And since we all also know how difficult it can be to get the audience we deserve I thought it would nice to help the author out and bring his/her blurb to a wider audience:

‘Wren is marrying the man of her dreams just as soon as she returns from her trip to the Carolinas-on the first night there, all is changed in an instant.
Why? Because the hero of my recently completed novel, Dargan’s Desire, has mistakenly taken her virginity. Set in South Carolina in 1826 this fun and sensual, the book is woven with love and deceit. Teaching two people the ultimate meaning of honesty, passion, and devotion.

Charming, spirited, full of excitement and exquisitely beautiful, Wren is forced into a loveless marriage when a beast of a man who takes her innocence. Worldly and influential, Dargan Knight, feels as if he has been trapped by this sprite of a girl into a loveless marriage he will never be able to get out of. Then fate steps in to shake up both their lives when Wren realizes she is with child.’

I must concede that I’m totally clueless as to how somebody could have ‘mistakenly taken her virginity’ but it can be yours for a mere $13.99.

The book, that is…

Well done, MWA. Good on ya.

The Board of Mystery Writers of America voted unanimously on Wednesday to remove Harlequin and all of its imprints from our list of Approved Publishers, effective immediately. We did not take this action lightly. We did it because Harlequin remains in violation of our rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

What does this mean for current and future MWA members?

Any author who signs with Harlequin or any of its imprints from this date onward may not use their Harlequin books as the basis for active status membership nor will such books be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration. However books published by Harlequin under contracts signed before December 2, 2009 may still be the basis for Active Status membership and will still be eligible for Edgar® Award consideration (you may find the full text of the decision at the end of this bulletin).

Although Harlequin no longer offers its eHarlequin Critique Service and has changed the name of its pay-to-publish service, Harlequin still remains in violation of MWA rules regarding the relationship between a traditional publisher and its various for-pay services.

MWA does not object to Harlequin operating a pay-to-publish program or other for-pay services. The problem is HOW those pay-to-publish programs and other for-pay services are integrated into Harlequin’s traditional publishing business. MWA’s rules for publishers state:

“The publisher, within the past five years, may not have charged a fee to consider, read, submit, or comment on manuscripts; nor may the publisher, or any of the executives or editors under its employ, have offered authors self-publishing services, literary representation, paid editorial services, or paid promotional services.

If the publisher is affiliated with an entity that provides self-publishing, for-pay editorial services, or for-pay promotional services, the entities must be wholly separate and isolated from the publishing entity. They must not share employees, manuscripts, or authors or interact in any way. For example, the publishing entity must not refer authors to any of the for-pay entities nor give preferential treatment to manuscripts submitted that were edited, published, or promoted by the for-pay entity.

To avoid misleading authors, mentions and/or advertisements for the for-pay entities shall not be included with information on manuscript submission to the publishing company. Advertising by the publisher’s for-pay editorial, self-publishing or promotional services, whether affiliated with the publisher or not, must include a disclaimer that it is advertising and that use of those services offered by an affiliate of the publisher will not affect consideration of manuscripts submitted for publication.”

Harlequin’s Publisher and CEO Donna Hayes responded to our November 9 letter, and a follow up that we sent on November 30. In her response, which we have posted on the MWA website, Ms. Hayes states that Harlequin intends as standard practice to steer the authors that it rejects from its traditional publishing imprints to DellArte and its other affiliated, for-pay services. In addition, Harlequin mentions on the DellArte site that editors from its traditional publishing imprints will be monitoring DellArte titles for possible acquisition. It is this sort of integration that violates MWA rules.

MWA has a long-standing regard for the Harlequin publishing house and hopes that our continuing conversations will result in a change in their policies and the reinstatement of the Harlequin imprints to our approved list of publishers.

Frankie Y. Bailey,
Executive Vice President, MWA

MWA’s Official Decision: That because Harlequin’s for pay publishing business violates MWA’s rules for approved publishers, MWA takes the following action: First, Harlequin shall be removed from MWA’s list of approved publishers upon the adoption of this motion; Second, that all current active status members of MWA whose status is based upon books published by Harlequin shall remain active status members; Third, that MWA decline applications for active membership based upon books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into after the effective date of this motion; Fourth, that books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into prior to the adoption of this motion shall be eligible for the Edgar® Awards, except that books published by DellArte Press shall not be eligible for the Edgar® Awards regardless of when such contract was entered into; and Fifth that books published by Harlequin pursuant to contracts entered into after the adoption of this motion shall not be eligible for the Edgar® Awards.

MWA’s Executive Vice-President, and her or his designates, are directed to continue discussions with Harlequin in an effort to reach an agreement that would allow for Harlequin to be an approved publisher according to MWA’s rules.

If you don’t earn out your advance, you don’t give that money back, you just might not get another contract is all. So in that sense, it really isn’t relevant how many other authors earn out an advance, because the answer is “enough of them, or we’d be out of business”. Everyone knows that, or if they don’t, they can stop and think about it for a second and deduce it. Unless it’s a company like Regnery press that exists to hyperinflate sales of conservative books. Publishers dearly want an author to earn out an advance. They take a loss otherwise.

In the case of ASI, there’s no such common knowledge. ASI is depending on authors writing books that earn out what the author pays in, because that fee never comes out of ASI’s bottom line. Quite the opposite, it creates the bottom line. ASI going on to charge those authors a huge percentage of the book’s value in order to distribute (ha ha) and market (ho ho) it is just gravy.

At least there is now much more information on that site so that people can do the math before having to face a sales-person.

The only important bit of math is “how many ASI authors make back more than what they put in, and by how much”. If that’s not important, then authors are vastly better off going to lulu.com

At least there is now much more information on that site so that people can do the math before having to face a sales-person.

Any reference to HQ and any tracking of sales for future contract has been scrubbed from the site. There is now a very extensive FAQ section that you can link to from the bottom of the home page. Plus, there are now eight different package options were previously there were just five (if I remember correctly).

Regarding the FAQs, I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that ASI execs were gnawing on nails at having to divulge some of that info up front, meaning before one of their sales reps could get hold of an author and hardsell.

I think that there needs to be an abolition of the term “Self-published”, which has become vague and useless. I think, for this discussion, and for the sake of clarity, it would be better to use the terms “Vanity Publisher” to describe any publisher which one pays to publish, and “POD” or “Publish-On-Demand” to describe, for example, Lulu, which is paid by sales, or publishing.

The basic editing described as buyable from HarHor sounds to me like the equivalent of running a spellcheck program, whereas the most useful editing one receives from a publisher is NOT grammer/spellcheck proofreading, but a content/context proofread that checks for story continuity, as well as word flow and readability.