Nov 21 2009
Harlequin Horizons and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Deal
(Apologies to Judith Viorst and the Alexander books for the title.)
I’m seeing some new traffic because someone on the Smart Bitches comment thread linked to my “Repent, Harlequin?” post, so, um, hi there, new people! Pull up a chair, because (drumrolllllll)…
Finally, the number-crunching post!
However, before I start throwing math at you (I know, I’m such a tease), I want to go over a few terms regarding the different kinds of publishing out there. I’ve seen a lot of people equating self-publishing with vanity publishing, and while sometimes vanity presses try to sell their services as self-publishing, they’re unfortunately smearing their bad reputations all over the people who have truly self-published.
SFWA has an excellent page devoted to it, and the Writer Beware team puts it far better than I ever could, so first I’m going to point you here.
You might have noticed here that I try very hard not to use the term “traditional publishers” when I’m referring to what SFWA correctly defines as “commercial” publishers, as “traditional publishing” is a phrase coined by a scam publisher who I’m not going to link to here. So, Random House, Tor, Little, Brown & Company, HarperCollins, and, yes, even the advance-paying, editorial-having, books-on-bookstore-shelves part of Harlequin, those are all commercial publishers. So, SFWA’s defintion of commercial publishers:
A commercial publisher purchases the right to publish a manuscript (usually together with other rights, known as subsidiary rights), and pays the author a royalty on sales. Most also pay an advance on royalties. Commercial publishers are highly selective, publishing only a tiny percentage of manuscripts submitted. They handle every aspect of editing, publication, distribution, and marketing. There are no costs to the author.
Next, let’s look at self-publishing — true self-publishing, that is. SFWA again:
Self-publishing, like vanity publishing, requires the author to bear the entire cost of publication, and also to handle all marketing, distribution, storage, etc. However, rather than paying for a pre-set package of services, the author puts those services together himself. Because every aspect of the process can be out to bid, self-publishing can be much more cost effective than vanity publishing; it can also result in a higher-quality product. All rights, the ISBN, and completed books are owned by the author, who keeps all proceeds from sales.
Is self-publishing easy? No. It requires a whole lot of work from the author that chooses to go that route, and I’d venture that the more successful self-published titles are put out there by people with an idea of how the industry works. Author Teri Woods went the self-publishing route, selling books out of the trunk of her car. Brunonia Barry, author of The Lace Reader, self-published and sold her book in and around Salem, MA, where it takes place. Both Woods and Barry sold enough of their books to make major commercial houses take notice and offer them book deals, but neither success story happened overnight.
Also, they self-published.
Still Alice author Lisa Genova (who commented here once omg /fangirl /squee), published through iUniverse knowing she’d have to do all the marketing and publicity legwork herself. She used their services for printing and shipping the books, period, the end. The rest, she did on her own, with an eye towards being picked up by a commercial publisher:
It’s important to know that a self-published book was not my goal. I self-published because I couldn’t make any headway on the conventional road to a book deal. My self-publishing goal was to demonstrate that Still Alice had an enthusiastic and sizeable audience. I wanted to give my book a chance to wave its arms in the air and yell at the top of its lungs, to create a buzz loud enough for the literary agents and publishing houses to hear. And at the end of my self-published day, I still wanted a book deal from a traditional publishing house.
Again, someone with an idea of how the publishing industry works, making the model work for her. While normally I’d put iUniverse squarely in the vanity publisher category — their “editorial services” echo Harlequin Horizons’ in a lot of ways, and surprise, they’re owned by Author Solutions, too — Ms. Genova used them as a self-publisher. As she said in her reply to my previous post (/re-squee!): “I fully realized that I was not going to make a living off of the self-published version of Still Alice.”
So what is a vanity press, precisely? What differentiates them from honest-to-god self-publishers? Back to SFWA’s definitions:
A vanity publisher relies on its authors as its main source of income–whether by charging fees for publication or other services, or requiring authors to buy or pre-sell their own books. It often presents itself as a publisher (sometimes claiming to be a “traditional” publisher and concealing its fees) rather than a self-publishing service, claiming to be selective despite employing little meaningful quality screening. Adjunct services (editing, marketing, and/or distribution) are generally minimal or of dubious value. A vanity publisher claims various rights by contract, and owns the ISBN and the completed books, which remain in the publisher’s possession until sold. Payment to the author is in the form of a royalty.
See that bit about claiming to be a “traditional” publisher? From Harlequin Horizons’ “Our Advantages” page:
Harlequin Horizons is a division of Harlequin Enterprises Limited, a global leader in romance and women’s fiction. The intent behind creating Harlequin Horizons is to give more aspiring romance writers and women’s fiction writers the opportunity to publish their books and achieve their dreams without going through the submission process with a traditional publishing house.
However, we understand you may aspire to be published with a traditional house – a noble aspiration. While there is no guarantee that if you publish with Harlequin Horizons you will picked up for traditional publishing, Harlequin will monitor sales of books published through Harlequin Horizons for possible pick-up by its traditional imprints.
Bolding mine. Four counts of “traditional publishing” in two paragraphs. Awesome. Though, I do have to concede that Horizons isn’t claiming to be the traditional publisher here — they’re using the term to describe commercial publishers. It’s still frustrating that they’re perpetuating a phrase coined by a scam publisher, though.
Where they do hit the vanity-press criteria, though, is just about everywhere else.
Relies on authors as its main source of income? Check.
Presents itself as a publisher? Check — they have a page dedicated to “The Five Chapters of Publishing” and while they call their business “Assisted Self-Publishing,” they tout the ability to “retain more control over the editing and artistic process” as a perk. Guys, it’s not. If you’re the average first-time author, chances are you know precisely jack and shit about the editorial and artistic processes.
Adjunct services of minimal or dubious value? Big gorram check. Minimal in the packages, dubious in the add-ons.
They don’t seem to be claiming rights (though I haven’t seen the “non-exclusive contract” they offer, so that’s still up for interpretation). However, I’m uncomfortable with the way they spin it:
When you self-publish with Harlequin Horizons you only pay for the services and packages you need and you retain all the rights to your book. Retaining the rights to your book is a big difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing. With traditional publishing, a publisher will buy the rights to your book up front and then print your book. With self-publishing you, the author, remain in control through the whole publishing process. You can also continue to market your book to other publishers and outlets at your own pace.
There’s that “traditional publishing” thing again. Yes, a commercial publisher buys the rights to your book, but sweet flying spaghetti monster, that’s not a bad thing! When a publisher buys the rights to publish your book, you get paid. And if someone wants to buy the rights to produce it as an audio book, you get paid again. And if a publisher in Spain wants to translate it and publish it there? You get paid again. Also, let’s look at the weasel-wording here: the author retains the copyright, always, always, always. If anyone asks you to sign over your copyright, run the fuck away.
What commercial publishers buy is the right to print and sell your book. So you can get paid. Go to your bookshelf and pick up a book published by a commercial publisher. Turn to the title page. See the copyright line? Does it say “Copyright <author’s name here>” and the year? It should. Why? Because authors retain their copyrights. I can’t help but feel that Harlequin Horizons is counting on new writers not knowing that, and intentionally helping them to confuse copyright with rights to print and sell.
Okay, I’m done digressing. Last couple of checkpoints: It’s not clear whether or not Harlequin Horizons owns the ISBN that you “buy” with your package. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the author owns it at that point, but there’s a big ol’ question mark beside it in place of a check mark.
And, since they only print on demand, they’re not housing the completed books. They are, however, largely controlling how information about the books gets sent out to online stores.
Lastly, of course, payment to the author is in the form of a royalty. Check! This royalty is, of course, based on net sales, not off of the retail price, as it would be at a commercial publisher.
So, after a very long way to get to it, let’s talk about what those royalties might actually look like, shall we?
I’m going to put the math behind a clicky here, because I know I’m already looking at my own scrollbar and cringing. So, go refresh your coffee, grab a snack, and click on through for fun with math!
