Apply now
To join, simply complete an application form and return it to us with payment for your first year's membership. For immediate advice on a contract please include a copy with your application form; you can expect a response within about a week.
Download the application form:
Please return the form to Emily Hasler, Membership Manager, by email, fax or post.
Eligibility
- Please view our eligibility criteria before completing an application form.
If you are an aspiring writer but not yet eligible to join, you may find it useful to have a look at our FAQs about writing.
Benefits and subscription
Membership is £95 per year (£68 if you are under 35) and your subscription entitles you to advice on all aspects of the writing profession, including confidential clause-by-clause vetting of any contract you are offered from a publisher, agent, producer, etc.
- For a list of other membership benefits, click here.
Please note: We will take up complaints for members. If an issue of general concern to authors is at stake, and the risk and cost preclude individual action, legal procedings may be undertaken at our expense. Our members see the Society as a form of insurance, which can be important even if you have an agent. A typical hour's consultation with an intellectual property lawyer would cost you at least £250.
We will also be pleased to give guidance and advice (but cannot incur legal expense or become directly involved) in connection with difficulties pending at the time of election or re-election, publishing agreements where the author contributes towards the cost of production, problems arising outside of the UK, or a dispute with another author.
Questions?
Email the Membership Department or phone us on 020 7373 6642.
“The advice and help that the Society's staff dispense, and the weight of experience that they can bring to bear, are immensely valuable. A subscription to the Society is the greatest investment any writer can make.” - Philip Pullman.