rowyn

SFWA stands for "Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America"*. It's a professional writer's association: members have to qualify. For a long time, the qualifications were approximately "sold three short stories to qualifying markets" (broadly speaking, I believe that means "ones that pay at least $0.05 per word", though it's more arcane than that) or "sold at least one novel for a professional advance" (presently defined as $3000). Recently, courtesy of the efforts of haikujagur and others, SFWA updated the criteria to include "or received $3000 in royalties in the first year of publication of a book", so that the growing number of indie-published authors would have a path to membership, and to keep SFWA relevant in a changing world.

A Rational Arrangement qualified me for membership, which is on the long list of things RA has done that I never expected it to. (Nice job, book! Keep up the good work.)

I applied for membership, half-expecting that it would turn out I somehow misunderstood the self-pub criterion. But no, they let me in! I am an actual member of SFWA. Just as if I were a real author!

There are various perks to being a member; the ones most relevant to me are the quarterly Bulletin, which includes honey badger cartoons by Ursula Vernon and MCA Hogarth, and the members-only forum, which always sounds neat when I hear people talking about it.

I think part of me thought that joining would lessen the imposter-syndrome voice in my head, but this was clearly ridiculous. I am merely upgrading the quality of the identity I'm falsely assuming. Thanks, voice. You're very annoying.

Anyway, inner voices aside, this is a Cool Thing and joining SFWA has been on my list of life goals for many years. So: Yay! I did it! \o/

* Yes, I know there's not enough Fs for that to be the right acronym. I am pretty sure the "& Fantasy" was added later. They've been around for a while.

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From:

medicmsh.livejournal.com

Congratulations on unlocking this achievement! Well done & awesome & WOOT (&annoying impostor-syndrome Voice can go pound sand while being stung by flounderbees)! WOOHOO! :-)

vik_thor

Very Many CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Edited Date: 2015-09-08 09:49 pm (UTC)

terrana.livejournal.com

Just as if I were a real author!

Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but you are a real author. That's what you get for publishing a book.

Though I'd been calling you one for quite a while before you published. Being acquainted with a "real author" is actually something of a point of pride for me.

Edited Date: 2015-09-08 07:41 pm (UTC)