Big Media Strikes (and stinks) again

Just recently one of my publishers was accepted as a member publisher of the Romance Writers of America organization and, in the wake of this, the RWA is now considering a vote to require certain things of the individual authors for membership as well. Not that this effects me personally, since I am NOT a romance writer, though a couple of my books were inexplicably cross-categorized that way, but this is another example of big media trying to freeze out smaller enterprises by force of their commercial power. Large publishers have great influence on the market, since they can artificially inflate their book sales to higher numbers in order to place their authors on the NY Bestseller lists, for example. Small publishers cannot do that, and therefore small press authors cannot even begin to get their sales figures up to the same lofty heights, making it very difficult for them to attain the required sales for clear membership in said organization.

When you add this to the amount of money the big publishers can afford to spend in promotion, it leaves the smaller press publishers and their authors going up against veritable giants without even a pebble in their proverbial slings.

I myself write speculative fiction and, because of the rules of the SFWA, the organization dedicated to science fiction and fantasy authors, cannot at this time even apply for membership. My profits must be considerably higher than they are at this moment just to qualify for membership.

My publisher, Samhain Publishing, just recently made a deal with one of the larger distributors, which will probably be rather lucrative in the long run, but every time we get closer to achieving the goal of acceptance into the larger community, they move the goal posts to make it that much more difficult.

Samhain is, in fact, a rising star in the publishing world, almost certain to gain a status nearing that of one of the Big Houses in time, but, in the meantime, there are a lot of authors such as myself who are finding it increasingly difficult to be taken seriously by a number of our fellows because of this arbitrary changing of rules to limit our options.

Samhain's authors consistently garner rave reviews and enjoy immense popularity in certain limited circles, simply due to the fact that we're not as visible as those who write for one of the Big Houses.

I'm not sure what can be done about this, though those of us who ARE members of the RWA are objecting to this intended action. We all work very hard not only in writing and editing our novels and stories, but also in promoting on an almost daily basis. Writing is, by necessity, a rather private avocation, but the nature of the beast also requires we put ourselves out there and blow our own horns far more often than I, personally, feel entirely comfortable with. That's the nature of the business. Especially these days.

One thing people might do is actively support Samhain Publishing by asking for works by its authors at your local bookstores (since my first book with them will be available in print as of this July, my own name comes to mind ;)) but any of us would do.

You might also visit the website http://www.samhainpublishing.com to check out the authors themselves, as well as the books. I think nearly any taste in fiction is well represented there, from excellent suspense to highly imaginative works of speculative fiction such as my own.

From our point of view, Big Media is trying to work through intermediaries to knock us down and keep us there and, well, we're not just going to sit still and take it. We all work very hard and deserve better treatment than this.

Any help or just moral support from you all would be greatly appreciated. More than words can say.