Hi! I heard you speak at a recent conference and really enjoyed your openness and frankness. I just wanted to comment on your statements regarding RWA's Pro Status.
I do understand that a writer having or not having Pro status is irrelevant to an editor.
However, I don't think the Pro status is *for* editors.
It's RWA's creation, and I think it is for RWA.
They offer many workshops, email loops, retreats, and so on, and I think they needed some way to separate the masses into three main groups: published authors, writers-who-have-actually-finished-manuscripts, and people-who-would-like-to-be-a-writer-someday.
Admittedly, any manufactured sorting criteria is bound to be less than perfect.
However, I do think that these "broad stroke" separations help RWA to better group writers in similar places along their career paths.
There are those who have "made" it, those who haven't even begun, and those in the middle. The Pro pin writers are part of that middle.
While I agree that it is a vast middle, ranging from the next best seller to infinite monkeys at a keyboard, I do understand RWA's goal in providing some sort of delineation.
What might be a good workshop/loop/etc for Jane-Smith-who-hasn't-written-anything-yet would not necessarily be a good workshop/loop/etc for Nora Roberts, or even the not-yet-discovered Neo-Nora.
That said, I do agree that writers mentioning their Pro status in queries to you (and other editors) is meaningless, because even if they weren't Pro, they would be by the mere fact of querying you.
Perhaps we should all remember that Pro status *is* useful for RWA, but the rest of the world doesn't necessarily care. =)
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Yes and No
Date: 2006-04-08 02:07 pm (UTC)I do understand that a writer having or not having Pro status is irrelevant to an editor.
However, I don't think the Pro status is *for* editors.
It's RWA's creation, and I think it is for RWA.
They offer many workshops, email loops, retreats, and so on, and I think they needed some way to separate the masses into three main groups: published authors, writers-who-have-actually-finished-manuscripts, and people-who-would-like-to-be-a-writer-someday.
Admittedly, any manufactured sorting criteria is bound to be less than perfect.
However, I do think that these "broad stroke" separations help RWA to better group writers in similar places along their career paths.
There are those who have "made" it, those who haven't even begun, and those in the middle. The Pro pin writers are part of that middle.
While I agree that it is a vast middle, ranging from the next best seller to infinite monkeys at a keyboard, I do understand RWA's goal in providing some sort of delineation.
What might be a good workshop/loop/etc for Jane-Smith-who-hasn't-written-anything-yet would not necessarily be a good workshop/loop/etc for Nora Roberts, or even the not-yet-discovered Neo-Nora.
That said, I do agree that writers mentioning their Pro status in queries to you (and other editors) is meaningless, because even if they weren't Pro, they would be by the mere fact of querying you.
Perhaps we should all remember that Pro status *is* useful for RWA, but the rest of the world doesn't necessarily care. =)
Just my two cents...
Thanks!