To get their status back, however, they have to keep DellArte completely separate from their regular publishing lines. That means that they have to not tell authors considering DellArte publication that if they sell well, they might get the chance to be published with Harlequin’s regular lines. And they have to stop the practice of recommending to authors rejected from Harlequin’s regular lines that they check out DellArte in their rejection letters. And further, it means that Harlequin’s editors, pr and marketing staff not be involved in DellArte’s operations in any way and not be monitoring the titles published under DellArte.

This, if I understand it correctly, is what Random House does with its XLibris self-publishing unit. It owns it, but Random House itself doesn’t operate it and it doesn’t direct authors to it or dangle the carrot of Random House publication in front of XLibris authors. It’s not that Harlequin’s parent company has set up a self-publication service, but that they are using unethical practices that involve Harlequin’s regular publishing operations. This makes them a vanity press, not a self-publishing operation as they are claiming, and so puts them afoul of the writers’ groups by-laws.

Additionally, even if they changed these things, they would have to show that they are charging authors fair prices for services comparable to other self-publishing service providers, and so far, the indication is that DellArte’s prices are quite inflated. You can get the same services for a lower price, in fact, from the company that DellArte is working with.

From Harlequin’s response, they clearly are concerned about Amazon, which is not a publisher but is increasingly doing publishing things, such as electronic publishing for the Kindle, data storage, POD and self-publishing services, etc., and which still dominates the on-line sales market as a vendor. And so DellArte seems to be an attempt to capture some of that market, steal it from Amazon and make it more attractive because Harlequin is actually a publisher, while at the same time turning Harlequin or its parent company including Harlequin into a sort of on-line sales vendor.

A lot of publishers are experimenting right now — such as Harper’s Authonomy which is a little like DellArte except no money is involved, and setting up electronic publishing companies to do translations and so on. So Harlequin is trying to argue that this is what they are doing too — trying a new business model to take advantage of new technology. You will notice that they have not responded directly about the practices to which the writers groups are specifically objecting. Which seems to indicate that it’s unlikely that Harlequin will change those practices unless they get a lot of bad press over it.

That they are willing to meet with the RWA, does show that they might make more changes. But their mentioning of other writers groups such as the International Thriller Writers (who I hadn’t heard of before,) that don’t mind what they are doing is a clear threat that they really aren’t horribly worried if these writers groups are in a snit and that authors interested in publishing say romantic suspense and wanting to work with Harlequin should go join ITW instead.

But that doesn’t mean that the RWA, MWA and SFFWA don’t have any leverage here. That Harlequin did immediately back down on the name also indicates that they did expect some protest and had a plan B. So they may also have a fallback plan C. So maybe they can be pressured into that and stop the objectionable practices. The pressure, though, does rely on media exposure, it seems to me.

Authors Guild could stop considering Harlequin as an “established American publisher”. I’m not sure if they care, though.

Second, what will Harlequin have to do for SFWA, MWA,and RWA to reverse the decisions that they have already made?

How do you figure that? I’m honestly curious. Most category romance writers aren’t moving out of “the crab bucket” on the basis of awards. It’s due to strong sales or new directions. Jennifer Crusie (who wrote under the same name — her name) started writing bigger, more women’s fictiony stories. JR Ward changed her name and her genre — moving from family-focused contemporary romance to alpha-male urban fantasy. And the only Harlequin books that tend to get awards from places like MWA are put out by MIRA, not category lines.

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.

All you can say is “Jesus Henrietta Christ!” That takes some balls, sending a writer a rejection letter telling them, no, you’re not good enough for us, buuuuut if you pay us, then sure we’ll publish you.