A Call for a Change

I'm not a political person. I don't like it. If you've been following RWA, you'd know about the latest happenings on the ESPAN blog regarding D. Pershing’s post about epubbed authors and the lack of representation of electronic publishers at Nationals this year. Not only did this make its way to the Examiner, earlier today, Angela James issued a Call To Action.

You may have also heard about the RWA Change group- a group that is fighting for change within the system to not only educate its members about digital publishing, but to broaden the standards to include epubbed authors and publishers because ebooks are becoming more of the future. Just because you're epubbed doesn't mean you are not career oriented. An advance of 1k or more is not indicative of whether you're considered 'published', in my opinion. If you wrote a book and sold it, the contract in your hand, whether you've gone the print or epubbed route, it is all the same. You're published. And you're an author. Yes, granted, there have been bad epubs out there. But that is like anything and I know there have probably been just as bad print publishers as well out there in the past. To label all e-publishers as bad because there's a few out there makes no sense. What is important is educating people to be able to avoid these bad ones, not push them all under the bed like something unimportant because you just don't want to deal with it.

You can join the group yourself right here and help the change because there needs to be an equality. I will admit, I am not a published author. I joined RWA for its resources such as my local Chapter and networking oppotunities. I am serious about my writing and having a future career in it. I don't want to say I didn't speak up. Print or e-pubbed, a book is a book. A writer still puts the same effort into it no matter what. Just because a person is e-published doesn't mean they are any less of an author.

What is your stand?