Head on over to ESPAN for an excellent blog post about RWA’s stance on epublising. Deidre Knight, lit agent and author, posted a reply to RWA’s outdated stance on epublishing:

RWA’s current stance on e-books is that a publisher must offer at least a $1,000 advance in order to qualify for legitimacy.  Never mind that many digital authors far exceed that amount in royalties, or sell more than 5,000 copies of print editions of their e-published titles. The problem with RWA’s simplistic criteria is that it ignores one crucial fact.  Our industry is changing radically, with traditional publishers seeking innovative models for overhauling their distribution and content.

Read the whole post here.

And I just read on the Romance Divas Forum that Diane Pershing, RWA President, is crafting a response which will be posted in a couple of days. This is going to be interesting since I’m always happy to hear both sides of the story. But as an epublished author myself, I strongly feel that RWA needs to move into the into the 21st century and accept epublishing as a viable career for writers.

Update:

Read it yourself:  RWA President Pershing Responds

Pershing misses the point on many levels, worse, she is illogical. And this sentence made me laugh:

Each year members threaten to leave because they are displeased with something.  Some do; most don’t.  No organization can make everyone happy, but RWA goes on, no matter what.

This is short sighted and narrow minded, and this stick-your-fingers-in-your-ears-and-hope-it-will-all-go-away approach is plain dumb business sense.

RWA goes on, now matter what?!

I bet that’s what General Motors once thought too.

And yet another Update at ESPAN:

In A Call to Action, Angela James (Exec. Editor, Samhain Publishing) responds to RWA’s (Pershing’s) stance on epublishing. In short, Ms James has written a long disclaimer that she’s not the right person to respond, but in the end, she is

It’s about recognizing authors, who want to pursue their passion and love of writing and shape it into a career, as being as needful and deserving of advocacy whether they choose a traditional path or one less traveled.

Ms James’s response is thoughtful and to the point, and I hope RWA’s Board of Directors will reflect on it with an open mind and a desire to be the best advocate for all its members.