[Organization] Romance Writers of Australia

jamiehall · Mar 13, 2008

This sounds weird to me.

I've been contacted by someone claiming to work for the Romance Writers of Australia (website at http://www.romanceaustralia.com/).

Out of the blue (I never contacted nor heard of them before) they want to publish a portion of my website in their newsletter.

I'm not a romance author, and I don't really understand this.

What is this?

It just doesn't seem normal to me.

veinglory · Mar 13, 2008

Doesn't seem that odd to me. I write a small column for the Romance Writers of New Zealand newsletter. If I found a good, useful post online I might ask if I could reprint it. What was it about, writing, publishing?

jamiehall · Mar 13, 2008

veinglory said:
Doesn't seem that odd to me. I write a small column for the Romance Writers of New Zealand newsletter. If I found a good, useful post online I might ask if I could reprint it. What was it about, writing, publishing?

It was about how I chose my pen name. But it didn't seem very good to me. In fact, I had been planning on chucking most of it and rewriting it from scratch, I just never got around to it.

IceCreamEmpress · Mar 13, 2008

jamiehall said:
It was about how I chose my pen name. But it didn't seem very good to me. In fact, I had been planning on chucking most of it and rewriting it from scratch, I just never got around to it.

They were probably Googling for existing articles on the topic and liked yours. Maybe this is an impetus to rewrite it?

It's a legit organization.

Birol · Mar 13, 2008

Let me get this straight, your problem with this organization is that they liked something you wrote and asked your permission to reprint it?

Alexandra Little · Mar 13, 2008

Birol said:
Let me get this straight, your problem with this organization is that they liked something you wrote and asked your permission to reprint it?

It wasn't that she had a problem with it, it seems more that she was contacted by an group she hadn't heard of for a genre she doesn't write in. I would be suspicious too at first.

Birol · Mar 13, 2008

There are more organizations and publications out there that a writer hasn't heard of than ones a writer does know. The ones to be concerned about are not the ones that send a polite request asking permission to reprint an article. The ones to be concerned about are the ones who take the article and republish it without permission.

jamiehall · Mar 14, 2008

Alexandra Little said:
It wasn't that she had a problem with it, it seems more that she was contacted by an group she hadn't heard of for a genre she doesn't write in. I would be suspicious too at first.

Yeah. I expect to submit something and get rejected, I don't expect to submit nothing and get accepted. I thought it was best to check, just in case.

Birol said:
There are more organizations and publications out there that a writer hasn't heard of than ones a writer does know. The ones to be concerned about are not the ones that send a polite request asking permission to reprint an article. The ones to be concerned about are the ones who take the article and republish it without permission.

Agreed.

Caro · Mar 14, 2008

It is definitely a legit organization. A fellow chapter member of mine (we're a chapter of Romance Writers of America) is Australian and is also a member of the Australian group -- and their newsletter does apparently go searching for things they think might be of interest, even if it's not necessarily in the same genre.

[Organization] Romance Writers of Australia

jamiehall

Bereaved Snarkling

veinglory

volitare nequeo

jamiehall

Bereaved Snarkling

IceCreamEmpress

Hapless Virago

Birol

Around and About

Alexandra Little

What a desolation.

Birol

Around and About

jamiehall

Bereaved Snarkling

Caro