March 1, 2026
SWET 2025 Member Survey
Report by Monique Bae
Just in time for the arrival of spring and its aroma of new beginnings is the SWET 2025 Member Survey Report. The number of respondents was 79, exactly the same number for the previous survey that was conducted in 2018. Thank you to those who took the time to provide feedback. What follows are highlights of the data collected; you are also welcome to view the full results here.
Background and Interests of SWET Members
The majority of those who responded to the survey (out of 200 members who were invited to fill it out) are based in Japan, with Tokyo providing the highest number of responses. But SWET is nonetheless a global organization; we received responses both from across Japan and from other places around the world, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan.
The survey results suggest that members who are younger and less experienced (such as myself) could benefit from the wisdom of the large number of members aged 50 or older (67.2%) and who have 26 or more years of experience (60.8%) in their respective professions.
Several members took advantage of the opportunity to describe themselves professionally. Outside of the main SWET professions—writers (53.2%), editors (49.4%), and translators (68.4%)—write-ins included (but were not limited to) “subtitler,” “academic writing mentor,” “craft historian,” and “photographer and pun maker.”
New this time around were questions regarding writing, editing, and translation events you would be interested in. For writing, the top-ranked events were talks by fiction writers and craft workshops; for editing, talks by book and magazine editors and editing craft workshops; for translation, talks by fiction and non-fiction translators and talks by editors at translation houses.
Appeal and Strengths of SWET
The biggest reason (32.9%) for members joining/remaining in SWET is because they enjoy fostering community through SWET events and other interactions. Members appreciated how SWET has allowed them to remain informed of professional developments, develop their skills, learn about job opportunities, and receive mentorship, encouragement, and support. As one member put it: “SWET is a wealth of experience and information.” The Japan Style Sheet received several shout-outs for its thorough guidance on transliterating Japanese and handling matters of style.
The top three types of events attended were general conversation and networking meetups (43%), lectures by experts (32.9%), and profession-specific meetups such as Translator Tuesdays and the Writers’ Salon (30.4%).
SWET was praised as being a “member-forward high-quality group,” giving “legitimacy [to] the profession,” and allowing those outside of Japan to be “part of a wider network.”
Room for Improvement and Future Considerations
Around a third of respondents (30.4%) indicated that they do not currently attend any SWET events. A few reasons given were lack of availability, not being able to find information about events easily, and overconcentration of events in Tokyo. Online events, which increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, received great support. However, it was suggested that in-person events could also be arranged in Kansai or Kyushu out of consideration for members located in western and southern Japan who would like to connect off-screen.
Although a large percentage of the respondents said they read the monthly SWET Bulletin (93.7%), some also requested that events be advertised more frequently. Not many members check (24.1%) or contribute (17.7%) to the Facebook group, so perhaps a short poll could be conducted to see what social media platforms members are using in order to gauge where SWET can further establish its digital presence.
Other suggestions included:
● Beginner-friendly events (e.g., Translation 101, Starting Out as a Writer/Editor/Translator)
● Business-oriented events (e.g., “customer outreach/sales, how to grow wordcraft business, capturing demand amid AI disruption”)
● Practice-oriented events (e.g., strategies for revising a piece of writing, decision-making process when translating)
● More discussions about the effects of AI on our industries as well as reviews/education about AI tools
● More downloadable resources
● Frequent updating of the job board
● Highlighting of older articles on the website
Closing Thought
Thank you for your continued support of SWET. We would also like to encourage you to get involved in seeing these ideas shared in this report come to fruition. If you want to conduct a workshop, as one member knowledgeable about book arts offered to do, please do reach out to us with a message to info@swet.jp. Even if you do not have an event in mind, you may be able to lend a hand on the administrative side. A lot happens behind the scenes to keep the society vital, update the website, share information, and look after our small dues-paying membership. Together we can continue to see SWET through to the future.
(Compiled for the SWET website, March 1, 2026)