Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

From Publisher’s Weekly: Tsaba House Press is considering legal action against the RWA after one of its authors was barred from entering the RITA because Tsaba House is not an RWA -approved publisher.

Tsaba House Press, a Christian publisher of fiction and nonfiction titles, is considering taking legal action against the Romance Writers of America for refusing to consider one of the small California press’s authors for a Rita Award, which honors inspirational romances. According to Pam Schwagerl, Tsaba House publisher, Molly Noble Bull was barred from submitting her latest release, Sanctuary, for a Rita Award, because Tsaba House is not an “RWA approved” publisher. RWA subsequently told Schwagerl that the organization considers Tsaba House to be a subsidy or vanity press, because its boilerplate contract contains such clauses as charging authors if manuscripts have to be retyped or if the press considers it necessary to add frontmatter and backmatter to the manuscript that the author didn’t provide.

Schwagerl was quoted in the article “‘I really feel that this is an affront to independent publishers to try and once again group us in the category of subsidy presses and try to take away the advances the small publishers have made in the industry,’ said Schwegerl. She founded Tsaba House in 2002 and uses a boilerplate contract she bought from self-publishing guru Dan Poynter’s Web site.”

According to the article, RWA president Allison Kelly responded that “if, in its boilerplate contract, a press can charge an author for anything, the organization considers that company to be a subsidy or vanity press, and will not consider its titles for RWA’s award program.... RWA ‘didn’t do anything but apply [our] standards. We limit what we do to non-subsidy, non-vanity’ publishers.”

The feedback to the article on the PW site is full of exclamation points, to say the least. Marion Gropen’s comment stated in part, “The RWA seems to be trying to thin out the field, so that they can handle the number of submissions. That makes sense. It looks like they are assuming that most submissions from vanity or subsidy presses will have very little chance of winning, and can safely be excluded. That makes sense. But what does NOT make sense is their failure to recognize standard language in boilerplate, and their failure to reverse themselves when the error was brought to their attention.”

So let me ask - because I actually don’t know - is it standard in a contract that fees are charged when a publisher faces retyping a manuscript or adding content? The RWA took a lot of heat for defining non-vanity/non-subsidy publishers, and in the wake of Triskelion’s folding - along with the folding of several other e-pubs, from Venus to Aphrodite’s Apples - it’s not difficult to see why those lines were drawn to begin with (especially after authors faced a long wait through legal and financial filings to find out if they could get their manuscripts back).

Graceful curtsey to Em for the link.

CORRECTIONS - UPDATES - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION - WHY IS MY WIRELESS ACTING UP NOW?!

Allison Kelley, RWA Executive Director, contacted me to set the record straight about a few pieces of misinformation in the PW article.

The article regarding Tsaba House and Romance Writers of America contained a factual error. The Tsaba House author referenced in the article was not trying to enter RWA’s RITA contest. She was interested in entering a contest sponsored by an RWA chapter. The rules governing RWA chapter contests are independently determined by each chapter. At no time did the author mention the RITA award when communicating with the RWA office. According to RWA records, the office was not contacted by the author or publisher until February 2008, several months after the RITA entry deadline, which was November 30, 2007.

Well, now that’s a whole other kettle of different! Holy misinformation, there, Batmonkey. What’s up with that?

Via Boing Boing, Wired, and a wise tipster comes this information, which will make the day of anyone who hates DRM on audio material: Random House will cease “the use of digital rights management on all of its audiobooks going forward, unless the author wants to keep using it for some reason, or if the file is already being distributed through a partner that uses DRM (namely, OverDrive and NetLibrary).”

Seems Random House, in a fit of unfettered wisdom, ran a DRM-free audiobook distribution program online and found that “none of the pirate editions of their audiobooks online came from those DRM-free editions.” All the pirated versions they found were from DRM-editions that had been cracked, stripped of their protection, or ripped from CD. To quote Cory Doctorow, “DUH.”

In a letter posted on Wired’s blog yesterday, Random House explained the full rationale behind their decision to allow their audiobooks into the world without DRM protection (and let’s face it: DRM protection is like your average historical romance heroine wearing her pelisse in a thunderstorm: woefully inadequate) and came out publicly with the following statement that literally made my jaw hang open:

For tracking purposes, we watermarked all of the eMusic files and then hired a piracy watchdog service to monitor and report back to us if any of our titles appeared on the major filesharing networks. We tracked a mix of popular titles, including some that were not available through eMusic. Because piracy is already a fact of life in the digital world, what we were interested in finding out was not whether piracy exists, but rather whether there is any correlation between DRM-free distribution and an increased incidence of piracy.

The results: we have not yet found a single instance of the eMusic watermarked titles being distributed illegally. We did find many copies of audiobook files available for free, but they did not originate from the eMusic test, but rather from copied CDs or from files whose DRM was hacked. It is worth noting that these results are entirely consistent with what the music industry has found in the last six months. After conducting their own tests with Amazon, Walmart.com and others, the major labels have reached the conclusion that MP3 distribution does not in itself lead to increased piracy....

While Random House plans to release all audiobooks in mp3 format, they will not be “any less vigilant in guarding the security of our content” and will allow any author who isn’t comfortable distributing his or her content without protection to continue to release DRM-protected audiobook material.”

To quote Captain Feathersword: “Well, blow me down!” Not only did Random House test the limits of piracy, but they publicly released their findings and modified their distribution accordingly. What sound business sense. How...ballsy. How awesome. Big ups to you guys. Beer’s on me.

Back in July of last year, an anonymous source asked me what was up with the scheduled collaboration between Janet Evanovich and Stephen J. Cannell. Anonymous loved the sample chapter, and then, it disappeared. Later sources emailed me to confirm that the partnership was off, as the book had been canceled.

Today’s New York Post reveals that not only is there “no possibility of Stephen Canell [sic] and Janet Evanovich ever collaborating on a series of adventure novels,” but that the “fallout may have caused a rupture in the relationship between Evanovich and her longtime agent Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media.” Yeouch.

Publisher’s Lunch Deluxe confirms the report, stating that “creative differences” were the cause of the cancellation of the novel. 

Thanks to Michelle Styles, my UK source for all really interesting news across the pond, I have word that the RNA has announced the winners of their annual prizes:

Freya North has won 2008 Romantic Novel of the Year for Pillow Talk.

And Kate Hardy has won the 2008 RNA Romance Prize for Breakfast at Giovanni’s, which will be released in the US as In Bed With Her Italian Boss in April 2008.

I like the UK title better, but then, that’s probably not news. 

Got this in the inbox this morning, and it brought the biggest smile to my face:

Dear Nora Roberts and the ladies and gents of Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books,

We at Defenders of Wildlife are thrilled with the outpouring of support that we’ve received concerning the lifting of certain ferret-related passages from “Toughing It Out in the Badlands” in Defender’s magazine.  We appreciate the generous challenge grant of $5,000 from the Nora Roberts Foundation and the quick response from your readers. 

When we were first made aware of this plagiarism incident, we had no idea it would become such a sensation! After several days of answering reporters’ calls, a constantly blushing editor, and fits of giggling breaking out all over the office thanks to the witty banter of a certain group of Smart Bitches, we feel this scandal has had quite a positive outcome. Awareness has been raised for the plight of the endangered black-footed ferret, and we have made some wonderful allies in unexpected places.

Though the ethics and legality of this literary “borrowing” are suspect , we are very pleased that our work inspired someone to write about wildlife, and has inspired so many of you to read about it. We were even more delighted to read your passionate words of encouragement, and to learn of your VERY generous donations! These will greatly aid our conservation efforts, and may even inspire a new romance novel book club here at Defenders!

Thank you again,

Your friends at Defenders of Wildlife

Go, bitchery, go!