THE
FREELANCER
July–August 2021/9
2021 EFA Annual Reports Advertising
David Stacks, Advertising Chair he EFA’s advertising program for 2021–22 has two goals: 1. Recruit potential clients to our Job List and Member Directory. 2. Continue growing our membership. Over the past year, we have advertised in print and digital publications aimed mostly at potential new members. We have seen some success, as our membership has grown an average net of about 50 new members per month. We have advertised with Google display and text ads; in Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers magazines; and at the Society for Scholarly Publishing conference website. In response to requests from our members in academic editing, we will place our advertising in the coming year in the academic marketplace to reach doctoral candidates, historians, researchers, scientists, and scholars. EFA’s advertising program will recommend additional ad placements with the Scholarly Kitchen, Education Week, the Organization of American Historians, and possibly Science magazine and the Chronicle of Higher Education. These placements will be in addition to Writer’s Digest and Google advertising. The EFA has a strong working relationship with our creative-advertising agency, Robot House Creative of Oklahoma City, and our media-placement agency, Peak Media of Edmond, OK. We plan to rely on these partners again in 2021–22. Our advertising program wishes to thank members of the EFA’s Diversity Initiative for assisting with our review of academic publications for our 2021–22 advertising placements. The following EFA members have provided research, resources and opinions regarding our coming year’s advertising program: Sheila Buff, Joy Drohan, Elizabeth A. Farley-Dawson, Tanya Gold, Kellie M. Hultgren, Sangeeta Mehta, Adrienne Moch, Katharine O’MooreKlopf, Faye C. Roberts, Amy Spungen and Lila Stromer. Thanks to everyone!
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Chapter Development Committee Akiko Yamagata, Chapter Development Chairperson hapters are one of the EFA’s main sites for member networking. In a typical year, chapter coordinator volunteers across the country organize coffee hours where members share stories and resources about their businesses. They arrange for experts to speak to members about marketing strategies to macros. This year, as the pandemic
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dragged on into a second fiscal year, all of these gatherings continued to take place on Zoom. In 29 chapters in 21 states, chapter coordinators found creative opportunities amid the constraints. They adapted their meetings to better suit the virtual platform: one chapter changed from an unstructured social hour to more structured sessions focused on peer critique of websites, for example. Other chapters cosponsored gatherings with other professional organizations, such as a writer’s group or an entrepreneurial association. Another chapter responded to the stress of the pandemic by offering a virtual self-care and yoga session. Virtual meetings allowed connections within EFA that would not have been possible otherwise. Board members spoke at several chapter meetings. Robin Martin presented on making the most of your EFA membership to the Northern California and Chicagoland chapters. And Lourdes Venard spoke about the fiction editor–client relationship to the Florida chapter. No longer restricted to in-person meetings, members took part in chapter gatherings far beyond their local area. Members in Pennsylvania and Florida attended chapter meetings in California. Chapters across the United States hosted members from around the globe, from India to Ecuador. Chapters have also actively extended their reach. Even during the pandemic, we re-activated the Chicago chapter and established one in New Mexico. More importantly, chapters are moving toward encompassing larger geographic areas. The North Carolina chapter is expanding to include South Carolina, and plans are in the works for a Midwest regional chapter. The motivation behind these developments — expanding the reach of EFA’s chapters — addresses a gap recently identified by a Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Survey, conducted in November 2020 by the Diversity Initiative. The survey quantified what had previously been a hunch: that chapters serve only some EFA members (35 percent, according to the survey). Looking ahead to FY 2021–2022, addressing this gap will be a primary goal. The Chapter Development Committee, which includes David Stacks and is supported by Christina Shideler in the office, also focused this year on better supporting chapter coordinators. These have included chapter mentors, experienced EFA members who act as resources and sounding boards for new coordinators for three or four months as they begin to organize. We have also distributed resources to improve accessibility on Zoom and are continually researching ways to improve chapter meetings in this
