Joiining or Not Joining

There's a ton of various writers organizations in existence, but most seemed to be geared toward either beginners or big sellers. I'm in the weird position of being somewhere in the middle.

Then there's finding a group that is geared toward the same business interests as mine. But what exactly is my business interest?

Fiction or non-fiction? I've done both.

Trad or indie? I've done both.

Novels or short stories? I've done both.

But most organizations define their interests rather narrowly.

Romance Writers of America is only for people who write romance. Recently, they've dropped the hammer on people who aren't pursuing romance writing as a profession. I can honestly say I've pursued the genre professional, but I left in 2012 over the crap they were giving both erotic romance authors as well as indies. I've heard they've backed off on both stances, but I have to make nearly ten times as much as an indie than as a trad author to qualify as a professional. Needless to say, I lean toward screaming, "UTTER BULLSHIT!"

[NOTE: I will say if you're a beginning writer, as in you haven't sold or published a damn thing yet, RWA membership is great for their craft classes.]

The Authors Guild only focuses on writers in trad publishing. No, thank you. I like doing my own thing too much. Not to mention, a good chunk of the membership wants to return the publishing industry back to the 19th century. You know, when publishing was a gentleman's game. *eyeroll*

One of my original goals was to qualify for membership to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As the name states, you have to be writing science fiction and/or fantasy. I qualified for membership a couple of years ago, but they have similar rules as RWA, which still pisses me off. Add in the political drama within the organization over the last few years, and I'm perfectly happy sitting in my apartment all by myself.

Novelists, Inc., terms for membership eligibility are a little fairer toward indies than either RWA or SFWA. Several people have suggested I join, but...okay, I have a hang-up. For a professional writers organization, they have an ungodly number of typos on their website.

There's several formal groups and organizations now that are geared toward indies, but I have yet to find one that doesn't have the same elitism or political problems. Maybe it's a human problem. Or as several people have told me, I expect too much.

But in all the cases, the annual dues are roughly in the $100 range. There's so much I can do with $100. That's the e-book and print book covers for a new novel. That's formatting for a few short stories or nearly a full-sized novel. That's shipping ten proof copies of trade paperbacks.

And that's part of running a business--figuring out what's the best use of resources. And right now, joining a club for the sake of joining a club is not the best use of my time or money.

As always, your mileage may vary.