Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Earth time. by A National Acrobat

And this is what surprises me. Harlequin, you’re brilliant. You’ve made nothing but all the right steps in all these decades of publishing. You flourish where others founder. You took a great (welcome) leap with Carina, but this? This displays the business sense of a kindergartner.

–Moriah Jovan, Harlequin: Ur doin it rong

How fast is the publishing industry changing?

Two weeks ago, I praised Harlequin for their new digital-only imprint, Carina Press, noting that its business model, while not “new” by any stretch, was a great leap into the future for a traditional publisher to make, especially a well-established leader in its niche. Commentary about the new initiative was mostly positive all around, and purely measured on buzz, its announcement was a PR success.

Last week, they got a noticeably different response to another new initiative, the launch of a self-publishing program under the banner Harlequin Horizons, in partnership with Author Solutions, Inc.. The backlash was fast and furious  from both the Romance Writers Association and several outspoken members of the romance community, including Jackie Keesler, whose “Harlequin Horizons versus RWA” post is a must-read.

By almost any definition, last week was a PR disaster for Harlequin, but for authors, it was just the latest sign that everything you thought you knew about publishing  is wrong.

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It's a giant cupcake and Android! (@ Googleplex - B44) by David Recordon

Just as many entrepreneurs no longer need venture capitalists to launch their companies, authors no longer need publishers to publish.

Mark Coker, Do Authors Still Need Publishers?

Picture this: In the future, as the risks of publishing shift from the publisher to the author, publishers will be able to invest in technologies that allow them to bypass authors completely, developing sophisticated algorithms to scrape their content from the Internet, repurpose and repackage it for non-discriminating readers, and charge advertisers fistfuls of money for their wandering eyeballs!

It sounds even better if you say it out loud in Dr. Evil’s voice. Or Chris Anderson’s. Or Arianna Huffington’s.

Resistance is futile!

If Coker’s second linkbait advertorial for the Huffington Post didn’t add anything new to the conversation, it did at least spawn a new hashtag on Twitter, #publishersmatter, and generate some interesting discussion around the value publishers do, and don’t, offer authors nowadays.

My take?

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diversity matters by andres musta

A recent meeting with two Caucasian well-respected literary agent friends of mine cemented that concern when one announced, “We’re all the same, [people the publishing industry]. We’re all white, we’re all over-educated, Ivy-leaguers, many of whom are trust fund babies.”

Jeff Rivera, Declining Book Sales?

WTF? Seriously?

This is apparently going to be remembered as Rant Week since I’ve been forced to emphasize the loud in loudpoet way more than usual, so bear with me a minute and don’t jump to any conclusions.

One of the few things I hate more than pundits are stereotypes, especially when they’re being used to make a point I might otherwise be inclined to agree with, but Rivera’s well-intentioned point in his GalleyCat op-ed so overshoots the mark that it’s kind of embarrassing, especially in light of his usual editorial role there as, well, the token guy of color.

Or so it felt for his first few months when the majority of his posts included the qualifier… “of Color“.

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typewriter of capricorn by emdot

There’s been a notable spike in new traffic here lately, partly from Twitter and partly from the blog being favorably cited recently by Editor Unleashed and ASMP’s Strictly Business Blog. (Thanks!) In light of my last two posts being a bit more ranty than usual, and my schedule next week being crazy, I thought it would be a good idea to pull together some of my favorite posts so far this year, starting with those focused on writers and marketing.

Developing a Platform

Tone Deaf Publishers Need Savvy Writers

After offering our individual takes on a variety of topics and looking into our crystal balls to speculate on where things were going — a unanimous vision of increased disintermediation and the power of writers to control their own careers — we took questions and what was most notable was that the majority in attendance were not terribly marketing savvy and something as simple as setting up a blog struck many of them as being a significant challenge. A few didn’t see the value of it at all, missing the forest for the trees, seemingly still believing that a writer’s only job is to write.

Platform 101 For Busy Writers: 3 Simple Steps

I’ve realized over the past several months that there’s a tendency to oversimplify things, to assume everyone has a certain level of web and marketing savvy (not to mention free time), starting discussions about writers’ platforms, curating communities and “free vs. freemium” way too far ahead of the curve. For a lot of writers. something as seemingly simple as setting up a blog can become a huge, time-consuming effort for which the long-term value isn’t always quite clear or worthwhile.

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