sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Pay Up: Why Authors Should be Paid to Speak (Part 2)

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Speaking at Celebrate Reading at the wonderful Lit Centre, which always pays ASA Rates.

Speaking at Celebrate Reading at the wonderful Lit Centre, which always pays ASA Rates.

Yesterday I spoke about the reasons authors should be paid to speak. I spoke about why it was important for the authors to be paid, but I didn’t talk about what was in it for the people paying the authors – the festivals , schools and libraries who I’m saying should be paying authors for their time. So, here we go with why it makes sense to pay authors to speak:

  1. We entertain (and inform) audiences. The very popularity of literary festivals vouches for the fact that people want to meet and see and hear authors speak about their work, about life, about all kinds of things.
  2. When we are paid, we are more likely to go the extra mile. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If authors are being paid for their time, then they are likely to see presenting as a job, and therefor prepare well, and give generously of that time.
  3. Literary festivals, school author visits, library talks, dinner speeches etc etc all promote literacy and reading. In the case of children’s authors, this link is hopefully obvious – hearing from a real live author encourages children to read not just that author’s books, but more (and hopefully more and more). But this works for adults too. Hearing a good speaker read from and talk about a book leads people to read more.
  4. The hour long presentation is the culmination of many hours’ work. Although most festival and school sessions are an hour or less (with the exception of workshops), the fee paid to the speaker takes into account the amount of time that goes into preparing for the session as well as the years spent honing the skills used to write the book and develop speaking skills.
  5. Authors promote the festivals/events they speak at. Most authors use social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, websites) to spread the word about their appearances, drawing audience members, and spreading the word for future festivals. They also talk among themselves. A good festival experience will be shared with fellow authors socially. I have a wish list of festivals I’d love to attend based on their treatment of author friends. Payment is one part of this experience.

If you are running an event in Australia arnd are not sure what you should be paying, the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has a detailed list of rates, which should be a great starting point.  And, if you are an author, I encourage you to charge properly for your time.  Again, thanks Philip Pullman for bringing this issue to the fore.

 

 

Pay Up: Why Authors Need to be Paid to Speak (Part 1)

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PWF12 gesticulating

Speaking at the Perth Writers Festival, which pays ASA Rates. Hooray!

This week author Philip Pullman has been in the news for pulling his support of the Oxford Literary festival because it does not pay authors to appear there. Bravo Mr Pullman! The news that other prominent UK based authors have signed an open letter calling on authors to boycott literary festivals which do not pay has kept the topic in the spotlight. I thought I might devote some blog time to examining this issue from the Australian perspective .

Though in my experience most festivals here in Australia pay, and pay the recommended ASA Rates, I don’t know any author who has not, on numerous occasions, been asked to speak at a school, festival, library or other event for free. It’s happened to me more times than I can count.

There are two main arguments put forward for speaking for free. Firstly: standing up in front of an audience is great for promotion. People will hear you speaking and go and buy your book.

Let’s look at that for a moment. An audience might range from a few people to a few hundred people. Let’s assume I speak to a group of 100 people. And let’s say I am absolutely riveting in my presentation, which inspires all hundred of those people to buy one of my books. Should they each buy a $20 book, sales will come to $2000. A tidy sum for my hour’s work? Maybe, except of that $2000 my royalty cut, at 10%, is $200. That’s if the book is not illustrated (which most of mine are) , in which case my royalties are 5%, so $100. Which I’ll receive up to six months later, because royalties are paid twice yearly. Of course, a bigger audience might mean more sales, but the reality is that it is highly unlikely that every audience member will buy a book, especially at a festival, where there are numerous authors presenting, because attendees will need to make purchasing decisions based on budgets and the strength of their book-carrying backs.

Of course, promotion isn’t all about book sales on the day. Making a name for myself might lead to sales of future books, as well as future sales of my backlist (once they read one book, they’ll want to hunt them all out, right?) In my wildest dreams all 100 of those people might go and buy all 10 of the trade books I have in print – resulting in $20000 sales, and $1000 royalties. Over weeks, months or even years.

The second argument for speaking for free is about budgets. If festivals (or schools, or libraries, or whatever) paid authors to speak, then they couldn’t afford to hold the event. And of course we all want to encourage reading through such events, don’t we? Yes, we do. But this argument doesn’t hold up unless everyone else who works at the festival is also working for free. The program manager. The venue staff. The sound/lighting people. The printer of the programs. The catering staff. If these people – who all do important jobs – are getting paid, why not pay the talent? The people standing up front who are, after all, the ones that the audience is coming for, are entitled to be compensated for their time. Because if there are no speakers, there is no festival.

I said there were two main arguments given for not paying authors but there is a third, unspoken one: the implication that authors don’t need the money. Because we’re all rich. Right – if earning $12, 900 a year makes us rich. That’s right – the average Australian author’s income is less than $13 thousand a year. So that fee for speaking is much-valued income which gives us a little bit more time to write. When we speak for free we not only miss out on that payment, but we are also taken away from either writing, or from a day job which enables us to eat – because authors, just like every all humans , like to eat, and pay bills and so on.

So, thank you again Mr Pullman for standing up for authors. Thanks too to the many festivals and schools and libraries across Australia who pay authors properly. And thank you to the ASA who fight for the rights and conditions which Australian authors enjoy.

This post has focussed on why the authors need to be paid. Tomorrow, I’ll look at what’s in it for the festivals. .

What I’ve Been Up To – and What I’m About to Do

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Last week I spent five days working with the cream of the South West’s young writers, in Bunbury and Busselton. These young writers, aged between 11 and 18, were attending the Young Writers and Youth Literature Days, run by The Literature Centre. In this amazing programme, each participant comes once a term for a whole day of workshops with an author. This time round, their author was me.

What an amazing privilege it is to talk writing and the writing life with young people who love reading and writing as much as I do. When asked to write, they do. When asked to share their writing, they do. And the buzz in the room during sessions and during books is just fabulous.

The focus of my workshops was on building character through plot, using dark and light scenes. And, of course, I had them write a poem for one of the sessions – with some keen poets choosing to use poetry for every exercise.

By the end of the week I was exhausted – six hours a day, speaking and listening and sharing isn’t easy. But it was the kind of exhaustion which is deeply satisfying.

On Sunday, I headed to Narrogin where, as a part of the Spring Into Narrogin Festival, I ran a writing for children workshop for a small but enthusiastic group of local writers.

Tomorrow, I am heading off again – this time to The Literature Centre proper, where I’ll be taking part in the amazing Celebrate Reading Conference. I can’t believe I’ll be sharing the stage with some of my favourite Aussie writers and illustrators – Isobelle  Carmody, Bruce Whatley, Allison Lester, Peter Carnavas, James Foley, Anna Walker and Catherine Bateson – and hanging out with so many teachers and lovers of children’s books for two days.

I love my job.

On Tour: Living the Dream

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Last week I got to live the author dream, and travel around the country talking about myself, my books and writing.

The tour, to promote Roses are Blue, was organised by Walker Books with support from an Australia Council Grant.  I visited schools, bookshops, libraries and even a radio station in Brisbane and Melbourne, where I spoke to hundreds of young readers, teachers, librarians, booksellers and book lovers.  How lucky was I!Brisbane 2015

Favourite bits of the week:

1. Speaking to so many enthusiastic and receptive kids – and their teachers, and librarians. It never gets old or boring talking about books and writing and reading, and every session is different, because the audience makes it so.

2. Visiting amazing bookstores and meeting and talking with booksellers passionate about putting good books into the hands of young readers.

3.  Having young readers tell me the way that one of my books reflects their own life. It delights me to know that they can connect in this way with Amber, or Pearl, or John.

4. Speaking to a group of librarians who came to Lamont Books after their work day to chat with me about poetry and verse novels and all things book.

5. Chatting to David Curnow on ABC Brisbane about Roses are Blue, writing andBrisbane Me Sheryl Gwyther Julie G Octber 2015 more. What a wonderful host David is.

6. Catching up with friends old and new both as part of the programme and socially in the downtime.

7. When the tour was over, coming home to my beautiful family. I love touring and travelling and seeing great places and meeting great people, but in the end there’s no place like home!

 

 

 

More Things I Learnt During Bookweek

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I get invited to speak about my books, and about writing and reading, in the hope that I might inspire or teach my audiences. But every single time that I speak, I get inspired in return, and I am constantly learning things about myself and my books from my audiences. Further to my post a couple of days ago about the links I have started to see between my books, here are a few more things I learnt in Bookweek.

  1. There are a lot of FIFO families in WA. Actually I already knew that (one article I read suggestedBookweek2015b there are 60 thousand FIFO workers in WA), but it was only when I started going into schools to talk about Fly-In Fly-Out Dad that I realised what this translates to. In every classroom there are children with a dad or mum who goes away to work. And in some classrooms, the majority of children are in this situation, or have another close family member (granddad, aunty etc) who does FIFO work.
  1. Not every FIFO child, even of primary school age, really understands where it is that their absent parent goes, or what they do there. Even eight and nine year olds who knew that their parent was FIFO, didn’t know where it was that Mum or Dad worked.
  1. Kids love poetry, even though they don’t always realise that what they are reading IS poetry. Lots of kids tell me how much they love my verse novels, but when I tell them that these are poems, they are surprised, especially when the books have been read aloud to them. It doesn’t worry me whether my readers know that they are reading poetry, or whether they know what a verse novel is. What concerns me is whether they are enjoying the stories. The form aids that enjoyment, and the connection with it, but if the reader doesn’t recognise the form, that’s fine. I call his poetry by stealth.RAB_INT_pp34-35
  1. Using a footy analogy to get my point across never gets old. I have been using the fact that I am a Fremantle Dockers supporter to illustrate why I write books with big highs and low lows for several years. It never fails to get a reaction from the audience, especially in WA where footy rivalry Is strong. One of my proudest Bookweek moments came a couple of years ago when a boy in a Eagles guernsey approached me after my session to tell me he was going to switch to supporting the Dockers.Manning 2015
  1. Nothing energises me more than a fresh audience. I drove 200 plus kilometres to and from every day of Bookweek this year, and in between sessions and at the end of every day I was exhausted. But when each new audience arrived, I got a lovely whoosh of adrenalin and felt on top of the world. I danced, talked, sang (sorry about that), jumped, paced, talked some more, and loved every moment of it.

Of course, I was pretty weary by the time Bookweek was over, but that’s what weekends are for, right?

Not as Different as You’d Think: Things I Learned in Bookweek

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As I talked about books and writing during my Bookweek visits, I used my three latest books – Fly-In Fly-out Dad, 1915, and Roses are Blue – to demonstrate where ideas come from, and how an idea can be moulded into a story. In most sessions I referred to all three books because I felt that using such diverse books would mix things up a bit. But, after a week of discussing three very different books, I started to realise that while they are very different, these three books had quite a lot of similarities.

  1. Fly-In Fly-Out DadAll are about absence, and missing loved ones. In Fly-in Fly-Out Dad Tiger misses his Dad, and Dad misses his son. Even when they are together they realise that soon they will be apart again. In 1915 Stanley, fighting at Gallipoli, misses his family desperately, and probably his twin sister Elizabeth most of all. And Elizabeth, at home in Australia, misses Stanley, and worries about him every day. In Roses are Blue, Amber misses her mum, even though Mum is still with her. She misses the way Mum was before her terrible accident, and the things they could do together which they now can’t.
  1. 1915All three feature strong child characters.Tiger is only little, and struggles to understand where Dad goes, and even why they can’t always be together, but he tries to be brave about this. It’s important though, that he is able to recognise that being ‘brave’ doesn’t mean he isn’t allowed to miss his dad or to feel sad about Dad’s absences. In 1915, Stanley and Elizabeth are not children – though as young teachers they really aren’t much past their teenage years. And they are both strong individuals. But to me, the child characters who strike me as strong here are Miles’ sons, Bobby and Harry , who Elizabeth teaches. They represent the many many children who, in World War 1 (as in other armed conflicts) watched their fathers go off to war, not knowing if they’d come back. And (spoiler alert) when their father does die, they do their best to carry on their lives. In Roses are Blue, Amber too has the strength to carry on, trying hard to be happy, to support her family – especially her baby brother, Jack – and to make the most of what she’s got.
  1. Roses are BlueAll three make people cry. I spent a lot of time during Bookweek (as with all my appearances, really) discussing why I choose to write books which rouse emotion. Though I don’t set out to make people cry, I’m kind of glad that I am able to connect with people in this way. And my aim is, that even when someone cries reading one of my books, they should feel happier afterwards.

There are probably other links between the three, and between these and my other books. Perhaps the biggest link is that, because they were written by me, inside each and every one of my books is a piece of me. Intentionally or otherwise, I put myself on every page. It’s one of the fun parts of being an author.

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