I have a theory that when authors become successful and honored, editors just don't bother editing their books anymore. I'm reading a book by one of my favorite, bestselling authors and tripped over this clunky line:
Then all he could see was the names scrolling through the window of his mind's eye like symbols on a slot machine.
A window that's an eye that's a slot machine? Yeah, I can picture that.
Author Frank Kane liked his writing so much, he reused the same lines over and over, as Marvin Lachman reveals over at Mystery File:
Poisons Unknown, page 63: “Gabby Benton was on her second cup of coffee, third cigarette, and fourth fingernail when Johnny Liddell stepped out of a cab. . . ”
Red Hot Ice, page 18: “Muggsy Kiely was on her third cup of coffee and her fourth fingernail when Johnny Liddlell walked into….”
Red Hot Ice, page 27: “Her legs were long, sensuously shaped. Full rounded thighs swelled into high-set hips, converged into a narrow waist. Her breasts were firm and full, their pink tips straining upward.”
Poisons Unknown, page 182: “The whiteness of her body gleamed in the reflected light from the windows. Her legs were long, sensuously shaped. Full rounded thighs swelled into high-set hips, converged into the narrow waist he had admired earlier in the evening. Her breasts were full and high, their pink tips straining upward.”
This is just a small sampling of Kane's laziness. There's much, much more...
One of the great things about the Edgars, besides meeting so many terrific authors, is all the free books you get when the ceremony is over. I just lugged up to my room two bulging bags of books to send back home. But you don't want to hear about that, you want to hear about the Awards...
Well, as Edgar chair, I've known who the winners are for a while now and I nearly bit off my tongue not leaking the news to Tana French and Susan Straight that they were winners when I met them at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last weekend. Also Matt Nix, executive producer of BURN NOTICE, won as well...news that my brother Tod (who is writing the BURN NOTICE books) and my publisher Kristen Weber (who is publishing the BURN NOTICE books) would have loved to have known in advance. That's Tana and Matt in the photo to the left and the Southern California contingent of MWA in the photo to the right...
Jim Warren, Naomi Hirahara, Leslie Klinger, Pat Smiley, Doug Lyle, Deborah Atkinson and yours truly.
Al Roker was a funny host, and he even said "fuck" a few times, which is kind of weird to hear coming from him. As a number of people noted, he was like a thinner, blacker, Tod Goldberg. I sat with my agent Gina Maccoby and my publisher, which is always nice, and I did a lot of schmoozing before the event, though I was too tired to hang out in the bar afterwards.
Galleycat's Ron Hogan has posted more pictures from the pre-Edgars reception here.
A complete list of winners follows after the jump.
Hard Case Crime is reprinting a long-lost Lawrence Block novel called KILLING CASTRO. It's a book Block wrote under a pseudonym fifty years ago. And if this excerpt doesn't whet your appetite for more, you don't have a pulse:
The taxi, one headlight out and one fender crimped, cut through downtown Tampa and headed into Ybor City. Turner sat in the back seat with his eyes half closed. He was a tall, thin ramrod of a man who was never tense and yet never entirely relaxed. His hair was the color of damp sand, his eyes steel gray. His lips were thin and he rarely smiled. He was not smiling now.
The stub of a cigarette burned between the second and third fingers of his right hand. The fingers were yellow-brown from the thousands and thousands of cigarettes which had curled their tar-laden smoke around them. He looked at the cigarette, raised it to his lips for a final drag. The smoke was strong. He rolled down the window and flipped the butt into the street.
Night. The street lights were on in Ybor City, Tampa’s Latin quarter. Taverns winked seductively in red and green neon. Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Negroes walked the streets, congregated around pool halls and small bars. Here and there butt-twitching hustlers were rushing the season, looking to catch an early trick before the competition got stiff. Turner watched all this through the taxi window, his thin lips not smiling, not frowning. He had bigger things on his mind than corner loungers or early-bird whores.
He was thirty-four years old, and he was wanted for murder.
What's amazing about it is that he was so good from the get-go, long before he would achieve all his well-earned honors and accolades.
Now that anybody with a credit card and the email address of a Print-on-Demand company thinks they can call themselves a publisher or a published author, professional writers organizations have been forced to carefully define what it means to them to be a "publisher" or a "published author" to deal with the issue. Now even Sisters-in-Crime is acknowledging the problem.
It seems that the abundance of POD titles in the Sisters-in-Crime's annual "Books-in-Print" catalog has rendered the publication useless to the booksellers and librarians it was intended for. As a result, Sisters-in-Crime is changing their rules about which titles can be listed in the publication.
According to a member mailing by Sisters-in-Crime president Roberta Isleib, from now on only books that meet "marketplace standards" will be included in the listing.
Following are the criteria for a book that meets marketplace standards:
Is returnable.
Is offered at standard industry discounts
Is available through national wholesaler, such as Ingram or Baker and Taylor
Is competitively priced
Has a minimum print run of 1,000 copies
(We believe that the minimum print run of 1,000 copies shows a publisher's intent to place the book in the marketplace. It is the same number used by Authors Coalition to determine a 'published book.’)
Any titles that do not meet one of the standards may be petitioned on a case-by-case basis, so long as all other requirements are met.
[...]POD reprints of titles that met industry standards when originally published will be included in the print BIP.
The Mystery Writers of America enacted guidelines this year that excludes print-on-demand "publishers" from their Approved Publishers list. There was, predictably, a lot of foot-stomping in the blogosphere among the POD crowd, who predicted a mass exodus of members from the MWA as a result of the changes. In fact, the exact opposite occurred --- the change actually resulted in a surge in membership renewals and new memberships. We now have more members than ever before.
But unlike the MWA, Sisters-in-Crime has a much more flexible membership policy and includes among its active members many people who've had their manuscripts printed using a POD press and consider themselves "published authors." Expect an uproar.
I love mysteries, but I'm burned out on all the cliches. I won't read about one more drunken, divorced cop with a tragic past. I wish more authors had the same attitude as author Laura Wilson. She writes in RED HERRINGS, the UK Crimes Writers Association newsletter (and in Shots Magazine), that she consciously avoided the cliches when she started her new series:
I decided, at the outset, that I did not want DI Stratton to be a conventionally flawed crime protagonist. He is neither a drunk, a compulsive gambler, nor an adulterer, and his psyche isn't scarred by past personal tragedy -- but nor is he a hero of lonely integrity walking the mean streets or a Dixon of Dock Green-like, salt-of-the-earth embodiment of law and order. He is an ordinary man with a realistic background [...] lower middle class and father of two, he lives with his family and works in the West End. He is an intelligent, humorous man, but with rudimentary education; cynical, but kind and humane; happily married, but with a wandering eye. Above all, he is pragmatic.
I have a theory that when an author becomes really, really big, the editors don't read the manuscripts very closely, if at all. That's especially true with Robert B. Parker. His books are usually laced with errors (for instance, in his latest Jesse Stone novel, STRANGER IN PARADISE, the spelling of the name of a big estate keeps changing). What brings this to my mind today is a sentence on page 169 of Sue Grafton's S IS FOR SILENCE that really boggles me. Her heroine Kinsey Milhone is in a sleazy motel room and makes this observation:
My bedspread smelled musty, and I was happy I didn't see the article about dust mites until the following week.
How could she have been happy about something that hadn't happened yet?!
The MWA has been criticized in some quarters for favoring the big houses over small presses. But as Publisher's Weekly notes, the Edgar nominations this year tell a different story:
To nobody's surprise, when the Mystery Writers of America announced the finalists for the 2008 Edgar Awards last week titles from the large New York houses dominated the eight (out of a total of 13) categories dealing with books. But one small Wisconsin press is more than holding its own among the 35 books and five short stories selected as this year's Edgar Awards nominees. Three of the 15 titles released this past year by Bleak House Books in Madison, an imprint of Big Earth Books, have been nominated for 2008 Edgar Awards in three different categories: Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman (Best Novel), Head Games by Craig McDonald (Best First Novel), and "Blue Note" by Stuart M. Kaminsky from the Chicago Blues collection (Best Short Story).
Bleak House isn't the only small press represented on the Edgar list this year. There are also titles from McFarland & Co, Serpent's Tail, Hard Case Crime, Rookery Press, Level Best Books, Akashic, Clarion, American Girl, and Busted Flush.
The Mystery Writers of America has revised the language of their definition of "self-publication" for membership application, publisher approval, and Edgar eligibility. The changes were made for greater clarity and specificity.
“Self-published”
or “cooperatively published” works include, but are not limited to:
b) Works printed and
bound by a company that does not sell or distribute the work to
brick-and-mortar bookstores;
c) Those works published
by a privately held publisher or in collaboration with a book packager wherein the
writer has a familial relationship with the publisher, editor, or any
managerial employee, officer, director or owner of the publisher or book
packager;
d) Those works published
by companies or imprints that do not publish other authors;
e) Those works published
by a publisher or in collaboration with a book packager in which the author has
a direct or indirect financial interest;
f) Those works published
in an anthology or magazine in which the author is also an editor, except an
anthology or magazine for which the author is a guest editor.
g) Those works published
in an anthology or magazine wherein the author has a familial relationship with
the editor or publisher.
Variety reports that Kenneth Branagh has signed to star as Inspector Wallander in the BBC's series of TV movie adaptations of Henning Mankell's novels
"Firewall," "Sidetracked," and "One Step Behind." 
It won't be the first time Wallander has hit the screen...there have already been 13 Wallander films made for the Scandinavian market, three for theatrical release and 10 for TV. Wallander has been played by Krister Henriksson (left) and Rolf Lassgard (right).
Lately, Hard Case Crime editor and publisher Charles Ardai has gone to great pains to claim he's not really an editor and publisher...and that his book SONGS OF INNOCENCE, which was published under his imprint, isn't self-published and therefore should be eligible for Edgar consideration.
I guess he forgot about the interview he gave for this month's issue of Mystery News about the evolution of Hard Case Crime:
...and [Max Phillips] went off and mocked up some dummy covers to show me what it might look like if we did publish our own books in the old style. I'd worked as an editor of mystery anthologies for years, so it was simple for me to go to my bookshelves and compile a list of some great and undeservedly forgotten novels it would be fun for us to reprint. And Max and I are both writers ourselves, so we agreed we'd each write a book of our own for the line, guaranteeing that we'd have at least two original novels along with all the reprints.
Perry Middlemiss clued me in to this interview with Garry Disher, the author of the Wyatt novels. I'm a huge fan of the Wyatt books, which I read in one week after novelist Scott Phillips made me buy them all when we were browsing in a bookstore together. Although there are six Wyatt novels and they read like one, big continuous story, so you really must read them in order...if you can find them. They have been out-of-print for years.
Wyatt is an Australian version of Donald Westlake's Parker, which was Disher's inspiration. Disher says:
Yes, Wyatt was inspired by the 1960s Parker novels of Donald Westlake (writing as Richard Stark). I’ve acknowledged this several times in interviews. In fact, I think we crime writers build on the traditions and authors who have come before us — not copying or stealing, but adapting and building on. I liked the cool, focussed, meticulous air of Parker, and I liked the crime-from-the-inside nature of the books, and started with that kind of character and approach when I set out to write crime fiction (I’d already had “literary” novels and stories published). I didn’t want to create another kind of private eye or cop, it had been done before. I know I write about a cop in the Challis novels, but they differ from other types of cop novels in several senses: a regional rather than a city setting; a main cop, but also an ensemble cast of other cops; a main crime, but also several minor crimes; the public, workplace and private lives of the characters; an interest in the sociology of a region.
[...]we never learn much about him (and nor should we), but I think he’s a more rounded and complex character that Parker. Also, the Wyatt novels are longer than, and structured differently from, the Parker novels. Ultimately, Wyatt and his capers are inventions, my inventions, not mere copies. Yes, they’re a tribute, and I had fun with the Parker model, but I worked hard at the writing and ensured they succeeded on their own terms.
The best news in the interview is that Disher is finally working on a new Wyatt novel after a long foray into police procedurals (with the Inspector Challis novels). I can't wait.
NOW AND THEN isn't the worst book Robert B. Parker has ever written (that award would go to the latest Sunny Randall novel), but it may be the laziest. It's definitely one of the weakest Spenser novels. Susan's Harvard education was mentioned six times before I stopped keeping track. At one point, there's a big shootout at Susan's house involving Uzis and shotguns and not a single neighbor calls the cops. Sadly, Susan survives.
I'm a Robert B. Parker fan, but he hasn't written a good book since APPALOOSA. I hope the upcoming sequel is as good because this is one fan who is loosing his faith.
There has been quite a lot reaction to the post, and "back blog" discussion, on Sarah Weinman's blog regarding the MWA's determination that Charles Ardai's SONG OF INNOCENCE is ineligible for Edgar consideration because it is a self-published book.
The most unusual development in this discussion is that now Charles Ardai is going to great lengths to portray himself as just a book packager -- someone who brings manuscripts to a publishing house in exchange for a commission or fee -- rather than as an editor and publisher.
This turn-of-events is especially surprising given that he has never characterized himself as a packager before, at least not in the dozens of articles and interviews I have browsed through today on the web, nor on the Hard Case Crime site, nor in the books that he publishes (where he actually states on the copyright page that "Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai," an unusual statement for a simple "book packager" to make). Nor have I found any instance of him correcting anyone else who has referred to him as a publisher, editor and founder of Hard Case Crime. In fact, he has done just the opposite, taking justifiable pride as editor and publisher of one of the best mystery imprints in existence today. As he says on Sarah's blog:
It would be foolish, of course, for me to argue that I am not, in the public's eye, the "publisher" of Hard Case Crime (and the editor of the line and the face and voice of the line -- I'm proud to play these roles).
The irony is that even if one were to accept his new characterization of himself as a book packager and not, as he has claimed before, a publisher and editor -- and if you were to accept his arguments regarding his relationship with Dorchester -- his book would still not be eligible for Edgar consideration under our rules that define "self publication." So why is he bothering to make the distinction?
Charles Ardai argues that even if his book is a self-published title, its exclusion from the Edgars shows the injustice of the MWA in not allowing self-published books for award consideration. I disagree, for many of the same reasons that author Jason Pinter expressed on his blog today:
Having been on the other side of the publishing desk, I equate MWA's banning of self-published books to the rule most larger houses have of not accepting unagented submissins. The rule is not there, of course, out of snobbery, but to act as quality control for editors and publishers whose time is already taxed to begin with.
[...]Getting self-published today is easier than ever. It does not take any editorial or authorial skill to be self-published, only a pile of paper and enough money to cover the costs. And for many, the cost is worth seeing your manuscript bound between two covers. I can be relatively certain that if all self-published books were permitted, the time consumed would go from "minor inconvenience" to "near insurmountable" almost overnight. Not to mention, in my opinion, it would encourage even more self-publishing, as aspiring authors would soon realize that for $199 they could be judged on the same field as Lawrence Block. And if this leads to authors paying a few books to get their books bound for award consideration instead of honing their craft, I think it'd be a real shame and could actually do the opposite of what's intended.
[...]Since anyone can self-publish a book with ease, what is the real difference between a self-published book and a stack of loose manuscript pages? Or somebody with a Word file saved on their hard dive? There must be some sort of quality control.
I would never equate Ardai's book with "a stack of loose manuscript pages." He is an accomplished, acclaimed and respected author. But the fact remains that he self-published his novel. He was simply in a position to do a better, and much more professional job of it, than someone like Jim Hansen or John Q. Public with a credit card who only has access to services like Lulu. Ardai, on the other hand, has the advantage of already heading his own publishing company...or, if you accept his new argument, to have an existing book packaging arrangement with Dorchester under which he could include his own book.
The solution to this "problem" (not that I agree there is one) is for Ardai to submit his next book to a publisher he neither owns nor has a business relationship with as a "book packager."
Today, Sarah Weinman wrote about the MWA's decision that Charles Ardai's book SONG OF INNOCENCE is ineligible for Edgar consideration because it's a self-published title. Charles is the editor and publisher of Hard Case Crime, which also published his novel. She asked me about it before she wrote her piece because I am the Edgar Chair this year and, therefore, the one who had to deliver the bad news to Charles. Here's is how I explained the situation to her:
The decision on SONGS OF INNOCENCE was not a reflection of our "new active membership status rules." The rule about self-published books being ineligible for Edgar consideration has been in effect for several years and is clearly stated on our website. (LITTLE GIRL LOST, for example, was originally published by Five Star before the Hard Case Crime paperback reprint or it would not have been eligible). Our guidelines state:
"Among (but not all of) the situations defined as "self-published or cooperatively published" are works by those who have paid all or part of the cost of publication or distribution of the work; works printed and bound by a company that does not place the work in physical (aka brick-and-mortar) bookstores; those works for which the authors were required by the publisher to pay any monies whatsoever before or during publication; those published by "cooperative" publishing or others which require authors to pay for marketing; those published by privately held publishing companies with whom the writer has a familial or personal relationship beyond simply author and publisher; those published by companies or imprints that do not publish other authors; those published by publishing companies in which the writer has a financial interest."
Charles Ardai obviously has a considerable financial interest in Hard Case Crime. Not only is he the founder and te publisher, he is also the primary editor. He has said so in countless published interviews. In fact, he states it outright on the copyright page of SONGS OF INNOCENCE. The page states that the book was published in collaboration with Winterfall, LLC, which is his company. It also definitively states that "Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai," who is also the author of the book. On the Hard Case Crime webpage, it states:"Hard Case Crime was created by Charles Ardai and Max Phillips; the line is published as a collaboration between Winterfall LLC and Dorchester Publishing."
No one is saying or implying that Hard Case Crime is a vanity press. It is a respected and legitimate publisher that I, and all the members of Edgar Ad-Hoc Committee, admire. However, as unfair as it may seem to Charles, his book unquestionably meets our definition of a self-published title under the rules we adopted in 2006....which is why the committee unanimously voted that it is ineligible for Edgar consideration. If the book had been published by another publisher, like St. Martins or Penguin for example, it would have been eligible.
This decision is no reflection whatsoever on the quality of the book, which many of us on the committee have read and enjoyed. In fact, the point of our guidelines is to assure that decisions about Edgar eligibility are made regardless of a work's perceived quality (or lack thereof) or the popularity (or lack thereof) of the author.
If we allow Charles' book to be considered for an Edgar, then we would have to accept *all* self-published titles for consideration, otherwise we would guilty of blatant favoritism. Charles has my respect and my sympathy but the MWA is not prepared at this time to accept self-published titles simply to allow SONGS OF INNOCENCE to be considered for an Edgar.
Sarah basically argues that this is wrong because his book is well-reviewed, he's an award-winning author, and Hard Case Crime is a highly respected publisher. She believes, and so does Charles, that we should either make exceptions for critically-acclaimed works, and those written by highly respected authors, or simply allow all self-published titles to be eligible.
I disagree. Speaking only for myself, and not the MWA, I think those suggestions would turn the Edgars into a popularity contest. In their view, and one folks like Jim Hansen share, is that whoever gets the best reviews, or is the genre darling of the moment, deserves special attention...others don't.
The only reason Sarah is peeved about this situation is because Charles is a remarkably talented, award-winning writer and a highly respected publisher. If we were talking about someone else -- a writer with a book from PublishAmerica or even Jim Hansen -- this wouldn't be an issue for her.
Personally, I think the MWA rule is a good one. I don't think we should allow self-published books to be eligible for Edgar consideration. The fact that the self-published rule applies equally to Charles Ardai as it does to someone less well-known and well-reviewed speaks to the inherent fairness and objectivity of the rule. We have created a level playing field. All self-published authors are treated the same, whether they are poorly reviewed or former Edgar-winners, complete unknowns or highly respected.
If his book was published by St. Martin's or Random House, instead of under his own imprint, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But he chose not to do that. For whatever reason, he chose to publish it through his own company. My guess -- and it's purely that -- would be so he could exercise more control over how his novel was packaged and marketed. And, I assume, out of pride in his work and in his imprint. To say that his book is not self-published because he didn't go to iUniverse or lulu, or doesn't own Dorchester, is disingenuous.
Should the MWA consider every mystery or crime novel that's published in the U.S., regardless of how it was published?
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn't allow every single movie released in the U.S. to be eligible and considered for Oscars...nor should they. The MWA doesn't consider every single mystery novel published for Edgars, either. Nor do I believe they should.
I'm sure there are lots of Oscar-quality movies that are being over-looked because they don't meet the Academy's criteria, which I'm sure some people think are draconian and unfair. Like the Academy, the MWA has criteria. Not including self-published work is one of them. It's inevitable that some good books, like Charles Ardai's, will not be considered. I don't blame him for being hurt and angry, but that said, I don't think this indicates any a flaw in our rules.
When the Mystery Writers of America announced their revised criteria for active membership and publisher-approval, there were some people stomping their feet and declaring that the organization would see a huge drop in membership.
Well, I am pleased and not at all surprised to say that the exact OPPOSITE has occurred. We have seen a huge DECREASE in non-renewals...from 300 this time last year to 200 this year. We also have INCREASED our membership by nearly 100 members.
These numbers show our organization has actually been strengthened by the new rules. New members have joined and more existing members have renewed. This should tell you a lot about exactly who was decrying our tighter regulations and what their agendas were....
Reed Coleman writes in the October issue of Crimespree that he's "burnt, seriously burnt, toasty, toasted, fried, and spent" from the grind of book promotion. He was in the midst of the BEA in New York when he finally had enough:
It was also the accumulation of the petty indignities: the tour dates when no one came, my name misspelled on book covers, press releases, and promotional posters. It was the blank stares from people who'd ask me if they'd ever heard of me […]It was all the dumb questions about when I'd be on Oprah, the dreadful panels, bad moderators, all the same old jokes. […]It was the thousands of dollars spent on rented cars, motels, bad meals, cab fare, air fare, and poured into the abyss of PR.
It's a very honest article, one I am sure that a lot of authors can relate to. I certainly can. When I first started out, I scheduled as many signing as I could get up-and-down the West Coast and in key bookstores nationwide. I attended Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime every year and accepted just about every invitation to speak that came along. That has changed, not because I have become a bestselling author (I haven't, not by a long shot), or because I have been traveling a lot for work lately, but because it's not a productive use of my time or money.
I have books coming out so often, that it hardly makes sense to do more than two or three local signings for each of them – and even then, I don't think it has any real impact on sales. Most of my novels now are tie-ins, and as much as I like to believe I have a following, I am realistic enough to know that the sales are driven by the success and promotion of the beloved TV shows they are based on. It's the actor's face on the cover, not my name, that is selling most of the books. But even for THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, I didn't set up a big book-signing schedule or attend a lot of conventions.
There are some authors I know who are at every single convention, year after year. I don't know how they do it…or how they avoid the boredom of hearing the same advice and anecdotes over and over again (from themselves and from others). When I go to conventions now, the only panels I attend are the ones I am on…or that feature first-time authors. That's because I know the majority of the authors at these events and I have heard them speak dozens and dozens of times at conventions, signings, seminars, etc. As clever, funny, and intelligent as they are, I have heard it all before. Some writers have become more known for their promotional efforts and panel appearances than the books they write. (It must be equally boring for the attendees. If they get bored and overly familiar with you at conventions, does that translate into boredom and over-familiarity with you as a writer? My guess is that it does).
I end up spending most of my time at conventions these days in the dealers room, at the bar, or the hallways talking to readers, booksellers, and authors. That's fun but is it the best way to be spending my time? Probably not. With the exception of Bouchercon, where I get a chance to see my agent and editors, I can't really justify the time and expense from a business point of view.
So I've skipped a lot of conventions and I have been turning down far more invitations to attend events than I have been accepting. This way, when I do show up some place, I think it's more fun, productive, interesting and fresh for both me and the readers who are there. I can't wait for Left Coast Crime in Hawaii in 2009. Would I be as eager to go if I'd also attended Left Coast Crime in Bristol, Seattle, and Denver, Bouchercon in Alaska and Thrillerfest in NY? I don't think so. Reed says:
I had let myself get farther and farther away from being a writer. It had happened by the inch, in tiny, almost imperceptible, increments. Whether I'd done it gladly with eyes wide open or had it foisted upon me was beside the point. I was no longer where I wanted to be, not even close.
He's back at the keyboard, focusing more of his energy on the writing and less on the selling. I am, too.
First, let me say I am speaking here only for myself an not on behalf of the MWA, the MWA Board or the Membership Committee. I am not claiming to represent the views of anyone here but myself.
There's lots of hysteria being whipped up by a handful of aggrieved pseudo-publishers and self-published authors who are furious about the new MWA standards for active membership and approved publishers list.
They are, quite frankly, spreading falsehoods and stoking fear for self-serving reasons.
The pseudo-publishers don't want to treat writers fairly and be more forthright about the kind of business they are actually running BUT they still want to be acknowledged by the MWA.
The self-published authors -- and those who weren't paid and whose manuscripts are only available via POD -- want to be considered professional, published authors even though they aren't.
Let's tackle the outrageous falsehoods one by one...
1) Active members are being thrown out of the MWA. NO CURRENT ACTIVE MEMBERS ARE LOSING THEIR MEMBERSHIP STATUS as a result of the new rules. This is the most poisonous of the lies. It is being spread to stoke fear among authors who gained active status with books published by companies that are, for various reasons, no longer on the MWA's Approved Publisher's list. The lie is being spread by certain "publishers" who don't want to change their business practices to treat writers fairly or who don't want to honestly state the true nature of their publishing business.
Anyone who was granted active status membership under the old guidelines will remain an active status member as long as they pay their annual dues. And even if someone lets their membership lapse and then rejoins months or even years later, they will have the same status they had before (unless they are an affiliate member seeking Active Status).
2) The MWA is trying to "eliminate small publishers." That's ridiculous. There are many wonderful small publishers on the MWA's list. By tightening our standards, the MWA is simply protecting writers from being screwed and maintaining the professional integrity of the organization and its members.
We are weeding out "publishers" who are actually self-publishing companies, or are thinly disguised vanity presses (meaning they were founded by an author to primarily print his own work and those of his family, co-workers, etc.), or are "back end" subsidy publishers (meaning they pay a miniscule, token advance and then withhold royalties against a litany of non-standard charges), or are publishing primarily in POD (and therefore are not available in bookstores), or are engaging in deceptive, unfair, and unprofessional business practices that harm writers.
There are writers who will gladly sign horrible contracts or go with pseudo-publishers just to see their manuscripts printed in book form. But just because those authors are content to be screwed or be willingly misled doesn't mean that the MWA should grant those companies the legitimacy and implied endorsement that comes with being on our Approved Publisher's list.
That is NOT to say that all the companies who have been denied approval are dishonest. Far from it. But many do not pay advances, or have minimal prints runs, or only publish in POD, or publish only a couple of authors besides those who run the company, or haven't been in business long enough to establish any kind of reputation.
Active Status members are professional writers...and professional writers are PAID for their work. Publishers who don't pay writers for their work don't meet our standards of professionalism.
Professional publishers publish books and distribute them to bookstores for sale. That is their business. If they aren't publishing a minimal number of authors and a decent number of books, they aren't running a business...they are enjoying a hobby.
Publishers who are also authors, and who publish fewer than five other writers, are essentially operating a self-publishing operation, not a publishing company.
Two years of business creates a history by which we can judge whether the publisher is actually a publisher (meaning more than a vanity operation), if they are financially sound (actually paying authors advances and royalties), and if they are reputable business people.
3) The MWA is an "old boys" club and an elitist organization. That's actually partly true. We aren't an "old boys" club but we are, to some degree, elitist. All organizations have guidelines for membership and, therefore, practice some degree of exclusion.
Our active members are professional writers. We, therefore, have to create and maintain standards of what we define as “professional” and what defines “publication.” Among those standards are that professional writers are paid for their work, that their novels are published, and that their books are distributed to bookstores.
In a world where anyone with a credit card and the web address of POD service can call themselves a “published author” or a “publisher,” it’s even more imperative that the MWA maintain strict guidelines of what constitutes professional publication. The MWA will cease to be a respected organization if we don't have high standards and if we don't maintain them in the face of a changing marketplace. Our membership criteria isn't even as extreme as the SFWA's.
Anyone who is excluded from gaining Active Status membership (or being on the Approved Publishers list) will feel the title grants an elite status and that they are being excluded from enjoying the benefits that come with it. So, to that degree, yes, the MWA is an elitist organization.
4) The MWA is eliminating publishing opportunities for writers and their chances to expose their work to the public. We are not, in any way, limiting publishing opportunities or exposure for authors. All we are doing is establishing criteria for books that we will consider for Edgars and for publishers we will consider for our “approved publisher” list. You can publish your book with any company you want...but you may not qualify to enter the Edgars or become an Active Member of our organization. That's your choice.
5) These new rules actually hurt writers. That's the biggest lie of all...and the one the pseud0-publishers really want you to believe. These new rules protect aspiring writers and current members alike from being taken advantage of by vanity presses, less-than-reputable publishers or companies whose practices don’t meet accepted professional standards in our industry. The new rules assure that only publishers who pay writers for their work, publish their books, and distribute them to bookstores receive the implied endorsement that MWA approval brings.
As result of the MWA's new rules, I hope authors will be more careful about the publishers that they do business with...and that more publishers will hold themselves to higher ethical and professional standards in the way they treat their authors and conduct their business.
At the last board meeting, the Mystery Writers of America made some slight revisions/clarifications in the language for criteria for Active Membership status and publishers who wish to be on the Approved Publishers list. They are as follows:
Rule 2 previously stated that to become Active members of MWA, book authors must have received a minimum of $1,000 in royalties and/or advances, but there was no specific language that required publishers to pay this amount. The new Rule 2 corrects this: Your publisher, to be approved, must have paid a minimum of $1,000 during the preceding year to at least five authors with no financial or ownership interest in the company. (See Rule 7.)
Rule 5 (the "two-year" rule) was not changed in its basic intent, but the language now makes explicit that "first book" refers only to an author with no interest in the company: Your publisher must have been in business for at least two years since publication of the first book by a person with no financial or ownership interest in the company. (Exception: a new imprint by an established publisher.)
Rule 7 was also changed with reference to authors with financial interests in the publishing company: Your publisher, to be approved, must publish at least five authors per year, other than those with a financial or ownership interest in the company, such as an owner, business partner, employee, or close relative of such person.
It is the intent of the Board to create rules that are both clear and fair, to benefit all our members and to encourage good standards and practices in the publishing industry.
My friend Zoe Sharp is on the West Coast leg of her U.S. signing tour for SECOND SHOT and will be stopping by Mysteries To Die for in Thousands Oaks on Monday at 1:30 and at Mystery Store in Westwood at 7 pm. If you live in Southern California and don't show up at one of her signings, she will hunt you down and kill you.
Left Coast Crime, and some other mystery conventions, have chosen not to place authors on panels unless their books are from companies on the MWA's list of approved publishers. So now a handful of irate POD and self-published authors are running around blogs and message boards saying the MWA is responsible for this new policy.
The MWA has nothing to do with how conferences organize their panels or how bookstores stock their shelves or how reviewers choose the books that they review. Nobody in the MWA has ever suggested to any conference chair, book reviewer, book seller, or anyone else that they use the organization's list of approved publishers as their guide. They are making the decision on their own.
Speaking for myself, the fact that other writers organizations (like the Romance Writers of America) and major writers conferences are following our lead only underscores the necessity and sensibility of the basic, professional standards that the MWA has set...and the good that it is doing for our members and the industry. I hope as a result that authors will be more careful about the publishers that they do business with...and that more publishers will hold themselves to higher ethical and professional standards in the way they treat their authors and conduct their business.
Last month, the board of the Mystery Writers of America adopted the recommendations of the membership committee (of which I am a member) to revise the criteria for active status membership for professional authors. The changes/additions to the current criteria are:
1) An author of books must have received a minimum advance of $1,000, royalties of $1,000, or a combination of advances and royalties in at least that amount.
2) The initial print run for the author's work of fiction or non-fiction must be at least 500 copies.
3) That an author of short stories must have received a cumulative amount of $200, with only payments of $25 or more counting toward the total. Scholarly articles or chapters of non-fiction books will be treated like short stories, for purposes of Active Category qualification.
4) That a playwright or an author of screenplays or teleplays must have received a minimum payment commensurate with the standards and practices of the Writers' Guild (film/TV) or Dramatists Guild (stage plays), and that the work must have been produced.
UPDATE (7-14-07): The Romance Writers of America have just adopted new membership criteria that are very similar to the MWA's.
UPDATE: You can find more details about the criteria for active MWA membership here.
I've had lots of emails from people asking me what the new requirements are for publishers to be recognized by the Mystery Writers of America. They will be posted soon, but here are a some of the new additions/changes:
1. If you are a writer seeking Active Status membership, your publisher must have been in business for at least two years, except for new imprints by an established publisher.
2. Your publisher, within the past five years, may not have charged a fee to consider, read, submit, or comment on manuscripts; nor may the publisher, or any of the executives or editors under its employ, have offered you or any other authors self-publishing services, literary representation, paid editorial services, or paid promotional services.
3. Your publisher, if also an author, must publish at least five other authors per year, none of whom may be an employee of the company, a business partner, or a relative of the publisher.
4. Your publisher must not be engaged in the practice of wrongfully withholding or delaying the payment of royalties to authors.
It was a beautiful day for book-browsing, book-buying, and schmoozing at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I vowed not to buy any books, so of course I bought so many I had to make three trips back to the car. Among my signed book purchases: YOU SUCK by Christopher Moore, KIDNAPPED by Jan Burke, KISS HER GOODBYE by Robert Gregory Browne, LOS ANGELES NOIR, and THE DAYS IN THE HILLS by 
Jane Smiley. I chatted with lots of authors, including Joseph Wambaugh, T. Jefferson Parker, Cara Black, Laura Lippman (that's her on the left with my brother Tod), Jan Burke, Jerrilyn Farmer, Steve Cannell, Denise Hamilton, Terry Erdman (author of the "Official MONK Episode Guide") Kevin Roderick, Barney Rosenzweig, Ron Hogan, Eric Lax, Brett Battles, Robert Gregory Browne, and I stalked Daniel Woodrell some more. Laura Lippman admitted to me that when she met Woodrell on Saturday, she turned into a complete "fangirl" and couldn't speak (my brother Tod, who
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