RWA's Slow, Self-Inflicted Death and the Phoenix

When I left Romance Writers of America, it had problems. Lots of problems.

There was an anti-erotica (really it was anti-sex) bent. An anti-ebook bent. An anti-Black bent. Guess what my first romance series had? Yep. All three.

It made me sad. I did learn a lot from the authors in the chapters I belonged to in Houston. But as time passed, I felt more and more uncomfortable. Finally, I slipped out so quietly most people didn't even realize I wasn't there.

Courtney Milan wasn't that lucky. She was tossed out on her ass in a ham-fisted attempt to silence her. Because she was a woman of color, and she was loud, and the Nice White Ladies who really controlled RWA and its purse strings couldn't handle someone like Courtney, other than to make shit up and totally bypass the organization's Ethics Committee.

So, what's happened since last winter?

RWA has lost roughly half its membership. COVID-19 forced their annual conference to go online, but I haven't heard of anyone who's going. I honestly don't know how it will work. They plan on using ZOOM, but all the schools across the country using ZOOM managed to crash the system last week. RWA has lost its biggest money-makers, the RITA and the Golden Heart contests, because so many entrants and judges withdrew.

But what about Courtney Milan?

She's finally put out a new book, the proverbial book of her heart, The Duke Who Didn't, which will be released on September 22. Personally, I'm looking forward to this story.

In the meantime, Courtney talks about her experience with RWA and how her maternal grandmother was the inspiration for her newest novel in a article on Entertainment Weekly.

The More Things Change in RWA...

...the more I'm glad I left years ago.

I love romance. I'm a romance writer under the Alter Ego pen name. And if any of you have read my fantasy genre books, you know I have romance subplots.

I left because of the regular dissing of erotic romance and indie publishing and e-books. I was told I would never have a career if I indie-published, or kept writing trash or...pick your poison. The anger from others and myself was affecting me physically. I didn't need to end up in the hospital. Ironically, I quit both my day job and RWA in 2012.

Over the last seven years, I've had friends, old and new, suggest that I come to a meeting again. "Things have changed," they said. "RWA had lots of workshops on indie publishing," they said. "RWA is more open now than ever," they said.

Then the Rita nominees were announced at the end of March.

For those who don't know, the Ritas are the major awards in the romance genre. For romance writers, nabbing a Rita is a big deal.

Except the membership noticed at glaringly bright white problem. Yep, all the nominees for 2019 are white, straight women. And for the whipped cream on that milk pie, all stories nominated involved contained heroines who are ...straight, white women. After all the bullshit with the Oscars, you'd think other entertainment-related organization would learn.

*sigh*

The original brouhaha allegedly happened on RWA's PAN (Published Authors Network) forum. Things got so bad it spilled into other writer forums and the publishing industry at large.

Donna S. Frelick talked about the lack of criteria for judging  and lack of training allows personal bias to get in the way. Laurie A. Green pointed out the racism and homophobia weren't the only biases when it came to the Ritas. The controversy grew so widespread a UK paper, The Guardian, had a pretty extensive article about race and RWA.

Instead of hiding under rock or sic the RWA attorney on members (I've seen both happen the eight years I was an RWA member), RWA's current president HelenKay Dimon has pledged to find a solution to the biases within the organization. Frankly, I hope Ms. Dimon and her board find a solution.

However, it isn't just writers and publishers who are the problem. How we deal with reader biases?

Anyone who's written a series, regardless of the  genre, can tell you how the sales numbers go down for each volume. For example (and these are hypothetical numbers):

Book #1 sells 100 copies.
Book #2 sells 50 copies.
Book #3 sells 35 copies.
Book #4 sells 20 copies, and so on.

Alter Ego's first series contained four books. The heroine of the third book was African-American. (I'll get into writing the other in Wednesday's blog post.) I bought a photo of a lovely dark-skinned black woman I used as the cover of Book #3.

If I posted my sales spreadsheets for this series, you would see that sales for Book #3 went way behind the normal drop off after Book #2. In fact, Book #4 with a white heroine on the cover outsells Book #3 roughly 3 to 1.

Recently, I redid all the covers for this series because the male model I used in the original covers decided to be, using my friend Jo's favorite term, a shitbird on Facebook. It'll be interesting if the sales ratios start to shift for Book #3 now that I'm using generic high-heeled shoes for all the covers.

So what's the perfect answer? I don't know, but this is a conversation our society needs to have.


**I'm going to leave comments open as long as everyone uses their company manners. If you get personal or nasty, your comment will get File 13'd.**

How to Kill Your Writing Career in Five Easy Steps

1) Trademark a single word that isn't even the name of your series.

2) Steal someone else's intellectual property and illegally use it in your trademark.

3) Send your own cease and desist letters over the single word to small-fry authors using the word instead of paying your attorney to do so.

4) Try to avoid the blowback from the C&D letters by sending DCMA notices to Amazon.

5) Piss off the indie writer community by doubling down when you're called on being a trademark troll on said community.


If you're an indie writer, you've heard about Faleena Hopkins and #cockygate by now. One thing I can say about indies is they are a very supportive group.

Unless you decide to be a trademark troll.

We artists get enough of this shit from big corporations who think we can't fight back. Not long ago, MCA Hogarth was attacked by Games Workshop over the generic sf term "space marine". So when one our own does something stupid, our reactions range from Jenny Trout's WTF Faleena! to Cassie Sharp's Sweetie, you need to get some real friends.

Others actually took action. Some authors like Jamila Jasper went public with the letter she received. Jamila then used #cockygate to promote her renamed book. RWA contacted Amazon about the issue as a blatant attack on their membership. Several members then created a "cocky" anthology to help with the attorney fees (the book was released on Saturday, May 26th). Then there's writer/attorney Kevin Kneupper, who filed to cancel Faleena's trademark.

All this happened before I started writing this post. A death in the family last week  meant I came back to finish it five days later. And even more shit had happened.

Faleena stupidly thought filing a personal injury lawsuit against Kevin, Tara Crescent, and Jennifer Watson would make things go away. Mark Marcotte, a lawyer whose case is cited in Faleena's lawsuit as precedent, says Faleena's lawyer badly misstates his case (@markmarcotte on Twitter).

My favorite part was Faleena claiming she called Carol Ritter of RWA on May 16th and was pissed that Carol referred the call to RWA's counsel. Umm, if your already threatening to file lawsuits against people left and right, why on earth would anyone trust you to just talk?

There was a damn good reason Ms. Ritter didn't talk to Faleena. The cocky indie writer lost on her attempt at a Temporary Restraining Order last Friday on the Cocktales anthology. The Preliminary Injunction will be heard this morning.

The good thing to come out of this mess is that more writers are paying attentiion to trademark and copyright listings and trying to understand their rights and responsibilities. I'm not saying trademarks are a bad thing. If Faleena had trademarked the actual name of her series, instead of ripping off Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward's cover style and title, this would be an entirely different matter.

The bad thing is we have more idiots who don't understand, don't care, or just want to troll other authors in an effort to eliminate what they perceive as the competition.

I'll say this one more time: people can read more than we can write as individuals no matter how speedy we are. It's not a zero sum game. And if you need tricks to "win", maybe you're a sucky writer, and you should focus more on your craft to win the readers over.

- Angry Sheep, stepping off her soapbox.

Joiining or Not Joining

There's a ton of various writers organizations in existence, but most seemed to be geared toward either beginners or big sellers. I'm in the weird position of being somewhere in the middle.

Then there's finding a group that is geared toward the same business interests as mine. But what exactly is my business interest?

Fiction or non-fiction? I've done both.

Trad or indie? I've done both.

Novels or short stories? I've done both.

But most organizations define their interests rather narrowly.

Romance Writers of America is only for people who write romance. Recently, they've dropped the hammer on people who aren't pursuing romance writing as a profession. I can honestly say I've pursued the genre professional, but I left in 2012 over the crap they were giving both erotic romance authors as well as indies. I've heard they've backed off on both stances, but I have to make nearly ten times as much as an indie than as a trad author to qualify as a professional. Needless to say, I lean toward screaming, "UTTER BULLSHIT!"

[NOTE: I will say if you're a beginning writer, as in you haven't sold or published a damn thing yet, RWA membership is great for their craft classes.]

The Authors Guild only focuses on writers in trad publishing. No, thank you. I like doing my own thing too much. Not to mention, a good chunk of the membership wants to return the publishing industry back to the 19th century. You know, when publishing was a gentleman's game. *eyeroll*

One of my original goals was to qualify for membership to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As the name states, you have to be writing science fiction and/or fantasy. I qualified for membership a couple of years ago, but they have similar rules as RWA, which still pisses me off. Add in the political drama within the organization over the last few years, and I'm perfectly happy sitting in my apartment all by myself.

Novelists, Inc., terms for membership eligibility are a little fairer toward indies than either RWA or SFWA. Several people have suggested I join, but...okay, I have a hang-up. For a professional writers organization, they have an ungodly number of typos on their website.

There's several formal groups and organizations now that are geared toward indies, but I have yet to find one that doesn't have the same elitism or political problems. Maybe it's a human problem. Or as several people have told me, I expect too much.

But in all the cases, the annual dues are roughly in the $100 range. There's so much I can do with $100. That's the e-book and print book covers for a new novel. That's formatting for a few short stories or nearly a full-sized novel. That's shipping ten proof copies of trade paperbacks.

And that's part of running a business--figuring out what's the best use of resources. And right now, joining a club for the sake of joining a club is not the best use of my time or money.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Ellora's Cave Redux: When Publishers Don't Learn Their Lessons

The folks at Ellora's Cave are at it again. This time, their attorney sent a letter to Romance Writers of America, threatening to file a libel suit. Nate Hoffelder at The Digital Reader has a nice run down of the latest situation. And the comments at TDR fill in more information. You can read the full text of RWA's notice here.

Basically, it's the same ole-same ole. Actually, it's even older than the recent lawsuit against romance blogger Dear Author.

Issues between RWA and EC have been going on for nearly ten years. The first problems occurred back in 2007 when RWA changed its approved publisher rules in order to block any writer who has an e-book only release. (The president at the time was notoriously dismissive of e-books and writers who signed e-book contracts.) The issue at the time was not specifically about EC, but ANY e-book publisher. I attended the RWA National Conference that year, and sat through the annual board meeting. A lot of members were angry because EC had approved status for several years before this bullsh** happened.

The behavior of certain board members and general members wasn't pretty.

There was another major upheaval between 2011 and 2012 within RWA, again over the subject of e-books. Indie writers weren't considered to be actively seeking publication. Around this time, RWA changed the term from "approved publisher" to "qualifying markets", and EC was eliminated from the list. Also, during this period was when I first heard rumors of problems at EC, but most of the romance community was focused on the collapse of Dorchester.

So RWA has been warning its membership away from EC for some time. The only thing that's changed? RWA, acting on behalf of members who previously published with EC, is demanding payment of overdue royalties.

EC has been denying the allegations of non-payment for some time. But the funny thing is that every time EC goes to court, the case gets settled right around the time opposing counsel demands proof of payment.

The difference between suing DA and RWA? DA is a romance book review blog essentially headed up by one person. RWA represents over TEN THOUSAND romance writers.

While I quit RWA in 2012 because I didn't agree with their e-book and indie publishing policies (according to several friends, thing's have recently changed), I don't agree with trying to silence critics. If EC really wanted to settle things once and for all, prove that all writers, editors and artists have been paid in full.

It's that simple.

The Famous Writer Facepalm

I'm getting really tired of the anti-indie sentiment floating around the internet. It's almost as bad as the anti-Amazon crap, but then according to Scott Turow, I'm too fucking stupid to understand that I need agents and publishers to ensure the quality of my manuscripts.

Really? If so, why am I getting daily messages from readers wondering where the hell my next book is?

Scott had an op-ed piece in last Sunday's New York Times entitled "The Slow Death of the American Author." In it, Scott accuses the U.S. Supreme Court, Amazon, Google, libraries, and pirates for the diminishing monetary returns of authors.

I won't get into all the factual inaccuracies in Scott's opinion piece. Suffice to say, many others pointed out the problems in more detail than I could hope to. Though if you want an entertaining read, Barry Eisler's commentary is the funniest.

First of all, anyone who can blame pirates and libraries in the same breath isn't inhaling the same atmosphere I am.

Second of all, what slow death? I'm doing just fine. (Just got my Apple numbers for March. Still ahead of Amazon sales. B&N still beating everyone. Go figure.)

But the thing is Scott's not talking about the death of authors. He's concerned about the slow death of the Big Six.

The really big problem that has the writers up in arms is Scott's position as the president of Authors Guild, a group that supposed to be on the side of writers. Or so we thought.

In some of the brouhahas lately like the RH Hydra fiasco or the Nightshade spiral toward bankruptcy, Authors Guild has not said one word. Not one. Other organizations, such the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, have. But not one word out of Scott on behalf of Authors Guild.

For those who think other writers are picking on Scott Turow, well, I think they have every reason to question where his loyalties lie when the shit hits the fan and authors get taken for a ride by publishers.

Because of the massive upheavals in the publishing industry, I'm not inclined to join another writers' association. Or even rejoin one.

You see, I quit the Romance Writers of America. Or that's what I was accused of in a private e-mail last year. As I pointed out to this person, I didn't quit. I simply didn't bother to renew my membership.

It's nothing against RWA. If you're a beginning writer, I highly recommend joining RWA. For the money, their craft classes outstrip any MFA program in the nation. I may rejoin down the road. We'll see what happens through the rest of this year.

But when it comes to the business side of your publishing career, look to your right. See those blogs I have links to? Those are the people who have a clue about business. Read them.

Or not. It's your choice.

But whatever you do, don't listen to Scott Turow.

[Edit to add: Stonekettle Station isn't exactly a writers' blog, but Ret. Navy Chief Warrant Officer Jim Wright is funny as hell. His style of social commentary reminds me of Mark Twain. Don't read it if you're easily offended.]

Harlequin Did What?!?

The first hint I got of the brewing trouble was a e-mail on an RWA chapter loop yesterday. My first thought when I read Harlequin was starting its own vanity publishing division was "typo." Followed by "WTF?" Followed by "why the hell would the Torstar board dilute the brand of the one freaking section of the corporation that's made money for the last two quarters?"

RWA has a policy of only promoting non-vanity, non-subsidy publishers to its membership. So in response to Harlequin's Tuesday announcement, the RWA Board released a statement today that Harlequin is no longer an RWA-eligible publisher. To the hundreds of RWA member published by Harlequin, it means they are now not eligible for the Rita award.

Didn't the folks at Harlequin learn anything from all the companies that have crashed and burned since 2001? Contrary to Gordon Gecko's statement, greed is NOT good.