FAQs

WGGB has several different categories of membership, suitable for writers of all levels of experience, whether you have professional credits and an agent, or are a student or just starting out.

Our members include writers in TV, film, theatre, audio, books, poetry, comedy, animation and videogames.

Find out more about how to join, what being a member of your union means and our package of member benefits

While WGGB is always happy to accept international members, please note that we are not able to provide advice on international contracts and can only advise on projects falling under UK copyright law.

WGGB has four different membership levels – Full, Candidate, Student and Affiliate. You can find out eligibility criteria for each here.

Members are unable to update their membership details (eg change of address) on the WGGB website. To let us know a change of address, or any other changes, please drop a line to [email protected]  and we will sort this out for you.

As a trade union, we are a member-led organisation. We are all about collective strength and we encourage all our members to get involved. There are numerous ways to do this – from standing for an elected position on our Executive Council, joining one of our committees, getting involved in one of our campaigns, or attending one of our free training courses, or other events.

The best way to find out about these is via your weekly ebulletin, which is sent out every Friday.

You can also make contact with your elected Craft or Regional Rep (or our Equality and Diversity Committee Reps) via our website

If you’d like to tell us about how you’d like to get more involved in your union, fill in our short survey.

Yes! Our free contract vetting service is one of our most popular member benefits and we advise all writers to get their contracts vetted before signing, to protect their future rights and remuneration. This is particularly important if it is your first writing contract and you don’t have an agent to represent you.

Our contract vetting service is open to all Full and Candidate Members of the WGGB. Contracts are vetted by our expert Casework Team and we will consult specialist lawyers on your behalf if we need to.

New WGGB members will need to have paid their full annual subscription upfront before accessing our contract vetting service (rather than paying by monthly or other instalments).

Please allow 7-10 working days after submitting your contract to hear back from our specialist team.

If you think you might need to access our contract vetting service in future, it is well worth joining the WGGB in advance, to speed up the process.

You can access the contract vetting service via our Members’ area.

The WGGB can only vet contracts or advise on cases which fall in the jurisdiction of the UK legal system. If you are being contracted under international law, we would recommend seeking advice from the relevant guild or union in the area. You can find more information on international writers’ guilds via the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds and the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe.

WGGB negotiates minimum fees for writers working in TV, film, theatre and audio under UK contracts. These are the minimums that employers must pay, and agents and writers can (and do) negotiate more. You can find details of WGGB minimum rates in the Rates and rights section of our website. Where we don’t have minimum fees, we produce guidance on suggested rates and best practice, for example in books, animation and videogames. You can find these in the Rates and rights section.

WGGB has not negotiated minimum rates in these areas, but if you are a WGGB member and would like to get some advice from our Casework Team, do drop us a line and we can advise based on your individual circumstances: [email protected]

WGGB recommends a minimum of £250+ per day (pro rata if you are working for half days etc). Your talks/speeches/lectures are your valuable intellectual property and all a part of how a writer earns their living. You might well use the same talk at different events in different locations for many months if not years. You might want to think very carefully about letting your talks be recorded as podcasts or for internet use for free. If it’s widely available, it could devalue your talks for future use. And if you so choose, you can put your talks online yourself, either for your own promotion or profit.

If you’re a WGGB member, our Casework Team would be happy to advise.

The WGGB pension scheme is open to Full Members of WGGB writing for TV, audio and film and means that you are eligible to receive contributions (a percentage of your script fee) from employers such as ITV and the BBC.

You have to be a WGGB member to join the pension scheme and once you have joined the WGGB you will then need to join the pension scheme (membership of the scheme is not automatic).

If you are not a member of the WGGB or if you haven’t joined the pension scheme, you could be missing out on employer contributions that you are entitled to.

You can drop a line to [email protected] to find out more. And members can access pension FAQs in our Members’ area.

Producers/broadcasters should send pension payments to:

FAO Brian Cook Aviva, Pomona Business Centre, 6 Pear Street, Sheffield, S11 8JJ.

Please include the policy number on the back of the cheque and a covering letter with the name and address of the WGGB pension holder (writer) and the amount to be credited to their pension scheme.

BACS payments can also be made, by phoning 0800 068 6800 (the policy number will be required as this will be used as the reference for the payment).

Yes we do! Full Members of WGGB have free access to our credit arbitration service

We have a wealth of free resources on our website, including on rates and rights for writers, best practice guidelines, sources of support with your mental health, an A-Z list of useful organisations and the opportunity to report bad or discriminatory practice. You can find all this in the Get support section of our website.

No, WGGB does not accredit or endorse organisations or individuals. If an organisation or individual states that they have been accredited or endorsed by the WGGB this will not be true and should be regarded as a red flag, especially if this information is being used to advertise paid services or opportunities.

While we are happy for our members to use our logo online to indicate their membership of the WGGB, we do not run an accreditation scheme for members. And we do not allow other individuals or organisations to use our logo, except in certain circumstances where we have given explicit consent – for example, for joint union campaigns or other campaigns, initiatives and activities that our Executive Council has formally chosen to support.

The annual Writers’ Guild Awards are currently on pause while they are being reviewed. Questions about the awards can be emailed to: [email protected]

You can also check out awards announcements in the News section of this website

Due to GDPR and trade union legislation, WGGB is not permitted to confirm if a writer is one of our members, or share contact details. However, some Full Members of WGGB can be contacted via our Find A Writer online directory if they have uploaded a profile (members choose whether they would like to have a profile, and manage these profiles themselves).

The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook is a good place to start and WGGB members are entitled to a 25% discount (it’s just one of many discounts we offer to our members, and you can find out about this and other exclusive discounts here).

For general advice about becoming a TV or audio writer, the BBC Writersroom is a good place to start.

Many of our events include useful tips on breaking into a writing career, often from our elected reps, who are working writers in their specialist fields. Find out more about our events and free training here.

WGGB is not able to offer specific advice about funding but the following organisations have lots of useful information. For film the UK Film Council. For theatre, novels and poetry you could try Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Wales or The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, depending on where you live. Also check out the A-Z list of useful organisations on our website.

There is lots of advice about writing treatments online, for example the BBC Writers Room website. Check out the Rates and rights section for individual best-practice guidelines.

This can vary and we would advise you to contact the production company in question. BBC Writersroom also has useful resources.

An option is when you sign a contract giving the rights over a script to a production company for a set period of time. We generally advise members not to sign options unless they feel they are getting full value for their work.

If you are a WGGB member you can contact our Casework Team for specialist advice, based on your individual circumstances.

Check out our template option agreements for film and TV in the Rates and rights section.

You can find a ‘right to pitch’ template contract under ‘Television’ in the Rates and rights section.

WGGB cannot recommend individual script writing courses – though we do offer discounts off certain writing courses and feature discounted courses in our weekly ebulletin to members.

We don’t provide a script reading service but you should be able to access details of various services via an online search.

Be aware that we are experiencing an increasing number of reports of writers being targeted in scams online, including being offered script reading services, which turn out to be fraudulent. You can find advice on how to spot these via our How to protect against scammers guidelines. Also check out our Is it a steal? campaign and guidance on spotting predatory practices in the hybrid/paid-for publishing sector.

As a trade union, it is not within our remit to help writers find agents or publishers and we do not act as an agent, publisher or production company.

Information about getting an agent or publisher can be found in the Writers’ And Artists’ Yearbook (WGGB members are eligible for 25% off this publication).

Be aware that we are experiencing an increasing number of reports of writers being targeted in scams online, including being offered services by supposed agents, publishers or others, which turn out to be fraudulent.

You can find advice on how to spot these via our How to protect against scammers guidelines. Also check out our Is it a steal? campaign and guidance on spotting predatory practices in the hybrid/paid-for publishing sector.

As an author you automatically have copyright over your script, unless you assign it to someone else. You do not have to go through any formal procedure – if you wrote it, and you have not infringed someone else’s copyright, then the copyright is yours. Copyright means that no one can use your work without your permission.

As an author you also have moral rights over what you have written, unless you waive them in a contract. Moral rights include the right to be identified as the author or director of a work as appropriate, the right to object to the derogatory treatment of a work and the right to object to false attribution of a work.

Find out more in our free guide Copyright – in 10 easy steps.

There is also more information on UK copyright law on the websites of the UK Government, British Copyright Council, Intellectual Property Office and Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society.

WGGB members can contact our Casework Team for individual advice.

As mentioned in the FAQ above, you do not need to register your script for copyright to apply in the UK.  WGGB does not believe that registering a script gives you any significant protection from copyright infringements in this country. However, if you wish to register your script both the Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East offer the service for a fee, as does The Script Vault in the UK.