Are Pay-to-Play Published Book Contests Unethical?

To celebrate that THE TALON OF THE HAWK won Best Fantasy Romance of 2015 from RT Book Reviews, I got this amazing tattoo of Ursula's sword. I'm thrilled with how it turned out. (Freshly finished and a little red here - it looks even better now!)

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This week's topic in the Bordello poses the question of whether book contests you pay to enter are immoral or unethical. I confess that this was a topic I suggested, so it works out well for me to kick off the topic this week. I'm posing the question to the rest of the Word Whores and I'm really interested to hear their answers.

Allow me to explain a bit.

I entered the fiction-writing world via Romance Writers of America (RWA), and the highest award there is the RITA. It's essentially the Oscar of the romance-writing community. There's even a golden statuette! The RITA is open for anyone with a published novel or novella to enter. The author (or publisher) pays $50 and provides five paper copies of their book. Judges are sent packets of usually six to nine books to read and score, and the top scoring books are the finalists in their categories.

In contrast, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), which I joined later because their membership requirements are stiffer, have the Nebula Awards. To have a book nominated, it must be first put on a recommended reading list by SFWA members, then nominated by a certain number of those members, with the top contenders becoming the final nominees. (The nominees don't HAVE to be on the reading list first, but it helps.) The salient point here is that authors cannot enter their books - they can only provide copies for the reading list. The Hugo Awards for science fiction, fantasy and horror work much the same way, with "members" of the WorldCon convention that year nominating and voting.

What came as a surprise to me was that it came out in conversation with other members of SFWA that they look down on the RITAs for being "pay to play" awards. They see the Nebulas and Hugos as having greater integrity because the authors cannot enter the books - someone else must nominate them. However, to me this feels like a perpetuation of cliques and old-boy networks, with certain authors always nominated while others are overlooked for various reasons. Also, as we've seen with various scandals like Sad Puppies, these awards are subject to slate-stacking for various political purposes.

The RITA system, however, is far from perfect also, with bias against authors who cannot afford to enter and judges reading subgenres that are not ones they necessarily love. However, I do like that I can at least enter my books in the RITAs, even though they have yet to final. I suggested that SFWA entertain the notion of a new award where authors could pay to enter, which would be an excellent fundraiser - RWA made upwards of $100,000 on this year's contest - and was met with withering scorn. I'm not kidding. The phrase "withering scorn" was used in comment responding to my suggestion.

This is how strongly some members of SFWA feel.

So, I'm curious - what do you all think of this issue? I frankly don't get the withering scorn, but is that just me? Feel free to comment! And I'll be following with interest this week to see how my Bordello-mates weigh in. 

Savoring the Outside Point of View

Last night my most excellent friend, critique partner and Word-Whore alum, Carolyn Crane, won the Romance Writers of America (RWA) RITA award for her romantic suspense, Off the Edge. Even more exciting, she's the first author to win a RITA with a self-published book.

We knew she was one of the finalists, but it wasn't until the awards ceremony that we found out.

Carolyn has been my roommate at the conference all week, which is a treat for us. We live on different sides of the country and mostly communicate via email and instant messenger, sprinkled in with the occasional phone call. We often bemoan that we can't meet for a drink or lunch, so our five-day grown-up slumber party is an opportunity to saturate ourselves in writer talk and to savor each other's company.

The RITA finalists get to bring a guest or two to share their VIP table at the RITA awards, so I was Carolyn's date last night. I don't think it really hit either of us, the reality of the building tension, until a few hours before. We'd been running around all week, going to and from panels, speeches, meetings, lunches and parties. But we made sure to meet for dinner, eating early at 5:30, so we'd have time to get into our fancy dresses.

She was keyed up and so was I. Even though I kept reassuring her with the very true observation, that finaling for the RITA is really the big bump - in buzz and sales - I started to feel nervous. Now, a date's job at this kind of thing is to help maintain the calm, to buffer the anxiety, so I kept up a good face. Still, I really wanted this for her and the imminent possibility of great celebration or the bruise of disappointment loomed. I had my consolation words planned, knowing well how it can sting, even when you KNOW it's still amazing to get that close.

When her category came up, I rubbed a hand over her back, as much to soothe myself as her.

When they called her name, I burst into tears. I rarely have experienced the happy cry, but I did last night.

When she came back to the table, carrying her heavy golden statue, she sat and said, "Did I remember to thank you in my speech?" and I said, "I don't know - I was crying!"

One of those stories we'll tell forever.

This week's theme is: Choosing point-of-view (POV): How Do You Know Which One Is Right For Your Story?

In many ways, this is Carolyn's story. But it's also mine. I've walked this road with her from the very first glimmer of the concept for this series. Last night felt as much my joy as hers. Conventional wisdom says we should choose POV according to which character has the greatest emotional stake in a scene. Which means, if I were writing the book, I'd want to tell you this story from Carolyn's POV.

In real life, however, it's necessarily my POV. I can give a perspective that she can't. One infused with the pure elation of celebrating someone else's victory.

A sweet place to be.

Celebrations Barriers

What do you know about the psychology of barriers?

The summary goes like this: We all know what we *should* do - let me illustrate using one of my barrier issues - vacuuming (keeping the living quarters clean and tidy). The mental script goes like this: I should vacuum. What happens: Nothing. Why? There's a barrier. Possibly several. The psychology comes in when you look at the gap between what you say you want and what you actually do. The goal is to identify the obstacles keeping you from acting and remove them so that you take action.

It's actually applicable to this week's topic of celebrations.

Something odd happened when I hit some major milestones. For years, people who weren't writers had told me 'the process should be it's own reward, not getting published'. When I got the call and my first contract, those people were some of the first to congratulate me. My sister and her daughter decorated my birthday cake that year as a book with my name on the cover. My husband took me to dinner at a restaurant we love but choose to afford only once ever few years. The first book came out. It won an award. It finaled in the RITAs. I was invincible. And unhappy. I mean, how the hell do you follow THAT? Especially when you aren't entirely certain how you did it the first time? Still, it took awhile for the unhappy to sink through the buzz. After all, I was riding high on people who weren't related to me saying nice things about my work.

But just like a steady diet of chocolate cake loses it's appeal after awhile, the buzz started to wear off. I needed more and more celebrate-y stuff to feed the 'I'm a princess' delusion. I don't know when I figured out that celebrating major milestones was dangerous. For me, it had become a barrier. I chased after the ego-boosting, distracting high and then wondered why I wasn't writing much anymore.

I did the barrier psychology analysis. I embraced being mortified by my behavior. And I went cold turkey on the celebrating. Briefly. Because in the analysis I found out a few things. 

1. There are good 'drugs' and bad 'drugs'. Writing, for me, is good. Celebrating, for me, has a few issues.
2. Each day has a gift to offer if you're awake enough and willing to look for it.
3. Major milestones *can* be celebrated - but on a small scale.
4. Big celebrations belong to the family, not the individual.

That first one, for me was a game changer. There comes a point of immersion for me - in every story I tell. The sooner that happens, the easier the words come and the less work the job of writing the book becomes. It was the best thing on earth to figure that out and swap that 'seeking immersion' drug for the celebration, ego-stroking one. The second? Notice those things that give you energy - for me, it may be a crow with a single, snow-white feather in her black wing. Or the tiny Chihuahua who comes out of her apartment building every morning with THE biggest 'It's ALL MINE' chip on her shoulder. A perfect cup of tea. Or a great evening spent with friends yelling advice at the Walking Dead characters. Those daily celebrations feed the writing. Especially if I can engage in them with a clear conscience because I made my word count goal for the day. Number three is about removing expectation from my poor, innocent family members. They want to be excited for me when things go well, but this whole 'writing a book' thing is an alien planet. Just like being a quantum mechanics physicist is another whole dimension for me. I want to understand. Chances are really high I won't. Not in this lifetime. Not with the brain I was allotted this go around. So major milestones - like a second contract - get WAY scaled back celebrations, if they get celebrated at all. A movie. Or a trip to the bookstore for a new read. Getting a contract may feel to me like I landed on the moon, but it's really 'hey, you're gainfully employed, congrats!' No more. No less. And the last? The best way for me to stay grounded is to make big celebrations not about me (you know, unless it's my birthday - but I'm going to share that birthday cake with everyone). The ego is insidious and likes the taste of that 'all about me' candy. Our culture supplies plenty of opportunity for major celebratory episodes if we want them - holidays, weddings, births, birthdays. It helps me to keep those parties about hanging out and enjoying everyone's company. Before I go back to burying myself in making stuff up and putting it on paper. . .