RWA vs. E-Publishing??

Hey all, still plotting away here and man do I have a LOT of research to do!! But that is not today's focus.

Recently I have been considering joining RWA, or Romance Writers of America when I move up to NY (please god soon!) but after the recent kurfluffel in the ranks over the comments of RWA president Diane Pershing, I am not so sure. Now I have not yet read the full article, but I have read bits and done my best to seek out positive and negative comments about Ms. Pershing's remarks, but basically what she said boils down to this: people who e-publish their books through markets like Samhain, Liquid Silver and Ellora's Cave are not really authors and are in fact are marginalizing their work just to be called "published" (apparently published was in quotations like that) now I am trying to get a hold of the real article, so if I can find I will certainly post it for you to read, because I know that even invisible people like to form their own opinions.

However I will post for you Dierdre Knight's response to Ms. Pershing and RWA in general, it can be found here: http://espan-rwa.com/the-digital-age-and-rwa-a-call-for-change/

This is a wonderful and well-thought out article that outlines the flaws in RWA's current theory, and I will add in one more

I work a full time job, in fact I intend to work one for the rest of my life. In essence writing will be my second career, on that I will spend maybe 20hrs per week on instead of 40-50 hours like in my full time job. Reason: WRITING DOESN'T PAY!!! even with a 5,000 advance from an NY publishing house (ie Bantum, Harlequinn, or Penguin) and a contract to write 4 books in a year I would be living in worse then the poor house. I went to college not to be a writer, in fact its looking like I went to be a teacher, but I still have a lot of loans to pay off.

Consider for a moment that the average college student comes out of school with 50,000 in loans (which rounds out to about 700 dollars a month in payments), add in rent which even in a cheap market place is going to 500 for a studio apartment then add in 150 a month for food and 150 for things like gas and such and were talking at MINIMUM the average college graduate (which is what I am) has to make about 1,500 dollars a month to live comfortably or 18,000 a year

Now I know that I can do things to spend less money, like live at home and bum off my parents. Take a part time job (except that's going to take away from writing just as much as my job, I promise), find a sugar daddy (or momma if you're a man), make the government pay for me, or just go ahead and be independently wealthy. But really barring those things, I need to work.

More importantly I like to work and I don't want to give it up but that doesn't mean I want to give up writing either. Nor does it make me a "hobbyist" which has to be the most condescending thing I have ever heard, to imply that any writer who will bleed the way it takes to get words on paper and published is alien to me. Hobby's should be fun, not suicide/homicide inducing. /end rant

ANYWAY, I am committed to writing one book every year for as long as the people in my head keep speaking, and considering that i already have 4 books to plot out that's going to be at least the foreseeable future. I also plan to publish them through e-press because I love e-press, I feel that it will be much easier to get someone (ie an acquisitions editor) to actually read my book instead of rejecting out of hand because I am not a big name and I don't want to pay an agent. Will I eventually try to make a run at NY? I don't know, honestly at this point I will be content to see my books up for sale and if I find a publisher that treats me well then will I even have a reason to go for the heartbreak that is an NY publishing house?

These are personal questions, and right now I need to do what's best for my writing nothing else, but I am not so sure that joining RWA will be best for me anymore