Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy Farman
The problem is that in order for make such a claim, in order for it to have value in the eyes of the public you would need to have a regulating body to justify the 'Quality' claim. And suddenly it is not an independent guild but a publishing house.
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The point is that the guild would be the regulating body, but not a publisher itself except for its own newsletter. It would be more like an Underwriter's Lab.
The application process could work thus: A prospective member submits an application, and several pieces of fiction they've written to the website. A panel of members chosen to evaluate applications can then read each piece of fiction and rate it. If all the prospective member's fiction gets a good rating from a certain number of members, then he's approved. If some of it gets a good rating and some a meh rating, then he gets probationary membership, and paired up with a member who will help him get his writing skills up to par. If none of it gets a good rating, then he's rejected for a period of time (three years?) but can reapply later.
So yes, it could be open to vanity self-pub authors if they can get approval from the evaluators.
I'd also add that evaluators should only be allowed to serve for one year at a time, and then have to wait a while before they can serve again; and that members should be required to keep submitting material every now and then (3 years? 5 years?) to maintain their membership.
Edit: Litfic would need its own separate review board, based on my experiences in college. The standards for "good" litfic and good genre fiction are so vastly different, that I wouldn't want to risk cross- contaminating the two.