Hysteria and Paranoia over new MWA Standards

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First, let me say I am speaking here only for myself an not on behalf of the MWA, the MWA Board or the Membership Committee. I am not claiming to represent the views of anyone here but myself.

There’s lots of hysteria being whipped up by a handful of aggrieved pseudo-publishers and self-published authors who are furious about the new MWA standards for active membership and approved publishers list.

They are, quite frankly, spreading falsehoods and stoking fear for self-serving reasons.

The pseudo-publishers don’t want to treat writers fairly and be more forthright about the kind of business they are actually running BUT they still want to be acknowledged by the MWA.

The self-published authors — and those who weren’t paid and whose manuscripts are only available via POD — want to be considered professional, published authors even though they aren’t.

Let’s tackle the outrageous falsehoods one by one…

1) Active members are being thrown out of the MWA. NO CURRENT ACTIVE MEMBERS ARE LOSING THEIR MEMBERSHIP STATUS as a result of the new rules. This is the most poisonous of the lies. It is being spread to stoke fear among authors who gained active status with books published by companies that are, for various reasons, no longer on the MWA’s Approved Publisher’s list.  The lie is being spread by certain "publishers" who don’t want to change their business practices to treat writers fairly or who don’t want to honestly state the true nature of their publishing business.

Anyone who was granted active status membership under the old guidelines will remain an active status member as long as they pay their annual dues.  And even if someone lets their membership lapse and then rejoins months or even years later, they will have the same status they had before (unless they are an affiliate member seeking Active Status).

2) The MWA is trying to "eliminate small publishers."  That’s ridiculous. There are many wonderful small publishers on the MWA’s list. By tightening our standards, the MWA is simply protecting writers from being screwed and maintaining the professional integrity of the organization and its members. 

We are weeding out "publishers" who are actually self-publishing companies, or are thinly disguised vanity presses (meaning they were founded by an author to primarily print his own work and those of his family, co-workers, etc.), or are "back end" subsidy publishers (meaning they pay a miniscule, token advance and then withhold royalties against a litany of non-standard charges), or are publishing primarily in POD (and therefore are not available in bookstores), or are engaging in deceptive, unfair, and unprofessional business practices that harm writers.

There are writers who will gladly sign horrible contracts or go with pseudo-publishers just to see their manuscripts printed in book form. But just because those authors are content to be screwed or be willingly misled doesn’t mean that the MWA should grant those companies the legitimacy and implied endorsement that comes with being on our Approved Publisher’s list.

That is NOT to say that all the companies who have been denied approval are dishonest. Far from it. But many do not pay advances, or have minimal prints runs, or only publish in POD, or publish only a couple of authors besides those who run the company, or haven’t been in business long enough to establish any kind of reputation.

Active Status members are professional writers…and professional writers are PAID for their work. Publishers who don’t pay writers for their work don’t meet our standards of professionalism.

Professional publishers publish books and distribute them to bookstores for sale.  That is their business. If they aren’t publishing a minimal number of authors and a decent number of books, they aren’t running a  business…they are enjoying a hobby. 

Publishers who are also authors, and who publish fewer than five other writers, are essentially operating a self-publishing operation, not a publishing company.

Two years of business creates a history by which we can judge whether the publisher is actually a publisher (meaning more than a vanity operation), if they are financially sound (actually paying authors advances and royalties), and if they are reputable business people.

3) The MWA is an "old boys" club and an elitist organization. That’s actually partly true. We aren’t an "old boys" club but we are, to some degree, elitist. All organizations have guidelines for membership and, therefore, practice some degree of exclusion. 

Our active members are professional writers. We, therefore, have to create and maintain standards of what we define as “professional” and what defines “publication.” Among those standards are that professional writers are paid for their work, that their novels are published, and that their books are distributed to bookstores.

In a world where anyone with a credit card and the web address of POD service can call themselves a “published author” or a “publisher,” it’s even more imperative that the MWA maintain strict guidelines of what constitutes professional publication. The MWA will cease to be a respected organization if we don’t have high standards and if we don’t maintain them in the face of a changing marketplace. Our membership criteria isn’t even as extreme as the SFWA’s.

Anyone who is excluded from gaining Active Status membership (or being on the Approved Publishers list) will feel the title grants an elite status and that they are being excluded from enjoying the benefits that come with it. So, to that degree, yes, the MWA is an elitist organization.

4) The MWA is eliminating publishing opportunities for writers and their chances to expose their work to the public. We are not, in any way, limiting publishing opportunities or exposure for authors. All we are doing is establishing criteria for books that we will consider for Edgars and for publishers we will consider for our “approved publisher” list. You can publish your book with any company you want…but you may not qualify to enter the Edgars or become an Active Member of our organization. That’s your choice.

5) These new rules actually hurt writers. That’s the biggest lie of all…and the one the pseud0-publishers really want you to believe. These new rules protect aspiring writers and current members alike from being taken advantage of by vanity presses, less-than-reputable publishers or companies whose practices don’t meet accepted professional standards in our industry. The new rules assure that only publishers who pay writers for their work, publish their books, and distribute them to bookstores receive the implied endorsement that MWA approval brings.

As result of the MWA’s new rules, I hope authors will be more careful about the publishers that they do business with…and that more publishers will hold themselves to higher ethical and professional standards in the way they treat their authors and conduct their business. 

A Novel Twist on Self-Publishing

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Author Archer Mayor’s  CHAT, the 18th book in his "Joe Gunther" series is about to be published by Grand Central Publishing later this month and St. Martin’s Press has just signed for books 19-21…but his back list of 17 previous books in the series are out-of-print. So Mayor, a death investigator for Vermont’s medical examiner, mortgaged his house and lined up investors to publish all the previous Gunther books himself. Publishers Weekly reports:

Mayor said he was encouraged to bring back his books in part because of his consistently good reviews. The New York Times Book Review has called him “one of the most sophisticated stylists in the genre.” And Publishers Weekly has
given six of his books starred reviews. He is also a recipient of the
New England Independent Booksellers Association Award for Best Fiction.
Despite the attention, his books still average only 18,000 copies in
hardcover.

He’s focusing his efforts on a regional approach, sticking to his local stomping ground but hitting it hard.

Mayor has 88 signings over the next two months. “I’m going to
cover New England like a wet T-shirt,” he joked. He kicked off the
campaign by taking a table at the NEIBA trade show in Providence last
month, where he got orders for 300 units. The sales rep for Hachette
even gave him a stack of galleys for Chat so Mayor could promote the new book with his backlist.

“We ordered tons of his new editions,” said Lynne Reed, co-owner of
Misty Valley Books, who has Mayor on her fall events schedule. “I think
once we get all the books back in stock, people will be very happy.
They want to start with the first book in the series and read them
straight through.”

Mayor is being conservative with his initial print runs, 500 trade paperbacks of each.

Unlike other self-publishing ventures, Mayor has several advantages. He is starting with titles that he was paid to write and that were previously published,  were well-reviewed and already have a following among readers and, most importantly, booksellers.

On top of that, he has four new novels coming established publishers that will have national distribution and that could stoke interest, and sales, in his previous titles.

He also made two very smart and realistic decisions — he avoided the POD vanity presses for his venture and he’s focusing his sales and promotional efforts on one region of the country, rather than trying to blanket the nation. 

I’m sure that lots of other mid-list authors with a big back list and a new book in the offing will be watching how he does, but I doubt that many of them have the financial resources or the guts to attempt the same  high-stakes gamble.

It’s So 1974

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In "Population Zero," the first regular episode of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, Steve Austin has to go into a town where everybody has been killed by a strange virus.

In "Paradise Lost," the first regular episode of the "re-imagined" BIONIC WOMAN, Jaime Sommers has to go into a town where everybody has been killed by a strange virus.

I guess it won’t be long before the Bigfoot shows up on BIONIC WOMAN, too.

In Glen We Trust

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Glenn Remember the clueless morons at the Colonial Fan Force? Well, this is even better. Now that NBC has announced they’re developing a new KNIGHTRIDER — although I suspect the 30% dropoff in week two of BIONIC WOMAN might put a little damper on that — a team of fans has sprung up to defend the Glen Larson/Weinstein feature version that’s been in development. The best part of their idiotic campaign has got to be their logo:

I have noticed that recently fans have been asking what they can do to show their support for Glen especially now that Universal is intended on competing with his vision of what Knight Rider should be. I have designed an emblem so you too can show your support for his movie and his vision that one man (and his car) can make a difference.

You may post this image anywhere you like, in fact I encourage you to do so and tell your friends and family if they wish to support the movie to post it as well.

Put it on myspace, fan forums, blogs, websites, anywhere you wish to display it. You have carte blanch to do with it as you like (as long as it’s respectful).

I deeply respect the logo and plan to wear it on my chest until the network suits, studio bean-counters, and the world at large realize that "one man and his car can make a difference."

(Thanks to Bill Rabkin for tipping me off!)

“Tie-in Writers and the Mono-Medium Logic Problem”

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Yeah, I have no idea what that headline means, either. But it’s the title of a post about the IAMTW on the Cross-Media+Transmedia Entertainment Blog,  which is run by Christy Dena, who describes herself as  a "universe creator and transmodiologist." She writes, in part:

One of the reasons for the paradigmatic change to cross-media world-creation is the emergence of transliterate creators

[…]One of the problems has been that each of these adaptations and extensions has been seen by the creators as isolated, as paratextual to the original work. The primary work (which can be the contemporary adaptation of an old literary peice), is the center of the creative universe…and all other mediums are satellites and inconsequential. This is a mono-medium-logic that is gradually giving way to a different paradigm of creations across media.

[…]The point I’ve been championing is that tie-ins are not always conceived as exterior to the storyworld to those experiencing it. […] If tie-in writers think that the expansion across mediums means the work should be assessed and experienced differently then we have problems. It is perhaps another reason why transliterate creators and taking care of all of the points-of-entry in different mediums themselves. The mono-medium logic of tie-in writers is best evidenced in their logo:

IAMTW

I’m not saying that all writers have to become transliterate…just the ones that work in the business of creating cross-media worlds.

I like to think of myself as reasonably intelligent…but I have no idea what the hell she is talking about. Could someone please translate it into English for me?

My Dark Past

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Make2bthem2bpay It’s amazing what you find when you’re procrastinating and, pathetically, googling yourself. More than twenty years after I wrote .357 VIGILANTE: MAKE THEM PAY, it has finally been reviewed:

After lengthy consideration, I have come to the conclusion that this series was written completely tongue-in-cheek, and was meant to be a mockery of Vigilante Men’s Action Series such as The Executioner and The Destroyer, with an obvious nod to the Death Wish/Dirty Harry influences as well.

[…]The punchlines delivered by Mr. Jury whenever he exacts justice on a criminal are so over-the-top ludicrous, the are my ultimate proof that the entire series is a joke. Example: he notices an armed robbery taking progress in a convenience store, quickly grabs a steel level from the construction site next door, and just before caving in the criminal’s skull delivers the line "You’re unbalanced, buddy."

He’s right…but I have to wonder why it took him "lengthy consideration" instead of a nanosecond to come to the conclusion that the books were thinly disguised spoofs. 

I also discovered that Chadwick Saxelid reviewed the first book in the .357 VIGILANTE series in August and had a similar take on the, um, quality of the writing and plotting:

.357: Vigilante 1 is an amateurish, albeit modestly entertaining, relic of what appears to be an all but extinct sub-genre: the numbered category Men’s Adventure novel[…] At times .357: Vigilante 1 reads like a high school student’s concept of what a hard boiled man of action story should sound like (not surprising, considering that author "Ian Ludlow" was actually a college student named Lee Goldberg) or an out and out parody of one.

Heaps of Ideas

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I got an email today from someone with lots ideas that she wants to sell:

I have heaps of story ideas, but I am not good at creating characters. Is there a place out there for people like me? Somebody who buys the basis of a story. So far I have written shorts of a story into a small book with hopes that it will make a good movie. Can you recommend who I could get to publish my little book?

Unfortunately, there really isn’t a place for people with ideas but no ability to execute them. Publishers and studios don’t buy ideas, they buy the execution of the idea by authors and screenwriters. Writers rarely buy ideas, though they might option novels, biographies, etc. But what is a good story without strong characters?

I don’t know a lot about the short story world (that’s more my brother Tod’s area of expertise). I recommend you submit your short stories to some magazines. Once they are published, you might get some attention for them from a screenwriter or a studio, especially if they garner critical acclaim.