Can the RWA Change?

I signed. I agree that it's unfair to have a sort of "limbo" where a published book doesn't qualify for one or the other.

I just let my RWA membership lapse and have no intention of renewing. RWA is notoriously unsupportive of erotic romance authors.

PRO/PAN/GH/RITA

Still new here and to professional writing in general so could you explain some of these for me please? I know of the Golden Heart and RITA but what are the other 2 you mentioned?

dalex said:

PRO/PAN/GH/RITA

Still new here and to professional writing in general so could you explain some of these for me please? I know of the Golden Heart and RITA but what are the other 2 you mentioned?

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PRO members have completed a manuscript, had it verified by the RWA (or your chapter officers in the past), and submitted it to an agent or publisher (also verified). Being a PRO shows you are serious about pursuing writing for publication.

PAN is the designation for published authors who have earned at least $1000 in advance or sales of one book.

After a lot of thought, I signed the petition. I feel like I'm in limbo with RWA because I'm epubbed and POD. I'm pubbed where Golden Heart is concerned; I'm unpubbed where Rita is concerned. Seems very unfair and shows me the RWA doesn't value my membership. I won't resign because I couldn't survive without my local chapter. But they are 99.9% of the reason I'll stay with RWA.

Thanks Shameless for the tutorial. Very helpful.

dalex said:

Thanks Shameless for the tutorial. Very helpful.

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You are quite welcome.

Welcome to Absolute Write!

This was pretty fully explored in another thread. I signed the petition because I'd love to rejoin RWA someday --

But first, they'll have to consider me published. Sorry, but I don't care about their criteria. I should be eligible for either one category or the other. No limbo-land. It's disingenuous. I sold books, I have contracts and royalty checks to prove it. How much I make is my business.

I went ahead and signed, and also included a note about why I left the organization----chief of which was the fact that I was a PAN member based on the revised criteria (i.e., income), but I could not enter the Ritas either, because a) there is no category for erotic romance and b) ebooks are deemed not eligible.

As someone who makes a real living writing erotic romance (both print and ebooks), I am pretty ticked off about how RWA disses both ebook authors and erotic romance authors. This is the future of the genre; do they not see this???

Being a budding author of paranormal erotica/romance, I had been thinking of joining RWA but now I am rethinking that. Why are they so down on Erotica specifically? Vulgarity? Sounds a bit prudish to me, but then I'm not into the straight laced victorian or the girlish middle ages stories. I like a bit more substance to my characters and their plottings. Granted my mind has been twisted for years, but still, it is a bono-fide genre and that they are not inclusive as a society geared for "romance writers" smacks of nose in the air prejudice to me. Just my personal view on it but you would think that writers of all people would be a bit less this way, since their audience tends to also be their biggest and loudest critics.

Calixus said:

Being a budding author of paranormal erotica/romance, I had been thinking of joining RWA but now I am rethinking that. Why are they so down on Erotica specifically? Vulgarity? Sounds a bit prudish to me, but then I'm not into the straight laced victorian or the girlish middle ages stories. I like a bit more substance to my characters and their plottings. Granted my mind has been twisted for years, but still, it is a bono-fide genre and that they are not inclusive as a society geared for "romance writers" smacks of nose in the air prejudice to me. Just my personal view on it but you would think that writers of all people would be a bit less this way, since their audience tends to also be their biggest and loudest critics.

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As another former member, I can tell you that except for the Faith, Hope & Love specialty chapter, they aren't too keen on Christian/inspirational writers either.

No, they aren't. I'm totally with Robin on this. It's like erotica and inspirational fic are pushed firmly out to the sidelines, and heaven help you if you try to move off the bench and trot out onto the playing field with the football.

Sorry, couldn't help it. I'm a Bears fan whose team is obviously SO NOT in the Super Bowl. Bad season. 'Nuff said.

It seemed to me while I was a member (and I joined before EC and some other publishers got 'recognition'), they pushed erotica to one side because many of them were e-books. And we do not want to deal with e-books.

I was told by my chapter book signing coordinator that although my books also came out in print, they would not be able to order them for signings because they'd started life as e-books. Eh? I came away from that one doing a major head scratch, then decided to get in-the-face about it, bought my own stock, sold them, signed them, and did not give the chapter their cut because they hadn't done anything. That was the last time, though.

They must consider me either fish or fowl. I said so above. I'm also a member of ACFW so I don't need RWA's acceptance as a Christian fiction writer. But I also would like to schmooze with other romancers, so I do miss that aspect of RWA membership.

Inspiewriter said:

As another former member, I can tell you that except for the Faith, Hope & Love specialty chapter, they aren't too keen on Christian/inspirational writers either.

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So what exactly are they keen on? I also would like to know what is the purpose of RWA? I know this may be a stupid question to some...

brainstorm77 said:

So what exactly are they keen on? I also would like to know what is the purpose of RWA? I know this may be a stupid question to some...

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They are keen on so-called regular romances. You know Avon, Berkley, Harlequin, Dorchester. The big NY print publishers basically and anything else is... meh

smlgr8 said:

They are keen on so-called regular romances. You know Avon, Berkley, Harlequin, Dorchester. The big NY print publishers basically and anything else is... meh

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This is pretty much how I see it also. Many of the chapters are friendly and accepting of all their authors, but mainly RWA caters to NY pubbed authors. I recall when the inspirational chapter was started, one of the main RWA players published an article in their journal (RWR) asking "why do we need an insp chapter?" and stated the reasons she thought it was an unneeded chapter.

OhforPete'ssake! If they feel down on an inspie chapter, don't join it! I am tired of hearing how inclusive and pro-diversity the RWA is, while my experience--and perhaps Robin's as well--have been quite the opposite.

They are keen on so-called regular romances. You know Avon, Berkley, Harlequin, Dorchester. The big NY print publishers basically and anything else is... meh

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---They say this despite the fact that ALL of these publishers are now HUGELY into publishing erotic romance. (because it sells like gangbusters). Harlequin is also doing a booming business in inspirationals.

RWA can't be TOO against inspirationals, since they do at least have an Inspirational category for the Ritas. They don't have an Erotic Romance category, though---despite the fact that erotic romances are a much bigger segment of the market (and I'm speaking of print markets only, not even talking about the emarkets) than inspirational romance.

My agent (who is one of the top agents in the biz, BTW) recently went to RWA National looking for new erotic romance talent, and she was appalled at how she was treated by both RWA officials and rank and file members in one of the agent talks she gave. She was being attacked for repping the genre and also seeking to expand publication options for it. This was the first time she'd actually gone to RWA and therefore wasn't prepared for the outright bias the org has against erotic (despite the fact it is grabbing a bigger and bigger share of the print markets).

This is pretty much how I see it also. Many of the chapters are friendly and accepting of all their authors, but mainly RWA caters to NY pubbed authors.

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Ironically enough, I became PAN-eligible based on my contract with one of the big NYC print houses. I went to one local chapter meeting right after I joined PAN (having only been a national member prior to that). Introduced myself as PAN, mentioned my upcoming book---got treated like total crap. NYC-pubbed or not, my local chapter treated me like garbage because I wrote erotica----and mind you, the chapter was run mostly by either unpublished or vanity-pubbed authors. (meanwhile, some members who announced during the meeting they had vanity-pubbed books coming out, all got oohed and aahed).

Not an org that's getting another dime of my money.

You know, I think the RWA experience really depends on the group you join.

I went to RWA last summer - did not know a soul except for some buddies online. I hung out with the other Pocket authors (who were so gracious to a noob that it made me want to weep) and book reviewers. Everyone was SUPER nice, I thought. But the interesting thing to me was...unless you have something written on your badge that equates you to published, people tend to ignore you. Which is funny. Some people had a million chapter/conference pins but were not published, and they were much higher on the totem pole than me, who had a blank badge.

I also came away from RWA with the impression that Harlequin was the biggest thing. The people that went to RWA were looking to make a career writing category. Not my thing (too hard to write) but I admire the folks that can. Harlequin is big business at RWA, and a lot of the classes there are how to get published with them.

Went to my local chapter. Again, if you have lots of chapter buttons/pins/awards, you are far more important. There were several category authors at the meeting I went to, and most of the comments/questions in the meeting were about how to write for specific Harlequin lines.

I went with my friend who is a Kensington Aphrodisia author (erotica) and she loves RWA. Has been part of the local chapters for years. There were not a lot of erotica authors at the meeting we went to, but then again, there were not a lot of paranormal (my genre) or even single title, for that matter. It was primarily Harlequin.

I know the Oklahoma RWA chapter has a very active group of single title, paranormal authors, though. I imagine their chapter skews a lot more to those particular genres than Harlequin. Doesn't make it bad or good, just different.

To be honest, the thing I have noticed in my (admittedly small) experience with RWA is that they value activity in the group and contest wins more than anything else.

(I did ask my friend if she thought there was a bias against erotica in RWA and she said no, just that there was not a lot of erotica authors in the RWA chapters she'd visited. I didn't ask her about the RITA, though. I can't imagine she's happy about that, though. Why is there YA but not Erotic? Strange.)

I'd say that RWA is VERY anti-erotica based on
a) the lack of an Erotic Romance RITA category; (totally nonsensical given the share of the print market it now has; Harlequin even has 2 erotic category lines, Blaze and Spice!)
b) the general lack of erotic romance members of RWA (because too many of us have been made to feel unwelcome; just read the "Letters" section of any Romance Writers Report if you don't believe me)
c) the way my agent (who is a top literary agent in the overall NYC publishing industry, but also reps a lot of erotica) was treated by RWA when she gave an agent talk about erotica/sought erotica authors. I mean, RWA officials wouldn't go out of their way to diss one of the most sought-after literary agents in NYC for no reason. It had to do with the kind of work she was looking for.

So yes, I think that the bias against erotic romance is very entrenched at all levels of RWA, from the lack of a RITA category on down.

Let's face it---RWA is based in Texas, which isn't exactly known as a progressive area of the country when it comes to sex.

The RWA does have an erotica chapter. It's called Passionate Ink.

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Well, that's a start, at least. Maybe they can lobby RWA to establish a RITA category for erotic, then. But I'm not holding my breath that the board will bite.

Sakamonda said:

---My agent (who is one of the top agents in the biz, BTW) recently went to RWA National looking for new erotic romance talent, and she was appalled at how she was treated by both RWA officials and rank and file members in one of the agent talks she gave. She was being attacked for repping the genre and also seeking to expand publication options for it. This was the first time she'd actually gone to RWA and therefore wasn't prepared for the outright bias the org has against erotic (despite the fact it is grabbing a bigger and bigger share of the print markets).

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Man this is depressing. So did your agent find a different association that is more geared towards the Erotic writers? I would really like to find one that follows in my style, the Paranormal Erotic types where I could find others to network with and learn from. If this is too specific, you can always PM me with the info. I would be eternally grateful.