green_knight #167 The pool of people willing and able to pay for this package is small-and-shrinking, and once the scheme has been running for a bit and the promised dreams weren't delivered, getting further people to pay will become harder.
It's huge.
Look at all the people PublishAmerica has sucked in. Four thousand a year, for ten years.
No sign that they're going to run out of marks any time soon. Particularly not when the general public believes that of course you pay to get published.
Jackie Kessler on where things stand now.
Oh, and reportedly RWA has also cast Thomas Nelson (another publisher pulling the same stunt) into the outer darkness beside Harlequin.
#156: I should add that for a profitable publisher like Harlequin...
Yes, but for an unprofitable corporate master, it might appear to make sense to squeeze even more money out of that golden goose.
I'm sure that a sales rep from Author Solutions arrived at Torstar headquarters with a Powerpoint, and used the phrases "turnkey operation," "turn your rejected manuscripts into a revenue stream," and "show a profit on the very first day."
No. No reward for spammers.
We've noticed, with the vanity press, that the authors are ecstatically happy with all of them from the moment they get their "acceptance" up to the moment the first royalty check arrives. During that honeymoon period they are running around recommending the service to anyone who will listen and will refuse to hear a word against it.
Clearly, anyone who warns them that this is a bad idea must just be jealous of their success.
Jackie Kessler, Stacia Kane, and others will be discussing this affair on the Book Chatter podcast tonight, 2300 (11:00 pm) http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bookchatter
The texture of the outer portion was indeed nice and crisp and flavorful. As to timing for a boneless? I don't know. I expect that Google could tell us... but if not, experiment then come back and tell us how it went.
At least two of those movies, the Grinch and Van Helsing, sucked mightily. That might be why they're in the list.
But speaking of movies:
Blood of Dracula's Castle
Mulholland Drive
Spirits of the Dead
Rosemary's Baby
Sweeney Todd
Bonny and Clyde
Waterworld
Quatermass and the Pit
Now RWA, MWA, and SFWA need to turn to Thomas Nelson and say, "Hey. You too."
“Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita,†having appeared in F&SF, and reprinted in Year's Best Fantasy 9, will make an appearance at Tor.com commencing Friday, the 4th of December, 2009.
I can't recall the title, but Macdonald reviewed it once upon a time.
The Pleistocene Redemption.
#112 ::: A.J. Luxton
That's right. SFWA's membership could vote a Nebula to a story spray-painted on a wall if they wanted to.
What SFWA has done is said that no Harlequin imprint is a qualifying sale for SFWA membership. Kate Wilhelm couldn't join SFWA based on a sale to Harlequin right now.
As to awards, I suspect that it's true that a vanity-published novel wouldn't win one: not enough people would read it.
One big problem (among many big problems) with the current Vanity Publish offer is this: How many folks who submit to Harlequin but are rejected (for any of a number of reasons of which "stinks on ice" is only one possibility) would go on to pay a couple of grand to get 75 sales with a manuscript that could have been happily published by Pocket, put an advance in the author's bank account, garner a few thousand sales, and start a career?
When a newbie author sees the line, "This is your invitation to indulge in your passion for writing and start your next chapter as a published author with Harlequin Horizons," you know that what they're going to see is "a published author with Harlequin."
#45 Linkmeister It looks like Harlequin is the only bright spot in the Torstar firmament (sorry; I couldn't resist), which makes this decision even more odd.
Perhaps they decided that it would be a good idea to get all the gold out of the goose at once?
Seriously, I think that the conversation at headquarters went, "Someone is going to make money off these rejected manuscripts. Why shouldn't it be us?"
Barb, the reason there's no money is probably because next-to-no copies sold. The 200 you mentioned: Were they copies that you bought yourself and resold? If so, you wouldn't get royalties from them.
Who's asking you to write a sequel?
If you do (and only do so if it pleases you to do so), then I suggest you start looking at publishers that actually have books on the shelves in stores.
If you're asking me for the name of the judge and the lawyers who were involved in the suit against AuthorHouse, I'm afraid that I don't know.
===========
Clarence: Check your contract. Do you have a clause allowing you to audit the publisher? If so, you'd probably have to hire your own accountant, but you should be able to find out the actual sales numbers.
But be advised that it's likely that the true sales, when the audit is done, will turn out to be very low.
My understanding is that Harlequin is planning to put a solicitation for Harlequin Horizons in their standard rejection letters.
"This is your invitation to indulge in your passion for writing and start your next chapter as a published author with Harlequin Horizons."
Far more on this at Dear Author.
The open romance boards and blogs are pretty much in meltdown right now. I can only imagine what's being said on private boards and behind friend locks.
If my reading of this is correct, this means that effective immediately Harlequin books, and authors, are not eligible for any RWA awards.
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