Caught this interesting post by Deidre Knight over on ESPAN.
RWA’s current stance on e-books is that a publisher must offer at least a $1,000 advance in order to qualify for legitimacy. Never mind that many digital authors far exceed that amount in royalties, or sell more than 5,000 copies of print editions of their e-published titles. The problem with RWA’s simplistic criteria is that it ignores one crucial fact. Our industry is changing radically, with traditional publishers seeking innovative models for overhauling their distribution and content.
Now between you and me… Do I think that RWA is gonna change their short sighted, narrow minded, snobby ways? Oh hell no! I do think it is necessary for smart intelligent folks to keep pointing out the facts as they as an organization continue to be irrelevant to romance writers who are getting ePublished.
Tags: RWATags: RWA
Mariana wrote,
Is there an equivalent body of RWA for digitally published authors? ie eRWA
I ask as I’m just a reader, I have no practical experience in the industry; nor do I really know what it means to be part of RWA. However, it seems to me if an organization is not meeting the needs of it’s people, a new organization could be created that does. I’ll do a bit of research on the history of RWA, but if enough authors are displeased or being excluded, does it (RWA) lose it’s value?
Link | June 15th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
There are other groups out there that are oriented towards ePublishing and Romance writers.
Unfortunately I think they tend to represent the Publisher interests and less the Writers interests.
For the most part SFWA has done most of the hard work towards reaching out to ePublished Writers and it is online services that originated through their organization and their efforts that tend to be most informative.
It is not like RWA is the only Writers organization out there and it is not that those other more professionally run and better prepared organizations do not constantly show them up.
Link | June 16th, 2009 at 7:08 am
katiebabs wrote,
RWA is very set in their ways. They need to get a clue. Why do they seem so against epubs? Epubs help authors who can’t reach the most coveting NYC publishing houses. I just don’t get it.
Link | June 16th, 2009 at 9:54 am