2023 was another busy year for the SoA and was dominated by one topic, generative AI. We lobbied and advised members on AI and worked closely with the Publishers Association (PA) and creator organisations such as the Creators’ Rights Alliance (CRA). That won’t let up in any way in 2024 – we’ll continue to press for transparency, credit, control and compensation for our members and to inform them of the opportunities and risks of the new technologies. We are grateful to the many publishers who have already agreed our suggested contract clauses in relation to AI and hope to agree more in the New Year and to work with industry on keeping humans at the forefront of publishing while using new tools in a just and transparent way.
We’ll continue to lobby on other issues too. With a General Election on the horizon, we’ll be publishing our asks of the political parties with a focus on intellectual property (IP), fair terms for creators and a better tax, benefits and legislative landscape for freelance workers.
Sustainability is a key issue: if we don’t deal with the climate crisis, nothing else will matter. We’ll continue to work together in the Sustainability Industry Forum and to help authors talk to their publishers about the sustainability of their books with our Tree to Me campaign.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the response to the British Library cyber attack and urging the British Library to ensure that Public Lending Right payments, on which many of our members rely, are not delayed – and that authors are compensated for the inconvenience and theft of their personal data.
We’ll continue to raise questions about Amazon, Spotify and streaming practices, to ensure authors receive a fair share of the revenues from newer and non-traditional delivery methods.
And we’ll still be campaigning for an Anti-SLAPP law and continuing work on the Judicial review in relation to Oak National Academy.
We’ll continue with our core work advising members on a huge volume of queries on a very broad range of topics, including: publishing and agency contracts, self-publishing, collecting societies abroad, chasing payment, unresponsive publishers, copyright, reverting rights, and we hope that in 2024 we will start to see evidence of much needed good practice, better standards and transparency in hybrid publishing services and other so-called services to authors – and an end to the model where the author finances the publisher. Sadly, we are already seeing a number of publishers going into liquidation in these tough economic times.
The cost of living crisis will continue to hit authors hard. Last year, we distributed over £400,000 through our Contingency Fund, but we don’t have that money available for 2024. Any donations, however small, will go directly to help authors in need.
We’ll continue working for a diverse and inclusive industry. We were delighted to be on the team drafting the Industry Professional Values Document and hope to see that widely used. And our Drusilla Harvey Access grants will give authors support for travel, subsistence, childcare or access needs for events, residencies, research and retreats.
Internally, it will be a time of change. Joanne Harris will be completing four years as Chair of the Management Committee and we’ll be appointing her successor in January. We’ll be appointing a new President from the Fellows in spring and I’ll be retiring as Chief Executive in April. However, I have no doubt that the new officers, my successor and the SoA’s fabulous team of staff and volunteer members will carry on doing what they have been doing for 140 years since 1884: connecting and empowering authors, illustrators and literary translators.
