| Authors Guild…. / blog | Hans Bousie*, 28-9-2010 |
Well I’m new in the world of twitter and blog, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can write about whatever I like whenever I like, so lets talk about the Authors Guild. What the hack is the Authors Guild? Well it’s a trade union, a trade union for writers in the United States. Who ever got the idea that authors would need a union? Aren’t writers supposed to be poor and miserable? Isn’t that the way the best books are born? Well, not according to the Authors Guild. They want to do whatever is good for writers. So they must be a bunch of good doers? Well….They are not that generous. You have to become a member before they help you. And in order to become a member you must pay them. In their advertisement they present it like this: “Authors Guild dues are $90 for the first year and follow a sliding scale after that based on your writing income (most members continue to pay $90 per year”. I could write a million pages about this sentence. More questions arise than can be answered. Why would anyone want to join a club that offers benefits that become more expensive when your income rises? That’s not a benefit but a penalty. You see that most writers remain poor, they’ll never climb the 90 dollar barrier. The newest offer of the Authors Guild is Health Care for Published Writers. Read it again, for “published” writers. The Authors Guild isn’t there for losers that don’t get published. So even when you do get published your income is supposed to be so low that the Authors Guild would still be an interesting source of benefits. Health Care for published writers would cost you normally more than $ 1000,-- a month, through the Guild you only pay $ 334. For the Dutch these figures are amazing. The most expensive health care insurance in Holland might cost you something like € 150,-- a month (I pay € 80, including two children) and that includes an operation after which you will be surely a successful author. So I would suggest to every poor writer in the States, don’t except the offer of the Authors Guild. Come over to Holland. Join our health system and become the writer you always wanted to be.