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What Published Writers MUST do - Zahid Hussain

If you are a published writer then there is something I strongly recommend you do that could absolutely alter – for the better – your experience of the writing life.

I believe it’s a sad world we live in when those who create entire worlds for others are paid a pittance, but such is our reality. For those of us who are writers we must do what we can to get by comfortably so that we can continue creating new worlds of words.

Firstly, join The Society of Authors. I cannot recommend that enough. They help provide legal guidance, access to databases of agents and so many other things, too many to mention here, but they are all listed on their web site.

Secondly, join the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. If you join the Society of Authors then your membership of ALCS is free. ALCS collects the royalties from your published work.

Each time your book, essay or photo is reprinted, photocopied, borrowed from a library it generates income. That tally of income is what the ALCS calculates and collects and repatriates to the writer…as long as they are registered.

The creative impulse which produced the work now in print accrues value. Writers rarely have a good business sense, although some do, and the advice they receive is lacking.

I know poets and authors who despite having been published many time have never registered with any society such as the two above. If you are amongst those who believe that you don’t need to register with anyone, you’re right: you don’t have to.

But why not?

What do you lose?

For a few pounds each year you easily recoup the cost of membership and you can access excellent professional advice. Don’t waste any more time: go and visit those web sites and decide for yourself whether you should join. I simply believe that you should continue to be rewarded for what you created which has now become become part of the world’s inheritance.

ZHZ