As many of you may have heard, Harlequin, the largest publisher of romance fiction, has entered into an agreement with the vanity publishing company Author Solutions. Now aspiring authors who do not want to go through the lengthy and potentially disappointing submission process, or who have been rejected by a Harlequin editor, can instead pay to have their book formatted and uploaded into an online catalogue, or, depending on how much the aspirant pays, printed up in book form.
This represents a massive shift at a major publisher, and it needs to be looked at clearly.
First, let’s do the full disclosure: I’m a professional author and have been for over 20 years. I’ve sold 17 novels to advance-paying print publishing houses. I’m a former Harlequin author via the Luna Imprint. I enjoyed working with my Harlequin editor, who was very good. My Paths to Camelot books were treated well, got fabulous cover art and I got good advances.
In addition, I am a current RWA member and RWA has come out very strongly against the Harlequin move. Obviously, I am also a member of the Book View Cafe where I have put up many of my books for free and for sale. So, I am both professionally published, meaning I got paid up front for my writing, and independently published, meaning I put my work out in various venues (in my case with the help of the other BVC members), usually paying for the hosting service, or paying a cut of the cover price to buy a slot on a virtual shelf somewhere like the Kindle Store. I am a self-described big booster of the ebook publishing revolution.
What is happening at Harlequin is not part of that revolution. It is a new variation of a very old scam, and I am both appalled that Harlequin is playing along with it, and surprised that they didn’t think of it sooner.
Actually, Harlequin didn’t think of it at all. Author Solutions thought of it. They have been busily buying up a number of small self-publishing and vanity press operations and consolidating them. Now they are reaching out to major publishers, many of whom are having trouble, because they’ve been gut punched by the economic recession and the ebook revolution.
So, what IS actually happening at Harlequin?
I want to start with a very misunderstood situation; how one enters into the writing business as an author. At its heart, the process of becoming a professional fiction author is like interviewing for any other job. I submit a resume (my novel or short story) to an interviewer (editor) at a company where I want a job (Harlequin). If the interviewer likes my resume, I get hired to do a job, like any other independent contractor (say, the guys out front right now building my new porch). Like any other contractor, I get paid a certain amount when I start the job and the rest when it’s finished.
So, that’s the way the system works. But Harlequin is proposing something very different with the Horizons program. When I wanted to research this new system, first I read what Author Solutions, the outfit Harlequin has taken as its partner in this new enterprise, is telling publishers:
“Author Solutions, Inc., provides publishers with a platform to help monetize unpublished manuscripts and efficiently develop new talent…Through ASI’s strategic publishing partnerships, traditional publishers can leverage their heritage and tradition to power a self-publishing imprint managed entirely by the leader in the industry. Authors get published and publishers can keep watch for the next great book. Costs decrease. Revenues increase. Potential is realized.”
Translation: We can make people pay, and pay dearly, to submit their resumes (manuscripts) to us, but we will let them they think they’re submitting their resumes to you. We won’t tell them that we, Author Solutions, have absolutely no power to hire them for a job at Harlequin or anywhere else. Additionally, we will not tell them, that we are not in the business of publishing books, which is the job they think they’re applying for. Unlike at Harlequin (at least under the old system) our money does not come from the sale of books, but rather from getting people to pay for editing, printing and videography services.
Then, I read what Harlequin is saying to perspective job applicants (authors):
“Harlequin Horizons is a division of Harlequin Enterprises Limited, a global leader in romance and women’s fiction. The intent behind creating Harlequin Horizons is to give more aspiring romance writers and women’s fiction writers the opportunity to publish their books and achieve their dreams without going through the submission process with a traditional publishing house.
“However, we understand you may aspire to be published with a traditional house – a noble aspiration. While there is no guarantee that if you publish with Harlequin Horizons you will picked up for traditional publishing, Harlequin will monitor sales of books published through Harlequin Horizons for possible pick-up by its traditional imprints.”
Translation: We know you want a job at Harlequin. We’re not hiring right now, and we’re not going to hire you anyway. BUT, if you pay out as much as you can afford to have your resume spruced up then maybe, should we be hiring in the future, we’ll take another look at it. Maybe.
You’ll also notice the language in the statement is very carefully crafted to disguise the fact that the resumes are not being looked over and spruced up by Harelquin editors. They are going to Author Solutions sales and marketing consultants. Those consultants are not responsible for getting manuscripts ready for publication, let alone interviewing the applicant for a job with Harlequin. Their job is to sell as many “services” as they can. Harlequin, of course, gets a cut of any money made from funnelling those applicants to Author Solutions.
Finally, I read the notice I got sent as a former, and perhaps future independent contractor with Harlequin. Here we get a glimpse of how Harlequin is actually going to treat the Horizons program and the people who pay to become part of it:
“Our editors remain committed to developing new talent through our regular submission procedures and dedicated to ensuring our published authors remain the global gold standard for romance writing. We also want our current authors to know that the books self-published through Harlequin Horizons will NOT be branded Harlequin, nor will they be distributed by Harlequin or appear in stores next to your books.”
So, Harlequin has been told by Author Solutions here’s a great way to make money out of that slush pile that’s just sitting there being all, well, slushy. Aspiring authors looking for a job with Harlequin are being told that they can’t have that job but they can instead pay out thousands of dollars to this other company over here that has no power to hire you but will make you feel almost as good as if you had actually gotten hired and surely feeling good is what it’s all about anyway. In the meantime, working authors are being told don’t worry dears, we’re not going to make you sit next to these people at dinner.
And Harlequin is now sounding amazed that anyone would think this system is a cheat to aspirant authors, an insult to working authors and anything other than a desperate attempt to make money for a publisher with a shrinking market share whose parent corporation, Torstar, is currently suffering severe financial losses. They are stunned that organizations that represent professional authors (RWA, SFWA, MWA) and work to keep them from being ripped off by dodgy contracts and ensure that they are paid fairly for their work are busily removing Harlequin from the status and standing they give to publishers with above-board hiring practices.
Looks to me like someone at Harlequin made the mistake of thinking authors can’t read.
In my efforts on Dear Author (because of exactly this topic) to point out the difference between vanity presses and self-publishing I’ve used Book View Cafè as an example of self-publishing – would you agree with that or am I getting it wrong?
We are closer to self-publishing than we are to vanity press, although as a cooperative venture we’re not really a self-publisher either because we’re all benefiting from each other’s membership and work.
Our members pay an annual dues, put in a lot of volunteer labor, and keep the income from their books and/or receive a share of the income from our Book View Press original anthologies in which their work appears, or to which they have contributed labor, such as editing.
Nicely put, Sarah. I hadn’t read the Author Solutions copy–which confirms me in my belief that the Harlequin Horizons ploy is one of the most cynical, and vicious, scams I’ve seen in a while. It’s not only that aspiring writers are job applicants–it’s that they want this job so dearly. And trading on those hopes to “monetize” the slush pile is just damned cruel.
Great summary, Sarah! And Mad, that’s exactly it. Exactly.
It boils down to this.
Dear Slush Author:
We’ll never publish your work and have no intention of even looking at it, but for $XXXXX you can get a couple of copies of it printed to show your friends and family.
<3
Harlequin
lulu.com and cafepress.com will do the same thing for the cost of printing, which is about $12.50 for a 400-page book. Lulu will even put you in Ingram and on amazon if you sign on with them as a publisher. You pay NO money up front. None. Zero. Zip. Oh, you can buy their various packages, but if you just want to see your book in print, you can do it all yourself. The only requirement is that you buy one “proof” copy to make sure it’s printed out the way you want it.
That’s self-publishing. Harlequin is doing pay-to-play, or, Let’s Scam The Rubes And Make Us A Bundle.
But you do “publish your books yourselves” – and keep the money you make, even as you spread the risk and the necessary upkeep money among your members.
No one skims the cream off the top, except the members.
I don’t think calling that self-publishing is so misleading.
Hmm, would you like me to call it coop-publishing?
Excellent summation, clearly laying out what we all suspected, knowing how each piece of the puzzle usually plays.
I have taught writing at conventions, and taught for a while with Writer’s Digest School, and I cannot count how many times a student would eventually confess to me that they had paid someone to read their manuscript and comment. We’re talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and usually for very little in return. I was only getting a dollar a page from WDS, for the manuscripts, and I would pack info into a ten or twelve page letter. These wanna-be-published writers will pay thousands, and be lucky if all the grammar errors are caught. Surely they will not be edited!
This is a fairly sophisticated scam, frankly. If the Internet in its current form did not exist, it might be wildly successful. I suspect the grapevine will save some potential victims. I can sympathize with mainstream publishing, but this was a bad way to handle things. Even a contest with an entry fee, with guaranteed publication once a winner is selected, is better, and a $25-50 fee to have a slush reader keep going until a major problem is hit — and then decide if it makes “pile two” based on 75% looking good? — isn’t unreasonable.
Harlequin has disappointed me. I thought of them as highly professional, not card sharks.
BVC is a co-op. Or, politically speaking, it is communism in its oldest form. We have taken over the Means of Production, and are now contributing Each According to Her/His Means, while taking Each According to Need.
Looks to me like someone at Harlequin made the mistake of thinking authors can’t read.
Businesswise, it’s a disastrous decision. The business of selling services to writers is conflicting with their core business of finding content, enhancing it, and selling it to readers. ASI would not be going after major publishing houses if it hadn’t run out of people to snag on the Internet – the market of people willing to pay $$$ to have their books printed is limited and – thanks to LuLu and the Kindle – shrinking.
It’s nice to see RWA, SFWA and MWA showing their collective teeth, though.
ASI would not be going after major publishing houses if it hadn’t run out of people to snag on the Internet – the market of people willing to pay $$$ to have their books printed is limited and – thanks to LuLu and the Kindle – shrinking.
I agree–but I think that this may rope in people who have always wanted to be Harlequin authors and see, or want to see, this as more legitimate than Lulu or Kindle because of the name it’s attached to. Although now that Harlequin has detached their name from the product it becomes a pretty bare-faced ploy. I just wish I thought no one would be hurt by this.
That’s the problem. This isn’t PublishAmerica or someone with whom would-be authors have no relationship or perception. It’s HARLEQUIN, the grandmother of all Romance publishers. It is impossible to overstate their presence in the genre, which is the biggest of all the literary genres. Despite the warnings, people will say, but it’s HARLEQUIN! They’re a book publisher! I know them, I’ve read they’re books forever. THEY wouldn’t cheat an author! They talk all the time about how much they love their authors! They’re the best and the biggest in the business. It MUST be okay.
Madeleine & Sarah: Of course the ploy is to rope them in through the Harlequin name and by advertising on the Harlequin rejections – but we’re not talking peanuts here. If this was a $200 offer, they might get some takers – but IIRC you have to lay down around $1200 for a basic publication-and-minimum-marketing package, and a lot of would-be writers simply don’t _have_ that money. One option I can see is that a number of people will go back and say ‘if Harlequin reccommends self-publishing, maybe I should’ and then looking around for a better deal. Which still totally sucks – but I also think that the amount of money people are willing to not-get Harlequin sticking on their book spines might be smaller than HQ is gambling on.
Harlequin’s reputation is the reason RWA had to act quickly and without mercy.
The bind moggles. Harlequin is pulling this shite.
Someone needs to apply a rectal craniectomy there.
There is this well known technique for monetizing the slushpile:
Have interns read them, to sift out the form rejection letters.
Have junior editors read what makes it past the interns to send out personal rejection letters.
Have full editors try to salvage what made it past the junior editors and avoid sending out rejection letters.
I remember when the Nielsen-Haydens came to a convention with some of their slushpile ‘to be read’ with them (they’d fallen a bit behind, and brought it with them). They invited convention-goers to help them.
An education was gained by many fen, and an appreciation of what an editor’s job entails was raised.
It was hinted that they do this annually and auction off the chance to spend four hours of professional development with Tor editors, with the proceeds going to charity…but Patrick and Theresa’s sense of humanity, decency and integrity prevailed.
I suspect the mental image of what sort of masochist would pay for the privilege of doing this at a convention played a part…
Also, in theory, people who submit ms to Tor were not hoping to supply a humorous experience to con attendees. So it is probably not legal for Patrick to bring them on a regular basis.
The worst we did, when I was a Tor employee, was to have “slush parties,” where everyone sat around in a large room, ate pizza, and made it through as many slush manuscripts as possible in an afternoon. Lest this sound depressing, I should add that when someone finds a manuscript that should be kicked upstairs to be read for serious, there is much rejoicing. When an editor finds a diamond in the slush, rockets are launched and dancing fills the halls.