Harlequin goes for self-publishing

Via Publishers Weekly: RWA, MWA and SFWA Angered by Harlequin's New Self-Publishing Imprint. This is bad news. Excerpt:

Romance Writers of America and other writer associations yesterday spoke out against the announcement earlier this week that Author Solutions had teamed up with Harlequin to form Harlequin Horizons, a new imprint for self-published romance authors. 

RWA has deemed Harlequin no longer eligible for RWA-provided conference resources—meaning the publisher is not entitled to enter any award competitions. 

Late yesterday, Harlequin publisher and CEO Donna Hayes responded, saying the company was “surprised and dismayed” at RWA’s actions, and that it would change the name of the self-publishing company from Harlequin Horizons to a designation “that will not refer to Harlequin in any way.” 

As PW reported Tuesday, Harlequin Horizons was set to recruit writers in two ways: authors whose manuscripts had been rejected by Harlequin would be made aware of the Harlequin Horizons option, and authors who signed with Author Solutions would be given the opportunity to be published under the Harlequin Horizons imprint. All services are on a pay-for-service basis.

The Mystery Writers of America and Science Fiction Writers of America, as the report says, are equally annoyed, and for good reason. If one of the biggest mass-market houses in the world starts relying on income from its authors, not its readers, we writers have a big problem on our hands.

Publishers will have another reason to stick to the biggest names and most profitable titles, and one less reason to gamble on a new writer or a midlist writer who can reach an audience only if given some time on the racks and shelves.

Those writers will now be invited, in effect, to gamble on themselves--as if they haven't already by investing time and effort in producing a novel. This is a serious abdication of the publisher's role as marketer. 

Harlequin seems to think that the market it really understands is not the readers who have enriched it for decades, but the aspiring writers with something to say to those readers. I hope publishers in other genres have more confidence in themselves, and in their writers.

Comments

[Greg Bulmash]

Yowch. Just found this blog and this is the first article I read. Hard-hitting.

Referring rejected authors to a vanity press maintained by the publisher just seems all sorts of wrong. But preying on wannabe authors is a big industry... Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble hooked up with POD/subsidy publishers as a method of getting your work into their stores. Random House started an online vanity press if I recall correctly.

I don't like what Harlequin tried, but it seems to be going along with the writer-exploitation flow rather than breaking new ground.