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Professional Member Benefits

Our mission is to be the voice and career resource for independent, entrepreneurial, professional nonfiction writers. We achieve that by letting our members know what's really happening in the freelance nonfiction market. Through our confidential online database, newsletter, and message boards, ASJA members exchange timely critical details about markets, fees, contracts, trends, and more. 

Below are the benefits for Professional members. 

ASJA Professional Members can participate in the following programs to meet editors, agents, publishers and other corporate and nonprofit clients 

  • Client Connections, a one-on-one appointment with potential clients at ASJA’s annual conference  
  • Virtual Client Connections, an internet meeting with editors over Skype from their home office
  • Virtual Pitch Slam, an interactive conference call during which members get their story pitches heard live with feedback provided by a top editor

Networking

  • Multiple networking opportunities are available for experienced, self-employed writers of nonfiction during ASJA’s conferences, local chapter events and online within ASJA’s Special Interest Groups and other discussion forums
  • Members have access to a collective brain trust that fosters a culture of collegiality and generosity among writers, who regularly share a wealth of knowledge via ASJA’s various communication channels available only to members, including:
  • ASJA forums, an online community where members talk about jobs, tech tips, and everything in between
  • ASJA Magazine, both online and print
  • ASJA Weekly, an electronic newsletter that keeps members and nonmembers updated on upcoming events and news with stories and insights on the freelance experience

Professional Development

  • Freelance Writer Search, where members can access exciting new job opportunities
  • Members gain exclusive knowledge to payment and market information about potential clients through the Paycheck listings. The Paycheck rights-and-fees database collects member reports of payments and terms to help them negotiate from a position of strength. 
  • Members can access political events, press conferences and emergency scenes with a free Press Card that identifies them immediately as professional writers.
  • Members receive free admission to monthly ASJA Direct calls that cover the business and craft of freelance writing.
  • Members receive discounted rates to ASJA's annual and regional conferences. However, only Professional members can sign-up to participate in Client Connections at the ASJA Annual Conference and regional conferences.

Other Membership Discounts

  • Delta Air Lines offers special discounted airfare for ASJA members traveling across the world. Discounts vary, depending on the class of ticket purchased, up to 10% off the fare.
  • AVIS Car Rental has negotiated a corporate discount program for ASJA members to enjoy low rates and service deals.

Advocacy for the Greater Good

  • Assistance on contractual rights in the form of direct mentorship and guidance.
  • Awards for ASJA members who create exemplary work, as well as special honors for those who contribute to the greater good of ASJA.

You'll also get substantial discounts on all ASJA events and much more. ASJA understands freelance writing, so don't go it alone. Join us and see what real support can mean to your freelance career.

 

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  • A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.
    – Sidney Sheldon
  • A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.
    – Kenneth Tynan
  • A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self–addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.
    – Ring Lardner
  • A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of getting into print.
    – Marguerite Yourcenar
  • All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary – it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.
    – Somerset Maugham
  • Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
    – Christopher Hampton
  • Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.
    – Lawrence Kasdan
  • Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.
    –Wilson Mizner
  • Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
    – Flannery O'Connor
  • I just wrote a book, but don't go out and buy it yet, because I don't think it's finished yet.
    – Lawrence Welk
  • I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
    – Douglas Adams
  • I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.
    – Stephen Wright
  • It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
    – Robert Benchley
  • It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
    – Andrew Jackson
  • Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.
    – Richard Curtis
  • No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self–deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.
    – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
  • There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
    –Somerset Maugham
  • Writing a novel is like paddling from Boston to London in a bathtub. Sometimes the damn tub sinks. It's a wonder that most of them don't.
    – Stephen King
  • Writing a novel is like spelunking. You kind of create the right path for yourself. But, boy, are there so many points at which you think, absolutely, I'm going down the wrong hole here.
    – Chang–rae Lee
  • Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
    –Samuel Johnson