The Romance Writers of America's recent intervention in the Cockygate nonsense has made me think about joining. I've thought about it before but always decided against it (I'm not much of a joiner!) but it's always there in the back of my mind. Does anyone else belong to any writers' associations? What ARE the other writers' associations, for other genres? I'm aware of the SFWA (which really should be SFFWA), and I feel like I've heard of smaller, geographically based organizations, but what else is there? I'll confess that the "of A" aspects of RWA and SFWA put me off a bit. But I publish in A, so I guess it's not TOO much of a stretch. What do you guys see as the pros and cons of membership?
There's also the HWA (horror) and there's one for mystery writers (possibly MWA...) I found a UK one before which I think was for all genres, but it didn't seem worth the membership fees. The one thing that stuck out was they will review a publisher's contract for their members, but you don't need that service if you have an agent. I guess for RWA it's eligibility for their awards... is it the Golden Hearts? Something like that. I don't think those awards matter to readers (could be wrong) so it wouldn't be enough to tempt me. They've definitely been a force for good for writers, and not just over the current hoo-ha. The RWA were instrumental in getting Harlequin to drop their short-lived vanity arm, for example. I think if you live in an area with other active members then it's probably worth it - a friend of mine belongs to the RWA in Orlando and she's always going to events and meetings and things. But I don't have much interest in that sort of thing.
I have no info to offer, but have thought about this as well. I'm not a joiner either, but I'm interested to see where the conversation goes.
Victoria Strauss of the SFWA reviewed one of my contracts for me (the one with my agent, as I recall!) even though I've never been a member of the organization, which I really appreciated. And I think I've published enough Fantasy to qualify for membership with them... but then I'd feel bad if I DIDN'T join RWA, so I'd have two memberships, and that seems excessive...
I belong to Alli (the alliance of independent authors) which isnt a genre association , pretty much to get access to their members only resources, Q&As benefits etc. I havent joined the relevant genre bodies (CWA and ITW) because they either don't accept Indys (former) or they charge them more(latter) ... its their football their rules but not a game i'm going to play.
I've never spoken to her but she seems to give up SO much time to help writers and has done for years. Good lady. What would you hope to get out of membership? That should probably drive which organisation (if any) you join?
I don't really know... to some extent, at least this time around, I think I just wanted to show my support of them, rather than expecting them to be supporting me. I think they had a really good impact with the cockygate business. I agree that readers don't care about the contests, but I feel like there may be indirect benefits in terms of getting your name in front of more reviewers/publishing types... networking, I guess? But I don't really like entering contests, generally, so I don't think that's one of my chief goals. I guess I don't really know what they offer because I've never been a member, so maybe I'm mostly just curious.
I belong to the Historical Writers of America (HWA) and the Historical Novel Society (HNS), as well as the Maryland Writers Assn, and @K McIntyre and I head up the local Charles County Chapter, she the president and I the obedient VP. The HWA Conference was pricey in the extreme but a good opportunity to give a presentation on Roman maritime trade in the Indian Ocean to establish some credentials as an amateur historian, as well as hawking my book and networking. You can also advertise your book in the program. MWA is a very good state organization, not too expensive, that offers the gamut of services from beginning writing to marketing, exchange readers, critique groups, and various events and book sales. The annual conference has a lot of very good presentations, I learned quite a bit from the ones I attended and got some good points of contact. They also offer annual book awards (E&D got Book of the Year for historical fiction) which are very good things to indicate that your book might be worth reading. Our local chapter, we try to keep our local authors apprised of upcoming events, book fairs, etc., organize some impromptu free or very cheap book signings like at wineries and craft fairs, support our up-and-coming writers, and provide informative talks on the nuts and bolts of publishing, self and trad, marketing, and have speakers on the craft of writing. Interestingly, we have a fun five minute drill at the end of the monthly meeting, in which we roll a dice six times to select period, genre, an object, etc. and give everyone five minutes to write the opening few paragraphs of the story. Some of these things turn out amazing. The group has about doubled in size, with I think about six or seven published authors, most in the past year.
I don't know which side of the pond you live on, but if you're in the US - Google up writing associations in your state. Many are based out of colleges, and they are much cheaper to join than the national organizations. We (Lew & I) have been quite pleased with the Maryland Writers' Association. Always good stuff to be learned! And the support is great.
