Small House Protests Vanity Label by RWA

By Claire Kirch -- Publishers Weekly, 3/13/2008 7:10:00 AM

Tsaba House Press, a Christian publisher of fiction and nonfiction titles, is considering taking legal action against the Romance Writers of America for refusing to consider one of the small California press’s authors for a Rita Award, which honors inspirational romances. According to Pam Schwagerl, Tsaba House publisher, Molly Noble Bull was barred from submitting her latest release, Sanctuary, for a Rita Award, because Tsaba House is not an “RWA approved” publisher. RWA subsequently told Schwagerl that the organization considers Tsaba House to be a subsidy or vanity press, because its boilerplate contract contains such clauses as charging authors if manuscripts have to be retyped or if the press considers it necessary to add frontmatter and backmatter to the manuscript that the author didn’t provide.

“I really feel that this is an affront to independent publishers to try and once again group us in the category of subsidy presses and try to take away the advances the small publishers have made in the industry,” said Schwegerl. She founded Tsaba House in 2002 and uses a boilerplate contract she bought from self-publishing guru Dan Poynter’s Web site as part of a package of contracts and agreements. The press, which has 16 titles in print, has had its books reviewed in major trade publications, such as Library Journal, Booklist, Church Libraries, and Christian Retailing. Tsaba House titles, which are distributed by Christian distributor STL, are carried by Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Christian bookstores. Three of the press’s titles were listed on CBA’s top 100 bestseller list last June.

RWA executive director Alison Kelley said that if, in its boilerplate contract, a press can charge an author for anything, the organization considers that company to be a subsidy or vanity press, and will not consider its titles for RWA’s award program. Describing Tsaba’s contract as appearing to her to be one intended for a textbook or nonfiction publisher that Tsaba “is trying to apply to fiction,” Kelley emphasized that RWA “didn’t do anything but apply [our] standards. We limit what we do to non-subsidy, non-vanity” publishers.

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