Robert S. Miller, President and Publisher of HarperStudio, has been following the recent Harlequin/RWA controversy and, in a statement offered to E-Reads, suggests the author and publishing communities should keep their minds and options open on the matter of self-publication. “Just because a writer is paid an advance in a traditional way doesn’t make a book ‘good’, and just because they may be sharing the risk with their publisher to some degree doesn’t make a book ‘bad’.”

Here’s his statement in full:
RC
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“I was surprised to read here about how antagonistic the various writers’ associations (SFWA, RWA, MWA) have been toward the announcements by several large publishers that they are launching “self-publishing” divisions. While it seems fair to ask those publishers to make a clear distinction between those imprints and the others that they operate, and to make the differences clear to prospective writers, I don’t see what’s wrong with publishers offering a continuum of various services to writers. There are so many forms of publishing proliferating now; does it really threaten the writers in these associations that these publishing houses would have different publishing models under the same corporate roof? Just because a writer is paid an advance in a traditional way doesn’t make a book “good,” and just because they may be sharing the risk with their publisher to some degree doesn’t make a book “bad.” I say, let many flowers bloom.”