In 2020, the Australian publishing industry showed grit and great determination in responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
Sophie Masson, newly elected President of the Small Press Network (SPN), said at the 2020 SPN Conference’s The State of the Industry (27 November) panel that the industry had shown, ‘A wonderful example of the very collegial atmosphere, supportive atmosphere, that exists in our industry across all its different sectors.’
Masson facilitated the panel discussion between the heads of four publishing industry associations: Michael Gordon-Smith, CEO of the Australian Publishers Association (APA); Olivia Lanchester, CEO of the Australian Society of Authors (ASA); Robbie Egan, CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA), and Sue McKerracher, CEO of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA).
Reflecting on the year that was, the speakers said that publishers, booksellers, libraries, and authors worked together to deliver greater access to books and literature for Australians in very challenging times.
However, it was Australian authors who were hardest hit this year with many reporting they cannot sustain a living wage due to author appearances and book launches being cancelled in March.
A year we didn’t see coming
Describing 2020 as the most ‘challenging time’ in his professional career, COVID-19 took Robbie Egan, ABA CEO, and many others completely by surprise.
At the start of the pandemic, ‘I suspected we would lose 20-30% of our members,’ Egan said. ‘Now that hasn’t borne out, so I’m very happy about that. But that is a scenario that’s playing out in the United States at the moment … they’ve lost a bookshop every week since the pandemic started.’
Egan told the virtual crowd that Australian ‘booksellers have been incredibly resourceful and pragmatic, and have worked probably 10 times harder than they ever had in their life to survive, but they have survived, and we haven’t lost a single member.’
Michael Gordon-Smith, CEO of APA, echoed Egan’s sentiments. He said, ‘What happens with Robbie [Egan]’s members, is critically important to what happens to publishers … if the retail channels close then the catastrophe flows upstream.’
‘In the United States at the moment … they’ve lost a bookshop every week since the pandemic started.’
– Robbie Egan, CEO, Australian Booksellers Association
Gordon-Smith said there were some people who were extremely concerned that if the changes that were apparent in the first few days of the sudden lockdowns continued, ‘In affect, you know, it was life threatening – it was business critical.’
For Australian authors, this year was hard to generalise said Olivia Lanchester, ASA CEO. ‘Depending on where you are in your writing cycle, it’s been a very varied experience.’
Lanchester said that for many emerging writers 2020 has been devastating. ‘I think [their lack of] discoverability has been a big point this year.’
For authors who fall into the group for whom events income is very important, ‘it has been a very, very lean year. I worry too, about the impact of the anxieties of the year on creators. I think for any author or illustrator or any human being actually, to be at their creative best at a time of destruction and uncertainty is really hard,’ Lanchester added.
With over 9 million registered users in Australia, libraries play an important role in the publishing ecosystem, and were not untouched by the pandemic.
Sue McKerracher, CEO of ALIA said that in March the ALIA office was inundated with phone calls seeking advice.
‘We had so many callers asking: “How do you sanitise a book? Do we have to sanitise them? Do we quarantine them? What does that look like?” And we had to say, “No idea, but best practice in the States is…” And so we were kind of trying to keep up with our members,’ McKerracher said.
‘We have had to reinvent ourselves really quickly.’
Digital pivot, industry advocacy & connecting communities
In the face of this global, and local dilemma quick-thinking from all four peak bodies meant several strategies could be deployed, McKerracher revealed.
‘We did a survey of library users, [around] 80% of people said the thing they missed most about libraries closing was actually not being able to get hold of physical books. So we ended up doing curbside collection, click and collect, [and finding] all sorts of ways that people could still borrow physical books,’ McKerracher said.
Read: Local libraries champion Australian authors
Australian librarians should be commended for their work with vulnerable patrons in this time. ‘One library team in Victoria rang 8,000 people who are older or house-bound and just checked in on them during the COVID lockdown,’ McKerracher said.
Moving events online such as story time and book launches meant greater collaborative opportunities.
‘We worked with Olivia Lanchester to put authors in touch with keen libraries. And we also do virtual storytime. So thank you to the APA and the ASA, for enabling us to actually run these virtual storytimes for little kids,’ McKerracher acknowledged.
Lanchester added: ‘We’ve heard from authors who have zoomed into schools and libraries located in remote parts of Australia, that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to visit. So clearly, the shift to digital does allow from an author perspective an expanded audience.’
ASA also conducting a survey of writers and illustrators across Australia, which was also used to inform the Arts Parliamentary Inquiry.
Over 1,400 responded to ASA’s survey with the data showing that ‘80% of respondents say they are earning under $15,000 a year … and nearly 32% of respondents have said their income has decreased,’ said Lanchester.
It was the industry rallying that turned lemons into lemonade, she continued. ‘Bookshops are champions of Australian authors and Australian books,’ Lanchester said, noting royalties were steady with ‘45% receiving royalties, about the same as last year.’
‘We’ve heard from authors who have zoomed into schools and libraries located in remote parts of Australia, that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to visit.’
– Olivia Lanchester, CEO, Australian Society of Authors
Robbie Egan commended the bookselling industry for ‘the amount of energy and effort that goes into putting books into consumer’s hands that aren’t well known. And certainly, we take great pride in Australia promoting Australian authors,’ he said.
For Gordon-Smith, connecting communities together was imperative for books reaching the public. Working collaboratively with ALIA and ABA, the Australian Reading Hour was rebranded to ‘Australia Reads’ and ‘Australia Reads at home’, which will be promoted throughout the year.
Gordon-Smith hopes that the strong bonds forged between the different sections of the publishing sector will continue into the future.
‘I’m interested in the way in which the pandemic will have lingering effects. I think that clearly we know what we are doing now … Our capacity to communicate in effective ways [has grown],’ Gordon-Smith said.
