Why the Association of Ghostwriters Instituted Membership Auto-Renewal

The Association of Ghostwriters (AOG) has been very fortunate to attract as members professional writers who aspire to become ghostwriters or who are already earning money from their ghostwriting work.

The community is active, members are kind and forthcoming with information, and most remain members for years. We offer a private Facebook group for discussions, a monthly Office Hours video session where we meet live and share information, a monthly newsletter, and the opportunity to submit guest blog posts. Members who have ghostwritten and published multiple books may qualify to receive job leads and be included in our member directory, which also results in projects.

We have worked hard to keep the annual membership fee low so that as many writers as possible can afford to join.

Our membership application and approval process has become fairly streamlined through the years, and with the support of our advisory board and virtual assistant Crystal, we let new members know quickly how to proceed.

When memberships lapse

The one process that we haven’t yet mastered, and which takes a lot of time, is when members let their memberships lapse, and Crystal then needs to add them back in later. Processing expired memberships is fairly time-consuming and drives our expenses up.

To avoid having to reinstate members who never meant to leave in the first place, we instituted an auto-renewal process in 2024 that is currently being phased in for existing members; all new members are asked to agree to auto-renewal from the outset, however.

Reducing renewal tasks

The goal is to make it faster and easier for people to renew and to eliminate the need for Crystal to remove people from our database and community when they lapse, only to then re-add them days later. We’re always happy to hear that people want to remain in the AOG or renew their membership, but it’s easier if we learn this before their membership expires.

The goal is not to force anyone to remain a member or to lock anyone in.

Renewal reminders continue

In fact, we have always sent out three renewal reminders in advance of the approaching expiration date and will continue to do so. The only change is that the reminder is now alerting members that their payment method on file will soon be charged unless they opt not to renew.

Of course, if your membership renews and you don’t catch it and you didn’t want to remain a member, we will be happy to issue a full refund after the fact. Just let us know within a couple of weeks of you being charged that you didn’t mean to renew.

Going forward, we’re asking every new member to set up auto-renewal as part of their original payment process. Please do not immediately cancel the recurring charge when you join; if you do, you won’t be admitted.

I hope this explanation makes sense and that if you join, you stick around for many years.

If you have questions about this, feel free to get in touch at marcia at associationofghostwriters.org.