Me, Talking About Entering The RITA Contest

Elsewhere, somebody asked --
(I'm paraphrasing here):

"Why enter the RITA?  Readers don't care about the RITA.  It's nice to get approbation from your fellow romance-authors, but it's an expensive luxury. 

Does the RITA have any real impact on sales or on any aspect of a career?"

So I had some thoughts on this,
to wit:

Reader, not caring about the RITA

It is true that readers don't know or care about the RITA.  It's not like getting a HUGO or an Edgar, worse luck.  I don't know why the RITA gets so little respect.

Hey -- Look at some of the authors who've won the Historical Romance RITA in the last decade or so.  (Click on the name to see a book.)

Sarah MacLean, Sherry Thomas, Pam Rosenthal, Madeline Hunter, Julia Quinn, Liz Carlyle, Laura Kinsale, Connie Brockway, Jo Beverley, Laura Lee Guhrke, Pamela Morsi, Julie Garwood, LaVyrle Spencer, Mary Jo Putney ...

Can we say, "Really Good Writers, Folks"?
Can we say, "You should read these people"?

Why is the RITA not making a bigger noise?
I have no explanation. I am confounded and numbleswoggled.

Anyhow, talking about money.

There's a definite bump in sales with a RITA win -- but that bump would not cover the cost of entry for many people.  When I look at the economics of the RITA, I'm looking at the long tail. Any monetary value, IMO, lies in a secondary effect on the professionals in the field, rather than in immediate, direct sales.

This is how I see the long tail:

-- You're right about the RITAs being primarily for other writers. But this is not a bad thing.  Many Romance writers try out the RITA Finalists in the year after the win and sometimes they like what they read. The single best advertising for any writer is the recommendation of other writers.

Somewhat jaded reviewer

-- RWA Chapters and writing organizations notice the winners. If you like speaking engagements, this is a way to get wonderful invitations.

-- Reviewers often pick up the next books from RITA writers. Reviewers love good writing -- that's why they're in the business -- and take an interest in what Romance writers think is good writing.

-- And I think the publishers take note.
Publishers are endlessly interested in writers. We are 'the product' they're selling, as it were. I like to think that in some future marketing meeting, that RITA win or Final might be the little nudge that pushes a book into a more favorable printing slot or gives it a bit of the publicity budget.

So. Onward to expenses.  Does the RITA cost a writer too much?

This so much depends. Take an example of one sort of writer.
Let's say you're not an RWA member and would not normally become one; you wouldn't go to National; you have to pay for your own print books; you have to pay for your own entry to the RITA contest; and you make less than $2000 writing income after expenses.

In this case, to get the RITA at the National Convention, you'd be paying, soup to nuts:

$120 RWA membership
$100 to print up ten copies of your book
$50 to enter the RITA contest
$500 registration for National Conference
$400 plane fare to National Conference
$50 for a checked bag
$500 hotel at National Conference
$130 meals at National Conference
$100 dress to wear to the Awards dinner
$100 for professional clothing to wear at the conference

This is all ballpark, but we're flirting with $2000 overall. And you'd have to judge five books.

Another writer would be in a different situation.
For instance, until I fell into my recent snit with RWA over their latest revamping of the RITA, I paid for RWA membership every year. I judged the RITAs whether I entered or not. I attended the National Conference whenever I could scrape together money enough to do so.

The National Convention of RWA

Because I was already paying for so much, entering for the RITA cost me about nothing extra. Entering the RITA, then, is probably a good economic decision for any RWA member who plans to go to National. It's maybe not such a good economic decision for folks who aren't and don't.


But the economics are not the be-all and end-all of this contest.  For me, entering the RITA has never been about the economics. It's part of being in RWA and supporting Romance.  For many longterm RWA members, the RITA is 'our contest'. It seems natural to enter.

Finally, let me suggest one particular case when the payoff is worth the cost.

If you are Indie pubbed and you have just a hellaciously good book and you cannot seem to get anybody to notice it ... the RITA might be a good way to put your book in front of the world.

Hellaciously good Indie book

Is your book good enough to Final? Looking at it objectively, is your book better than most of those Finalists?   Do you have a supergreatwonderful book?
If so, and if you choose not to go to National with your Final, the RITA would cost:

$120 RWA membership
$100 to print up ten copies of your book
$50 to enter the RITA contest

That $270 seems cheap for that amount of publicity. 
There'd be special notice taken when an Indie book hit a Finalist position.

Booty Tuesday -- Susanna Kearsley's The Rose Garden

Carrying home Booty

As you know, I returned from the RWA National Conference last August with Booty!
I haz signed books.  

I haz New Books, from writers I admire.  

Did I mention they are signed?

One of these books can be yours.

This week is your chance to win The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley.

 This is a lyric and thoughtful para-Romance -- and by that I am saying it hangs around the Romances in the playground but every once in a while it wanders off to Think Deep Thoughts while all the Romance books are going 'Whee!' on the swingset.  Rose Garden was a Finalist for the RITA last year which is an indication of the quality we are talking about here, even if we ignore all the 'best seller' stickers on the front.

The physical copy of this book is untouched because I have my own and read it before the conference.

Stealing quotes from various folks ...

"Kearsley has a poetic sensibility and a sense of mystery: she could write the modern Rebecca."  The Bookseller.

"Lifts readers straight into another time and place to smell the sea, feel the caste walls, and sense every emotion.  These are marks of a fantastic storyteller." RT Book Review:

RT calls The Rose Garden 'reminiscent of Barbara Erskine's Lady of Hay and Mary Stewart's works.'  Others compare Kearsley to Gabaldon, (I will agree with this, and you know how I love Gabaldon,) du Maurier and Niffenegger.

If that sounds like your taste and you haven't tried her yet, the treat still awaits you.

Let's go with a little excerpt:

"Do you mean to roast the squabs tonight?" 

I heard the footsteps pause.  "Now what the devil does that have to do with anything?"

"I think more clearly when I'm fed."

"Is that a fact?"

"You might do well to roast an extra bird."

"I'll roast the flock for you," the Irishman said dryly, "if it helps you find your sense."

He didn't slam the door exactly, but he closed it with a force that gave his final statement emphasis.  I heard his footsteps tramping down the stairs.

This book is just so excellent on so many levels.

To be eligible to win The Rose Garden, write and post a poem in the comment thread of this post. 

Use one of the following words from the cover:

Safety, among, thorns, rose, garden, new, time, today, author, Susanna, Kearsley, poetic, sense, sensibility, mystery, write, modern, Rebecca, bookseller, thrill, haunting, deep, romantic, story, Cornwall, house, coast, memories, childhood, summers, happiness, voices, pathway.

Your poem can be a 
Limerick
Haiku 
(traditional or non-traditional)
Rhymed couplet
Quatrain  
blank verse
or any other rhyme or poetry form you fancy.  I am not particular.

I'll pick one lucky commenter (US only, sorry) from the comment trail on Friday.

Booty Tuesday -- Darynda Jones' First Grave on the Right

Carrying home Booty

As you know, I returned from the RWA National Conference in August with Booty!
I haz signed books.  

I haz New Books, from writers I admire.  

Did I mention they are signed?

One of these books can be yours.

This week is your chance to win First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones.

 I've been watching members of the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood go from strength to strength these last couple years.  At the RWA National Conference Darynda had Two RITA Finals and WON the RITA for Best First Book.  Read about it here.

So I am offering you the RITA-winning book,

SIGNED,

and I collected that siggie before she won the RITA which shows some prescience on my part, does it not?

This copy has not even been opened because I read the book long before the conference.

Library Journal says, "Plenty of action.  And let's be honest -- the sex is pretty hot too."

From the back cover:

This whole grim reaper thing should

have come with a manual.

Or a diagram of some kind.

A flowchart would have been nice. 

 

 ... which is really good enough to qualify as a poem but, alas, didn't get entered.  

Here's a little excerpt:

The sun nested on Nine Mile Hill for several heartbeats before losing interest and slipping down the other side.  I sat in Misery – the jeep, not the emotion – and waited for the skyline to swallow it completely so I could get on with my breaking-and-entering gig.

I love language like this.  You will too, I believe.

To be eligible to win this wonderful book, write and post a poem in the comment thread of this post. 

Use one of the following words from the cover:

First, grave, right, novel, Jones, debut, read, year, hilarious, heartfelt, sexy, surprise, beg, next, one, ward, lover, unleash, grim, reaper, tension, hot, high, octane, signpost, paranormal, suspense, high, order.

Your poem can be a 
Limerick
Haiku 
(traditional or non-traditional)
Rhymed couplet
Quatrain  
blank verse
or any other rhyme or poetry form you fancy.  I am not particular.

I'll pick one lucky commenter (US only, sorry) from the comment trail on Friday.

An Interview at USA Today

Not your average general

An Interview with Pamela Clare of the USA Today, Happy Ever After Blog in which I talk about writing Black Hawk, winning the RITA, and why Napoleon beat the pants off all the armies of Europe for a decade and knocked the moral, ethical, and philosophical foundation of the aristocracy into a cocked hat.

Pamela: What was it like, winning the RITA for best historical? 

Joanna: Awesome. Frightening. Surreal.

And surprising. I didn't expect to win, competing against that finalist list. Wonderful books. It's like the freestyle swim in the Olympics. What separates the winner from the second place? Two seconds maybe.

I'll admit that when I got the RITA statue home I took it out and put it on the table and just touched it a few times. I kept thinking, "They like the book. They like the book." And it made me so happy.

Here's the URL.

The RITA -- I Haz IT!

 I am so very very happy to say I have won the RWA RITA Award for Best Historical Romance of 2011. 

In my never-ending quest to reveal the nitty-gritty of publishing, I will tell you how it went.

At the Awards Dinner, I was sitting at the table marveling at the process of selecting winners, which seems to contain both the inevitability of tides and the randomness of wave formations.  I laid a fork to hold down what page of the booklet we were working through, watching the Finalists, of whom I know just a lot one way and another, and trying not to let panic come creeping with little cat feet into my mind.

I keep drinking cups of coffee and not eating the dessert because, y'know, cake and not good for you and the whole boring sugar metabolism thing and self-restraint on general principles ...

I had corner bent the page where my own particular fearsome trial lay.  I turn to that page because it is now time.  Lay the fork across it. 

They read through the Historical Fiction Finalists.  Because I am not panicking ... really truly not panicking ...  I am thinking, "If I lose, I'll allow myself to have one of those cakes.  Probably the chocolate one.  But the vanilla icing one looks pretty good.  Maybe it has lemon flavor inside.  Now, is that a third kind of cake there or is it just white cake and the light shining on it funny ..."

I'm thinking along like this while they read out the names of the Historical Finalists.  They say, "The Black Hawk" and I have not been following, so it is a doubletake moment while I work out that they've just named the winner and it's me.  "Go on!" says Pam-Hopkins-the-agent using an exclamation point.  "You won!" she says, using another.


They let you practice beforehand where you will walk and I am good at following simple, straightforward directions.  I proceed to follow directions and discover the podium is approximately where I expected to find it.  I am safe so far ...

Some nice lady hands me the RITA statue.  I will just take a moment aside to say that those puppies are heavy.

The light up there is so bright I couldn't read the note I wrote. 
What is is --  I'd written down my agent and editor names so I wouldn't forget them and stand there mouthing in small frantic gup gup gup like a goldfish.  But I got them right.  Then I said some extemporaneousity that seems to have made sense because no one later asked me why I was babbling idiocy.  Then I got down the exit ramp without tripping.

I thought it all went off rather well.

[ETA]:  The most excellent Jina Bacarr took a video of the speech wherein I seem to speak very slowly.  This is because I think kinda slowly, at the best of times, I'm afraid, and I was trying not to forget my agent's name and editor's name.  The speech is here.  One can see it in Safari and IE, but maybe not in Fireforx.  See also the acceptance speeches of Ann Aguirre here and Tessa Dare here.  [/ETA]

It is a measure of how little I expected to win the RITA that I had not previously at any point given one single tiny passing nuggle of a thought as to how I was going to get a statue home.  In the end, I used the conference bag and made it my carry-on.  The conference bag just precisely held the box they give you to carry the RITA in, which is a delightful innovation on somebody's part.


hawk attrib velosteve acceptance kristenkoster

Auction Stuff of Beauty and Coolness

Every year, Brenda Novak holds an online auction in aid of diabetes research.  Have a look at it here.

Some wonderful items on offer.

Steampunk flash drive

Steampunk flash drive.   Turquoise stained glass box by author Chloe Jacobs.  Replica Regency-style rings.  Art deco necklace.

Chloe Jacobs' stained glass box

Name a character in an upcoming book by Carly Phillips, Shiloh Walker, or Amanda Brice.

Tiny lizard pot for seeds

14" X 16" hand woven Thunderbird mat for your computer area or a tiny lizard pot.


Then there's YOUR favorite book covers made into a 3' X 3' quilt.  What could be cooler than that?

Then there's a really weird teapot. Or this pretty Edwardian pin.

An Edwardian pin.  1910.

See Mercedes Lackey's autographed books and matching necklace and another one.

Mercedes Lackey necklace

Books.  Books.  Books.

Two ARCs from Sherry Thomas who won the Historical Romance RITA last year.  

The remarkable Grace Burrowes offers an autographed book and a color NOOK!

Get FOUR of Loretta Chase's Traditional Regencies.  Signed by the author. I suspect these are difficult to come by.

Small Thunderbird weaving

I am just going to mention that four of the folks competing for the Historical Romance RITA have signed books available.  Loretta Chase, Elizabeth Hoyt, Kaki Warner and me.  Eileen Dreyer, another Finalist in that category, is doing a critique.  This is probably deeply significant.

Finally, we have author critiques.  You could not possibly do better than this.  I'm only going to list a few -- Kristan Higgins, Madeline Hunter, Candice Hern, Anna Campbell, Eileen Dreyer, Vanessa Kelly,  Delilah Marvelle, Karen Harper, and Lauren Willig.

I came across this list. It's from American Library Association at Booklist, Book Group Buzz.

I'm putting this list up -- well, it has me on it which is a non-inconsiderable part of why somebody sent me the URL -- because this is just a wonderful lineup of great 2011 Romance and Romance-related Books.   It includes a number of folks who do not compete for the RITA, so it draws from a wider pool than the RITA does.  

I do not know where I have seen a better round up of wonderful books.

Joanna Bourne The Black Hawk

Thea Harrison Dragon Bound

Loretta Chase Silk Is for Seduction

Eloisa James When Beauty Tamed the Beast

Nalini Singh Archangel’s Blade

Susan Elizabeth Phillips Call Me Irresistible

Julie Ann Long What I Did for the Duke

Pamela Clare Breaking Point

Darynda Jones First Grave on the Right

Nalini Singh Kiss of Snow

Meredith Duran A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal

J. R. Ward Lover Unleashed

J. D. Robb New York to Dallas

I'm a Finalist

I finalled in the RITA for 2011.  This is a great honor and just so generally cool I am rendered pretty much speechless.

Black Hawk is one of eight in the Historical Romance category.

To wit:


Always a Temptress by Eileen Dreyer (Grand Central Publishing Forever; Amy Pierpont, editor)

The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne (Berkley Publishing Group; Wendy McCurdy, editor)

(That's me.  Look.  There I am.  Me.)

The Danger of Desire by Elizabeth Essex (Kensington Brava; Megan Records, editor)

Heartbreak Creek by Kaki Warner (Berkley Publishing Group Sensation; Wendy McCurdy, editor)

The Many Sins of Lord Cameron by Jennifer Ashley (Berkley Publishing Group Sensation; Kate Seaver, editor)


Scandalous Desires by Elizabeth Hoyt (Grand Central Publishing; Amy Pierpont, editor)

Silk Is for Seduction by Loretta Chase (Avon Books; May Chen, editor)

Unveiled by Courtney Milan (HQN Books; Margo Lipschultz, editor)


As you can see -- these are major players here.  I am taking my joy from the Finalist position in the gather-ye-rosebuds-while-ye-may school of reality.