Taking on the Establishment: by Special Guest, Author Renee Pawlish

The Establishment

Has anyone heard of Cesar Chavez? And what does he have to do with writing and publishing? Tell you what, I’ll get back to that in a minute.

There has been discussion of late about the major writing organizations and whether or not they accept independent (indie) authors. I decided to investigate this a bit, and here’s what I found out.

The following organizations do not accept self-published authors:

• Mystery Writers of America

• Horror Writers Association

• American Fiction Writers Association

• British Crime Writers Association

• Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

The following I either can’t tell or you can be an aspiring writer to join (but where does that put the indie author)?

• Romance Writers of America

• Western Writers of America

With the Canadian Authors Association, you can be an aspiring writer to join, and some of their contests do allow self-published authors to submit work. There are plenty of other organizations, I’ve just listed a few.

I’m sure that these organizations use being published by a reputable publishing house as a way to weed out the poor writing that is being put out each day by indie authors. I know, some of you will say there are gems by indie authors, and I completely agree.

But let’s be honest, there is a lot of crap out there, too. I’m talking about writers that don’t understand dialogue (using he/she said after every quote), novels that start with too much back story (instead of sprinkling in those aspects as the story progresses), poor editing (numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes), poor character and story development, and so on. Admit it, we’ve all seen those novels out on Amazon.

Even so, is it time for these great writing organizations to figure out a way for the indies to be a part of their groups? Can they find the gems?

And Here Are Better Questions

Do we really want to be a part of those organizations? What benefit do they bring? Does being a part of those organizations help sales? I would think that a good many of those members would trade their membership for the sales of John Locke, Amanda Hocking, JA Konrath, and others who aren’t traditionally published but have huge sales and better royalties. Prestige is nice, but ultimately we want people to buy our books. Now, I’d love to win an Edgar (the award given out by the Mystery Writers of America), but I’d take sales over that any day.

And if the point of these organizations is to support writers, why not let the indies in? It’s starting to seem elitist to not do so. I will be curious to see if and when their stance changes, given the current writing culture.

And That Brings Me to César Chávez

Chávez was a farm worker and labor leader who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers. He believed in civil rights and supported workers’ rights. Now, I am in no way comparing the plight (if it even is) of the indie author to labor rights, but in some tiny way we indies are fighting against the establishment. We recognize that the establishment is keeping us out. So what to do?

Better Than a Strike

Obviously we can’t strike, but we have better tools at our disposal. We have the Internet, we should know marketing savvy better than the establishment (all of us may not, but we should), because we have to find creative ways to let people know about our books. We also have our own organizations for indie writers (they’re out there, but they don’t have the prestige of those listed above). But how to make these groups credible enough to compete with the big boys?

Should we have criteria for indie organizations, more than just “I published an ebook on Amazon?” If we do so, are we elitist? But how do we weed out the poor writing? Or should we? Do we allow the readers to do so? We risk losing readers to the establishment if we continue to put out poor products. And, would uniting and having our own organizations ultimately give us respect? My take: only if the quality of our writing stands up to the establishment.

I predict that somewhere down the road, many of the writers’ organizations will buckle under and let indie authors in. Whether those indies will be eligible for their awards is another matter. In the meantime, I will continue to write, and continue to edit and polish my works before I publish them. That’s the best I can do to fight the establishment.

Renee Pawlish is the author of The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within, the Reed Ferguson detective series, and the bestselling novel, Nephilim Genesis of Evil. Renee also blogs on writing and publishing. Learn more about Renee and her books from her website and blog.