Writers and Editors

Archivists and preservationists

• Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP)
• Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) (individuals and organizations concerned with the acquisition, description, preservation, exhibition and use of moving image materials)
• Interference Archive (exploring the relationship between cultural production and social movements)
• The Moving Image Archive Program (New York University), a two-year course of study that trains future professionals to manage preservation-level collections of film, video, new media, and other types of digital works.
• The Personal Digital Archiving 2015 Conference (Library of Congress)
• Society of American Archivists (SAA). See So you want to be an archivist (SAA)
• Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), principal trade association for the software and digital content industry
• Wayback Machine (Internet Archive), a nonprofit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more
• Image Permanence Institute (IPI), devoted to preservation research and the development of sustainable practices for the preservation of images and cultural property[Back to Top]

Artists, animators, cartoonists, and illustrators

• Animation Guild (Representing animation artists, writers and technicians
• Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI)
• The Cartoon Bank (part of the Conde Nast collection)
• Grand Comics Database
• Daily cartoon (The New Yorker)
• The Daily Cartoonist
• National Cartoonists Society (NCS)
• Children's illustrators
• The extraordinary world of Ex Libris art (sometimes the bookplate in front of a book is worth more than the book--Dark Roasted Blend)
• Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). See local and regional chapters, including a chapter for the British Isles.
• Society of Illustrators (SI)[Back to Top]

Designers and graphic artists

• Graphic Artists Guild (GAG), serving graphic and interactive designers, illustrators, animators, web programmers and developers
• Graphics Atlas (Image Permanence Institute's new online resource brings sophisticated print identification and exploration tools to archivists, curators, historians, collectors, conservators, educators, and the general public). Learn about the distinguishing characteristics of various print processes.
• The Professional Association for Design (AIGA, formerly American Institute of Graphic Arts)
• Society for News Design (SND)
• Society of Publication Designers (SPD)[Back to Top]

Editors, proofreaders, indexers, and other publishing professionals

• Major writers organizations
• Local and regional writers organizations
• Organizations for editors,
proofreaders, and indexers
• Organizations and gathering places for biographers, memoirists, personal historians, and other life story writers
• Organizations for corporate, government, and technical communicators
• Organizations for fiction writers and fans
• Organizatios for journalists
• Organizations for science and medical writers
• Organizations and resources for publishers and booksellers
• Organizations for screenwriters, playwrights, documentary filmmakers, and critics
• Organizations for writing niches
• Organizations of or for ghostwriters and collaborators
[Back to Top]

Music composers, producers, and rights management centers

• ASCAP, BMI & SESAC: What’s The Difference? (Songtrust)
• What’s the difference between ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and SoundExchange? (DIY Musician)
• American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
• American Society of Music Arrangers & Composers (ASMAC)
• Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). collects license fees on behalf of its songwriters, composers and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members
• Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC), a performing rights organization, with headquarters in Nashville and offices in New York, Los Angeles
• Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC)
• Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL)
• Film Score Monthly (FSM)
• Performance royalties explained (DIY Musician)
• So you want to be a film composer (Lukas Kendall, Film Score)
• Soundtrack Collector database (by title). Also by composer.
• Finding background music for video biographies, podcasts, presentations, blogs, etc. (www.patmcnees.com)
• Finding vintage music from a particular year or place (Telling Your Story, www.patmcnees.com)
[Back to Top]

Photographs and photographers

• (APA) (formerly Advertising Photographers of America)
• American Photographic Artists (APA)
• American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP)
• Canadian Association of Photographers & Illustrators in Communications (CAPIC)
• Editorial Photographers (APA/​EP), a chapter of American Photographic Artists
• International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP)
• National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), the voice of visual journalists
• Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
• Stock Artists Alliance (SAA), PhotoMetaData, serving stock photographers. SAA initiatives to promote metadata use and best practices by stock photographers and throughout the licensing industry began in 2006, and have significantly expanded with the Photo Metadata Project Partnership
• StockPhotoTalk (special interest blog)
• Wedding & Event Videographers Association International (WEVA)
• Finding photographs and other images (Telling Your Story, www.patmcnees.com)
• Scanning photos, documents, and other images (Telling Your Story, www.patmcnees.com)
[Back to Top]

Radio, film, TV, and media production

• The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) providing support, training, and advocacy necessary for preparing thousands of audio creatives across the world with the skill and confidence to lead the way to engaging more listeners, and to carry their inspiration to both traditional and emerging outlets. AIR's extensive social and professional network of producers, stations, and networks is at the center of unprecedented technology-driven change, rich with opportunity to define the new frontiers of journalism, technology, and storytelling.
• CreativeCow.net (creative communities of the world, a peer-to-peer support group for media production specialists)
• Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP)
• International Documentary Association (IDA)
• Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
• San Francisco Film Society (SFFS). We fund films.
• Final Cut Pro (Larry Jordan's newsletter)
[Back to Top]

Translaters and interpreters

• American Literary Translators Association (ALTA)
American Translators Association (ATA)
• American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). See ASMP's excellent links to resources for professional photographers
• Associations of translators and interpreters..
• Sites for and about translators and interpreters
Money and Translation (listen to PEN America panel) Is there anything we can do, as writers and translators, to break the causal chain of financial influence in the U.S. reception and publication of foreign literature? [Back to Top]

Web development and digital information

• Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), dedicated to supporting the transformative promise of digital information technology for the advancement of scholarly communication and the enrichment of intellectual productivity)
• Wise-Women (women who are or want to become Web designers, developers, and programmers)
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), main international standards organization for the World Wide Web
[Back to Top]

Related sites and organizations

•
• Adding images, sound, story, humor, animation
• Media Communications Association - International (MCA-I (professionals producing communications that deliver results for employers and clients)
• National Speakers Association (NSA)
• HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society), a nonprofit organization whose goal is to promote the best use of information technology and management systems in the health care industry-- to improve health care in quality, safety, cost-effectiveness, and access through the best use of information technology and management systems.
• How Much Should I Charge? (Writers and Editors, Pricing Strategies, How to Set Rates, and Other Basics for Creative Professionals)
[Back to Top]

Association of Independent Information Professionals (aiip, an industry association for owners of independent information businesses)

Books on Design
• Brady, Michael. Thinking Like a Designer: How to Save Money by Being a Smart Client
• Bringhurst, Robert. The Elements of Typographic Style
• Hendel, Richard. On Book Design
• Lee, Marshall. Bookmaking: Editing, Design, Production, 3d edition
• Lupton, Ellen, and Abbott Miller. Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students. See Ellen Lupton's website
• Tufte, Edward. Envisioning Information and The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. See Edward Tufte's website, including PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports.

---

Books on visual and multimedia storytelling:
• Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels by Scott McCloud, the author of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
• Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries of Real Events by Barry Hampe
• Picture This: How Pictures Work by Molly Bang (a children's book illustrator explains how images help elicit emotion in story readers)
• Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children's Books by Uri Shulevitz (a masters class in illustrating books for kids).
• Book of Movie Photography by David Cheshire (a guide to telling stories through images)
Thanks to Upstart Crow for leading us to these titles!
Daniel Milnor on visual storytelling (and why he's gone back to black and white film)

---

Usability: Typefaces for Dyslexia. Why certain fonts -- including Myriad Pro, Lexia Readable, Tiresias (especially good for visual impairment), Verdana, Trebuchet MS, Arial, and Geneva -- are easier for many to read. If you care about this audience, follow advice in the British Dyslexia Association's Friendly Style Guide and read Dyslexia.com's page on Accessibility.