Chick Porn is serious business!
This last weekend was the RWA (Romance Writers of America) National Convention in Dallas. It has generated a lot of wank. I don't have time to scour the Internet to find all the links, but so far, the following people have their feathers ruffled:

1) Erotic romance writers published with e-publishers (E-publishers are now classified as vanity publishers by RWA standards...many people are not pleased).
2) Writers of YA books and writers of Single Title Romances
3) People who don't like Swan Hats and cosplay.

It's like a perfect storm of wank, and even Nora Roberts is involved in some (most? much?) of it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was involved in discussion about point 1. I don't know if I got wanky, necessarily, but I did want to put that out there.

First, the point of dispute:
3. The Board updated the definition of Subsidy Publisher or Vanity Publisher to: any publisher that publishes books in which the author participates in the cost of production or distribution in any manner, including publisher assessment of a fee or other costs for editing and/or distribution. This definition includes publishers who withhold or seek full or partial payment of reimbursement of publication or distribution costs before paying royalties, including payment of paper, printing, binding, production, sales or marketing costs; publishers whose authors exclusively promote and/or sell their own books; publishers whose primary means of offering books for sale is through a publisher-generated Web site; publishers whose list is comprised of 50% or more of its books written by authors who are principals in the publishing company; and publishers whose business model and methods of publishing are primarily directed toward sales to the author, his/her relatives and associates."

According to this language, epublishers qualify as vanity or subsidy publishers. Discussion results here, here (you have to register to read, but there's a lot of over-reaction!), here, and here to name but a very, very few links.

But apparently, they were just warming up!

The RITA is the RWA's annual awards. The Smart Bitches report that Caridad Ferrar won Best Single Title Romance with Adios To My Old Life. The problem? Adios To My Old Life is technically a YA novel. Somebody was unhappy and posted That’s total horse$hit. Smarbitch Sara takes exception to the comment, and lets everybody know. I saw her reponse before I saw the comment, so I thought there was some real vicious comments in the prior post. But there was just the one. Some might think that Sara's reaction was a little over the top, but it still generated 95 comments of heated, and wanky, discussion.

But they weren't through yet!

On the first night of the convention, Wednesday, there was a literacy signing. It was open to the public, not just people attending the convention, and it was to raise money for charity. Well, things get rolling with the comment posted in KateR's blog.

"...that kind of bothered me at this conference. Stuff like [the costumed writers] and all the blog reviewers being there. It just started to feel like it was maybe turning into a fan conference rather than a professional organizations' annual meeting."

Things stay pretty civil in Karen's blog. The same comments were brought up on Smart Bitches Trashy Books. And THEY. ARE. OFF!

262 comments at the time of this posting. What really has got people worked up into frothy wank is the costumes. What are the horrible costumes in question? here and Author Sherrilyn Kenyon in her black swan hat autographs a book for a fan.

It is, to put it bluntly, the downfall of the romance genre. Poor Nora Roberts had the vapors! But I think my favorite comment came from Deb Smith

Hey, you wanta go to a fan convention and dress up, no problem. But to go to a conference specifically for your professional peers and dress like a self-promoting cheescake is, well, like a pediatrician showing up at the AMA conference wearing a bunny suit. One could argue that said pediatrician is just promoting the business of being a kiddie doc, right? No. He or she is at a professional conference for other doctors. Not appearing at the local Chucky Cheese to drum up business.

To the someone who said “pedophilia” is out of line when connected to grown women dressing like school girls. Nope. A fetish that depends on infantilizing adult women is about promoting sex with underage girls.

There's really too much there to pull out all the highlights. People are offended by the swan hat. People are offended by the anime style of dress. People are offended by the implication of that "the rebels of romance" means everybody else is boring and frumpy. People are upset because romance authors don't get enough respect, old-schools-versus-new-school authors, and more!

Edited to fix Swan hat pic