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"The sales could be a whole lot better," grumbles Marilyn Grall, an Oklahoma City medical transcriptionist and the author of the e-book Conquest of the Heart ("He was a mercenary soldier who wanted nothing more than a hearth, home ... and heirs. She was an heiress whose lands had been confiscated by William the Conqueror. In the tumultuous days following the Battle of Hastings, a young woman must face her destiny, a man the truths in his soul."). She expects that will change with hard work: "It's a pioneering grass-roots effort. That's what is exciting about it -- we are all working so hard, doing whatever we can to promote it."

Despite the writers' optimism, the question of sales and royalties is critical to the romance industry at large, and is what is presently preventing the digital romantics from being accepted by their print counterparts in the RWA. Although the association voted last year to accept e-authors as members, it recently instituted rules that prevent any e-publisher from gaining official recognition. The RWA now mandates that a publisher must sell at least 5,000 copies of one of its authors' books to receive RWA recognition.

This means that e-authors may not be able to compete for the coveted RITA awards -- the gold standard of the romance industry -- since titles must be published by a "recognized" publisher to qualify. They also can't compete for the RWA's amateur writers' award, the Golden Heart, which requires that authors not be published at all. And their books won't be listed in the Romance Writers Report, the journal of the RWA, which profiles all the upcoming romance novels.

The e-authors are furious about this, insisting that the RWA has a "constant history of making a decision only to change it to the disadvantage of authors published electronically," as Childers puts it. The RWA, meanwhile, insists that it doesn't object to e-books -- in fact, RWA president Jo Ann Ferguson has even released some of her already-published books in electronic format -- but it says that the e-publishers' practices need to be more in line with those of the print industry. Ferguson sighs, "Everybody gets their feelings hurt when they are told the baby's not beautiful or perfect, and I can understand their feelings on all of this ... but we're not going after e-publishers, we're just saying that if you see this publisher at the RWA they've met our criteria."

Romance e-novelists are also discovering that, unlike their print counterparts, their books won't be reviewed in the Romantic Times magazine, the premier periodical for romance fans, unless the authors or their publishers ante up thousands of dollars for an ad in the magazine. This new rule was set in place by Romantic Times this month after it was faced with a flood of new electronic titles. Explains publisher Carol Stacy, "It's a signal to them to say that if you want to be a viable industry, then treat yourself like a real business, and learn how to participate." If the e-publishing industry can't afford to buy ads, then the magazine can't afford to devote pages to the books. In response, many romance authors are pooling their money for cooperative ads, fitting 17 to 20 authors onto a one-page ad.

But romance novelists aren't the only e-authors who feel that they are being discriminated against. E-authors of science fiction -- another group that has taken to electronic books like fish to water -- are also being rejected by that genre's organization, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Although this organization, like the RWA, voted to allow e-authors as members last year, thus far not a single author has been invited into their ranks, because of a standard that requires that authors be published by a company that pays advances -- which, of course, e-publishers don't do.

As Paul Levinson, president of the SFWA, notes, "It's always seemed obvious to me that it didn't matter words were on paper or on a screen, they can be equally professional and wonderful. But what makes something professional is that there's an amount of money exchanged, even if you don't have to make a living at it."

In other words, these organizations seem to want e-publishers to act more like print publishers, whereas e-authors and publishers think that the publishing industry should just get over itself and realize that the economics of the industry are changing. After all, they say, the print publishing industry is already killing the midlist book (those with modest sales and little potential of becoming a bestseller), because of the high cost of author advances and supporting unsuccessful books. But until the e-publishers are successful in sales and promotions -- or boast a real hit author in their rosters -- it's unlikely that anyone will take their advice on how to run an industry.

Regardless, the e-publishing industry is growing quickly. The electronic publishing category of Yahoo now lists 150 electronic publishers, from tiny romance-focused houses like Awe-Struck E-books to more established general interest publishers like Hard Shell Word Factory. Even the "titans" of the romance industry -- such as Harlequin, whose claim to the throne of love is undisputed -- are starting to pay attention to electronic publishing, producing some of their published titles in electronic formats and including "electronic rights" in their contracts with new authors.

"I think we have to sell books and then everyone will sit up and take notice. We are a baby industry. We have to become a household word, and the handheld readers have to become as common as calculators," explains Kathryn Struck, founder of Awe-Struck. "That time is coming. The Internet will help it happen quickly, and the close-knit community of e-book authors and publishers are organizing and pooling resources to put the words 'I gotta have an e-book!' on the tip of everyone's tongues."
salon.com | Sept. 29, 1999

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