Writers, among some of the most solitary workers in the world, can find growing support and services in a newly redirected Authors Guild that favors the majority, not the few.
Writing Alone, Working Together
To quote the immortal Alistair Cooke on Masterpiece Theatre, “Last time, as you’ll remember …” I was going on here about author advocacy. In the comments that followed, I discovered that everyone isn’t up to date on the Authors Guild, which is the States’ leading author advocacy organization, in business since 1912.
In the month since my last column here, in fact, the guild has made a series of moves that help define its developing role in the writer community and so this is a good time to back up and do a bit of groundwork on what the guild is, how it has changed since the start of 2015, and why authors may want to consider joining the 10,000 or so members already in place.
I’ll bullet out some talking points:
- The Authors Guild has opened a new channel to resolve authors’ complaints to Amazon–in direct cooperation with the retailer
- The guild’s legal team has worked with the Romance Writers of America to win a court ruling that means writers can continue to sell books with tiles that use the word cocky
- The guild has announced the opening of 14 new regional chapters, 13 of them outside New York City, as part of an aggressive expansion of the services it offers
- The guild has announced a series of career-tactic “Boot Camps” for writers nationwide, taught by a traveling faculty, a program that has funding from the National Endowment for the Arts
- The guild has named VIDA: Women in Literary Arts as the winner of its honor for distinguished service to the writerly community this year
- The guild has commissioned a new major survey of authors’ working conditions and revenue, involving, we’re told, and it’s being sent to as many as 200,000 potential respondents
While you can see the organization’s member benefits laid out for yourself, here, I’ve chosen these recent points because they give you a look at the guild’s quickly developing proactive stance in six important areas:
- Retail conflict mediation on behalf of authors
- Legal action in defense of writers’ right to free expression
- Outreach in a first wave of regional hubs, each chapter with two guild “ambassadors” guiding programming
- Career training and strategy in the form of those traveling workshops for authors
- Pro-diversity support for efforts like the gender-balanced coverage of books that VIDA has promoted for years
- Fact-finding data collection and professional interpretation to get a grip on author economics today
As a point of disclosure, I’m not a member of the guild because I report on the guild’s work frequently as a journalist and have followed and commented on its changes and development since 2014. And my message today is more recommendation than provocation. If you don’t know the Authors Guild and its work–or if you have ideas about it that you haven’t revisited in some time–this is a good moment to give it a look.
Remembrance of Dings Past
By the summer of 2014, the Authors Guild already had begun to change, but the going was slow and the effort was hobbled by the raging Amazon-Hachette negotiations. The debate around that situation had given rise to the Authors United collective of writers, many of them marquee bestsellers, who sided against Amazon. The group was led by Douglas Preston and counted Richard Russo, then the guild’s vice-president, among its supporters. Scott Turow’s presidency of the guild had concretized an anti-Amazonian perception of the group in many minds.
As I wrote in July 2014, “Even beyond issues of Amazonian ardor or otherwise, the most general, overarching, abiding complaint about the Turow-led guild has been, in a word, elitism.”
But Turow was on the way out. Author Roxana Robinson would succeed him as president. And the most important change would be the arrival at the beginning of 2015 of Mary Rasenberger, an attorney, as executive director.
Rasenberger would quickly begin turning things around in May 2015 by launching the guild’s Fair Contract Initiative, enumerating for publishers in a series of uncompromising white papers its new demands for contract reform. By October of that year, the guild would make common cause with the UK’s Society of Authors in demanding better pay practices from publishers for authors.
The advocacy efforts were growing smarter, leaner, more professional, and were expertly articulated in such concise articles as the guild’s Publishers’ Payment and Accounting Practices Need To Keep Up With The Times.
Publishers were “sitting up,” and so were authors. Rolling out its contract position papers, opening its membership to self-publishing writers as well as trade authors, and learning to re-engage with readers in its blog posts (rather than shutting down unpleasant comment threads), the guild was shaking off criticisms of advantages for elite names in the business and speaking up for the overall community of writers in an increasingly challenging environment.
Two weeks ago at BookExpo in New York City, Rasenberger was on a panel staged by the Association of American Publishers on copyright challenges, and she spoke (‘It’s the Author Who Suffers’) to the dangers faced by writers when copyright protection is under fire. She’s a former policy planning advisor for the US Copyright Office in Washington and she and her team have been to the Hill this year to lobby for streamlined and less expensive copyright registration for writers of small pieces. You can keep up with news from the organization here.
While many more instances of engagement, contact, program development, and outreach are occurring, the main point I’d like to commend to you today is this: the guild has a dedicated team and strong support for Rasenberger’s turnaround efforts, starting with Robinson as president and now with the presidency of James Gleick. The Authors Guild is not your father’s old boys’ (or girls’) club.
However fair or unfair criticism of the organization was in the past–like Bible-verse fights, you can find an anecdotal contradiction to any point–the Authors Guild has been pressing forward for more than three years now, and a lot of hard work is starting to pay off in new programs and an accelerating national vision–not an NYC hunker-down.
In case you haven’t seen any news reports lately, writers in the States have probably never had more reason to stand together for the indispensable freedom of expression that their work requires. One of the proudest factors about the guild is that it has journalists as members, as well as novelists, poets, historians, literary agents and representatives of writers’ estates. Our sisters and brothers in journalism are being called “the enemy of the people,” just this week again, by a president who also tried to use prior restraint–a cease-and-desist letter–to stop Macmillan from publishing author Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury.
Beyond the political crisis of the moment, the inherently non-aligned nature of the author workforce means that collective demands are more critical than ever–for better pay, better contracts, better treatment by the industry, the courts, and the government.
While no membership is for everyone, I submit that this is a great moment for authors to check out the Authors Guild and consider adding their voices to its growing choir of support.
So how about you? What’s your thinking on this? How important do you see author advocacy and a collective presence for writers? What’s your take on the Authors Guild today? Happy to hear from you if you’d like to chime in.
Postscript: In comments, several more key points arise worth noting:
- Linda Bennett Pennell points out how positive it is to see the guild partner with the Romance Writers of America (RWA). Last July, the guild announced its success in similarly partnering with the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SWFA) to have Galaktika pay authors whose work it had infringed. More on that is here.
- Paula Cappa notes that the guild’s eligibility requirements for some membership categories involve earnings levels, and that this might appear elitist. The reason for those (modest) requirements is to ensure that the organization is based in promoting professionalism in the industry (as “the working writer’s advocate,” in the group’s phrase). The guild has created a new “Emerging Writer” membership for as-yet unpublished authors. Other membership categories are here.
- Our Writer Unboxed colleague Don Maass reminds us of the value of the newseletter the guild provides to members. On the guild’s homepage, scroll down to the “Stay Informed” box on the left to sign up. And news updates are here.
- And Jane Steen, formerly based in the States, now in the UK, makes some good points about how many self-publishing writers see author-advocacy organizations, and vice-versa. The Authors Guild gave its distinguished service award in 2017 to IngramSpark, the self-publishing platform directed by Robin Cutler.
Wish you could buy Porter a glass of Campari?
Now, thanks to tinyCoffee and PayPal, you can!
About Porter Anderson
@Porter_Anderson is a recipient of London Book Fair's International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair New York. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and indie authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller's The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations' WFP in Rome. PorterAndersonMedia.com
Very interesting information. I had heard of the Authors Guild over the years but at that time, they required members to have earned a specific dollar amount of their income from their writing to be eligible for membership. It struck me as elitist in that they only wanted to serve “paid authors” and not open to all writers. Are they still so selective?
Hey, Paula, thanks so much for reading and dropping a note.
Have a look here, this is the page on which you can see membership categories and eligibility.
In some classifications, there are (rather minor) dollar-amount critiera involved in membership. This isn’t meant to be elitist but to ensure the professionalism of these classifications of membership. (The guild might do a bit better job of saying that, perhaps, in case someone thinks it’s elitist. I find in one part of its writing about itself, it refers to what it means to be as “the working writer’s advocate,” which is a rather good clarifier, isn’t it?) The amounts are so low that precious little elitism would accrue to someone making these earnings, but perhaps it could appear elitist in some way.
The guild’s interest lies primarily in the promotion and support of professional writers (of all stripes), and of those who aspire to professional careers in the field. Even in that regard, there’s no elitism intended, just the fact that there’s not a lot a trade organization can do for hobbyists, you know? In the same way that a paint-by-number enthusiast on the weekends might get little benefit from a fine art gallery-curatorial course at Sotheby’s, right?
I’m not sure of your publication status, but there also is a very new category called “Emerging Writer Membership” – this is a great classification for so many writers who are still working toward their first publication but who want to learn the industry and function in it profesisonally. Here’s where you can read specifically about the Emerging Writer Membership, in case that’s applicable and interesting to you.
I’m really glad they’ve created this category, and maybe that one fits your needs. As an Emerging Member, no requirement of earnings is involved, similar to the student and “member-at-large” category for agents and editors.
Hope that helps, and it’s very good to hear you’re considering joining “the 10,000.” :)
Cheers,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Timely post, Porter. I have watched the evolution of the Authors Guild with interest. A mere four years ago, it was an elitist organization that focused on the needs of a certain few to the exclusion of all others. My goodness, what a difference a little time makes! That the Guild joined forces with RWA in addressing the Cocky-gate situation is a hallmark of the changes brought about by the new leadership. Well done! I joined the AG this year because it now truly represents my interests.
Hi, Linda,
Always great to have you read me – thank you – and I’m so glad to hear that you, too, have seen the turnaround in the Authors Guild’s focus and service. It really is a transformed organization and of course, that can take time for the community to realize. Good on you for spotting it!
Without naming names, I can recall a moment during the rollout of the Fair Contract Initiative when the guild and the UK’s Society of Authors had just released parallel announcements that they were approaching the publishers on both sides of the Atlantic in solidarity –and they brought along more than 20 other nations’ smaller author-advocacy groups, too–and one of the sharpest, harshest, most vociferous critics of the guild suddenly dropped a cooment on my report about this move, saying, simply, “Wow!” It was basically the equivalent of a comment-thread mic-drop, lol.
That’s when I could see the first real progress the guild was making in earning a second look from people who had once written it off as hopelessly the friend of the blockbuster name-brands. It’s actually hard, as you might imagine, to know how accurate that perception was, but I can certainly vouch for the fact that in the pre-Rasenberger era, it truly did not look good. And it’s fully demonstrable now that whatever was going on then, the “new” guild is operating in a wholly different space and on a completely reconfigured goal structure that favors the widest range of authors possible. That’s one reason they’ve even created a membership for authors who are still working toward being published for the first time — about as far from the big league as you can get on the career spectrum, lol.
The developments since that turning point have been genuinely impressive, and relentless. Usually without much fanfare at all, Rasenberger and her staff and officers have simply powered on, these are people on a mission.
It’s great to see, isn’t it? Even if it didn’t involve writing and publishing, I’d love seeing any nonprofit more than 100 years old suddenly sit up, turn around, and say, ‘You know, we’re better than these perceptions about us and we’re going to change everything we do to demonstrate what our real intentions are and get this straightened out.” The authors, of course, in this case, are the beneficiaries, but in any case this is no mean feat for a nonprofit and involves a lot of terribly difficult self-examination and reconceptualization for any professional company, profit or nonprofit.
Having been with the United Nations in a diplomatic posting in Europe, I can tell you that there are a great many humanitarian agencies in the world that could really benefit from a good case study on how the Authors Guild has transformed itself as it has. I’d love to see a few of our best agencies achieve this kind of honest self-appraisal.
Meanwhile, yes, you’re putting your finger on it when you point out the collaboration the guild made with the RWA when this terribly misguided effort in trademarking a common word came up. The romance writers are, of course, the targets of that move. And instead of just heading to court to do the good work by itself with its own legal team, the guild reached out first to the RWA so both organizations could support each other in mutually benefitting the authors most likely to be damaged by the situation.
There’s been another such effort, in fact, involving many science-fiction writers: last year, the guild worked on getting payments from an East European sci-fi magazine (called Galaktika), which for years hadn’t been paying writers for their work. In that case, the guild worked with the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. Brilliant, huh? Here’s the story I wrote on that one, just FYI: https://publishingperspectives.com/2017/07/authors-guild-copyright-infringement-deal-hungarian-magazine/
The guild walks in with such legal savvy and capability, especially in the Southern District of New York court system, and has this capacity to reach out to relevant communities of authors when the need arises to make common cause and turn around some of these bad situations.
As you suggest, Linda, that’s why so many writers are starting to realize that the organization does represent their interests, which is so good to see.
Thanks again!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
You lost me when you veered into politics. If the Author’s Guild is going to take sides in the current culturo-political donnybrook, I have no interest in joining or supporting it.
I’m tired of people stridently injecting their politics into every aspect of life.
Hi, PCGE,
Just to be clear, there is nothing here that says the guild is taking sides in political issues. You’re reading me — Porter — saying that the Trump administration presents new challenges and dangers to our concepts of press freedom and the right of expression in this country.
No need to agree with me whatever. You’re free to have any opinion you choose and I respect yours as I hope you respect mine.
My own opinion — with which, of course, you will want to disagree and that’s fine — is that I’m injecting nothing into “every aspect of life.” The current political challenges facing the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Philippines, and many other countries at this moment in history are injected into your, my, and everyone’s life whether we want to see that and face it or not.
I wish you well.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
If you’re going to promote the Authors Guild, and they are non-political, injecting your own politics into your advocacy on their behalf does the Guild a disservice. At the very least, it’s superfluous.
At worst, it will drive people away, because odds are pretty good these days that you’re promoting the Guild because they share your politics, or at least that that’s a precondition of your advocacy. Maybe you aren’t, but as a writer you should already understand that it’s what your writing leads people to believe that matters, not what’s actually true.
Everyday, I get email and letters: give me money because I support Trump, give me money because I resist Trump. And everyday I throw those missives in the trash without reading another word. Consider that.
Hello again, PCGE.
I’ll write my columns as I see fit, thanks. And rather than taking some sort of offense when the relentlessly intrusive politics of our era come up, I hope you’re willing to explore further the point that I’m making: the times in which we live simply frame any author-advocacy scenario within our difficult political context. If you find it unpleasant that political realities have been raised in talking about the world in which you live and work, your problem is not with me. It’s with life in 2018 America.
You may like to see some of the guild’s own writings about its advocacy work in this regard. Remember, the stories below are not my writings, they’re from the guild. These stances are part of the many responsible advocacy efforts the guild is performing on behalf of authors.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Authors Guild Denounces Trump Effort to Quash New Book
Kazuo ishiguro Says LIterature Must ‘Beome More Diverse’ in Nobel Speech
What Authors Need To Know About the New Tax Bills
GOP Pushes Through Tax Bill Despite Concerns
The Authors Guild Joins Letter Calling for Canadian Government To Respect Authors’ Rights
The Latest Battleground for Authors’ Rights
Preserve Net Neutrality
The Ability To Register Groups of Unpublished Works May Be Limited by New Copyright Regulations
Authors Guild Calls for an End to School Ban of “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Revised Small Copyright Claims Bill Introduced by Bipartisan Group of Lawmakers
Authors Guild Joins Action for Trade To Protect IP Abroad
Sarah Palin’s Libel Suit Against The New York Times Dismissed
I never challenged your right to write what you wish. I just made the point that injecting your own politics into an article advocating for AG will drive some people away from AG.
If you choose not to accept that, or perhaps even prefer that only people who agree with your politics join AG, that’s your choice.
Thank you for an intriguing post. I’ve never considered the Author’s Guild before, but I do appear to qualify and will look into it further. We have never needed advocacy for free speech and freedom of expression more than we do now.
Hi, Deborah,
Great to hear from you, thanks for reading us here at Writer Unboxed and for dropping a note.
Very glad to hear you’re interested in looking at guild membership.
And I couldn’t agree with you more about the unprecedented need for advocacy for free speech and freedom of cxpression, the absolute bedrock of any writer’s work in a free society.
It’s a good time for the guild to have found its footing so well, isn’t it?
Thanks again and all the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I am a member and encourage every writer to join. What makes the AG different than other professional organizations (RWA, MWA, SFWA, WFWA, SCBWI, etc.) is its legal team and advocacy.
While professional organizations are unquestionably beneficial, no other organization for authors does what AG does. Their work is important and deserves our support. Their newsletter (also undergoing a revamp) has serious content for serious writers, too.
Join. Don’t leave it up to others. We need a legal backstop behind what we do, and the AG is it. Thanks, Porter.
Thank YOU, Don.
That “legal backstop” – I agree the guild has really accepted the assignment with effective, efficient grace.
I’m glad to see that membership growing, too, as the word gets around and the good efforts become more visible.
Great that you mentioned the value of the newsletter, too, I totally agree.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hello Porter. It doesn’t apply to me, but I have to ask something: in what we euphemistically refer to as the current climate, one in which the American president denounces the fourth estate as the “biggest enemy our country faces,” and unions are also under constant attack, how is membership in the Authors Guild viewed by agents (Donald Maass notwithstanding) and publishers?
As always, thanks for providing insight and information.
Hi Porter. I am joining. I’ve a note on my desk to do so. This post is a great reminder. Thanks for advocating for writers and books and words on the printed page which can be vulnerable and must be preserved and honored.
Hi, Beth,
Great of you to drop a note, and super news that you’ll be joining the guild, the organization can use many such good folks like you.
All the best with it, thanks again!
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Regarding some talking points:
The Authors Guild has opened a new channel to resolve authors’ complaints to Amazon–in direct cooperation with the retailer
What does this mean? An explanation would help.
The guild’s legal team has worked with the Romance Writers of America to win a court ruling that means writers can continue to sell books with tiles that use the word cocky
I’m not a Romance writer. I could care less.
The guild has announced the opening of 14 new regional chapters, 13 of them outside New York City, as part of an aggressive expansion of the services it offers
I live in Hawaii. Not much chance of putting one of the 13 here.
The guild has announced a series of career-tactic “Boot Camps” for writers nationwide, taught by a traveling faculty, a program that has funding from the National Endowment for the Arts
Once again, Hawaii
The guild has named VIDA: Women in Literary Arts as the winner of its honor for distinguished service to the writerly community this year
Why should this be a reason to invest $ 125.00?
The guild has commissioned a new major survey of authors’ working conditions and revenue, involving, we’re told, and it’s being sent to as many as 200,000 potential respondents
Again, why should this be a reason to invest $ 125.00?
Hi, Ray.
Answers to the questions you’re asking are either in material linked to in the article or are self-evident to someone who sees value in the Authors Guild’s work.
To one technical point you raise, the initial 14 regional chapters the guild is setting up (one in New York City, the others elsewhere) aren’t the end of that program. More chapters will be added. It’s absolutely possible that there could be one set up in Hawaii or anywhere else guild members live and work. Likewise, it’s fully possible that the Boot Camp program might visit Hawaii at some point. As you know, air travel has been established between Hawaii and the mainland for many years.
If you don’t see the guild as worthwhile, don’t give it another thought. I did say in my column, no membership is for everyone.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Regular AG membership is 125 bucks. They get to vote.
Associate membership in AG is 125 bucks. They don’t get to vote.
Taxation without representation stinks.
One of the biggest problems I think the AG–and other author-facing organizations–have at the present time is the widely-held belief in indie author circles that these organizations have absolutely nothing to offer them. Accusations of hostility to indies are usually not that far away when I mention the AG on indie forums. New indies resent the sales requirements that often appear to impose a greater burden on indies than on traditionally published authors; and once an indie has worked their way up to the required sales level, they often feel they are doing just fine on their own, thank you, and don’t need anyone advocating for them.
That’s not my own opinion–I still believe that all authors should support each other in a market where there are too many forces aligned against us to capture our storytelling skills and turn them into content provision factories for one money-making scheme or the other (usually while proclaiming how important books are and how much they love us). If things hadn’t suddenly fallen into place for an international move back in 2015 I would have joined the AG, and I’m now thinking of becoming one of its handful of international members. I’ve been an SoA member for a couple of years now and appreciate its advocacy and its advice on legal and tax matters.
Being thought of as irrelevant or even hostile by a large number of authors who have built up expertise in this business should be a cause for concern to the AG, the SoA, NINC and genre organizations. It’s about time at least one of them addressed the issue–in public.
Hi, Jane,
So good to hear from you again, thanks for writing.
Yes, the Authors Guild, in fact, surprised a great many in the business last year at its awards gala by naming IngramSpark – the self-publishing platform directed by Robin Cutler – for its distinguished service prize. (The same honor given to VIDA in this year’s awards program.)
By choosing an indie author platform for its award, the guild sent a strong signal both to indie authors and to the industry that its interest in, and support of, independent publishing was real. That’s another pattern you see in the Rasenberger administration – the organization tends to reflect its policies in tangible actions. My coverage of that event with Ingram Spark, FYI, is here.
I agree with you on both your key points, as well. Too many independent authors see anything connected with mainastream trade publishing as hostile to them (good choice of words). But by the same token, we also need to see more service outfits acknowledge this perception and respond to it, something the guild is doing proactively.
I’m sure the international membership would be useful if you decide to go that route, not least because I imagine that you, like man of our authors in the UK, are making a certain percentage of your sales in the US market. It’s always smart to know a market as well as possible when looking to it for revenue, and of course you’re so familiar with the States from your time living (in Chicago, right?).
I do think that the Society of Authors is doing a lot of things well for its membership in the UK. Nicola Solomon’s leadership has been steady and persistent – particularly in such a closely knit business community as the UK is, that’s quite necessary to press the needs of the author corps there.
Thanks again, and I hope things are going well for you. So good to hear from you. All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hi Jane,
This is Mary, the ED of the Authors Guild. I just saw your comment. Thanks so much for your frankness. It saddens me to hear that many indie authors still consider us irrelevant or even hostile to their interests. We do provide important services and assistance to indie authors; indeed, they often benefit the most from our services, precisely because often they are managing the legal aspects and marketing on their own. We help indie authors with issues with Amazon, take-down notices, infringement, registration, fair use and other legal questions, etc.; and we provide a good deal of programming on indie publishing and marketing; including our Guide to indie-publishing, written by Jane Friedman. Indie publishing is an increasingly important part of the publishing business, and I would like to see the day when more authors can publish successfully on their own or with hybrid publishers.
As an authors’ advocate, I LOVE indie publishing as a business model for the future because it gives the authors control over their work and careers and they make far more money of the back end.
How can we do a better job of getting the word out?
Note: We have income level requirements ($5000 over 18 months for full, professional membership; and $500 for associate membership) because we are a professional association. We now also have emerging author and student memberships, with no income requirements, because it is often when writers are trying to get established in the business that they need the most assistance and education in the business.
Thanks again for your comments.
Porter –
I am signed up to attend the first AG Chicago meeting, out of curiosity and because you wore me down. ;)
That hostility – which is real and vocal – comes as much from individual authors as organizations. It’s not that indie authors are seen as some kind of threat. We’re seen as ‘less than’. So I’m glad to see that AG is being proactive about the perception that’s out there.
Honestly, I think traditionally published authors have a number of things to learn from indies, mostly on the marketing side (thinking outside the box). And we know we need to recruit a team for our businesses. Luckily now, it looks like AG could fill the ‘advocacy’ position.
And if advocacy sounds political, so be it. There’s a lot for authors to be concerned about these days: not just copyright protections, but tax implications for their businesses, funding cuts for government grant programs and libraries. If you don’t advocate for yourself and your profession, who will?
End of rant.
Viki
Hi, Viki,
Thanks for the good comment.
Frankly, I think a lot of us are over the whole indies vs. trade bitterness out there. There’s nothing to argue in that regard, and the guild’s inclusion of indies reflects the simple fact that they, too, are working writers and need the benefit of organized, collective power in the marketplace.
I’m very glad you’ve signed up to have a look at what the new Chicago chapter is doing, and I hope it will be something useful to you.
I do think it’s important for all of us to get a clear line of delineation in mind about what a professional trade advocacy organization like the guild does, as opposed to what a promotional writers’ association does. Both types of groups are very fine when operated well, and both are important. The writers’ association, however, will normally have its emphasis on community building, education for members, and promotion of their work. All good. The advocacy trade group, on the other hand, is outward-facing: it interacts with civic and commercial entities (that might be copyright offices and publishers’ contract divisions, for example) for the purposes of workforce protection and advancement.
The reason the AG is so successful under Mary Rasenberger’s leadership is not that it’s out there doing book fairs to introduce authors to the readership but because it’s working in Washington on Capitol Hill and in the Southern District of New York’s court system and in the offices of publishing executives to develop legal and commercial infrastructure that protects and supports the authors’ workforce.
This is why there are attorneys on the team and it’s why when they link up with the RWA or the SFWA to work on a case, it’s not about the books, actually, but about the rights of literary workers in a marketplace that’s happy to trample those rights if authors have no such advocacy in place.
Let me say that again: It’s not about the books.
I know that this can be off-putting to some writers and incredibly confusing to others. But this really is about the working conditions of authors, the complex needs of an entirely unaligned workforce in several of the creative industries – which all by themselves bring a lot of distinctive challenges to the table.
So expect a bit different slant.
There’s certainly nothing that says a local chapter can’t engage in promotional efforts for its members, far from it. But the main thrust of what the guild does is different from that of writters’ associations (whether genre-based or more general). The two types of groups aren’t interchangeable.
Advocacy organizations like the guild are normally only one to a nation (like the Society of Authors in the UK), and they’re fully professionalized outfits working in the channels of labor rights issues.
Thanks again, hope it goes well.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson