I joined IWOC in the early 1990s, thinking it’d be wise to network with other freelance writers in the unlikely event my regular Chicago Tribune gigs ever dried up. I couldn’t have predicted at that time the Internet would decimate newspapers, and the unlikely would become not likely but a fait accompli.

Fortunately, before all that Tribune work went away, my credentials were promoted in IWOC’s print writer directory that at that time was mailed to prospective clients. In 1995, I received a call from a man running a PR and ad agency in Chicago’s western suburbs. He’d spotted my listing in the IWOC directory and was seeking a writer. Would I sit for an interview? I did and subsequently landed a series of regular assignments. Incredibly, 31 years later, I continue to retain the company the client headed. He’s retired, but I work for the woman who took over the agency after he stepped away. 

I pull in about $6,000 a year from the client. Many years I made more from that company, but if you conservatively take $6,000 a year and multiply by 31, you’re approaching $200,000 resulting solely from IWOC membership. That sum would pay for a couple millennia of IWOC yearly dues.

While this client was the regular customer I retained the longest, it isn’t the best client I gained from IWOC. The best was a Chicago-area association management firm that was not just the best IWOC-supplied client, but best client period. That firm hired me for years to write for associations that routinely paid four figures each for trade magazine articles.

Add up all revenue I earned from IWOC-furnished clients, and it’s hard to imagine I would have lasted 37 years as a freelancer had it not been for Independent Writers of Chicago. But that’s just what I’ve done.

-- Jeff Steele