SFWA membership now open to small press and self-pub

[julesjones]

In the unlikely event that anyone who would care about this doesn't already know about it -- SFWA has amended its membership requirements to allow small press and self-published science fiction & fantasy to be considered. That doesn't mean it's open season, as there is still the requirement to make a commercial sale, i.e. make a minimum amount of money in a reasonable time period from the fiction in question. The *same* amount of money as was required under the old rules. Qualifying markets are still qualifying markets. If your publisher isn't a qualifying market, you have to provide the evidence yourself.

As far as novels are concerned, it's $3000 net advance/royalties in a one year period after 1 Jan 2013. I'm still not entirely sure what the qualifying period on short fiction is, but would assume it's the same. Some more detailed information at the VP's blog:
http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/2015/03/05/answering-more-questions-about-the-sfwa-qualifying-process/
http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/2015/03/02/how-to-apply-for-sfwa-membership-with-small-press-or-self-published-credentials/

This does only consider income received after 1 Jan 13. But of interest to me is that had this rule been put in place back when RWA did the same thing around eight years ago, I would have qualified for SFWA membership with Dolphin Dreams, as indeed I did with RWA membership. At which point I'm sure that various people would have insisted that no, I didn't, because my stuff isn't Real Science Fiction and Fantasy (TM). And I would have enjoyed watching them flail every bit as much as I did on the romance side.

It's an incentive to get that space opera back out on the submissions rounds, and finish the urban fantasy. :-)

Comments

[seawasp]

Hm. Does Kickstarter money count as an advance?

[julesjones]

From Cat's post: "crowd-funded source is eligible if it pays AND the book is delivered (because we thought that was important.)"

Note that it's *net*, not gross, so in your case you might need to deduct your costs of editing, cover art, etc, although they're still working out the details. And you can include royalties from post-Kickstarter sales, since you can use a combination of advance and royalties to meet the minimum.