21 May 2015 On 20 May the Supreme Court overturned an injunction preventing the publication of a memoir by classical pianist James Rhodes. The SoA welcomes this as a victory for freedom of expression and a very clear statement by the courts that people have the right to tell their own story in their own…
We are delighted to announce that the 2015 Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography will be awarded to Ben Macintyre for A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (Bloomsbury). The £5,000 Prize will be introduced by Roy Foster and presented by Flora Fraser on Thursday 25 June at the Society of Authors’…
A number of SoA staff volunteered on World Book Night, along with Sarah Wise and Alison Baverstock, to hand out books and share stories at a London homeless shelter. Sarah’s account of the evening follows. Homelessness can happen to anyone – a fact I’ve always known but which was once again forcefully underlined by our…
27 April 2015 Last Thursday (23 April), SoA members and staff visited Shelter from the Storm – London’s free homeless shelter – to share stories and to hand out books for World Book Night. The team, which included Alison Baverstock (member of the SoA Management Committee) and the author Sarah Wise, handed out books to 45 guests of the…
24 April 2015 After a tireless campaign by the Society of Authors, PLR UK, the Association of Illustrators, the Association of Photographers and SoA member Nicola Smee, artists and estates in the UK will receive over £240,000 from DACS. The money is for the lending of books featuring their artwork by libraries in The Netherlands. Illustrator and SoA…
The Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) has published a worrying report on author’s incomes and contracts. The report states that ‘for the majority, writing remains a low earning profession. The survey found that the median (typical) pre-tax net earnings which professional writers obtained from their writing (£11,000) was a little over 40% of the…
Malorie Blackman, Neil Gaiman, Joanne Harris, Roger McGough, Ian Rankin, Anne Sebba and Sarah Waters have all joined the Council of the Society of Authors. Daniel Hahn, Chair of the Management Committee, welcomes them: We are all delighted and immensely proud that Malorie, Neil, Joanne, Roger, Ian, Anne and Sarah have accepted positions on the…
17 March 2015 If you are a self-publisher and are selling ebooks or other digitised materials, beware the new VAT implications – more below. Those wanting to register for VAT MOSS should have done so by 8 February 2015. If this applies to you and you have not yet registered, further guidance is given here. Businesses,…
On 20 November 2014 The Times published an article about educational publishing in Britain today. Under the heading, ‘Textbook case of sloppy work’, the standfirst reads: ‘Britain once led the world in educational publishing. Now we have to import titles’; and the second paragraph begins: ‘the UK now produces among the worst textbooks of any…
4 March 2015 Let Toys Be Toys (LTBT) launched the Let Books Be Books campaign last World Book Day asking publishers to take the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ labels off books and allow children to choose their interests for themselves. Since then eight publishers have committed to publishing no more gender-labelled titles. We have been talking…
4 February 2015 The SoA is delighted that restrictions on sending books to prisoners have been lifted. The revision of the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme (IEPS) means that families and friends are now able to send books to prisoners in England and Wales. The easing of the restrictions follows the High Court ruling in December,…
3 February 2015 On 29 January the Sudanese Writers Union was dissolved by the Registrar of the Cultural Groups of Ministry of Culture, Sudan. All its cultural activities have been banned and no tangible reasons for the move were given. You can read the SWU’s press release below. Chief Executive of the SoA, Nicola Solomon,…
