The Twitterverse & #RWAChange
Sunday, June 21st, 2009I am not a hard core Twitter user, but I do try to log in at least once a day. I read some of the people I subscribe to, catch up on the news and commentary, make a few tweets, etc. Sometimes I spend a bit of time checking out a conversation I may have missed over the course of the day. It’s like being at the party even after the party’s over…
The past couple of days Deidre Knight, agent and writer, has been working the Twitterverse hard with many fellow authors to protest the blatant discrimination the Romance Writers of America (RWA) have been practicing with respect to epublished authors.
I’ve never been a member of RWA. One, I’m too cheap. I think it costs less than $100 bucks a year to join, but since I am several hours away from a local chapter meeting, I didn’t see what I’d be getting for my $100. A magazine? A chance to join online writing groups?
Not enough to get me motivated. I can think of better things to spend my money on.
Everything I learned about writing and publishing/epublishing I found online. Either through Yahoo groups, online critique groups, or the good, old fashioned trial-and-error method. I’m not the kind of person who believes in short cuts. I’m willing to put in the work to get where I want to be…I may not get there as quickly as I want, but I don’t give up once I get an idea in my head that I want to accomplish something.
So, I had been reading all of this #RWAChange dialogue with an outsider’s perspective–curious interest, but nothing more.
What I found *very* interesting was how my interest in RWA changed as I started to contemplate some of the ideas being bandied about on Twitter. If I, as a small-time epublished writer could enter a contest specifically for epublished works…now that might interest me. Or if there was a liaison within RWA who wrote a monthly column on epublishing with information I could use…now that might be something that would get me to part with the $85 or whatever the dues are to join.
Maybe those in Twitter-land should be calling out to those of us who are epublished, but not yet members of RWA. Find out *why* we aren’t members and then build your changes and improvements and demands around those ideas. Because what would make a bigger statement to RWA about including epublished writers and educating its members on epublishing than to show them that they might experience a jump in RWA membership if they were to do so?
Things I’d be interested in:
1) a source for information on epublishers about sales, contracts, advertising, treatment of authors that is based on factual data rather rumor-mongering, like some of the online sources I already know about.
2) a monthly column in RWA magazine geared directly toward writers who are epublished or who are interested in learning about epublishing.
3) a 3rd ‘contest’ for books that are epublished…or, at least a chance to participate in either the Golden Heart or the RITA.
4) conference workshops geared toward the digital market and epublishers.
5) an RWA standard for ranking epublishers…a way to ‘rate’ them that can be changed yearly if epublishers meet certain standards or average sales.
6) be a force for digital rights and a fair and equitable royalties structure for ALL authors in the digital market…as far as I’m concerned some of the standard royalty payments for NY-pubbed authors is highway robbery.
And those are just a few things off the top of my head.
I’m very interested to see where this Twitter conversation goes. You just never know, this time next year, I might be a new member of RWA if things pan out….
Kris
