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January 2003

Looking Forward, Looking Back: ASJA's accomplishments and plans

by Jim Morrison

With a new year beginning, it's a good time to look back on 2002 and look ahead to what ASJA will be concentrating on in 2003.

Perhaps the most important thing ASJA has done in the past year is something you've heard the least about: our central role helping devise strategy in the class action suit against the six major electronic and The New York Times for nearly two decades of copyright infringement.

In conjunction with the Authors Guild, we filed the case in federal court in New York in 2001. Later, a similar suit filed by the National Writers Union in San Francisco, was consolidated into the case. Since then, it has moved along. We've participated in numerous conference calls with our lawyers and leaders from the Authors Guild and the NWU working on the case. I hope that this year we will see the suit put money in the pockets of the thousands of freelancers who were wronged by the databases -- and by the publishers who illegally supplied them with our work.

The lawsuit is designed to get money to writers for infringement of their past work. This newsletter and our online forums and Web site are designed to help writers earn more money every day.

Last year, publications chair Melba Newsome led a redesign of the look and content of this newsletter, concentrating on craft and market information, especially in the section that goes only to members.

This month, we have a Market Reports committee story with tips about what editors at Smithsonian are seeking. In the coming months, we'll publish Market Reports about the new Lifetime magazine, Preservation, Gourmet and The Atlantic Monthly.

By the time members read this, we will have opened a new threaded message forum on our Web site with areas for book authors and magazine and newspaper writers, and a place called "The Writing Life," to trade everything from recommendations of books and magazine articles to suggestions for fax machines. We expect to open a chat-room for everyone -- members and non-members -- sometime this year.

Among the other things we accomplished in 2002:

Made the PayCheck information -- reports of who paid what when -- easier to search online by creating a database of reports. Paycheck reports listing what hundreds of publications and companies paid go back a decade and have proven to be an invaluable resource both for members and for ASJA. In recent months, we've been approached by several magazines asking what we thought would be fair pay for Web use and other extra uses of stories. PayCheck helped put weight behind our answers.

Hosted one of the most successful conferences in ASJA's history, attracting more than 700 writers.

Introduced the Successful Query Project, a listing of query letters that netted assignments from 40 magazines, helping to provide members with models for their own pitches.

Started work with the Authors Guild and the NWU on merging the Authors Registry, which has collected and distributed more than $1.5 million to writers for electronic uses of their work, with the NWU's Publication Rights Clearinghouse.

Worked with other creators' organizations in the Coalition of Freelance Organizations to seek ways to get better contracts for all freelancers.

Offered new health insurance options for members.

The best news is we've managed to add services for members without raising dues. They haven't gone up and they're not going up.

So what's on tap for 2003? First, we want to grow ASJA. At nearly 1,100 members, we're bigger than ever. We've created a Recruitment Committee headed by Janine Latus. If you know writers who would benefit from being in ASJA -- and I think that's any freelance writer -- contact her. Or send them to the "How to Join" page online at www.asja.org/join01.php.

We'll publish a book by ASJA members this year, Trade Secrets: A Professional Guide to the Business of Nonfiction Freelance Writing.

On the legislative front, we'll work with the Authors Guild and others to change the Draconian requirement that writers register their copyright in order to sue for infringement. The requirement is ridiculous and only encourages copyright theft in an age where it has become increasingly easy to steal from writers.

What else should be on our radar for 2003? How else can we help freelancers? Drop me a note at prez @ asja.org.

Jim Morrison, of Norfolk, Virginia, is President of ASJA