AUSTRALIAN CHILDREN'S POETRY

This week I received notification from the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund that my application for funding was unsuccessful. I had applied for a mere $25,000 to establish a website to be called Australian Children’s Poetry. Of the 75 applications from CAL under its Cultural Fun, 34 were successful and a total of $678,000 allocated.

My idea of having a unique website that focussed on Australian children’s poets and their poetry was to redress the lack of interest in children’s poetry in our country. As a children’s poetry anthology compiler (Our Home is Dirt by Sea, Walker Books, 2013, and Every Day is a Birthday, currently with a publisher), I have worked with the Walker Books rights’ manager trying to locate poets for permissions.

Most poets do not have social media or website presence and it was really difficult locating poets or, in the case of deceased poets, the managers of their estates. A dedicated website would have done much to redress this problem — and would do so for future anthology compilers. Such a website would also showcase Australian children’s poetry, providing a central location for anthologists, teachers, children, academics and others to look for poems and relevant information.

As I wrote in my CAL application, one major outcome of having a children’s poetry website would be to have a coordinating source for competitions, poetry workshops, conferences festivals and schools’ visits that featured children’s poetry (such as they have in the UK, where they also have a Children’s Poet Laureate).

It’s sad that in Australia at the moment there is only one ongoing market for children’s poetry: the NSW Department of Education School Magazine. It’s even sadder that CAL did not see the amazing possibilities of a website devoted to Australian children’s poetry.

Being an Income-Producing Writer

So many people tell me they ‘want to be a writer’. But not so many people put in the time and effort. I have been making a living as a children’s author and freelance writer for about 20 years now. And so does my husband, children’s author, Bill Condon (www.enterprisingwords.com). We live well. But we also put in the hard slog, sitting for many hours most weeks at our keyboards. Today I started writing about 6 am, and except for some breaks — coffee, lunch, emails — I’ve been writing until now 4 pm when I have exhausted my writing brain. Now I will read a while and go for a walk, start again tomorrow morning.

I always say that life is about prioritities. I know would-be writers who are more committed to their families than to writing. Fair enough. But then I know authors with young children who still manage to write and to promote their books. If any writer were to commit to a 40-hour week, like others do — butchers, secretaries, plumbers, etc — they ought to be able to make a decent income.

Mind you, Bill and I are very lucky, with over 250 books between us, produced over the past 30 years, to receive quite generous Lending Rights’ payments. Once a year the Federal Government deposits monies into our bank account to compensate us for our books that are held in public and educational libraries for which we’ve only been paid one royalty per book. A marvellous scheme! (Though next year there will be changes… more later.)

Sometimes, too, we get CAL (Copyright Agency Limited) payments when people or organisations have photocopied our writings. Another wonderful scheme!

Today I wrote about 3,000 words of my junior novel, A Game of Keeps. This is the second book I’ve written this year — and the fourth I’ve produced. Accepted recently for publication is A Beginner’s Guide to Better English, while my compilation of silly verse titled Erky Perky Silly Stuff is still awaiting a publisher’s decision.

Meanwhile I have a children’s poetry anthology, Every Day is A Birthday, with yet another publisher. What will I write next? Not sure. But I’ll certainly be back in my typing seat being productive…

Writers' Riches

Writer and riches: these words seem to be an oxymoron, don’t they? Recently I wrote to the Minister for the Arts, Simon Crean, asking his government to increase the Educational Lending Rights’ pool which has been stagnant since it was introduced in 2000.

In the 12 years since, I have published 20 more books, but my ELR payment has dropped $9,000. I’m not the only prolific author to be so disadvantaged. I pointed out the high government funding to the Australian Institute of Sport and (rightly) said that athletes don’t generate income for Australia as authors do. A survey published this week in the Australian Society of Authors’ bulletin proves my point. Read it, and let others in the industry know just how valuable a commodity authors are in our society:

A report by the Australian Copyright Council has found that copyright industries contributed $93.2 billion dollars to the Australian economy in 2011, or 6.6% of gross domestic product. Employment in copyright industries constituted 8% of the Australian workforce.

Within the Australian economy, this contribution represents more value than retail trade but slightly less than manufacturing.

In a survey of Western, European and Asian economies employing a World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) framework, this contribution of copyright to gross domestic product was exceeded only by the US, Korea and Hungary. This survey did not include the UK. Yet Australian copyright industries have experienced a decline over the past five years compared with other primary industries.

The press and literature sector, which enjoyed a growth of 4% between 1997-2007, experienced negative growth of -3.3% between 2007-2011. This is a reflection of the industry’s weak recovery from the GFC, along with the challenges of digitisation, the enhanced ability of users to compare prices online, the increased risk of unauthorised copying, and the increased competitiveness of overseas products due to the high Australian Dollar.