Authors want share of festivals’ profits
With the hashtag #FestivalsTakingThePiss, Joanne Harris author of Chocolat stirred up the polite world of literary festivals this summer. Unlike the printers, catering staff, and just about anyone else, a surprising number of the star turns— the authors — were working unpaid or even contributing towards the costs: Joanne tweeted that one festival asked her to pay a £70 contributor fee; and another offered her wine while paying a fellow author a six-figure sum.
In 1983, when the Edinburgh International Book Festival was launched, it was one of three in the UK. In 2016 there will be over 350 ‘’lit-fests” according to literaryfestivals.co.uk. The financial value is considerable. Cheltenham Literary Festival last year sold an estimated 140,000 tickets at an average price of £8.60 and had over 40 corporate sponsors, including The Times and Sunday Times, Waterstones and the bank HSBC. And the value of books sold can be substantial: festival-goers at the Edinburgh International Book Festival alone in 2014 bought books worth £600,000.
Festivals are good for the wider economy too, drawing in an older monied clientele. The Suffolk seaside town Southwold, for example, benefits from the annual Way With Words Festival, which fills the town’s hotels and restaurants to bursting during the otherwise slack month of November.
So surely authors are entitled to a share of the pie. The Society of Authors surveyed a representative selection of festival organisers and found that five out of 17 festivals did not pay their speakers anything. Nicola Solomon, chief executive of the Society of Authors, said “It’s not right to say that the author is there to promote their book. The author is promoting the festival by being there. Without them there would be no event.” She also told me that the festivals that don’t pay authors often don’t treat them particularly well either.
It’s not as if authors earn much in the first place and can afford to give up their time — the average median income for a full-time writer is £11,500 — see my article Average writer earns less than the minimum wage. Attending festivals is written into some authors’ contracts, and although the publisher or the festival will usually cover expenses, authors still need to take a day out from writing to prepare for the talk and travel to and from the venue.
The wider value of festivals
Lack of payment is not a deal-breaker for everyone. I spoke to Peter Stanford, author of biographies of C. Day-Lewis and Lord Longford, among others, who has been a writer for over 20 years. He has also been a patron of the Way With Words festivals since 1996, which does not pay authors. “On the face of it, it seems like a terrible injustice, doesn’t it?” he said. But he went to on to say that meeting the public at a literary event is incredibly important and it’s an key opportunity to rub shoulders with other authors. “Kay Dunbar and Steve Bristow, who run Way With Words show you a really good time. Other festivals may pay you a modest fee but they don’t treat you as well — there’s no communal event for example.” He also pointed out that many of the festivals’ audiences are older and don’t use social media so such events are very important for publicising titles. “People who attend the literary talks get an author’s name lodged in their brain. Even if they don’t buy a book, they may buy a later title when they hear about it on the radio.”
Part of the problem is that festival organisers are not always even-handed. Bryant & May author Christopher Fowler sees a possible solution. Instead of paying large sums to well-known authors and virtually nothing to the rest, organisers could pay everyone the same fee. “Festivals would concentrate on quality not quantity, booking fewer writers (and ones who can speak in public, not mumble their way through a chapter), and they could use these hired writers better.” He dislikes finding himself round a table with five other writers getting hardly any publicity for his books. “Talking for ten minutes just to get a name in a festival brochure isn’t enough; it cheats the audience, the writers and publishers.”
Some festivals already follow this policy— the Edinburgh International Book Festival for example told The Bookseller it pays £200 per author per event. Let’s hope there’s more such parity in 2016.