Strengthen your career

• Develop your craft at our professional workshops
• Get specialist training on the business aspects of authorship
• Negotiate better agreements with our free confidential contract vetting
• Get individual guidance and advice on all aspects of your professional life, and help with disputes or concerns*

Meet other authors

• Make friends for life at our regular socials
• Establish a network of professionals in the same boat as you
• Share your career and creative concerns with people who understand

Make a difference

• Support our campaigns for fairer creative industries
• Make your voice heard in an increasingly difficult profession
• Join the fight to save libraries, improve literacy and defend the arts

Questions?

Email the Membership Department or phone us on 020 3880 2230.

* We are pleased to give guidance and advice to individual members on any issue or concern based upon our Advisory team’s extensive experience of the publishing industry and of matters which affect the working lives of authors.  

Our General Counsel may also provide additional support in certain circumstances. However, we do not give specific legal or financial advice, although we are often able to suggest firms of solicitors or accountants who are able to give any advice which is needed.  

We are always pleased to advise members on the commercial and contractual terms they are offered for the exploitation of their work as creators, either by supporting them in their negotiations or, in the event of a dispute where a member’s own efforts have failed, by becoming involved directly.   

Please note that we advise members directly and in confidence. Or, if they clearly authorise it, via an agent or other representative on their behalf (though always copying in the member). 

We can advise on any contract members are offered and any related queries and relevant correspondence but (other than in exceptional circumstances) we will not comment on a third party’s commentary or advice and nor will we comment on AI-generated vetting, drafting or advice.  

We ask that our confidential advice to members is not run through any Large Language Model (LLM) or other form of generative AI, for any purpose.  

Where appropriate, we assist agents and publishers in circumstances when doing so benefits authors generally, but we do not advise on specific matters or prepare draft contracts for publishers, agents or service providers. 

Exceptionally, if an issue of general concern to authors is at stake and the risk and cost preclude individual action, at our expense, we may obtain legal advice on the issue and become involved in legal proceedings, with the approval of the CEO and the Management Committee, as appropriate.  

In relation to any issues of concern to members before they join or re-join us, we may give general guidance to assist them to resolve the issue, but we do not become directly involved.  

We will offer general advice, but do not become directly involved, in issues arising from publishing agreements where the author contributes towards the cost of production, problems arising outside the UK, or disputes between an author and another author.