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May 2006

A Long and Winding Road

By Jack El-Hai

Early in February, ASJA unveiled the first phase of Freelance Writer Search (FWS; www.freelancewritersearch.com), the result of a years-long effort to give members a service that could reliably connect them with well-paying editorial assignments. As it is now set up, FWS offers editors, agents, corporate and agency communicators, and people in search of ghostwriters and co-authors an opportunity to present their needs to ASJA members, who can view the listings on a members-only section of the ASJA Web site.

The second phase of FWS -- the addition of a searchable database that organizations can use to locate ASJA members who have specific skills, live in certain geographic areas or have other attributes -- will appear soon. Shortly before its introduction, you will find out how to add yourself to this database. Your participation is entirely voluntary, and you will be able to choose the exact contact information you want to disclose to searchers.

Beyond that, FWS will continue to improve and add new features. The service is currently free to all users, and we will give it at least a year to prove itself before considering whether to charge modest fees to listers or members.

Many of you already know the rocky history of ASJA's attempts to launch and maintain this kind of service. For years we had Dial-a-Writer, a successful program that relied on the skills and finesse of managers with impressive memories and Rolodexes. Assignment leads came in by telephone, and the manager often identified the small group of interested ASJA members who could be considered for the work. Members paid a nominal fee to take part, as well as a percentage of their earnings that came from a listing. But as online assignment-listing boards became more common across the Internet, Dial-a-Writer grew outdated, a degree of obsolescence suggested by its very name. (I haven't had a dial telephone in my home since 1979, and I don't think my children have ever seen one except in movies.)

So several years ago ASJA created the Writers Referral Service, which made better use of Internet and e-mail technology. A manager still intervened at times, however, to screen the pool of members interested in a particular assignment. Listers paid a fee to let members know of their needs. Nobody was really marketing the service to potential listers, and the Writers Referral Service never gathered in the quantity or high quality of listings that we all hoped for.

Now we have FWS, and this time I am confident that things will go much better. Many of your fellow members have had a hand in creating it. Member Lisa Holton has actively marketed the service to all the groups of people who should know about it. George Sheldon, the chair of our Web Committee, has served as project manager and pulled together all of its disparate elements. Our Web editor, Elizabeth Crane, has added to FWS's editorial presentation. And Bruce Miller, our Webmaster, has put in hours of planning, coding and database design to make FWS function smoothly on the Internet.

That group joined forces with the volunteer FWS Committee, made up of Ann Douglas, Sandy Lamb, Mary Mihaly, Doug Rossi and myself, to dream up, argue through, and execute the whole project. (In the early stages, Anita Bartholomew, Margaret Littman and Ann Monroe also helped.) It took a long time, I know. But I hope the results will prove worth the wait for many of you.

While we're all watching the progress of FWS, there are some ways in which you can help move it along. If you know editors, agents, corporate or organizational communicators, advertising or PR agencies, or anyone else who occasionally or regularly has assignments of the kind ASJA members can do, please direct them to the FWS Web site or send their contact information to marketing coordinator Lisa Holton (lisa@thelisaco.com). Also let her know if you have suggestions of trade organizations or industry groups that she should contact. And if you're pleased with FWS or get work from it, blab about it to your writer friends who do not yet belong to ASJA.

In bringing FWS as far as we have, we've traveled a long and winding road. May that road bring prosperity and satisfaction to many of us.

Jack El-Hai of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is president of ASJA. E-mail the president through www.asja.org/contact.php.