A Writer's Syndicate?
by A. D. Coleman

As a charter member of the National Writers Union, in a May 1990 letter to the editor of the union's journal of record I proposed the creation of an on-line syndication service under the union's auspices, with two components. The full text of the letter follows:

 Editor
American Writer
National Writers Union

To the Editor:

The proposal by the LA local's magazine writers' group (winter 89/90) that we "put together a syndicate to market our columns all over the globe" is not as pie-in-the-sky as our LA correspondent made it sound.

I'm a free lance with an area of specialization. I write a weekly column on my subject, which one New York paper carries; then I turn that into a monthly column that's picked up by a west coast magazine and three periodicals in Europe. In addition, I write a second monthly column on my subject, which just made its debut in a U.S. monthly; I also produce a variety of features.

Last year I published approximately 90 essays, ranging in length from 1000-4000 words. Roughly forty of those publications -- almost half --were reprints. I made $23,000 doing so, of which about $3700, or 15%, came from the resale of what I consider to be inventory. Additionally, there were perks -- several expenses-paid trips to Europe, for example -- resulting directly from the overseas appearances of my work. This year's figures so far indicate that I'll do even better.

I achieved this mainly through perseverance, and did it all on my own. My agency -- a high-powered one in New York -- has proposed me to several major syndication services; they stopped pursuing the idea when the consistent response was that my area of specialization had too limited an audience to be worthwhile to a syndicate. Without disagreeing, I held firm to my belief that my work could find a regular readership beyond its one-time appearance in a local paper, and could earn enough second-serial rights income to repay my sales efforts. From my standpoint, I've been proved right.

Where might the NWU come into this? I can think of two services the union could provide to me that I'd consider valuable. The first would be the creation of a database, to be made available via CompuServe or some such system, in which I and other members could briefly describe our columns, selected features, subject area(s) of interest, and give our addresses to facilitate further inquiry. The second would be the periodic (perhaps twice-yearly) conversion of this database into a simple, inexpensive, desktop-published catalogue that would be mailed to a list of periodicals here and abroad.

I'd be willing to pay a flat fee, plus a percentage of sales, for such a service. I'd also be willing to advertise in the catalogue, in the same way that people advertise in such other directories as the Yellow Pages.

I think this would be a worthy and achievable goal for an NWU task force. I'd be glad to join forces with any other members who want to pursue it.

Yours,
/s/ Allan Coleman
NY Local

This letter appeared as"A Writers' Syndicate?" in the NWU newsletter American Writer, Vol. 9, no. 1 (Summer 1990), p. 2.

Copyright © 1990 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. For reprint permissions contact Image/World Syndication Services, POB 040078, Staten Island, NY 10304-0002 USA;T/F (718) 447-3091, imageworld@nearbycafe.com