Late Tuesday afternoon, SFWA announced that it was revising its membership requirements to specifically allow self-published/indie/author-published and small press writers. This move had been under discussion for quite some time, and like many professional organizations, SFWA is somewhat slow to make large policy changes. But changed it has.
I am incredibly pleased by this change. There are many writers who have already been operating at professional levels who had not been allowed to join under the old rules. I hope that this leads to a notable membership boost, and allows SFWA members and officers to broaden the remit of SFWA to support writers regardless of the publishing path they pursue.
SFWA has done a lot for me and meant a lot to me since I joined in 2012. I’ve made connections and friends through events, I’ve had the chance to promote my work at convetions (especially the Baltimore Book Festival), and I’ve benefited from the professional insights shared on the forum and in the revamped SFWA bulletin.
Here’s to a new era for SFWA and for SFF prose writing!
The insight and perspective you offer into the writer/publisher side of the reading world is very much appreciated, as always. I’d heard the news from a couple of other sources – but aside from their inclusion of numerous exclamation marks, the reason why this is a positive and important change hadn’t been clear to me.
Here’s to a new era, indeed! 🙂
Indeed!
I hope that moving forward, the factional thinking of indie vs. trad will dissipate and be replaced by writers who take a broad and long view of the business, making decisions and exercising publishing options based on their needs and interests, and that they’ll have institutional support from professional organizations like SFWA to help along the way and address issues as they arise.