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 I confess, it always felt a bit strange to me to enter my unpublished manuscripts in the Golden Heart when I had books available for sale, but that was the avenue open to me, so that was the avenue I took.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 I entered the GH with an unpublished manuscript in 2007, and I finaled (yay, me). Did I feel guilty about taking away the chance for a truly unpublished author to final?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Now, if you sell a work of over 20,000 words to a non-Subsidy, non-Vanity Publisher, you can no longer enter your unpublished works (ie.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You can’t enter your unpublished work in the Golden Heart.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.”
Okay. We all know there are bad e-pubs out there who will publish anything regardless of quality and who have other bad business practices that cause them to quickly go under. Clearly, RWA does not want to promote these publishers or put someone who strings together two sentences and gets a contract in the same category as authors who work hard, write well, and sell books. I get that. But maybe, instead of skirting around the issue and trying not to insult anyone with all this “we don’t endorse any particular publisher BUT…”
Well, maybe they *should*. In the interest of helping writers pursue a career in romance, which is supposed to be their purpose, perhaps they should do some research, figure out which e-pubs are doing business the right way and contracting good writers, add them to the happy list right along with big print pubs and end all these ridiculous rules. Then, if a writer chooses to go with a small pub RWA didn’t approve, she does so at her own risk.
It’s time to end the dance of trying to please all 10,000 members one day and endorsing NYC pubs the next. Recognize quality publishers and let *all* of them into PAN and RITA, and leave the GH open for everyone still knocking at the door of these publishers. “Quality” is the key word here–print or electronic should have nothing to do with it. It simply is not fair to leave zero avenues open, and it’s wrong to assume that the only good writing is that which sells 20,000 copies.
I’m published and I write well, dammit. LOL I have two GH finals and multiple conversations with big-pub editors to prove it. If RWA doesn’t think so, then they aren’t getting the money I’d spend on my entries, and that certainly doesn’t hurt me!
Hi Avery,
Yes, there are bad epubs out there, and I don’t blame RWA for trying to look after its members. However, as of last year I thought there WAS a list of non-Subsidy/non-Vanity pubs. People selling to those publishers could use their advances/royalties as a basis for getting into PAN, etc., and print authors for those houses COULD enter the RITA. However, there is a separate list of publishers who have reached a specified level of paying advances of a certain amount to EVERY writer they publish – and those are the ones who can take official appointments and offer Spotlights at National, etc. Should RWA members eligible to enter the RITA be restricted only to THOSE publishers?
If so, I would no longer be able to enter the RITA with my Secrets novellas, even though Secrets authors have been entering the RITA for years. The reason being is that while every author for the novellas in the Secrets print anthologies ARE paid *at the very least* the minimum advance for the appointment/spotlight publishers, Red Sage ebook authors (the Secrets publisher) DO get advances, but those advances fall under the level set by RWA. This is why Red Sage was not involved in the official editor appts and Spotlights in San Francisco like they have been in previous years.
So the worms become more and more tangled, IMO. I thought last year’s RITA rules worked well. This year’s rules muddy the waters. But that’s just me.
BTW, I’m blogging about this as a matter of curiosity and to hear other’s opinions. As I said to someone in private email this morning, I’m personally not upset on behalf of myself for this year’s current changes, and that has nothing to do with that I don’t have an AQP book out this year and therefore the changes don’t apply to me. Even if I, as a PAN member, couldn’t enter a book this year, I chose the non-traditional publishing path years ago and I’ve become accustomed to rolling with the changes to the contests. I’ll enter whatever contests for which I’m eligible, except, as a PAN member, I could never ever bring myself to enter the GH again. That totally doesn’t feel right, to me, even if that avenue were open. For non-PAN members, though, it wouldn’t bother me.
I’m interested in and bothered by this issue on behalf of other authors who perhaps didn’t make their non-trad publishing choices years ago and are surprised to suddenly find they might not be able to enter the RITA, even though, when they contracted their book, under the old rules, they could have. But time passes between signing a contract and being able to enter the RITA, and I think some unsuspecting authors might get caught up in that. Those are the authors I feel for. Myself, I’ll just keep rolling along.
I thought things worked well under last year’s rules, too.
Yes, the “mass-produced” element definitely throws a glitch into things, though the previous requirement of it being perfect bound by the publisher wasn’t that much different–if a book wasn’t put out in print, it couldn’t be entered.
Slightly off topic, but: I suspect, but don’t know for sure, that they haven’t simply allowed e-books to be submitted electronically for logistic reasons. People would say “oh, but X chapter does it electronically every year and it goes swimmingly!” But X chapter doesn’t process 1200 entries. Let’s say 10% of the entries ended up being e-books (which I think would be EXTREMELY conservative). If my math is reasonably right, they’d need 75 judges. How many of those 75 are going to want the file in PDF, and how many in Kindle, and how many in HTML, and so on? Snail mail can get lost, but e-mail seems to get lost more frequently and easily, and can’t be tracked if it does (snail entries are sent to judges via FedEx).
I think requirements in other creativity-based awards are similarly convoluted, based on the tidbits I hear around TV/movie awards season.
I don’t see the GH thing as a big deal. This year, by last year’s guidelines, I couldn’t enter either the GH or the Rita anyway because I don’t have a book out, and I’m not eligible for PAN. Not that it’s all about me. 🙂 No matter what is done, there will be people left out for some reason or another, and the way the publishing industry is going, it will never get any easier. 🙁
What do you mean it’s not about you, Natalie? Does that mean it’s about me? Hmmm…. 🙂
The difference between a book being perfect bound, as was stated in the rules last year, and being mass-produced, is that last year there was no mistake that POD-produced books from non-Subsidy/non-Vanity publishers on the official list could enter the RITA (that is, books printed by publishers who weren’t printing them SPECIFICALLY for the RITA, but offered them for sale in print version as well as ebook). This year there’s confusion. Last year’s rules did make the RITA a *print book contest* and not an electronic contest in any way, shape or form (except for entering on-line and receiving mailing instructions through email, heh heh). So why the change? How or why did last year’s rules not work? DO this year’s rules preclude POD books (non-Subsidy/non-Vanity) from entering? That is the skinny I’ve gathered. Yet, I’ve also heard that Samhain books might qualify, but I personally don’t know if Samhain uses print runs, which might be the reason they qualify.
My understanding is that yes, Samhain uses print runs, but how much of a print run constitutes “mass produced” was in question. The numbers I heard ranged from 50 to 5000. I have a friend pubbed by Samhain who was told Samhain books are allowed, though I never heard the details of how it came about, and I still haven’t gotten an answer from the president to my inquiry on the matter.
Thanks, Natalie, for that extra bit of info. My former publisher printed VERY short print runs – as in 25 POD copies of each title – but I’m not aware that Amber Quill does. Seeing as “mass produced” has not been defined for the purposes of this year’s contest, I’m super glad that Samhain titles, even with 50 book print runs (if that’s what they are), can enter this year.
If you do get an answer, please let me know. I’m very interested.
Now to see what happens next year – will “mass produced” stay? Will the definition be more, well, definitive? We shall see.