Lynne Simpson

The romance blogosphere has been abuzz for the last day over the news that Triskelion Publishing is about to declare bankruptcy. Only a month ago, the publisher was disinvited from the RWA National Conference this summer due to numerous complaints from its authors, management turnover, and other serious signs of trouble.

However, despite the disinvitation, despite the impending bankruptcy filing, despite every indication that RWA’s members should immediately cease and desist all business with Triskelion, they are still on RWA’s list of “recognized” publishers. Huh?

It’s not surprising, really. I won’t give publisher or agent names, but any RWA member who has been around for a while knows of several who stayed on the list long after it was common knowledge that they were bad apples. Companies may have to jump through a few hoops to get ON the list, but it’s like pulling teeth to get unscrupulous or failed businesses OFF it.

And that’s why I think the list needs to go. How many times have more experienced RWA members heard newbies say, “If an agent is RWA-recognized, she must be legit, right?” Umm, no. RWA has said repeatedly that “recognition” is no guarantee that a publisher or agent is competent or is running a reputable business, but as long as this list exists, people are going to interpret an entity’s presence on it as a stamp of approval.

If I were RWA’s lawyer, there’s no way in hell I’d let them have a list like this unless they were investing the time and effort to effectively police it. As it stands now, RWA recognition is misleading and potentially a disservice to members. It may have been a good idea at one time, but it has outlived its usefulness.

The two PAN membership proposals I recently posted to the RWA ORG Yahoo email loop don’t seem so far-fetched to me now. At the time, I wasn’t entirely serious about them, but I’ve somewhat changed my mind. Both proposals would get RWA out of the business of maintaining a list of approved (or recognized or eligible or whatever they’re calling it this week) publishers and agents.

Here are two ways PAN membership (and RITA eligibility) could be determined:

• The publisher offering the contract to the prospective PAN member must be incorporated to do business as a publisher and have a federal tax ID so that it can pay authors royalties. The member sends a copy of her publishing contract — with the dollar amounts redacted, if she prefers — to RWA HQ. Staff members at HQ perform a KnowX.com search to verify that the corporation exists and has a tax ID. No income verification. No need for the publisher to have been in business for a year. End of story.

OR

• The publisher offering the contract must have at some point in its history produced a book that a) made the NYT lists or b) won a nationally-recognized award such as the Pulitzer. The author herself does not need to have won the award or made the NYT list. The prospective PAN member sends a copy of her publishing contract — again, with dollar amounts redacted, if she prefers — to RWA HQ. Staff members at HQ consult lists of NYT bestsellers and Pulitzer winners to determine if the publisher meets the criteria.

Either proposal is bound to make certain groups of people unhappy. Publishing snobs will hate option one, of course. Is pissing them off a bad thing? I don’t think so. :-) Those who write for publishers that haven’t produced bestsellers or Pulitzer winners may not like option two. But both proposals do have the advantage of removing the crutch that is RWA’s list of approved publishers. Instead of providing a list that they don’t adequately police, perhaps RWA could instead focus on training members to do the vetting for themselves — you know, that old “teach a man to fish” idea.

As for me, I don’t have a dog in this fight, a horse in this race, or whatever. When my term as chapter secretary is over at the end of the year, I’m planning to terminate my RWA membership. Whatever RWA decides to do about PAN membership and RITA eligibility has no effect on me, so I’m free to toss out ridiculous proposals all day long without being accused of making them to further my own interests. :-)