Nebula – Jaye Em Edgecliff

You know, it’s strange. As a fan of Scifi & Fantasy stories I’ve, naturally, heard of the SFWA … hard not to given that its members seem, so often, to be the winners of the Hugo, and certainly its members would be the ones winning the Nebula (or is that the other way around? I can never recall). The SFWA never much appealed to me though.

In the mean time I’ve discovered that there are other writers’ guilds. The RWA, the MWA, and HWA to name a few.

Given that I write romance, the RWA was something I looked into. I must say … it’s significantly more impressive and … nice? Whatever the word I’m looking for, I was intrigued by it. Seriously considering joining.

Thing is, $95/yr isn’t a lot, but it is if I’m paying it for nothing. Certainly the benefits of the RWA look promising, in the ad copy and PR. That’s kind of the point of ad-copy and PR. I do, also, know that Elaine Cunningham — a personal favourite among the authors producing Forgotten Realms novels — is (or, at least, was) a member of both RWA and SFWA and had quite a lot of positive things to say about the RWA — especially as compared to the SFWA (Færie Patrol would qualify me for the SFWA in case any are wondering why I’d really care much about the SFWA beyond amusement or head shaking at the latest scandals).

In practical, rather than “this sounds good” terms — anyone know what benefits there are to joining a writers’ guild? Is there, especially for a self-published author, much use to the networking (I’ve always hated that term, don’t know why) opportunities? Anything for a shy person not wont to spending over much time in internet forums to gain? In good ol’ plain English — what is to be gained for the price of one’s dues?

Ah me, but decisions are rough — especially when one has so much caution and so little idea where to begin in researching?