About MNSCBWI

How to Join

Visit the SCBWI website and click on the Join SCBWI link. Your membership in SCBWI covers your membership in our statewide group.

The following information was compiled by Claudette Hegel.

How did SCBWI get started?
SCBWI President Stephen Mooser and Executive Director Lin Oliver were hired to write a reading program in the early 1970s. They looked for an organization specifically for children's writers, couldn't find one, and started the Society of Children's Book Writers in 1971 (illustrators became an official part of the organization in 1993).

How many members does SCBWI have?
SCBWI has about 20,000 members around the world. Minnesota SCBWI membership varies from month to month, but averages about 400 members.

Types of Membership
Full-member has been published in a children's field: books, magazines, films, TV, electronic

Associate-member has not been published in a children's field; publication for adults does not count

Cost (the dues are the same for full and associate members)

• $75 for the first year because the Publications Guide, roster (updated annually), and a variety of brochures are included; updated publications are available to members either on-line or by paying postage for the materials

• $60 per year after the first year

• Minnesota SCBWI has no further dues; the operating expenses are paid from conference profits

Benefits of Joining SCBWI

Contact with other writers and illustrators for children can provide
• Information
• Advice
• Leads to publication or other work via networking in person or through newsgroups
• Moral support
• Access to on-line discussion groups
• International
• Minnesota
• Feeling of being professional and "connected"
• The Publications Guide with a wealth of information on topics from submitting to contracts to self-publishing to lists of agents and more is available only to members -More recent data on what publishers want than various books with market information through
• The Bulletin, the bi-monthly SCBWI magazine
• The annual "Market Report"
• Many editors read SCBWI members' submissions faster than non-members; some editors sort the slush pile into stacks and read submissions, in order, from:
     – Writers/illustrators with whom they've previously worked
     – SCBWI members and known authors
     – Others
• Reduced rates, not only at local SCBWI events, but at SCBWI events all over the world
• Dues are a tax deduction against writing/illustrating income
• Writer and illustrator contests (one-year membership for top prizes; t-shirts for runners up)
• Qualification for awards, for which benefits include increased sales, plaques, and certificates, as well as recognition for outstanding work:
     – The Golden Kite (four awards: fiction, nonfiction, picture book text, illustration)
     – Magazine Merit Awards (for contributions to magazines, of course)
     – Sid Fleischman Humor Award
     – Sue Alexander Most Promising New Work Award
     – Portfolio Award
• Qualification for grants ($1,500 main prize; $500 runner-up):
     – Work-In-Progress Grant
     – General Work-In Progress
     – Grant for a work whose author has never had a book published
     – Work-In-Progress for a Contemporary Novel
     – Work-In-Progress Nonfiction Research Grant
     – Don Freeman Memorial Grant-In-Aid (picture book illustrators)
     – Barbara Karlin Grant (picture book writers)
     – Martha Weston (published members who want to work in a different genre such as nonfiction writers wanting to write fiction or picture book writers wanting to write a young adult novel)
     – Kimberly Colen Memorial Grant (unpublished author or illustrator; two grants of $2,500 each, plus tuition, transportation, hotel expenses to SCBWI conference in New York City)

• Manuscript exchange program for critiques
• Insurance-medical, hospital indemnity, and life insurance available through The Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust
• Credit Union
• Discounts on:
     – Penny Wise Office Products ("guaranteed lowest prices")
     – Car rental
     – Website hosting and design through partnership with 2-Tier Software and SmartWriters.com