Hey, look...

[agilebrit]

It's Friday and I finally have actual new words in the novelthing.

Yeah, Ben just tried to commit suicide. Again. In his sleep, this time. The poor little sod. And now he's not sure he actually wants Janni to find him, because he thinks he might be broken beyond repair and doesn't want her to waste her energy trying to put him back together again (for the third time). Because there comes a point.

And this, I think, is why he ultimately takes off, after he gets home, with a Glock loaded with silver bullets.

In other news, the Harlequin cluster-foxtrot continues apace. The RWA, MWA, and SFWA have all reacted, well, unkindly, to what I'm referring to as HarHo and the predatory practice of pointing rejected authors in that direction in the rejection email. Part of my problem with this is that they're talking out of both sides of their mouths on the issue. On the one hand, they're telling the rejected writer, "Jump on in, the water's fine, you'll be 'published' by us and we'll watch your sales and yadda yadda yadda," making it seem as if they're going to be shelved with the Big Girls on bookstore shelves. And on the other, they're telling their established writers, "LOL, no, it's not our branding, no one will get you confused with those amateurs over there, pft."

Which, okay, it's not their branding now--but until the RWA said "Hey, waitaminute, vanity publishing means you're not actually a real publisher, money flows to the author, remember?" they were quite happy calling it "Harlequin Horizons" and would have continued blithely on if they'd not been called on their shenanigans.

If anything actually good comes out of this, I hope that people will figure out the difference between self-publishing and vanity publishing. Self-publishing can be a viable business model for a niche market, or even for getting a foot in the door (which, don't count on it, but it could happen; on Discworld a million-to-one shot is a sure thing, after all, and people get struck by lightning and win the lottery all the time). *waves at the handsome and talented Larry Correia* Vanity publishing is throwing your money down a rat-hole. And the rats are hungry.

Here, have a link salad, for the curious:
Smart Bitches
Scalzi
My post at Clairvoyant Wank
Fandom Wank (which has a great link roundup)
Lee Goldberg (who is actually making sense this time, go, him)
PubRants
Stacy Boyd wondering what all the fuss is about, and is dismayed that HarHo met with such disapprobation! BRB, LOLing 4ever.

And, I'm done. Good grief.

Comments

[kensieg.livejournal.com]

SRM Publisher started out as self-publishing.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

And I have no problem at all with self-publishing; hell, I may go that route myself with the not!Iron Man thing. But I'll do that with my eyes wide open and not try to claim it as a "publishing credit." It is entirely possible to get stuff noticed that way. It's not the way I'd bet, but it's possible.

What I have a problem with is vanity publishers who prey on people's hopes and dreams of being a "real author with a real, published book" to their name, promising the moon and delivering ashes.

[kensieg.livejournal.com]

SRM is a real if small publisher these days.

[crayonbreakygal.livejournal.com]

My mother-in-law self-published some local history books in her hometown. She made tons of sales. But this was her money and printing it out herself. Not this craziness that they want to do. Scalzi had a good blog about it this morning.

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

And for a niche market like that, self-publishing (not vanity publishing) is great. I've got nothing against self-pubbing and have considered it for the not!Iron Man story (although I'm going to hold off on that until I see what sort of response I get from agents for the novelthing, because it's a sequel of sorts and I don't want to burn a bridge).

Scalzi's take was awesome.

I've been following this saga with great interest

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

Whoa, just whoa. Considering that I know a few writers who got into writing romance novels because you didn't need an agent, and it would be a foot in the door to show that you were in the top ten percent (in order to get published). This sort of news is disheartening. That's a real cock up right there.

Hope your ficcing and search for an agent goes well.

Re: I've been following this saga with great interest

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. I've often said that Ben is going to kill me in my sleep. I never expected him to try and kill himself in his sleep. That's...new.

Seriously, unless Harlequin was forced into it by their parent company (because they're the only division of Torstar that's actually making money, and I can see Torstar wanting to milk that for all it's worth), there's no excuse for this sort of abject ignorance of their own industry.

OTOH, if Torstar did make them do it, and they protested strenuously behind the scenes the whole way and went into it kicking and screaming, they can now point to this debacle and say "See? No matter how much you pretty it up, this sort of thing does not work in this industry." So it could just be a brilliant end-around their own parent company.

This (crack) theory may deserve its own post.

[neo-prodigy.livejournal.com]

I get RWA speaking out but why are SFWA and MWA weighing in on this? Isn't Harlequinn a romance publishing house?

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Because Harlequin has paranormal and mystery romance divisions as well and being published by them qualifies you for membership in SFWA or MWA.

[neo-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhh. I see.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I'm continually amazed at how many scam artists there are trying to make money off of people who traditionally have very little, i.e. authors, especially when one of the big boys does it. It's even sadder they thought no one would notice.