The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Julia Jones:

Paula @123: Yes, I know about the books you cite. I was reading most of them when I was in my teens. I didn't catch up with Swordspoint until about ten years ago, but I know when it was published. But finding the same material in books labelled as and using category romance tropes -- that was a different matter. And is a different, if overlapping, readership. (There is also the problem I mentioned of some story lengths not having many print romance markets, although there is a matching rant to be had on the subject of ebook pricing at novelette length.)

Paula @128: That's a very good analogy.

Laramie @126: What I don't like about the Ellora's Cave contract is that they want to have their cake and eat it. The digital publishing model that's grown up is that publishers invest less money up front, but pay out faster on higher royalty rates, and take short term rights rather than long term rights. If my publisher has a collective fit of insanity, I wait a maximum of three years before I can take *all* my toys away and find somewhere more congenial. But the versions of the EC contract which I've seen take life-of-copyright, with either no reversion clause, or a reversion clause that in practice amounts to "as long as we keep it listed in the catalogue and sell a dozen copies a year you can't make us give it back to you". There is an option clause from hell which means they basically get to take your next book, on exactly the same terms, and so on ad infinitum. I know of people who've been caught by that, and have a new pseudonym as a result. Add in a serious rights grab, and a lot of other stuff at the niggle level. Reports are that if you have an agent, you can get this negotiated to a more reasonable contract, but that if you don't have an agent you're out of luck.

Of course, in my opinion it's still a far better option than Horizon. Not least because people other than the owners make money at EC.

Note well: I would always tell someone with a manuscript to take it to the mainstream publishers first. If it doesn't fit there, then consider the small press, which is what professionally run epublishers are, and tread carefully.

But I would also always choose legitimate small press or self-publishing over a vanity press, even a vanity press owned by a big, legitimate publishing house. Harlequin-branded Authorhouse is still AuthorHouse, with all it implies about selling "being published" to writers rather than books to readers. And if I really wanted to go vanity, because that was the easiest way to get Grandma's memoirs in print -- there are honest vanity presses that offer value for money. A Lulu ISBN, for example.

Paula @94: Those sub-genres can be found at print romance houses now. One of the reasons you can find them there now in any quantity is that Ellora's Cave demonstrated that yes, there was a market for some of them. (No, I do not write for Ellora's Cave. I don't like their contract.) You still won't find them in the category lines, by and large. If you want category-style, you go to the epubs.

One of the things that comes out of author conversations is that what sells in epub is erotic romance in general, and what gets labelled "alternative sexualities" in particular. When the authors put the reader hats on, they see two clear reasons for that. One is that even in this day of Amazon, people are less embarrassed about buying ebooks -- it's not just about going up to the counter with it, it's being seen with it on the bus. The other is that they can't find it, or enough of it, in print.

One of the differences between single title and category romance is quantity. Individual category lines within Harlequin bring out one to four titles per week. Epubs do the same. Romance readers get through a *lot* of titles. If you read category and Harlequin isn't giving you a certain genre, epub is a good alternative. So long as you'll read ebooks, of course.

I always thought that Harlequin was likely to do something like Carina when ebook market penetration got to the level where a separate ebook imprint looked like a worthwhile investment for them. It's an obvious way to get into that market while not disturbing the more conservative end of their primary market.

What I didn't expect was Horizon...

There's definitely room in epub for books that don't fit the standard romance formula. There's room for glbt romance, there's room for polyamory romance, there's room for inter-racial romance, there's room for femdom romance, there's room for romance that isn't the standard length. And books from the top tier epubs sell perfectly well by small press standards -- my best at $4k royalties is hardly mmp money, but it's still a lot better than I would have ever seen if I'd gone vanity-published. I know epubbed authors who do significantly better than that.

Which is the point that Harlequin's apologists elsewhere are missing. I paid *nothing* save the cost of the postage to return the contract for that book that earned me $4k, or for any of my other books. Carina potentially makes sound financial sense for both Harlequin and for the authors who prefer to write in sub-genres better suited to epub. Horizon only makes sound financial sense for Harlequin.

As Linkmeister pointed out, Harlequin's doing fine financially. It's the parent company with the problems, and I suspect it was someone in the parent company who dreamed up this bright idea (or at least thought it sounded mighty fine when AutherHouse pitched it to them).

Watching one of the Harlequin people trying to spin this in the Smart Bitches thread was squirm-inducing. She has to know what this looks like, and she has to know what it does to the credibility of the other new venture, which happens to be her baby. I doubt I'm the only epub author who seriously thought about submitting to Carina in spite of the poor terms (by epub standards), and has now put them on my "do not touch with bargepole" list.

Oh joy. Woke up this morning to the romance publishing/fandom half of my blog list being wall-to-wall on Harlequin's decision to embrace the dark side, and set up a Harlequin-branded vanity imprint in partnership with AuthorHouse, complete with "But why not try our self-publishing arm?" in the rejection letters from the imprints that remain faithful (for now) to "money flows towards the author".

And predictably, attempts by various authors educated in the ways of Yog to explain why this is a Bad Thing are being met with the standard incomprehension by the inexperienced, and frantic "You're just jealous haters" by the victims of other vanity publishers.

Laurel wreath with full honours to author Stacia Kane in particular for having far more patience than I could muster in the face of the provocation she's getting from one of the latter.

Praying for Scraps and for Velma.

Evelyn @262 is probably more interested in googlejuice for the website spamvertised in zir name-link than in the actual content of the thread.

Yesterday, on Remembrance Day, I visited a museum in a former secret bunker, one which houses what is reputedly the largest collection of (carefully decommissioned) nuclear weapons in private hands. I stood within touching distance of what I knew during my teenage years could very well be the death of not just me but of everything I had ever known. Today is the anniversary of the day I could believe right in my bones that it wouldn't happen. I'll gladly raise a glass to that.

It hasn't been all sweetness and light since then. But a generation has grown up without that fear that we would create our own Toba catastrophe level of destruction.

Yes, I greatly enjoy the early Lovejoy books (the later ones dropped off in quality, IMO), but everything Bruce says @523 is true. Some of the other regular characters were also seriously sanitised for the tv series. so if you go in expecting a written version of the tv series, you'll get a shock.

This has reminded me that I need to write a letter to Clark's about the behaviour of their staff in one particular store. Two tills, only one staffed, one person being served at the till. I go and stand in the line, which consists of me for a minute or two. Twenty-something woman arrives behind me. A male twenty-something staff member suddenly appears, *takes her out of the line from behind me*, and serves her from the until-then vacant till. Twenty-something female behind the other till finishes serving her customer, and walks away, very deliberately ignoring me.

I am willing to give laddie the benefit of the doubt, as he looked embarrassed when he realised she'd gone off and ignored me and it's possible he genuinely thought I was with the customer in front. I'm not willing to do so with lassie, or the other three staff members who were standing around on the shop floor gossiping.

Clark's hasn't lost a sale, since I was in there to buyy something specific, but that branch has.

What David Dyer-Bennett said @3. If a society has that large a percentage of its population in prison at any one time, it has more urgent problems than convicted criminals being able to influence the outcome of an election.

I am curious as to the DRM situation, when the electronic editions finally arrive. Curious as in, "will probably be a deciding factor in whether or not I buy it." (A major reason for me buying an ebook rather than treeware is the storage space issue for books I want to keep -- thus an ebook designed to be non-transferable to another gadget when current gadget breaks is pointless from my perspective, unless it's priced as a read-once disposable item.)

Old spam at 579 not yet deleted, and brand new spam at 581.

Time to break out the bubbly. There's a way to go yet, but even this step will make the scamming that little bit more difficult.

Comment 163 is at least on-topic spam, but going by the name link, is "pay us to increase your site traffic!!!" paid spam.

I offer for your perusal the UK Health And Safety Executive's information page on the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. This considerably toughened up the law on the subject, and there had been very few successful prosecutions under older versions, but it was not a brand new area of law in the UK. It seems to me that the US could do with having something along the same lines -- preferably something that is actively enforced, rather than simply ignored.

Avram @80: that was my thought too. I have one or two elderly relatives whom I think are in that situation, courtesy of youthful indoctrination with the idea that they cannot possibly measure up to God's standards.

Niall @35: It's conceivable that something close to that is why I'm on the list of people who are allowed to fly but who will be pulled into the "random" line for extra searches every time they go through a US airport. The most likely reason I can think of for that is that I routinely and legitimately fly on two passports, and am equally legitimately entitled to a third.

Charlie: steak fries are what you ask for in the US if you want something vaguely resembling proper chips from a fish-n-chip shop, rather than those skinny things you get in MacDonalds.

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