Harlequin Pulling a Big One

This is almost too much to believe, but Harlequin has a new "imprint" out there. So why the quotes around the word "imprint" (there I go again!)? There's a good reason, a very good reason...

More...

According to Fangs, Fur, & Fey, the new imprint, Harlequin Horizons, is pure and simple vanity publishing. Period. Don't get sucked in, because you'll be paying for it. Literally. With plenty of your hard-earned dough.

If you want to get away from the major and smaller commercial publishers, you'd be better off going with Lulu. At least there, they won't be gauging you to print your novel (although self-publishing fiction is almost always not a good idea).

Not only is there the up-front costs of getting your book "published" (in reality: printed), you'll pay for editing, you'll have to do all the marketing, yadda, yadda, yadda.

If all you want is to hold a nice book in your hands for you and maybe a few of your friends to read, by all means, go to Lulu or Cafe Press or some other printer. But if you want to be commercially published - that is, published so that plenty of other people plunk down their money - get an agent interested, who will then pursue the publishing contract for you. Or go directly to those (few) legitimate publishers who have national distribution and cross your fingers.

Again, don't get sucked in! Let's hope that Harlequin decides to rethink this!

Go to the Fangs, Fur, & Fey article for more info.


Love and kisses,

~Nancy Beck