Saturday, November 21, 2009


Dimmed Horizons


[Edit 11/24: Harlequin Horizons rebrands itself as DellArte Press. Improved FAQ, rest stays the same.]

Newspapers across the country are scrambling to report an example of how people's voices do carry a great deal of weight. How a successful and well-known business stumbled amidst its 60th anniversary celebrations, resulting in a rallying cry from its customers (readers and bloggers) and its clients (authors and agents), supported by writing organizations, thereby causing the innovative company to attempt to amend their stance a bit. What is hoped for by the company is that concession will cause the furor to die down; what is hoped for by the people is an undo of the entire decision.

I have no original thoughts of my own to contribute here; I was too busy getting myself educated on the various aspects and implications thereof of the Harlequin decision regarding its Horizons business. So instead, I'm going to include links to blogs and discussions by folks far more informed and articulate than I am. A wealth of information is also to be found in the comment threads.

Smart Bitches: Want to Self-Publish? How about Harlequin?, Postmortem

Dear Author: Shortsighted or Farseeing?, Malle Vallik from Harlequin Asnwers Questions, What's In It For You?

Kristin Nelson: Exploitation or Empowerment, And I Thought the Furor Was Bad Yesterday, Harlequin Newsflash

Jackie Kessler: Harlequin Horizons versus RWA, The Day After Harlequin Blinks, Answering Questions, Harlequin Gets Two out of Four

Shiloh Walker: My Take on Self-Pub / Vanity Presses

Karen Harbaugh: Harlequin vs. RWA and a little history

Twitter Feeds: Robin from Dear Author, Jackie Barbosa

Writers Beware: Another Major Publisher Adds Self-Publishing, Two Deep Questions, MWA Weighs In, SFWA

John Scalzi: Writers' Organizations to Harlequin

Absolute Write: Bewares & Background Checks

Rip-Off Report: Horizons

Thomas Nelson CEO: Why Agents are Opposed to Self-Publishing, Responds to Mike Shatzkin

3 comments:

Diane Gaston said...

agood informative list, Keira!

Tamara Morgan said...

Like you, I've been spending most of my time gathering information and ruminating on the entire scenario.

One thing that is absolutely clear - and this is evident in your list - is that the romance community is hardcore. We've got things to say, and we'll say em!

Keira Soleore said...

Tamara, welcome to the blog, and thanks for commenting. I'm dang proud of everyone who's spoken up, for or against doesn't matter. What matters is that people are thinking and discussing and are not intimidated by whose actions are being debated. For the most part, it's been an immersion-type education for me. No where else could I have possibly had the opportunity to amass all this information so easily.

Diane, there are many tangential and downright patronizing blogs also out there about the topic. These I found to be from within the romance industry and offering the best coverage of all salient points.