Membership Categories
Associate Membership
Open to unpublished writers, illustrators, and translators of children’s literature or media, and those with a general enthusiasm for the field. Writers, illustrators, or translators who have been published in markets other than children’s literature (but not in children’s literature), as well as journalists, bloggers, educators, teachers, and librarians, are also eligible for Associate membership.
Full Membership
Open to those whose books, articles, poems, stories, illustrations, photographs, films, television, or electronic media for children have been published or produced. This includes independently published authors, illustrators, and translators. For more benefits for independently-published members, click HERE.
PAL Membership
PAL stands for “Published and Listed.” PAL membership status is open to those who have had at least one book or article published by traditional publishing houses that meet our PAL Publisher Guidelines and are listed on our PAL Publishers list.
PAL Publisher Guidelines
- The author/illustrator/translator shall not have paid any money to the publisher for consideration of their work, nor for the publication, marketing, editing, and/or distribution of their work, nor any other payment in order to produce their work in any format. This eliminates all forms of vanity publishing, subsidy publishing, and hybrid publishing, including agreements in which publication costs are taken from the creator’s royalties.
- The publisher, whether traditional or new media, must provide a professional editorial process prior to publication, at no charge to the author/illustrator/translator.
- The author/illustrator/translator must not be required to purchase copies of their own book/books.
- There must exist a means of broad distribution to the retail customer.
- The publisher must publish works from at least five children’s/young adult authors, illustrators, and/or translators that are not related to each other. Thus, if there are several illustrators but only one author (or vice versa), the publisher does not qualify.
- The publisher must show a consistent track record of publishing works for a children’s/Young Adult audience.
- The publisher, whether traditional or new media, provides a means of marketing at no cost to the author/illustrator/translator.
The guidelines are considered minimum qualifications; additional factors may play a role in whether a publisher is eligible for PAL. If you believe the publisher of your book merits PAL status, please fill out the request form below. SCBWI retains the right to disqualify a publisher from PAL if we find after approval that it no longer meets the criteria.
Once you have been published by a PAL publisher, in order for your membership status to update to PAL, you must upload the qualifying product to your member profile and click on the publisher in the drop-down menu. Your membership will then automatically update to PAL.
Student Membership
Student membership is available to new members only of SCBWI who are currently enrolled in an accredited college or university in the US or internationally. If you are currently a SCBWI member at the regular or PAL level, or have been an SCBWI member in the past, you are ineligible for student status. You also may not renew your membership at the student level if you did not join SCBWI as a student member.
The student membership rate is $65 to join, $55 per year to renew. CLICK HERE to learn more.