Letter from outgoing CEO Juliet Rogers

11.12.19

Dear Members,

When I resigned in August, Christmas seemed satisfyingly distant, allowing me to carry on working almost as though nothing had changed. But that delusion has come to an inevitable end and I can no longer avoid the reality that I leave the ASA on Friday. After four years, it’s also inescapable that I leave with very mixed emotions: pride at what we’ve achieved, frustration at the continuing length of the ‘to do’ list, sadness to be leaving the wonderful ASA team and members, excitement about what lies ahead and ultimately, gratitude for having had the opportunity in the first place.

Appointing a career publisher as CEO of the ASA was a controversial and potentially risky choice and it would be true to say that there was a settling-in period required for both the organisation and for me. When I started, the office was dauntingly quiet, visits from authors were ‘by appointment only,’ the systems were manual and unreliable and the pace was ‘measured.’  The ASA was clearly very serious business.

And of course the ASA’s work is very serious, but over the last 4 years we have flung open the doors and worked hard to establish an ASA that’s a broad church. We embrace new publishing models, as we recognise how difficult it is for many of our members to achieve their publishing dream, but only if the deal is both fair and transparent. We’re not afraid to call out the unconscionable behaviour of many of the new predatory publishing services businesses, but encourage our members to work closely and openly with their publisher if they are fortunate enough to have a traditional agreement with a hardworking publisher. We’ve also introduced a raft of new services and opportunities in order do everything we can to help our members build sustainable incomes.

At the same time we take our Advocacy remit very seriously indeed. We advocate strongly for our members, both to provide support on an individual level when they have a problem and on a national level to lobby Canberra to invest in the authors and illustrators who create the culture of this country, not to mention also making a significant financial contribution.

There are, however, a couple of big issues that we are yet to crack and the first of these is the absence of investment in the Arts.

All of our achievements have been generated without Federal funding or indeed funding of any kind, other than the annual Mentorship Fellowship that we owe to the generosity of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund. While we are proud of the fact that we have managed to deliver value to our members throughout these last four unfunded years, there is no question that it has forced us to prioritise the creation of services from which we can generate revenue. This will start to impact on both our advocacy efforts and our need to continue to provide high quality advice and support at a heavily subsidised cost.

We understand that this is a complex issue and we value the very productive relationships we have built with both the erstwhile Department of Communications and the Arts and Australia Council, but the lack of investment in Literature in particular and the Arts in general, is unacceptable and will continue to be a major focus for the board and team in 2020.

The second issue is that as an industry, the book world has a tendency to bury their heads in the sand, approaching the challenges that face us all, as  silos instead of tackling some of these issues in a cooperative way. While some progress has been made and some excellent industry relationships have been forged, in my view we could make more progress if we really got serious about examining the ‘sacred cows” and negotiating ways to fix some of our own problems, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for us.

The last four years have certainly been a roller coaster ride, but none of these achievements could have been realised without the dedication, passion, humour, experience, skill and sheer hard work of the ASA team: Olivia, Emily, Laurine, Lauren, Angeles and Mandy. In combined hours that equal only 4.5 Full-timers, refusing to accept that they patiently answer every enquiry, solve every problem from technology to marketing and support and inform and take care of every ASA member. They have been a joy and delight to work with and although there will be changes, with Laurine and I heading to new futures and our wonderful Emily taking time out for motherhood, under Olivia’s compassionate, intelligent and thoughtful management, the future shines brightly. I am grateful to each and every one of them and count myself as being very lucky indeed, to be leaving the organisation that I love, in the hands of such a wonderful new CEO and team.

Finally I would like to thank our wonderful members. It is difficult for individual creators’ voices to be heard, but through the ASA, you have a collective voice that rings out strongly and is noticed. Your resilience, determination and indomitable will to succeed, are inspiring and they have made it an absolute pleasure to come to work every day. I have learned so much from you all, and consider myself very blessed to have had the opportunity to take my turn at the head of this wonderful organisation.

Happy Christmas to you all and my thanks,

Juliet