.

Tell Me Tuesday–I’ve Been PANned

Not much to report in the WIPpy department. The writing is going well, but I’m still in the No Man’s Land of writing new scenes before I get to begin revising the scenes drafted during my NaNoWriMo experiment. The closer I get to those drafted scenes, the more I realize that the manuscript might just fall in line with my “plodding” (a.k.a. plotting). This, of course, amazes me to no end. And I have my brainstorming group to thank for it, because I couldn’t have done all that plotting without them (thank you, Looney Binners!).

My big news this week (well, last week or the week before, but I don’t think I’ve announced it yet), is that I’ve finally been admitted to RWA’s Published Authors Network (a.k.a. PAN). My Alter Ego’s third sale to Red Sage Secrets did it. It’s taken me so long to get here: two novel sales and three novella sales. Phew! And, if not for the change in RWA author eligibility standards last summer, I still wouldn’t belong to PAN. Because, before the changes, novella sales, regardless of advance level, didn’t count. Only novel sales counted, and my two Amber Quill novels, as amazing as they are, have not yet reached the level of income generation (LOIG – and, yes, I made that up) required to join PAN. However, now I am in PAN and they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

I know not everyone in RWA is happy with the changes to the eligibility requirements, but, I have to admit, being in the position of being able to continue entering the Golden Heart although I was in fact a published author always felt weird to me. This year, for the first time, because of the changes, I was able to enter the RITA, RWA’s contest for published works. Even though I didn’t final with either my or my Alter Ego’s entries, that I get to enter feels, well, exactly where I should be.

I was also able to join NINC this year (Novelists, Inc.). However, NINC’s membership requirements are different from RWA’s (which makes sense, considering they are different organizations). When I joined NINC in the fall, the requirements were two published novels. HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX qualified me. Last I knew, NINC was in the process of changing its membership requirements to one that might also include an income generation level (IGL for those into acronyms, as I, um, appear to be), however, seeing as I’m already a member, even if my earnings don’t reflect the minimum (I have no clue if they do), I don’t have to worry about it. I’m grandfathered in, and, unless I allow my membership to lapse, they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

Does anyone else have good or bad or lackadaisical news to report?