Who's Talking About Diversity in Romance?

A reposting today of two romance & diversity-related announcements. First, this announcement from the Bawdy Bookworms about the start of their "Diverse Romance Press List," a database intended to "help connect diverse authors and the media/librarians" by sending out a monthly email with "a link to a database of diverse romances that will be released in the next 3 months." For more info, check out the full announcement here.

(And if you're specifically interested in romances by women of color, check out Rebekah Weatherspoon's Women of Color in Romance on Tumblr, and Facebook, and Twitter, which has been doing similar work since 2015).

Second, a report from Romance Writers of America on the Diversity Summit held during July 2018's national conference, which can be found here. I found the report of 2000 romance readers on their reading preferences and habits, compiled by NPD Book for RWA, particularly telling (the full report is available only to RWA members, but some of the highlights are summarized here). The take-away? The reading habits of younger readers are far different than those of older readers, so if authors and publishers want to keep the industry growing, it is vital to appeal to this more racially and sexually diverse, more male, and more social media-engaged group.

Here's to keeping the diversity conversations going...

RWA's President's Thoughts on Race and the RITA award finalists

I received the following email from Leslie Kelly, President of Romance Writers of America, in response to my blog post last week about the lack of diversity in the RITA award finalists. Her email said that I might share her response, as long as I shared it in its entirety. I am posting it below, along with my response to President Kelly.

Dear Jackie:

Thank you so much for writing. I read your blog post, and you raise some interesting points.

Diversity has been a huge focus for the RWA board for the past three years. We’ve been working steadily to improve our diversity efforts, both within our membership, and in the marketplace.

I don’t know if you are aware of this, but just within the past few years, RWA has:

·         Established a standing Diversity Committee

·         Released a public apology for a hurtful survey conducted more than a decade ago

·         Filled two open Board positions—by presidential appointment and with board approval—with traditionally underrepresented members

·         Established a Diversity Incident or Complaint form online

·         Established a Spectrum Grant that will fully fund the RWA 2017 conference for diverse authors. This year, three authors were selected from the dozens of applicants.

·         Scheduled a Diversity Summit at RWA2017 with authors and industry professionals to address issues of inclusivity in the industry

·         Written and will soon distribute a thorough survey to go to our members, addressing issues of ethnicity and sexuality

Since you are an officer of an RWA chapter, I’m sure you know there are no RITA “nominees” there are only “finalists.” Having nominees would mean RWA chose books through a nomination process, when, in truth, authors enter their books in the contest. The number of books entered definitely doesn’t equal the number of books published in a year.

As for your statistical comparison, I don’t think it’s particularly illustrative. Just because the racial breakdown of the entire population is xyz does not mean that same percentages would correlate to romance novels. I wish it did, since that would mean the industry was more inclusive of authors of all races, creeds and sexuality. It’s not there yet…but we’re working on it.

That’s why RWA is doing things like standing up for our authors of color when editors from major publishers make discriminatory statements at our conference. It’s why we apologize when we’ve made a mistake, why we founded the scholarship, why we formed the committee, why we provided a safe way for members to report issues or incidents, why we scheduled the survey, and why we’re hosting the summit.

The idea of surveying our members on the races/sexual orientations of the characters they write is interesting but at this time, we are more focused on the details of our members themselves. Knowing who we are serving is the first step in making sure everyone is represented and we’re doing the very best we can for all romance authors. Please be on the lookout for the survey, coming in the next month or so, and please encourage your chapter mates to respond.

While I’m writing, I must add, there is strict policy against self-promotion on any RWA-sponsored loop. Sharing a link to a personal blog—even one regarding a post that might interest other RWA members—could be seen as violating policy. We’d appreciate it if you keep that in mind when starting future threads.

Thanks again for writing.

Sincerely—

Leslie Kelly

RWA President

Note: If you wish to share this email, that’s fine, but please do it in its entirety. Thanks!

Dear Leslie:

Thank you for reading my blog post about race and the RITA finalists, and for writing back to me with your thoughts. My apologies for posting a blog link on the loop; since the blog was not promoting my books in any way, I thought it would not be a problem. In future, I will remember that no blog links are allowed on RWA loops.

And my apologies for using the term "nominee" rather than "finalist" in my post. I see how this usage might suggest (incorrectly) that the racial imbalance in the RITA finalists was deliberate on the part of RWA as an organization, rather than a result of the membership selecting finalists. I will edit my post and make a note of the error on my part.

Thank you for sharing the list of RWA's recent efforts to promote diversity in our organization. I was aware of most of these efforts, and applaud the Board's work in this regard. 

The only initiative I wasn't aware of was the upcoming survey on RWA members' ethnicity and sexuality. I am looking forward to completing it, and will encourage NECRWA's members to complete it as well. I hope RWA will share the results with the entire membership.

The statistical comparison that I offered in my blog post was not intended to suggest that RWA itself is biased, but to point to the larger issue of the industry as a whole not being inclusive. The suggestion with which I end the post—that the romance community is behind the children's literature community in collecting data about the racial and ethnic identities of its authors—is where I hoped to make a positive suggestion for a way to move forward, and for RWA to lead the way in such efforts.

A survey of the membership is a good first step. But a survey is a one-time event, and the issue of diversity is an ongoing concern. Has the Board considered including a question about race/ethnicity on its membership form, and on its submission form for the RITA awards? Such changes would be a concrete step toward collecting "illustrative" data, data that would provide solid facts to back up RWA's efforts toward diversity. And it would also allow RWA to track changes over time, to see if its many efforts toward fostering diversity in its membership are actually bearing fruit.

It would also be relatively easy to include a question on the RITA submission form, asking about the race/ethnicity of a submitted book's characters.

Thank you again for responding with thought and care to my post. I appreciate this opportunity to engage with you and with the Board about RWA's ongoing efforts to foster diversity in our organization.

Sincerely,

Jackie Horne

Note: I will be posting your response, and mine to it, on my Romance Novels for Feminists blog. Thanks!

Reflections on RWA Nationals

Quite a few romance writers and bloggers have already weighed in with their own insightful posts about last week's Romance Writers of America's annual national conference, with posts that range from the enthusiastic—Jenn Northington's "The 11 Best Things I Heard at the RWA"; All About Romance's day-by-day posts, the first one here—to the analytical—Suleikha Snyder's "RWA 2015: A Tale of Two Conferences"; Jessica Tripler's "Socioeconomic Class at RWA" to name just a few. Lots of food for thought, and for future action on many fronts.

I was wearing three different hats during this conference—a local Chapter Leader (as Treasurer of the NECRWA); a romance reviewer and blogger (RNFF); and a writer of a soon-to-be-self-published historical romance. This made for a rather disjointed conference at times, rushing from a workshop entitled "Not So Fast: Finding Success while writing in the Slow Lane" to a Chapter Leadership Networking Event, then on to "50 Shades of Love: Writing the Multicultural Romance"; from a retreat for not-yet-published writers to a General RWA Membership meeting to a workshop filled with advice about writing queer romance in a "post-gay" environment. Now that I've had a few days to reflect on the hectic experience of conferencing in the midst of the bizarreness of Times Square (did you know that its legal in NYC for women to go topless? and that people will pay to get their pictures taken with one who has painted her chest like an American flag??), these are the moments/events/ideas that are sticking with me:

• Learning about servants, music, fabric, interior decorating, and dancing with my fellow Regency romance writers at the Beau Monde mini-conference. I was really looking forward to getting dressed up in my newly made Regency ball gown and dance those Regency dances at the Beau Monde's evening soiree, and, despite my embarrassment at the fact that the majority of my fellow attendees were not in period garb when I waltzed into the Marriott Astor Ballroom that evening, I did manage to screw up my courage and trip the light fantastic for a few sets. Thanks so much to Susan De Guardiola (of Capering and Kickery) and her dance student ringers for stepping out with me and with my fellow Beau Monders.


• The continuing split in knowledge/understanding between those who have been traditionally published and those who self-publish. There are a lot of writers who are doing both, but for those who "grew up" publishing via one method and not the other, there can often be a big disconnect about what can and will lead to success in the other. Perhaps not surprisingly, the above-mentioned workshop on being successful while writing in the "slow lane" included panelists who had all been traditionally published (with only one who was a hybrid author), while the panelists on "The Midlist Guide to Making Six Figures in Indie Publishing" all spoke about working 50 (or 80, or 100)-hour workweeks to keep their readers interested and their businesses going. I didn't attend any workshops on hybrid publishing, though; perhaps the disconnects were less obvious among those who have followed both paths.


• But the national organization continues to adapt (if slowly) to the burgeoning shift in the romance market toward self-publishing. Self-published authors were once barred completely from the "PAN" (Published Authors Network) listserv and group; more recently, self-publishers were allowed in, but had to earn $5,000 on a single book title, in comparison to the $1,000 a traditionally published author had to earn, to qualify. But now, even that disparity has been erased; now, any author who has earned at least $1000 on a published book, whether published by a traditional house, a small publisher, or by him or herself, can join this elite subgroup within the national organization.

• Many bloggers have written about the high profile diversity in romance played at the conference. There was not just one, but four different panels on the whys and hows (and how-nots) to increase the diversity of romance characters, and the number of authors of color, in the field. Four authors of color (Alyssa Cole, Lena Hart, K. M. Jackson, and Falguni Kothari) put together a slick brochure, one that looked like a supplement to a Romance Times magazine, to distribute to attendees, which included "Do's, Don'ts, and Why nots!" as well as a good dollop of humor ("Celebrating the MOST used stock couple in any one genre!"), to jumpstart people's thinking about this important issue. What most bloggers have not mentioned is that the RWA Board announced at the General Member meeting that it had just approved the creation of an ad hoc committee on Diversity in the organization. No mandate or goals for said committee were mentioned, however. It will be fascinating to watch both activists on the individual and small group level, as well as this ad hoc committee on the national level, to see if their goals and end results converge or diverge over the next few years.


• The panelists in the workshop on "Writing Queer Romance" focused on our "post-gay cultural moment," arguing that in the wake of the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, and the more widespread acceptance of LGBTQ identities in wide swaths of American culture, romances featuring queer characters no longer have to be just about issues of coming out, or about problems of acceptance. How about a story about a lesbian couple, with one partner who wants to have a baby, but the other doesn't? Or have major philosophical or moral differences about adopting vs. giving birth? Even if the conflict is about being queer, it can be less about major homophobia, and more about the micro-aggressions LGBTQ people experience in their day-to-day lives.

After sitting in on this panel, and the one panel on diversity I was able to attend, it felt to me as if LGBTQ romance is farther along, acceptance-wise amongst readers and writers of romance, than is racially and ethnically diverse romance. Queer Romance panelists Sarah Frantz Lyons and Radclyffe both spoke about moving beyond the need to justify queer romance's mere existence, something that romance about and by people of color is having to work hard to do.


• The Chapter Leadership Networking Event on Saturday afternoon consisted primarily of a bunch of topic tables, the subjects of which reflected the current problems and issues facing local chapters today. "How to attract and keep members"; "How to get published authors involved"; "Chapter Finances"; "How to recruit chapter board members"; "Dealing with Difficult Personalities." Thanks to my fellow chapter officers for sharing complaints, and solutions, to the many difficulties chapters are currently facing, particularly in the wake of the recent changes in RWA bylaws.


• The most difficult panel I attended was also in many ways the most encouraging: "Writing Through Depression." Five well-known romance authors sat in the front of a hotel conference room and shared their experiences of what is often a shame-ridden, hidden illness. The panelists asked for no tweeting of particulars during the session, which means no blogging after the fact, either. But I did want to give a big "thank you" to both the panelists and to RWA for challenging the stigmatization around this important issue. Those of us who grapple with mental health issues really appreciate knowing that we are not alone.


Other RWA attendees, what did you take away from this year's conference? And for those who didn't attend, what are you curious to know about what did (and didn't) happen?

The Li.st Romance Panels: Is Romance Feminist?

Last week, eight romance authors, invited by the Li.st, gathered in a New York City work cooperative space to speak to an enthusiastic audience about romance, feminism, and sex. I was thrilled to be a part of the audience, and planned to write up a report for RNFF readers on the evening. Of course, now that I'm back home, unpacking after the RWA annual conference, which took place in the days following the Li.st panel, I can't for the life of me find the extensive notes I took as the authors talked and debated. Insert your favorite curse words here...

Luckily for me, fellow romance scholar Jayashree Kamble live-tweeted during the panels, and put her tweets together on Storify; you can find her tweets here.

"Feminism and Romance" panel: Alisha Rai, Sarah MacLean
Maya Rodale, and Carla Neggers. Photo from Alisha Rai's tweet

There are a few things that I'd like to add to Jayashree's thoughts. Maya Rodale, moderator of the first panel, "Romance Novels as a Feminist Trope Throughout the Centuries," opened the discussion by asking her fellow panelists "Are romance novels feminist?" Kamble suggests in her tweet that the response was "hell, yes" (or perhaps that was Kamble's answer?), but panelists' actual comments were more nuanced. There was a bit of silence at first, that funny pause that sometimes happens at the start of a panel talk when no one is quite sure who is meant to speak first, and Rodale interjected a few more questions "Are romances bad?" "Romances are written by women for women, about women, no?" MacLean and Rai then jumped in to note the difficulty of answering any of these questions with a simple "yes" or "no," especially given the breadth of the romance field at present. Carla Neggers, who has been publishing longer than any of the other panelists, added historical context, talking about many of the limits placed on romance authors when she was just beginning her career, and how many of those limits are no longer in place.

"How has the romance genre evolved over the past few decades?" was the next topic Rodale asked panelists to consider. The greater diversity of the genre, particularly in regards to the inclusion of romances featuring LGBTQ protagonists and protagonists of color. Rai had perhaps the best line of the night, though, when she noted that diversity still has a looooong way to go in the largely still-white world of romanceland: "We say evolution, but evolution is too slow. We need revolution." #weneeddiverseromance, indeed.

Sarah MacLean, who is white, did not disagree, but framed the issue somewhat differently, suggesting that the genre is on the edge of a huge shift, moving inexorably towards a more inclusive stance. Other panelists noted that diversity took hold first in the ranks of the self-published, and is only gradually (if at all) effecting the look of the pub lists of the big 5 romance publishers. It would be a cool research project, my academic self thinks, comparing the numbers of POC and LGBTQ characters in books by those publishers over the past 5, or perhaps 10, years...

Readers' often judgmental stance towards romance heroines formed another topic of discussion, but soon segued into thoughts about the prevalence of the billionaire hero in contemporary romance published in the past few years. MacLean put forth a theory that I've heard in other venues: that romance is a fantasy, and today, given the tough economic times and the dual role of worker and homemaker that the majority of American women have to play today, the fantasy of being swept away by a man who has so much money that you'll never need to worry about paying the bills again is vastly appealing.  Rodale concurred, focusing on the alpha male in billionaire romance not only being able to meet the heroine/reader's economic needs/worries, but also being able to address her other desires (sexual, emotional), desires that in everyday life often have to be pushed to the side. I get this argument, but I'm wondering why books in which the women are billionaires themselves, and fall in love with appreciative guys, aren't nearly as popular? Is there some gendered sense that a rich woman will be exploited? That a rich woman is somehow bad? That she must have had to do something not quite feminine in order to achieve wealth? That being a billionaire is hard work, but loving one is not? I'd love to hear readers' thoughts about this...

The question of happy endings—does romance require them, or can the genre take them or leave them?—concluded the first panel. Most audience members seemed to be in the former camp, despite Rodale's citing of many romance-writing and -reading friends who are happy to live without the HEA, or even the HFN. I wondered if there is anything inherently feminist, or anti-feminist, about the restrictiveness, of the HEA—what do you think?

"Erotic Writing and the Role of Women" panel. Photo from Alyssa Cole's tweet

The second panel, "Erotic Writing and the Role of the Woman," featured an entire panel of romance writers of color, a rarity at RWA or other meetings, unless the workshop/panel topic is about diversity (more about this in Friday's post). Feminista Jones, a sex-positive social worker, activist, blogger, and now BDSM romance novelist, moderated the discussion with fellow erotic romance writers Suleikha Snyder, Rebekkah Weatherspoon, and Jordan Silver.

I thought it was fascinating that all of the writers except for Jones began their writing careers penning fan fiction, then discovering through traditional or, more often, through self-publishing, that what they were giving away for free could be earning them money. Does the slash tradition of fan fiction make writers more comfortable with erotic romance publishing? Does the independence of fan fiction (no editors, no publishing houses) lead fan fiction writers more easily to self-publishing?

This panel, like the earlier one, talked about the changes in the romance genre over the past 20 years. The rise of self-publishing; the shift from heroines with no sexual agency to heroines whose sexual desires are affirmed; the rise of queer romance, and sex-positive romance—just a few of the changes the panelists noted.

A fascinating exchange occurred between Jordan Silver, who declared that she wasn't a feminist, that she liked alpha males and wanted to be taken care of, and Feminista Jones, who spoke about the often fraught relationship between black women and feminism (many black women feeling that feminism is a white girl thing, without any real relevance to their lives). Jones argued for a broader understanding of feminism and its focus on equality for women, no matter their race or ethnicity. The discussion highlighted a point made earlier in the evening, that there is no one black voice, no one black identity; the three women of African descent on the panel were all coming from different backgrounds and different cultures, and one's experience did not mirror that of the others'. Only when we have enough books with people of color will we be able to move beyond the assumption of a monolithic black identity.

Jones also spoke about the feminism she tried to portray in her BDSM romance, Push The Button, which she wrote partly in reaction against the misconceptions about the BDSM lifestyle she saw in the popular 50 Shades of Gray novels. A member of the BDSM community herself, Jones wrote Push to present the everyday life aspects of a s/D relationship. When I read Push, I didn't find it that feminist, to be honest. After hearing Jones speak, though, it's clear that she herself has a strong grounding in feminist ideas, and I'm curious to know more about how she sees those ideas playing out in her novel. I've emailed her to see if she might like to guest post here at RNFF; will keep you posted...

The panelists also discussed the difficulties in finding homes for their work with traditional publishers, in large part because of the paucity of agents and editors of color in the industry. I've seen far more younger editors in the business than there were when I worked in publishing (in the late 80s and the 90s), but until people of color hold positions of power within what are often very hierarchical publishing houses, the lack of real investment in the stories of writers of color is all too likely to continue.

Two other great comments from this portion of the evening: Feminista Jones took major issue with the idea that black women are not deserving of love; her goal in writing romance, she says, is to "show black women being adored." Suleikha Snyder mentioned that in one of her Bollywood novels, she had great fun writing one white character in her otherwise all Indian cast, ironically turning the tables on all of the token (insert minority identity here) portrayals found in the majority of American-published romance.

During the Q & A period, two questions white readers often ask of authors of color came to the fore: how do I find more books by writers of color, and how do I, as a white writer, include characters of color in my work without stereotyping/being offensive? The panel turned the first question back on the audience—rather than giving them places to find POC romance, the panelists challenged audience members to help create a publishing and consumer environment in which such romances will not be hard to find. Buy books by writers of color; use social media to promote writers of color; tell publishers that you want romances by writers of color. Don't let publishers off the hook by letting them continue to say that such romances do not sell.

The panelists were gracious in offering advice in response to the second question. Ask questions with thoughtfulness and respect, do research, run your stories by beta readers of color, even just make friends with people from cultures and ethnicities to which you yourself do not belong. What they did not say, but what I would like to add, is that it is not the responsibility of writers of color to make us white writers feel safe when writing about people outside our own cultures. We have to take a risk, be willing to make mistakes, be willing to be called out on them, learn from them, and keep going.

Just as writers of color have been doing all along.

More on Friday about the RWA National conference, and topics of interest there to feminist romance readers.

Talking Feminism and Romance in NYC

The annual meeting of the Romance Writers of America is being held next week in New York City, and I'm looking forward to attending. And I'm especially looking forward to attending a pre-conference discussion on the evening of July 21 about romance and feminism, put together by a group called theli.st. Two panels are scheduled: "Romance Novels as a Feminist Trope Throughout the Centuries," moderated by Maya Rodale and featuring Sarah MacLean, Carla Neggers, and Ashley Antoinette; and "Erotic Writing and the Role of the Woman," moderated by Feminista Jones and featuring Alisha Rai, Jordan Silver, and Rebekah Weatherspoon. For more information, check out the web announcement here.

If any RNFF readers are going to be at RWA, or at the panel discussion, I'd love to chat with you face to face. I'll be the short redhead looking shy and ill-at-ease (confirmed introvert, here) over in the corner of the room, unless of course someone brings up something to do with feminism...

The Gold Rush of Self-Publishing?

This year, for the first time, the national conference of the Romance Writers of America featured a series of workshops devoted to the craft and logistics of self-publishing. Courtney Milan and other romance authors who had originally been published by traditional publishers spoke about the pleasures, both intellectual and financial, of controlling all aspects of a book's production after switching over to self-publishing. Authors such as Liliana Hart, who had experienced break-out success with nary a nod from a traditional publisher, described how they had built their careers, and their fan bases, from the ground up. Dorien Kelly and other long-time writers spoke about hybrid careers, and in particular about reaping new income by self-publishing backlist titles long ignored by their print publishers. Chairs were often at a premium at the Self-Publishing track workshops, published and potential authors alike eager to learn all they could about a publishing process that only two or three years ago, most would have turned away from with scorn, deeming it appropriate only for writers not good enough to make the cut with an agent or an editor at a big 6 publishing house.

The majority of speakers I heard tended to focus on self-publishing's benefits. Authors no longer need rely on middlemen to choose their cover designs, to promote their new titles, to communicate with booksellers and readers. Nor did they have to restrict their subject-matter, or self-censor, in order to please editors and marketing departments eager to make their books (i.e., their products) palatable to the widest readership possible. No more need to abide by the often arbitrary rules about what "the romance reader" likes or will tolerate, as if the millions of romance readers all share exactly the same tastes. No more accepting contracts heavily weighted in favor of publishers, or dealing with unscrupulous or unsavvy agents. No more being treated as if writers are the supplicants, publishers the ones doing them a favor by deigning to print their books. Most of the upsides of self-publishing, focused as they are on empowering (primarily female) writers, warm a feminist's heart.

Perhaps I am just by nature a contrarian, though, because I found myself suppressing the urge to caution writers about hopping too eagerly on the self-publishing bandwagon, to examine the process and its claims more critically, lest self-empowerment turn too quickly to self-delusion or disillusionment. Very few workshop leaders discussed the downsides of self-publishing. Milan noted that not everyone has the skills to self-publish, the organizational mind-set or the desire for control. Hart discussed the need to hold off on self-publishing until you have at least three to five books ready to launch, and told audience members to be prepared to offer something new (novel, novella, or short story) at least every month to sixty days, otherwise one's rankings on the all-important amazon.com sales charts would quickly sink. No one mentioned whether a book written and published in a month could match the quality of one over which a writer worked and polished for many months (or even, possibly a year!). Will self-publishing push readers even further into accepting quantity instead of quality?

The new closer relationship readers expect from authors—posting on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites not just about their books, but about their daily lives—is even more vital for the selfpublished author. With no publisher to rely on to get a book into stores, or into the hands of reviewers, self-published authors need to cultivate readers directly. As agent Steve Axelrod noted in an interview for the Popular Romance Project, such cultivation requires a completely different skill set than the one required for writing compelling prose.

The personal sharing social media demands may also give many writers pause. Do your children, your parents, your significant other really want the world at large to know about their hobbies, their likes and dislikes, their foibles? And how much time are you willing to spend cultivating those readers, as opposed to actually writing your stories?

Are you willing to be a "brand" rather than a writer? For I heard the word "brand" far more often than the word "book."

Money, as well as privacy, may be a stumbling block, especially for previously unpublished writers. The initial start-up costs required to produce a professional-quality book might seem small for authors already making a living from their writing, but how many writers will shell out several thousand dollars, hiring editors, copyeditors, cover designers, and promotional experts, only to find that their returns do not come close to recouping the initial expense?

  

I can't help but be reminded of the 1849 Gold Rush. So many men left everything behind to fly to California in the hopes of striking it rich. Yet the ones who benefitted the most were not the prospectors, but the ones providing services and equipment to them: the barkeeps and cooks, the storekeepers and laundry owners, the overall makers and the whoremasters. Will it be the freelance editors, book designers, file converters, and authors of books about self-publishing (271 at last count listed on amazon.com, 564 on Goodreads) who end up earning the most from the self-publishing boom? And will it be the female romance authors, rather than male prospectors, who are left with so little to show for their leap of faith into the unknown?

As a reader and a reviewer, I also wonder who will serve as the gatekeepers if and when traditional publishers disappear? If my tastes do not match those of the "average" reader, will I be able to find other sources besides popularity charts to guide my way through the deluge of self-published works likely to flood the market in the coming months and years?

So, am I being too much of a Negative Nellie here? What do you think are the potential up-sides of self-publishing, for romance authors? For their readers? What pitfalls do you see?


Photo/Illustration credits:
Publisher cartoon: David Sipress, The New Yorker
Self-publishing time chart: Ryan Gielen, AppNewser