Quiz time! Think, for a second, about San Francisco, which played host to an ASJA fall regional conference this past October. Which Bay Area city is home to 1.5 million people?
Nope, it’s not San Francisco, San Jose or Oakland. And this isn’t a trick question. The answer: The city of Colma, a couple subway stops south of the land of fog and sourdough.
Don’t worry if you don’t know Colma from Kalamazoo. It’s indeed home to 1.5 million people, but all but about 1,000 of them are dead. Colma—“The City That Always Sleeps”—is full of cemeteries, 17 of them for people and one for pets.
This necropolis exists because San Francisco didn’t want graveyards taking up space as it tried to grow. About a century ago, San Francisco evicted a couple dozen cemeteries in its bid to keep on booming.
So here we have a perfect pair of opposites: A city devoted to the future, and a city devoted to the past. Just like the journalism world today, which is divided between those trying to cast off the past and those keening and rending their clothing over the way things used to be.
Not Dead Yet
If you listen to some journalists, everything worthwhile in our industry is dead or dying, from storytelling and book writing to investigative reporting and local journalism.
These grumps may try something new, like writing an e-single, and decide everything’s a mess because they failed. (See author Tony Horwitz’s out-of-touch June 2014 commentary in the New York Times and his bogus claim that “online journalism pays little or nothing.”) Or they might assume that what’s happened to news in their town is a sign of the industry’s utter collapse. (See the cranky rants from David “The Wire” Simon about journalism in Baltimore.)
ASJA members know better. Many of us are making a good living while telling stories, creating meaningful journalism, and producing books that matter.
The ‘Good Old Days’ Myth
As author A.J. Jacobs reminded us at the ASJA National Writers Conference, it’s easy to forget that the good old days weren’t necessarily so good.
They were worse for news consumers, for one. I remember going to college and only having three significant sources of news: Rolling Stone, Newsweek and The Los Angeles Times. Now my news universe is hugely expanded, and I’m much better informed. So are tens of millions of other news junkies.
As for independent writers, we have it better in countless ways. Thanks to the internet, we’re spending much less time on trips to the library, post office and bank. We get responses to pitches in minutes instead of days. And it’s tremendously easier to communicate with other writers and make the personal connections that are so vital to success and our own sanity.
Meanwhile, e-singles allow us to write those lengthy stories—too long to be a magazine piece, but too short to be a book—that would never have had a home in the past. Websites expose our work to much wider audiences than we could ever have dreamed of 20 years ago. And self-publishing frees us from the limits of traditional publishers.
Sure, we can dismiss young journalists as vapid, scoff at social media and refuse to appreciate the joys of Kindle. We can spend all of our time in Colma with the dearly departed until we’re as much a part of the past as they are. But while Colma is a lovely place to visit, you wouldn’t want to live there. Museums aren’t homes, and homes aren’t museums. The future belongs to journalists who not only realize the difference but also embrace it.
Let’s Do The Time Warp Again
Ready for some time travel? We have good news: Member registration rates for the 2015 ASJA National Writers Conference will be the same as 2014’s. Those rates, by the way, were 8 percent lower than in 2013. This means you’ll still be paying less than you did two years ago.
We’re keeping a lid on rates because we know about the financial strains facing independent writers like you (and us). I’ve made lowering ASJA fees a personal priority, and I greatly appreciate our leadership’s eagerness to work with me.
The 2015 conference, by the way, is shaping up to be a spectacular event thanks to a new focus on hands-on workshops, a greater willingness to shake things up, and an expanded Client Connections event (née Personal Pitch).
And yes, we’ll meet in New York City once again. Like it or not, the Big Apple remains the center of the American publishing industry. We’re dedicated to taking full advantage of the location by bringing in even more editors, agents and publishers.
Think Nationally, Think Regionally
While our national conferences draw more than 500 attendees each year, not everyone can make it to NYC. That’s why we’re so proud of our new regional conferences, which are cheaper to attend because they require much less space. This past fall, we drew more than 100 attendees each to our events in Chicago and San Francisco.
We expect to soon announce the locations of our regional conferences for 2015. They’ll be in new cities, probably on both coasts, and focus on new writing topics beyond custom content.
As for our international members in Canada, five countries in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, we look forward to meeting your needs too. Feel free to invite me to Toronto or London for some fact-finding!