Question about relational DB design

I'm new here, so hello everyone!

I'm not an experienced relational database designer but I'm not *completely* novice either. Now, I'm facing an urgent question that isn't covered (as far as I remember) by the litterature I've read up to this point.

Using mySQL, I'm building a fairly complex database, of which one of the tables registers article authors. The problem is, I have to deal with two different "species" of authors : the ones that are members of the organization I'm working for, and the others.

Those two kinds of animals are completely different. So obviously I have to put them in two different tables.

Now, it may be a stupid question, because I lack experience and knowledge, and actually I hope it is a stupid question with a very straightforward answer, but... COULD SOMEONE (please!) TELL ME how to set up a many-to-many relationship when one of the manies include more than one table ? Without having problems making the join when I access the data ?

Thanks and Cheers!

Due to the vagueness of the request, this is all I can offer:


TABLE NAME: AuthorInformation
Columns for all appropriate author information
Foreign Key Points to AuthorType

TABLE NAME: AuthorType
column1: PrimaryKey
column2: Type of author (ex: Member of Fiction Group)

If this doesnt work, please explain why this is no good so a more usuful answer can be deduced.

Thanks for your answer Kinivin, I apologize for the vagueness of my request. I'll try to make it clearer. And tell you why your suggestion wouldn't work, I think.

Author information is completely different depending on whether or not he/she is member of the group.

I have an "articles" table made of the following columns : id, title, language, submitter, date and time of submission, date of publication, publisher, comments, of course the article's contents, and some more.

I also plan on creating a lookup table linking the "articles" table (in a many to many relationship) to an "authors" table that still does not exist.

The two different kind of authors (members/non members) are TOTALLY different. The information about member authors is actually nothing more than their members profiles. Other authors' info includes first and last name, a possible email address, and comments.

So there are two different "authors" tables, and one of them is the "members" table (I'll have to create one for the non-members).

And I need to link the "articles" table to these authors. Some articles have more than one author, and some authors have written more than one article.

So it's a many-to-many relationship. I know how to create that when the problem is linking two tables : a lookup table. Two columns : authorID and articleID with the combination of the two being the primary key.

But I don't know how to link my article table with TWO authors table in an elegant, orthodox way. I came up with half-a-dozen solutions that are all pretty ugly. And problematic when I'll have to retrieve data (remember I'm not an expert, those might be imaginary problems) : I'll need to include, on php-generated pages that describe articles, a column with the name of the author (whatever his kind) and a link to it's "profile" page (also php-generated of course.)

I hope this longer request is more understandable. Thanks for your help!

Hillel.