Things I Have Noticed

**PeterWilliam** · November 24th, 2009, 07:51 PM

I've twice been in unions that sold out the workers pay and benefits, only to get exclusivity (i.e. "closed shop") from management. I don't know if its similar, but you'd think, in economic times like these, such a group would be out protecting every potential selling author they could put the umbrella over.

**Rocket Sheep** · November 29th, 2009, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by PeterWilliam

The more I read about this on other sites, blogs and such, the uglier it looks. Harlequin (overtly) and Thomas Nelson (covertly) so far - who's next?

Harper Collins UK, started Authonomy, the great online slush pile and promptly added, CreateSpace, a self-publishing company to it.

They were before Harlequin tho.

It seems writers ARE the market. Not readers.

**Radthorne** · November 29th, 2009, 11:04 PM

It certainly seems that Harlequin's move has been the one to ratchet up the noise level on this issue. And I'm still seeing a lot of that noise on the industry side of things (blogs, forums, etc.) but still not much in the general media sphere, and I fear that until the noise bubbles up to that level Harlequin (or their corporate parent) will have little incentive to back down from their new venture (which they will have undoubtedly spent some money to get set up, even if it is a partnership).

**Hereford Eye** · March 14th, 2010, 04:29 PM

Hey, your Radicalness, I hereby formally render thanks and homage to the man who introduced me to NAMO so that after putzing around for more than a year, I am finally able to announce a re-built site that is no longer FrontPage2000 dependent. I noticed the site at: www.holbrookandhe.com

**Radthorne** · March 14th, 2010, 09:38 PM

Congrats, sir; a job well done. It looks spiffy-nice. The only notation I would make is that on the home page is says at the bottom that the site is copyright "2008 My Company". Unless you actually happen to be called My Company, you may wish to adjust that to your and Sue's names...

**KatG** · March 14th, 2010, 10:12 PM

Very cool, we have to check that out.

I was reminded of the Harlequin thingy in this thread. What's happened so far is that Harlequin agreed to not recommend to rejected authors who are RWA members that they try the self-publishing arm in their rejection letters. This was one of the two egregious things that Harlequin was doing that caused the bannings in the first place, although the upset was about all rejected authors being advertised to try the self-publishing arm, not just RWA members. But in any case, RWA agreed to put Harlequin back on their acceptable list for that concession. This has some people miffed, but I'm surprised Harlequin made a concession at all, and it's good that the RWA at least got something. Don't know about the other organizations.

**Rocket Sheep** · March 19th, 2010, 07:50 PM

Nice work, HE.

Just quietly... NAMO don't seem to be using very up to date code. It's very basic and makes no claims to be compatible to any standards.

If I were you, I'd use a Wordpress blog as a webpage and redirect your domain name to point there. You can have multiple pages and tabs there and upload your own images to customise it... it'll make life easier in the long run.