Harlequin Horizons: A New Subsidy Press, and a Bad Idea (Part II)

I've already written about the new subsidy publisher launched by Harlequin Enterprises, Harlequin Horizons, and explained why using a fee-charging publisher makes no sense here. Now I'd like to explain why publishing with Harlequin Horizons could potentially be damaging to authors and their income.

What Harlequin is doing with Harlequin Horizons is so heinous that the Romance Writers of America has removed Harlequin Enterprises eligibility as an approved publisher.

That means publishing a book with Harlequin's legitimate branch, never mind the ersatz Harlequin Horizons division, won't earn an author membership in what is essentially the romance writers' union. The Mystery Writers of America have also weighed in, in a resoundingly negative fashion.

This is not how publishing works. In real publishing, money flows towards the writer. Publishers edit, copyedit, proof, typeset, design and market books; the author doesn't have to. Moreover, real publisher's books are available at real bookstores, where people can pick them up and look at them. They're books that libraries publish, and reputable publications review them.

One of the things that I find most upsetting about Harlequin Horizons is the language used on their Web site. It's all about selling a dream, making your dream come true, living the dream life of a writer. It's awful; it's designed to be exploitive, right down to the top page image of a woman in a nice sweater sitting by the shore, pen in hand. Moreover, they're pimping not only the Harlequin Horizons subsidy programs all over their site, they're deliberately targetting naive, "new to the business" writers who want know the difference between a real publisher with books in real book stores, and Harlequin Horizons. They're also pimping their paid critique service the eHarlequin Manuscript Critique service (aka "Learn to Write") all over their site—especially on the sections about how to write.

What Harlequin Horizons is doing is joining the many other subsidy and vanity publishers who exist merely to sell books to authors—not to readers. Skip Harlequin Horizons, and their Author Solutions business partner (who pretty much owns subsidy and vanity printing as a business, under companies like AuthorHouse, AuthorHouse UK, iUniverse, Trafford, Xlibris, and Wordclay). Moreover, if you submit a manuscript to Harlequin Enterprises, and they reject it, they're going to send you a letter suggesting you subsidy publish with Harlequin Horizons, and pay them to publish you. That's not how publishing works; publishers pay authors. And if you do go to Harlequin Horizons, you've lost first time rights. You'll be very unlikely to ever publish your book for real.

If you're determined to go the self publish route, save your money and your heartbreak and use a printer that works for you; Lulu is one option; there are others. They get paid when you do, whenever someone buys a book. Remember, money flows towards the writer. Me, I'd start by submitting my mss. to legitimate romance publishers, and I'd remember too that multiple rejections may be "Nature's way of telling you to write a better book," as SF author Jim Macdonald notes.