Lucynda Storey-Erotic Romance Writer

Dear Ms. Burnham and Ms. Milburn,

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the on-line
questionnaire regarding the proposed changes regarding qualifying for PAN.

I have to say I was disappointed in the questions and the actual answers we could select from. I am strongly opposed to any requirement that wants to know my personal income. The income an author makes from the sale of a single novel hardly qualifies them as being a professional,published author. Because one author signs a single book contract and receives an advance does not make that person more or less serious about their career than another. In fact, there are many PAN authors who are “one-hit wonders” and are far less professional in their careers than those who have published several books with smaller houses and who continue to hone their craft. Income level is not an adequate assessment in determining who should be PAN or PRO.

RWA is mistaken if they truly believe that PAN does not serve the purpose of a certain level of recognition for author achievement in their career whether RWA meant it or not. Perhaps the intent, years ago, was to provide information for the published author; the same author that the RWA organization decided qualified. Again, why should income be the yardstick here? A recognized author needs the information about growing their career as much if not more than those who’ve been in the business years. Your own definition states, “PAN’s purpose is to establish within RWA a network of communication and support to effectively promote and protect the interests of published romance authors, to open channels of communication between those romance authors and other publishing industry professionals, and to encourage professionalism on all levels and in all relationships within the publishing industry.”

Again RWA is mistaken if they truly believe that publisher recognition doesn’t send a message to their membership. Of course recognition is a jewel in the publisher’s crown and authors want to publish with companies that meet your minimum standards.  Authors know that publisher’s business practices have been looked at by RWA,  in some depth, in order to qualify for RWA approval. With the advent of the Internet, that sort of information travels and some publishers have referred to the private information gathered as something similar to a very unpleasant medical procedure.

Authors also want to be associated with houses that have survived the microscopic scrutiny and achieved this level of professional recognition. It doesn’t hurt the publisher when they are looking for new talent to be able to say that they’ve been RWA approved and is indeed a draw for an author who wishes to achieve PAN status. When RWA gives a publisher its stamp of approval a statement has been made about that company. Included would be the fact that the company has had successful authors helping the company meet the standards set forth by RWA. So why shouldn’t the authors for that publisher receive PAN status?

Although RWA hasn’t come out and stated this directly, it appears that there is definitely a “them versus us” attitude. In your own words, “Will those who are currently published in romance, yet not making an income sufficient to qualify for PAN under the proposed eligibility requirements, feel that they are viewed as “less” published?”

You bet they will. Submitting a novel, revising it, getting a contract, going through edits and learning about promotion have nothing to do with income. The publishing experience is a career altering event all “professional” authors go through.

There have been several companies recognized recently by RWA that did not get their publishing start the traditional way. Companies that are electronic. Companies that have hundreds of authors in their houses. Authors who applied immediately for their PAN recognition, thrilled their hard work was, yes, being recognized. In addition, you state that the author who doesn’t make the minimum $2,000 off their single release would benefit from staying PRO. Yet, the information that author needs is from those who are PAN. You stated the need for PAN members to open lines of communication. A lot of the new PAN authors have information for the older PAN members regarding electronic publishing, royalties, effective use of the Internet and other tools for promotion. Information that will definitely benefit the PAN members who are not signing the five figure contracts.

The world of publishing is and has changed drastically in the past few years. Traditional publishers are scrambling to catch up. If you look at the new contracts they include clauses for electronic rights; rights which were not considered serious enough to worry about in years past. The actions RWA is considering appear to be the backlash of worried traditionalists. Authors who’ve made their careers in electronic publishing are just as serious about moving forward and ahead as those who’ve started the traditional way, maybe more because they have an uphill battle to fight.

You might consider determining whether or not an author is PAN by how many books s/he writes in a year, or a decade, but any time you use numbers of any sort you descend a slippery slope. How many times will the minimum requirement change? Who is allowed to determine the “magic” number?

Has RWA calculated the number of writers it may lose due to this arbitrary value assignment? How that will trickle down to local chapters? How it will affect advertising in the RWR? How many people may speak negatively of RWA because of this politically inspired change?

The fact is this: If you had a book contracted and released by a non-subsidy, non-vanity house that met RWA approval, you are a professional and worthy of being allowed to be a PAN member (and there are plenty who would say you qualified even if the house wasn’t RWA approved and I’d have to agree). If you really have those who are qualified to be PAN and they’d rather stay PRO, then let them.

You’ll have far fewer headaches if you leave well enough alone.

Sincerely,

 Lucynda Storey

CRW, HODRW, Passionate Ink

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 2:25 am and is filed under Lucynda Storey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.