* * * * *

Well, look at what we have here, apparently RWA have found a way to still stay friends with HQN, after taking away their eligible publisher status in a stand-off akin to the one that took place at the Alamo back in eighteen something or other. I can’t believe it took them so damned long:

Taking into account emerging trends in publishing that may offer opportunities to writers, the task force recommended that RWA adopt methods used by other trade shows and conventions and to shift its method of evaluating publishers as a whole to evaluating publishers by divisions, imprints, or lines.

Under this revised method, RWA will extend invitations to a wide pool of publishers. Invitees may only represent their non-subsidy/non-vanity publishing programs (imprints, divisions, or lines) at RWA’s conference. Space for spotlights, workshops, and booksignings will be allocated to lines, imprints, or divisions that best meet the requirements for “Qualifying Markets.” This new process of evaluation will likely increase opportunities for small presses and e-presses that previously have been excluded.

Of course I’m not surprised, I knew RWA wouldn’t be able to stick to their principles, they need HQN more than HQN needs them. In the words of Mrs G:

RWA 0 – Harlequin 1

I hate to say I told ya so, so I’m just gonna post what my cynical self wrote back in November:

I’m with Mrs Giggles, I wonder how long it will be before the RWA change the terms of publisher eligibility in order to welcome Harlequin back into the fold?

Now let’s wait and see how long it takes before they ‘invite’ HQN back to the fold.

🙂

Via Dear Author

Warning, this is a particularly long rant, the likes of which I rarely like to indulge in these days, so I suggest you grab yourself some coffee and chocolates before you commence reading.

Dear Diane

I read your post the other day on E-span, (in response to Deidre Knight’s post that she wrote a few weeks ago) trying to defend RWA’s stance on e-publishing, and I must say, I was swearing rather loudly by the time I finished reading your column. I had to immediately take some maximum strength headache tablets, due to the brick-sized foot that seemed to be stamping on my head.

Diane, I get it, I really do, the RWA is a dinosaur that’s hard to move, mired in tradition such as it is. The majority of your members are print-published, so to a certain extent, I do indeed understand your reluctance to embrace anything that on the surface seems to veer away from those very traditions that are an essential part of your history and success.

However Diane, dinosaurs eventually became extinct, and there’s nothing to say that RWA in its current format, will continue to be successful. Myopia has downed many great organisations in the past, and RWA doesn’t have the divine right to be the exception to the rule.

Your stance with regards to digital publishing has turned this into a Them vs Us debate. Print vs E-published, as if the two aren’t able to co-exist happily together, without the constant attempts to undermine and bully the new kid on the block.

You wrote in your column: (more…)